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M. King Hubbert and the future of peak oil

July 17, 2016

M. King Hubbert and the future of peak oil

Almost synonymous with the term “peak oil” is M. King Hubbert, perhaps the foremost geophysicist of the 20th century, who first theorized about the eventual decline of oil production in the 1930s. His life has now been chronicled by science writer Mason Inman in a new biography entitled The Oracle of Oil.

Depending upon whom you speak with, peak oil is either a catastrophe waiting to happen or a far-off concern that has already been solved or will be soon. Frequently, peak oil is referred to as a myth. What you rarely hear is that peak oil is an empirical fact having already occurred in dozens of countries.

The term “peak oil” simply means that crude oil production for any field, region or country eventually reaches a peak or plateau from which it inexorably declines. Because the amount of oil in the Earth’s crust is finite, it is logical to assume that one day peak oil production will occur worldwide. The concern is that we as a global society are so accustomed to rising oil production that we have built an entire world around that assumption. Will we be ready when oil production begins to decline?

To shed some light on that and other questions author Inman takes us from Hubbert’s early days at the University of Chicago to his famous speech in 1956 (in which he predicted a peak in U.S. crude oil production no later than 1970) to his days in Washington, D.C. working for the U.S. Geological Survey and his fights there concerning the timing of a U.S. oil production peak.

In the course of the story Inman puts to rest misconceptions about Hubbert and about peak oil. First and foremost, peak does NOT mean running out. As explained above it means the trend of rising oil production reverses into a decline.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The real oil limits story; what other researchers missed

May 14, 2016

The real oil limits story; what other researchers missed

For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses and low prices. What is going on that was missed by M. King Hubbert, Harold Hotelling, and by the popular understanding of supply and demand?

The underlying assumption in these models is that scarcity would appear before the final cutoff of consumption. Hubbert looked at the situation from a geologist’s point of view in the 1950s to 1980s, without an understanding of the extent to which geological availability could change with higher price and improved technology. Harold Hotelling’s work came out of the conservationist movement of 1890 to 1920, which was concerned about running out of non-renewable resources. Those using supply and demand models have equivalent concerns–too little fossil fuel supply relative to demand, especially when environmental considerations are included.

Virtually no one realizes that the economy is a self-organized networked system. There are many interconnections within the system. The real situation is that as prices rise, supply tends to rise as well, because new sources of production become available at the higher price. At the same time, demand tends to fall for a variety of reasons:

  • Lower affordability
  • Lower productivity growth
  • Falling relative wages of non-elite workers

The potential mismatch between amount of supply and demand is exacerbated by the oversized role that debt plays in determining the level of commodity prices. Because the oil problem is one of diminishing returns, adding debt becomes less and less profitable over time. There is a potential for a sharp decrease in debt from a combination of defaults and planned debt reductions, leading to very much lower oil prices, and severe problems for oil producers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Personal Appreciation of M. King Hubbert

April 18, 2016

A Personal Appreciation of M. King Hubbert

Hubbert-blog

A recent vacation afforded me the opportunity to read The Oracle of Oil, Mason Inman’s excellent new biography of Marion King Hubbert. I strongly recommend it. But, rather than writing a standard book review (which might cover much of the same ground as this one by Frank Kaminski), I’m inspired instead simply to offer a few words in appreciation of Hubbert himself.

Born in Texas in 1903, Hubbert earned his Ph.D. in geology at University of Chicago, then taught at Columbia University. He later worked at Shell’s research laboratory and for the U.S. Geological Survey, and occasionally lectured at Stanford and UC Berkeley. His contributions to geophysics included a mathematical demonstration that rock in the Earth’s crust, because it is under great pressure over large areas, behaves in some ways more like a liquid than a solid. He earned every relevant scientific award short of a Nobel prize, and won lasting fame as the father of “peak oil”—the theory (by now more of an observation) that oil production in any large area will inevitably start from zero, reach one or more high points, and decline back toward zero. (Here is a brief video clipof Hubbert in 1976 explaining the very basics of peak oil).

For years I’ve had a photographic portrait of Hubbert, given to me by his nephew, hanging just above my computer in my home office. I described Hubbert’s best-known accomplishments—his mathematical modeling of oil depletion and his successful forecast of a decline in U.S. petroleum production beginning around 1970—in my 2003 book The Party’s Over, and I have spent most of the last couple of decades reading, writing, and speaking publicly about oil depletion and its consequences, so I could fairly be described as a longstanding Hubbert devotee. After devouring Inman’s meticulously researched and entertainingly written biography, I feel even more indebted to the great man than before.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Despite Cheap Gas, Coming Back to Peak Oil [Infographic]

November 22, 2015

Despite Cheap Gas, Coming Back to Peak Oil [Infographic]

Yesterday, in Virginia, I filled up my gas tank for $2.75 a gallon.

At that price, even old peak oilers like my wife and I hardly think about poor old King Hubbard’s theory much these days.

And though gas has been cheap in the U.S. for the last six months or more, I still think Hubbard was right that global oil production naturally has a point of peak production.

I used to think that the peak of world oil production already came in 2006. But with the rise of fracking and other extreme fossil fuels, now I’m not so sure.

Could the oil peak come a decade or more in the future as the optimists mentioned in the infographic below predict?

Or could the whole thing be some kind of confusing shell game, with financial markets moving petro dollars around in clever ways to make it look like oil hasn’t peaked yet, when, in fact, it has?

Frankly, as a lay observer of the energy economy, such questions are above my pay grade. I’ll leave petroleum geologists and economists to argue about the real oil supply and its likely effect on the economy in the next five, ten or twenty years.

Meanwhile, the infographic below may be good enough for other laypeople to get the basic facts on the peak oil debate.

The image is courtesy of an energy-services company in the U.K. called Chiltern Thrust Bore. I’m not sure what they think of peak oil, but I’m sure they hope to be able to drill and dig for stuff for a while longer.

Whatever the case, their take on peak oil seems to be a accurate summary of Hubbert’s theory and a plausible analysis of what it means for today and the future.

— Erik Curren, Transition Voice


Have Our Oil Reserves Peaked? (Infographic)

 

The “Syrian Sickness”: What Crude Oil Gives, Crude Oil Can Take Back.

November 22, 2015

The “Syrian Sickness”: What Crude Oil Gives, Crude Oil Can Take Back.

Syria is one of the greatest disasters of recent times. Here, I argue that the origins of the Syrian collapse are to be found in the economic downturn generated by the gradual depletion of the Syrian oil reserves. Crude oil had created modern Syria, crude oil has destroyed it. This phenomenon can be termed the “Syrian Sickness” and the question is: “which country will be affected next?”
Crude oil is a great source of wealth for the countries that possess it. But it is also a wealth that comes as a cycle. Normally, the cycle spans several decades, even more than a century, so that those who live through it may completely miss the fact that they are heading to the end of their wealth. The cycle is especially visible in those areas where the amount of oil is modest; then, the cycle goes faster; wealth and misery appear one after the other in a dramatic series of events.

One of these rapid cycles of growth and decline is that of Syria. It is a country that never became a major world producer, less than 1% of the world’s total production when it peaked, around 1995. (graph below, from Gail Tverberg’s blog). For the small Syrian economy, however, even this limited amount was important

The Syruan oil production went through its unavoidable cycle over a span of little more than three decade. Depletion generated progressively higher production costs and that led to a scarcity of capital investments to keep production increasing. The result was the “bell shaped” production curve that is often called the “Hubbert curve”. Eventually, around 2011, the internal consumption curve crossed the production curve and that transformed the country from an oil exporter to an oil importer. The cross-over point corresponded to the start of the civil war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Right Again, Pt. 1

November 18, 2015

Right Again, Pt. 1

Human nature being what it is, predictably there are those who still harbor doubts about certain issues pertaining to current and future fossil fuel supplies. There is, however, no doubt that there’s an over-abundance of juvenile, fact-free nonsense passing as gospel truth from industry cheerleaders and media counterparts.

To whose benefit these tactics accrue is not at all in doubt, either: it’s certainly notcitizens depending on others to provide them with the facts about and implications of matters outside the scope of their daily responsibilities and concerns.

If consequences to all of us weren’t an important consideration, it would be amusing if slightly annoying to deal with barely-knowledgeable and and even less-honest commentary about vast resources for centuries, yadda yadda yadda.

But a public with little appetite for, interest in, or opportunity to investigate crucial matters on their own continues to be subjected to a steady stream of misinformation, barely-there facts, and and outright lies by a group whose self-serving professional and financial interests leave no room for the public’s well-being—now, or in the years to come.

Tax policy, climate change, energy supply, tobacco, health care … the subject matter may be different, but the tactics are culled from the same Gospel of Deceit and Distraction. The strategy is employed by a large-enough group whose membership is either genuinely daft and thus has no business peddling pseudo-information to an unsuspecting public, or they are woefully short on supplies of integrity and consideration for the welfare of … well, anyone else.

Must be nice….

As Exhibit B this time around, we have this remarkably cherry-picked piece of fluff entitled “Earth Is An Oil-Producing Machine — We’re Not Running Out.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Peak Oil Has More To Do With Oil Prices Than You May Think

September 20, 2015

Peak Oil Has More To Do With Oil Prices Than You May Think

The Origins of Peak Oil Awareness

The scientific study of peak oil began in the 1950′s, when Shell geophysicist M. King Hubbert reported on the evolution of production rates in oil and gas fields. In a 1956 paper Hubbert suggested that oil production in a particular region would approximate a bell curve, increasing exponentially during the early stages of production before eventually slowing, reaching a peak when approximately half of a field had been extracted, and then going into terminal production decline.

Hubbert applied his methodology to oil production for the Lower 48 US states and offshore areas. He estimated that the ultimate potential reserve of the Lower 48 US states and offshore areas was 150 billion barrels of oil. Based on that reserve estimate, the 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd) extraction rate in 1955, and the 52.5 billion barrels of oil that had been previously produced in the US, Hubbert’s base case estimate was that oil production in the US would reach maximum production in 1965. He also estimated that global oil production would peak around the year 2000 at a maximum production rate of 34 million bpd.

Hubbert calculated a secondary case that if the US oil reserve increased to 200 billion barrels (about which he expressed doubts), peak production would occur in 1970, a delay of five years from his base case. Oil production in the US did in fact peak in 1970, so Hubbert is widely credited with precisely calling the US peak, but few know that he was actually skeptical that the peak would take place as late as 1970.

The US has now surpassed Hubbert’s most optimistic estimate for US oil production. Through 2014, cumulative US production stands at approx. 215 billion barrels, with a remaining estimated proved reserve of 48.5 billion barrels (but with the caveat that this reserves estimate is based on crude prices near $100/bbl).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

 

Peak Oil

May 16, 2015

Peak Oil

Peak Oil comic by Stuart McMillen. Title page. Rollercoaster by Red House Painters. Black and white drawing of roller coaster car at abandoned amusement park.
Cartoon drawing of M. King Hubbert speaking at conference. Hand gripping lectern illustration. M. King Hubbert looked into the crowd and began to speak. The 500 petroleum geologists hushed as Hubbert predicted the looming decline of their industry.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Science of Peak Oil

March 11, 2015

The Science of Peak Oil 

One of the many barbs often pointed at peak oil proponents is that they are constantly shifting the goal posts. Peak oilers are accused of changing the definition of what peak oil actually means, therefore the entire concept of oil production peaking is rubbish. Far from a valid criticism however, this is actually a scientific virtue. If any scientist dogmatically stuck with a rigid theory as the data repeatedly proved that theory to be incorrect then that would be cause for great concern. The fact however that peak oil theory has developed markedly since Hubbert Peak Theory in 1956 shows that peak oil proponents are willing to listen to the data and change accordingly. This is the basis for the entire scientific method: form a question, create a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, analyse the results and alter the hypothesis if required and then test again. This is the most successful framework that humanity has developed so far in order to further human scientific knowledge.

The core logic of science is simple: testing ideas with evidence. It is also worth noting that science is not static. It is constantly evolving. As the University of California, Berkley’s Understanding Science website states:

“…scientific conclusions are always revisable if warranted by the evidence. Scientific investigations are often ongoing, raising new questions even as old ones are answered.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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