Why Peak Oil is probably soon
You've probably heard a little bit about "Peak Oil," the date at which half the world's oil will have been extracted and oil production will enter a terminal decline. Maybe you've checked out Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Matthew Simmons, or the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.
But if not, Stuart Staniford provides a good rundown at The Oil Drum of the many converging pieces of evidence why peak oil is probably about now.
- OPEC reserves are exaggerated
- World production stopped increasing in 2004
- Decline rates of existing production are very high
- Hubbert Linearization points to peak oil
- At least one major oil company is warning us
- The price of oil keeps going up
- There is no evidence of Saudi spare capacity
- There are geopolitical and climatic risks to the existing production level
As for me?
posted by Luke Francl @ 12:05 AM |
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9 Comments:
You forgot one: Bush is suddenly talking about alternative energy vehicles.
Damn hippy! Go back to your peanut farm, GW! And stay outta mah yard!
lol - I love this stuff.
Peak Whale Oil maybe.
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Chevron's investing $billions in oil sands development. They clearly believe that the cheap oil is behind us.
Oil/tar sands have a much lower energy return on energy invested (EROEI) than real oil. This makes it significantly more expensive.
If all things remain equal...
Which they won't.
The whole peak oil arguement is predicated on the idea that there is no substitute for oil. We all know this is false.
Energy is the commodity and its more abundant now than ever in human history.
The fact Chevron is looking into alternatives is evidence that "peak oil" is crap, not support for it. That's even if they think the supply chain bottle neck is crude supply and not the fact it runs thru the soon to be destabilized regime of Iran.
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You are wrong. There is no good subsitute for cheap oil.
Cheaply extracted oil has an energy return on energy invested of 30-to-1. Nothing else is nearly that high. Ethanol is at best slightly better than 1-to-1 and tar sands are about 2-to-1. All that extra energy, in the time of cheap oil, can be used to fuel the economy. After the cheaply extracted oil isn't cheap to buy any more, the extra energy will be eaten up producing what we need to get more energy.
What energy source is there that's cheap to produce and easily storable and transportable as a liquid (bonus for being compatable with the existing cars we have)? Anything that doesn't meet those critera is going to require a painful transition for us.
Peak oil is all about getting ready for that. Of course, if we succeed, do-nothings like you will claim that we were wrong the whole time!
But if we fail, there won't be much to argue about.
Depends. What's the price of gas in 2008?
No doubt. And I heard about how in 2000 all the computers will completely lock up and stop working.
In 2010 Jeebus returns and ten year later AIDs will be eradicated because global warming will melt the ice caps and everyone will down!
It'll be the worst thing since AIDs wiped out 75% of the human population in 1985 which was already decimated by the Silent Spring of 1972. Fortunetly it was all offset by the population bomb and new we're standing shoulder to shoulder with no food and no place to poop.
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Do you realize just how stupid it sounds to parrot this stuff.
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You dam libruhls get outta mah yard! And you scientist nerds, with yer damn global warmin' and hippy energy crap! Git!
Yeah, those unsophisticated CEOs. If its one thing they are blind to its operational risk. Not.
You and I both know that Y2K "consulting" was nothing more than a lucky break for COBOL programmers without any current skills.
I'm familiar with the "real" issue as well as the ctime 2038 issue. But you'rre making my point. Y2K or Peak Oil, its just hype.
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