So much for Peak Oil: Oil in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming Equal to Entire World's Reserves

This is the chart showing crude oil production. It is basicly a plateau, not necessary a peak, but the end result is the same:

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As we can see, the highest production was in 2008 July, so until we surpass that, that is the official peak oil, and by nature, we will only know this by hindsight.

Now to confuse you guys, here is the same chart, but showing annual averages:

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What is important here is that it is going down, rather then up or staying horizontal. It shows the future, so some part of it is a prediction, nevertheless it is based on facts and not on wishful thinking....

 

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It's obvious there are limits of oil, but gas, I'm not so sure...
I have one more question: what about methane hydrates? There are also large amounts of carbon that can be also used for energy.
http://www.killerinourmidst.com/methane and MHs2.html

If safe extracting technology would be available, it would solve energy crisis, but the problem is for how many years or centuries and at what cost?
I don't know if it's true or false...
Here is another link:
http://www.greeningofoil.com/post/Methane-hydrate-a-future-clean-energy-source.aspx
http://worldoceanreview.com/en/energy/methane-hydrates/

Newest links:
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-G...Resource-or-Ecological-Disaster-Awaiting.html
http://harvey-craft.suite101.com/energy-from-methane-hydrate-the-promise-and-peril-a405355

"Some estimates place the amount of methane available as hydrate as high as 80 times total world current natural gas reserves.

http://www.txchnologist.com/2011/the-ice-that-burns-are-methane-hydrates-the-next-big-resource
http://blogs.plos.org/retort/2011/0...e-hydrates-better-to-burn-out-than-fade-away/
16,200 trillion cubic feet...

http://www.methanegashydrates.org/blog
http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2012/02/08/fire-ice-wonder-fuel-could-be-under-scottish-coast/
and that there is possibly enough to last 300 years

http://www.ltawind.com/energyblog/?p=83
One estimate puts the carbon content in global methane hydrate reserves at three trillion tonnes, much more than in the supply of conventional gas. If all of it could be recovered, the methane from hydrates would last a thousand years at the current rate of exploitation of methane, or one hundred years if methane hydrate replaced all fossil fuels

 

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Your top graph shows a significant increase in production up to 2008, at which point there was a global economic collapse which is most likely the reason for the decrease.

The lower graph shows a decrease in production that is the most significant mainly in the future, so it could well be completely incorrect.

 

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Thanks for the graphs. They are consistent with what I see online, but I'm still a little fuzzy on why I should accept them at face value (and not acceot contrary analyses from other sources).

After all, looking at the latter graph, oil production through the first part of 2012 (the current period) is rising (in the short term, at least) and they are merely conjecturing that production will fall in the future, in 2013-2015. That conjecture may be wholly accurate, but it is at odds with some in the industry seem to be saying, so I'm still left scratching my head. (Also, to be sure, graphs can be manipulated, so a long form peer reviewed analysis would be easier to accept as being true, one way or another.)

With respect to oil, some argue that the plateau is partly the result of nations restricting access to new well sites and imposing onerous regulations that make it economically difficult to justify certain new wells (those restrictions and regulations being there largely for environmental reasons, which I take no issue with), rather than because additional oil is lacking. Some others more nefariously suggest that limiting production is good for oil companies, as it drives the price of oil up, though i doubt such a conspiracy could work in a market as robust as the one that exists for oil.

Of course we can deplete a resource, the question is when are we likely to run out. Diamonds are a finite resource, there are only so many buried in the ground, and yet we have no reason to believe that we are on the verge of "running out" of minable diamonds (or gold, silver, uranium, or any other resource the Earth has mostly fixed quantities of). The question isn't whether the resource can in theory be depleted, as that I immediately concede. The question is how close we are to depleting the resource.

(I am not necessarily directly comparing fossil fuels and diamonds in every aspect, as of course we can rip diamonds out of women's rings to use them in industry if push comes to shove, whereas we actually set the fossil fuels on fire, losing them forever. The point is merely that there is no crisis or concern in any of the mining industries over fears that their (admittedly depleteable) amounts of minable resources will run out in the near future). That means that even though there is a fixed amount of a resource in the ground, that does not necessarily suggest that we are going to run out of it soon.

BTW, the amount of diamonds being mined each year has also plateaued, so again that is not strong evidence that we are about to close down all of our mines.

 

From the same site:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9195

This is the article from which they pull their quote: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/peak-oil-debate-is-over/story-e6frede3-1226354771053

Thern there's also their reports on deepwater gas and oil discoveries, showing a steady growth of new finds: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9169 It seems likely that most of the planet's oil will be found in the deep oceans. There it's mostly a technological problem of figuring out how to find and extract it in a cost effective way. If that is correct, and most of the world's oil is under the seas, then current country by country oil production is not directly predictive of the total amount of oil available.

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Again, what I tend to see is that there is evidence that both sides use to try to convince me one way or the other, and no one (that I have seen) undertakes a sober unbiased analysis of the question. (Or, rather, those who simply present the facts on both sides seem to take no definite position at all, and merely point out that there is a debate, which is where I am as well.)

I gather from what I am seeing that the sort of unbiased scientific study of this question that I am asking for is lacking, since no one is referring me to such a study. In that case, why does anyone accept that the graphs and numbers being thrown around are correct or accurately refute the counterargument of the other side? Is it because you all have a gut feeling that you're right (i.e., there is a "truthiness" to current concerns over peak oil)? In the absence of a fair and detailed analysis, with cases being made on both sides, I am not sure how anyone can draw a firm conclusion without simply relying on their intuition.

 

The Hirsch report seems quite sober and unbiased to me, but perhaps that only reflects my own bias. I also recently posted this in another thread, World Oil Supply Debate.

Barring technological breakthroughs (yes, they can happen, no, it isn't wise to count on them) more and more of the new finds in difficult to extract environments, (such as very cold climate, very deep water, or both) are likely to be exploited, but have a much poorer ROI than what we humans have been used to for the past century or so. I think it's wise to hope for the best outcome, but to prepare for the worst.

 

Actually, not. The increase was only up to 2005, and it was only about 10%, so if that is signifficant for you, so be it, oil producing countries maxing out production. From 2005 for 6 years there was basicly no improvement, just platouing around 73-74. Check out oil prices, when oil was the most expensive, they were still unable to increase production much beyond 74....

Hey I could be wrong. Once we pass the high of 2008 July, I am going to be proven wrong. I wish that would happen, but wishful thinking isn't helping, education and actions do...

The best we can hope for is that it isn't a sudden decline but a good 15-20 years long plateau, although a quick decline would give a quick REALITY CHECK to Republicans and fact deniers. Well, they are the same anyway.

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2 things:

1. We are again, talking about a substitute, because of peak oil.
2. Oil usage is way more then just energy provider. Look it up, hundreds of everyday things are made from oil. Probably 40% of your laptop is oil product too.

 

I am not sure what you want to know. Crude oil (specially the easy to produce and cheap one) has peaked, thus we are trying pretty much anything else (shale, tar sand, natural gas,coal, windmills, etc.). How long the good times will last? Nobody knows. If we get a nice epidemic whipping out 10-20% of the human population (a la Spanish flu) the demand will drop, and that will give us another 10-20 years extra. If we discover some miracle new energy source we are saved. But I wouldn't just hope for such a thing.

So if you want a definite answer to "how long cheap energy will last?", well nobody knows, so stop asking. There are just too many variables. Generally you can count on some shit happening (war, earthquake, accident) thus the situation is usually gets worse not better, just by random happenings...

 

Since I like to educate people although this peak oil subject is rather easy to understand, I will just close this with 2 notes:

1. Just like every small areas (aka countries) sooner or later peaked, obviously the whole Earth's production will also peak. You can drill in the Himalayas or in the Mariana trench, it will peak.

2. Little known fact (coal people don't like to tell you), but coal production in the US has also peaked. Not by volume, but by energy content. There are 3 types of coal, and first the highest energy content was mined. That is mostly gone, so we have to keep mining more and more coal just to get the same amount of energy, overall.
The reason I mention this, just to show that every finite thing will be gone sooner or later, even a 5th grader can understand that....

 

We just need massive solar panel and/or solar concentrator generators operations in Texas, Arizona and southern California where the sun is plentiful even during the winter. Let's take advantage of our hot deserts! SCREW OIL!!!

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Has anyone see this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/11/sahara-solar-panels-green-electricity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/23/solarpower.windpower
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/12/14...ara-desert-could-power-the-world-but-will-it/

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...ds-largest-solar-plant-powers-up-6283799.html
http://www.greendiary.com/entry/biggest-concentrated-solar-plants-world/

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/01/01/andasol-the-worlds-largest-solar-power-plant/

http://eco.allpurposeguru.com/2012/03/parabolic-mirror-solar-power-projects/
http://articles.economictimes.india...2_1_solar-power-solar-energy-solar-technology
http://www.abb.hr/cawp/seitp202/edb80642c94cb144c125797d004d6d06.aspx

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-north-africa-light-europe-solar-power
http://www.renewablepowernews.com/archives/2941
http://agreenliving.org/tag/sahara-desert/

 

Saul Griffith has done the math on going green with nuclear, solar, etc. Although his drive was to lower green house gasses, his study gives us an idea how much green energy we will need to replace fossil fuels as well as the land area we will need. He calls the land area: Renewistan.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2009/01/saul-griffith-renewistan-and-energy.html

 

Couldn't agree more. I can't remember who it was who lent me the quote, but it went something like this;

"The stone age did not end because we ran out of stone. The iron age did not end because we ran out of iron. Likewise, the oil age will not due to oil depletion."

Economically it will start to just make more sense to invest in green infrastructure, partially because it will already be there by the time extraction technology is advanced enough to bring shale oil costs down, and partially because it's simply a more stable source of energy.

 

Good that we forgot his name, because he was an idiot. What you don't get is that running out or getting prohibitively expensive are synonyms. What you also don't get is that oil is way more than just a source of energy.

Old Ford said that oil is way more valuable then just to burn it in engines...

 

Before we get into an argument, let us review some fairly simple arithetic:

albartlett dot org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.htm

I can't post a direct link but that should steer you to the information.

 

Good video. If one knows simple math, one can start with part #2... The energy starts in part#3....

Well, most people don't get exponential growth...

A thing about the "we have 500 years of coal in the US" bullshit. First, only half of it is recoverable, second, only with zero coal production growth. Coal production has been growing by 2.8% per year (as shown in the video), using that growth rate, the recoverable coal will be mined in 70 or so years.

So much about "we have coal for 500 years".

 

Your topic suggests that you want to take advantage of the available oil Resorvior.I don't want to see man doing the same mistake again.We have already seen the ill effects of oils.We want ecofriendlier more efficient alternative energy like solar energy,tidal energy,Gravity power,Nuclear fussion,etc.

 

As if we can just take our pick of energy sources. It's not quite like that. When our present source of energy is gone, our way of life ends, game over man!

 

For what? So we don't have to change our behavior one iota?