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Peak Oil (was "petroleum geologist explains US war policy")

Mind if I name and shame him?

As he says "Campbell who in my circles is most
defiinitely NOT "respected"!", I think it only fair to examine who his 'circles' consist of. ;)

Prof. X is an Economist, CEPMLP are a bit dodgy (Chatham House links?) and their site reads like PNAC lite...

Interesting he directs you to Lynch (abiotic theory supporting economist) and McCabe (USGS).

If you want to weed out 'hyperbole and pseudoscience', best to stick to the physics and geology - as 'economics' is subsiduary to 'energy', as such 'economics' is an inadequate intellectual tool with which to examine 'energy' issues.

Economics is not a science, no matter how much Prof. X wishes it was.
 
I would be interested to hear opinions on this link and in particular its reports of major increases in stated oil reserves in Saudi and Mexico
Click to expand...
If you want to believe in something enough, *everything* starts to make sense. And if it looks like a crackpot conspiracy, sounds like a crackpot conspiracy and feels like a crackpot conspiracy, then it probably is ...

For one thing (and as is usual with such analyses), one has to assume that there is a small band of conspirators, with representatives in powerful positions in every country, willing and able to operate in perfect harmony with one another, in secret, against the wishes of other powerful bodies and institutions. But - amazingly - this one person has come across it, and incredibly it provides an answer to just about every geopolitical situation today. Hmmm.

Yes, if the world was a very simple place, and politics was a clockwork machine, then he might have a point. As it's not, then he doesn't.
 
kropotkin - apologies, long edit, see above.

I think the mistake made is to see the supply of oil as rigid. It's not - it's elastic, and what expands or contracts the amount of oil reserves is the market price.

If the price of oil was, say, $10 a barrel, oil companies would have limited reason to exploit new, harder-to-access oil reserves, or to spend money using expensive technologies to get oil out of existing reserves. Extraction of such reserves just wouldn't make economic sense. If it costs $20 a barrel to extract, but the price is only $10, it's pretty easy to see why you wouldn't do it. (Off the top of my head, I think the large MidEast producers - Saudi, UAE - extract oil for around $5 a barrel)

But if the price of oil was $200 a barrel, the economics have changed - suddenly it makes a huge amount of sense to exploit those small reserves, to explore more, even to convert the tar sands (where there's enough oil for hundreds of years) into usable oil. So the amount of oil reserves is elastic, largely dependent upon the price of oil.
 
hmm- not entirely elastic though- the absolute amount is finite.

I haven't seen anyone sane argue that the barrel price doesn't make high extraction-cost fields more viable.
 
As far as I've read, the amount of oil potentially in the two major tar sands areas - if it were economically viable to exploit them - puts the upper limit of the oil reserve 'envelope' way above what most people believe.
 
But freke- that doesn't really matter does it?
If it became economically viable to extract oil from the tar fields, the price per barrel would be so high that for the vast vast majority of the world's population (including the vast majority in rich countries like this one), the oil may as well have run out.

So it doesn't really effect things, does it?
 
What's "things"? I was talking about the level of oil reserves, not the price of energy and the effect of this upon individuals. In terms of estimates of 'peak oil' and oil reserves, and those that claim we will run out of oil shortly, recognising the elasticity of supply does matter.
 
I don't see why switching the terms of the debate so as to dismiss someone else's argument is a particularly useful approach either, but there you go.

If we are to move from discussing the potential level of oil reserves, and onto price of energy for consumers, then we have to accept that there's a range of different energy sources - oil currently being the dominant one, for economic and path-dependent reasons.

Kropotkin, what's your specific concern about energy prices? Do you believe that there will come a time when energy is incredibly expensive because our primary source of energy - oil - has become too expensive? Do you not believe that other sources of energy will - particularly if they are pushed by forward-looking governments (of which there are too few) - step in to replace oil?
 
With regards to your first point- sorry, I just couldn't see any real disagreement between your position and the one advanced by the majority of people on this thread. Didn't mean to shift the terms of debate- as I thought the basic assumptions of your post were shared anyway.

To answer your last question- there has been alot of information posted on this thread that suggests to me that there is no adequate bridge fuel that can possibly step in to replace oil in the timescale that is currently likely (before the cost spirals out of the range that can be useful). Also, to my knowledge there has been nothing posted to contradict the statements made, particularly by Bernie Gunther, about food security and the oil subsidy required to feed us.
 
As I have only been dipping in and out of this thread (for a very long time), maybe it is me who should apologise for wading in without much thought...

Anyway, so the issue is of rising energy prices and a lack of bridge fuel. I'm not going to even try to pass myself off as an expert in oil/gas, but I'd be surprised if there was the level of 'market failure' that is implied in what you say. Only time will tell I guess.
 
Freke,

Did you ever get a chance to watch the presentation given by Prof. Smalley (nanotubes bloke) entitled 'Our Energy Challenge'?

If you "believe that other sources of energy will... step in to replace oil", I suggest you watch it, then if you know something Smalley doesn't, let me know.

-

You are again discussing energy in terms of what is 'economically viable'.

Again, I feel compelled to point out that if you have a barrel of oil (somewhere - anywhere - tarsands, whatever) that requires more than a 'barrel of oil's worth' of energy to extract, refine and deliver to Tesco, it simply does not matter how much money you throw at it - how much money that barrel of oil is worth in economic terms - it is an energy sink.

Physics (the law of thermodynamics) vs. Economics? Physics wins. Every time.

-

kropotkin said:
I haven't seen anyone sane argue that the barrel price doesn't make high extraction-cost fields more viable.
Click to expand...

If you view 'extraction-cost' in terms of energy (as I do), then no, it doesn't. (Don't worry, I never did feel that being considered 'sane' on this planet was anything to be proud of! ;) )
 
BB, good to hear from you. I have the lecture on in the bground now. But, as I say, this isn't my area of expertise, so have probably expounded my total knowledge on the subject ...

The only thing to add is that if I believed every claim that said "this is the biggest issue on the world today, and if we don't do something dramatic about it NOW then we'll all go to hell in a handcart" then I'd go crazy. Almost everyone in politics believes that their particular issue is of far greater significance than anything else (as that's usually why they are drawn into the political arena). Therefore I treat all such claims with extreme scepticism.

This is not, however, to say that anything on this thread is necessarily wrong, or over-stated, but just to explain why I keep a sceptical frame of mind.
 
freke said:
If you want to believe in something enough, *everything* starts to make sense. And if it looks like a crackpot conspiracy, sounds like a crackpot conspiracy and feels like a crackpot conspiracy, then it probably is ...

For one thing (and as is usual with such analyses), one has to assume that there is a small band of conspirators, with representatives in powerful positions in every country, willing and able to operate in perfect harmony with one another, in secret, against the wishes of other powerful bodies and institutions. But - amazingly - this one person has come across it, and incredibly it provides an answer to just about every geopolitical situation today. Hmmm.

Yes, if the world was a very simple place, and politics was a clockwork machine, then he might have a point. As it's not, then he doesn't.
Click to expand...

Sorry Freke you've lost me.

Who are the conspiracy fruitloops?

The people planting these stories

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6&section=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004


http://www.el-universal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=6110&tabla=miami

or the Peak Oil advocates.

Are the Saudi and Mexican reports bullshit or is Peak Oil bullshit? If the reports from Saudi and Mexico are bullshit, why do you think so?

Seen from the other side you could be the perfect personification of your opening paragraph.
 
sparticus, am not really qualified to assess the oil aspects, but any analysis that presumes a global conspiracy run by "puppet masters" that explains most geopolitical events in recent years and concludes that it is all an attempt for us to accept "authoritarian rule" that will promote a global "depopulation programme" is almost self-evidently absurd, IMO.
 
freke said:
sparticus, am not really qualified to assess the oil aspects, but any analysis that presumes a global conspiracy run by "puppet masters" that explains most geopolitical events in recent years and concludes that it is all an attempt for us to accept "authoritarian rule" that will promote a global "depopulation programme" is almost self-evidently absurd, IMO.
Click to expand...

That is a reasonable position I'm sure especially if you have never considered and researched how some conspiracies may be true. But then which side of the peak oil debate would be correct. The conspiracy nut I linked to in the first place debunking peak oil or the conspiuracy nuts who are the primary focus of his debunking (namely Mike Ruppert www.copvcia.com and Mark Robinowitz www.oilempire.us) who you are Peak Oil advocates and strong advocates of '911 is an inside job' and 'it's all a conspiracy' themselves.
 
sparticus, don't worry, my previous comment about the self-evident absurdity of most conspiracy theories is drawn from a fair amount of research. Occam's razor is a powerful tool, I find, as is realising that many people appear programmed to find a single overarching reason to explain the world, and will do almost anything to thread events and facts together in ways that fit their predetermined narrative.
 
I think conspiracy theories are an inevitable abreaction to the lies and distortions that are disseminated through a lot of the commercial media, a bit the the hallucinations you might experience in a sensory deprivation tank.
 
OK so forget that as I have just shown both sides of the Peak Oil debate have attached to them people who believe in 'conspiracies'.

Does anyone have an opinion regarding the reports of huge new reserves in Saudi and Mexico that are not taken from any 'wacko' site but in the Saudi example from a conference attended by Alan Greenspan

see post 679 for links
 
Backatcha Bandit said:
Again, I feel compelled to point out that if you have a barrel of oil (somewhere - anywhere - tarsands, whatever) that requires more than a 'barrel of oil's worth' of energy to extract, refine and deliver to Tesco, it simply does not matter how much money you throw at it - how much money that barrel of oil is worth in economic terms - it is an energy sink.

Physics (the law of thermodynamics) vs. Economics? Physics wins. Every time.
Click to expand...
This is of course true, but it's a misspecification of the economists' argument. The argument runs that extraction methods are becoming ever more efficient (that's energy efficient) hence making things like the tarsands more viable. Now obviously research into this technology costs money, so the higher the barrel price the more money gets poured into research and the more likely a solution is to be found.

The question then is how fast can technoogy possibly move. You're right that the assumption that (some, many don't) economists make that the technology can potentially solve any problem is not true, but you shouldn't work from an assumption that it definitely won't, as it's done alright in defusing malthusian predictions revolving around capitalist - as opposed to the pre-capitalist state of many third world countries - economies for the past three centuries.
 
slaar said:
<snip> but you shouldn't work from an assumption that it definitely won't, as it's done alright in defusing malthusian predictions revolving around capitalist - as opposed to the pre-capitalist state of many third world countries - economies for the past three centuries.
Click to expand...

One has to wonder though, how much of that 'defusing' was done by improved technology per se and how much by the existence of a vast supply of cheap energy which suddenly became available at the point where we figured out how to use first coal and then oil?

The technology may keep getting progressively better, but the introduction of oil energy was an one-off giant leap. Sure you can make incrementally greater efficiencies in using it, but there's still only so much of it there ...
Thous_eng.jpg
 
Eroei

freke said:
As far as I've read, the amount of oil potentially in the two major tar sands areas - if it were economically viable to exploit them - puts the upper limit of the oil reserve 'envelope' way above what most people believe.
Click to expand...
First, I don't think anyone understands "peak" as "running out of oil"; the peak is understood as the point where the economics, and thus the politics, change dramatically, and many think we are reaching that point now (as evidenced by the non-conspiratorial, objectives-driven unfolding of various posturing actions on the global stage).

freke you are loosely rehashing economic arguments made by, for example, nanoespresso early in this thread. Our economic system, it's measures and how it motivates the expenditure of calories in the minds and muscles of men and women, exists within and is bounded by larger, more fundamental systems. Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) is already markedly down from what it was 50-60 years ago (to a factor approaching 1/20th of former return). See the annotated arguments of Richard Heinberg, for example, in The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (to my knowledge not available on-line), or review the many fine links in this thread to primary sources on the matter. It doesn't matter how high the price of a barrel of oil once it costs the energy-equivalent of more than a barrel to find and extract it; at that point oil ceases to be a positive source of energy to drive the many gears of the Industrial Society that has allowed global population to more than triple these last 100 years. And nothing on the horizon, no known alternate energy source, comes anywhere near close to replacing the cheap kick of energy we got from oil. This spells coming change. Major change. Probably catastrophic change.

Supply is tremendous, and errors in quantifying that supply and estimating new discoveries will make "when we peak" a controversial subject until the real peak is long past and the evidence for it uncontroversial and irrefutable. So have we already peaked? Will it be in 10 years? 30? It remains controversial.

It is true that as oil prices rise investment will be made in extraction technologies that will improve efficiency, and this (along with deeper exploitation of known alternate energy sources) will soften the slope on the downward side of Hubbert's Peak, but the fact is EROEI is declining, and thus in the face of rising demand the net energy available is and will be subject to increasingly fierce competition as time goes by.

Unless a miracle occurs and some new form of cheap energy is found ("cheap" in terms of thermodynamics), we are left with the bloom-in-the-petri-dish phemomena (population overshoot) that could result in sudden, catastrophic declines in world population. A prudent society, then, should be planning for the worst while hoping for the best. And thus we enter the political realm.

I'd argue that our elites are much more prudent than some would like us to believe (even if tragically comic in execution). Note that the plans we've unfortunately seen unfold over the last 20+ years (and especially since 12 December 2000) don't seem to include thought for the welfare of the many, but appear (to me) more akin to a circling of the wagons in preparation for coming resource wars (e.g., U.S. violently positioning new global garrisons).

This isn't "conspiracy". And it isn't "simply oil" (as the human world remains intractably complex). However, call it prophesy, a reading of the tea leaves of history and current events leading to a speculative extrapolation: As the dearly departed HST said, Big Dark Coming, Soon.
 
One of the main reasons that oil depletion is potentially problematic is the extent of soil erosion and the loss of productive cropland to other uses. Since WW2 industrial agriculture has boosted production using very large oil inputs to e.g. irrigate land that normally wouldn't be productive and to make damaging but profitable farming practices like cutting down rain-forests and replacing them with cash crop monocultures, viable over the short term.

This disguises a serious and currently accelerating loss of productive land

... 0.5 ha of cropland per capita is the level that existed in 1960. Since that time nearly one-third of the world's arable land has been lost due to urbanization, highways, soil erosion, salinization, and water-logging of the soil.
Click to expand...
(Pimentel, Food, Energy and Society)

Now although this has allowed global population to increase by a factor of six (and rising) over pre-industrial times, I don't think this necessarily means that increasing oil price and scarcity (or for that matter the implications of climate change) necessarily means all of those people starve. Given that about 1/3 of them are on the edge of starvation already, it does seem fairly likely to me that this is going to be an issue, but I believe that we are still just barely in a position to move in the direction of a sustainable future.

We pretty much know what to do, but we aren't doing it, our society and economy isn't designed for it and the organisations with most of the power are set up in such a way as to be highly resistant to the necessary change.
 
Implicit - and correct me if I am wrong - in many of the arguments of those here so keen on doomsday scenarios (and this is not meant to be a sneer) appears to be the belief that market solutions cannot work and that only massive concerted state action can resolve problems that have not arisen yet.

Democratic politics is particularly poor at resolving potential and long-term problems. How can a state receive popular support for making 'authoritarian' policies (ie taxing flights so that they are out of reach of most; severely curtailing car use; etc), for problems that have not arisen yet? Democratic politics tends to be reactive, not pro-active (though President Bush is an interesting, and often rather unfortunate, exception).

Another point to make is that most economists would argue that Bernie's point about food, energy and population growth is in danger of putting the cart before the horse. Bernie argues that the exploitation of oil "allowed" massive population growth (ie supply led to demand); John Kay (and I suspect many other economists) argues it the other way around: the massive exploitation of oil was the result of demand (ie demand led to supply).

The markets tend to work along the latter route, left-wing states tend to assume the former. In terms of energy, it would be historically extraordinary if strong demand for something did not lead to some form of supply. As I say, it is not my area of expertise, so I do not know if the pessimists are correct to argue that there are no alternatives, and there is unlikely to be. I suspect such arguments are drawn from a static model, assuming slow or non-existent technological change (slaar's point above appears to have some merit), whereas we know that rapid technological change is possible, and likely, in situations of strong demand.
 
... and, in case anyone wondered, I like Tom Friedman's (of the NYT) argument that Bush should have declared a grand campaign for finding alternative energy sources in the wake of 9/11, a kind of Kennedy-like race to the moon. It should have been possible using the $200 billion spent instead in Iraq to move the world very much closer to reducing our dependence on oil.
 
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