Systemic Collapse: The Basics

[elbows]

UK oil production fell 25% in 2011. It will fall >25% in 2012.

Ooh, Im well aware of the nature of North sea decline but I think its not safe ground to look at 2011's spectacular declines and assume the decline rate will be the same the next year. For a start we have to wait and see how much of that exceptionally steep decline was due to tax-related industry timing decisions.

I did have a look at the data for every UK field separately to see if I could note which factors had made the most significant contribution to the 2011 decline, but what I saw was an abundance of fields with crap production rates for 2011, far too many to hope to complete this analysis, especially when detailed industry news about outages at specific fields is not always easy to come by on the net.

The other problem when looking at the production rates for each field over time, is that I cannot tell which of them will go back up again, e.g. are there technical difficulties that will be solved, or is production offline while they add new wells to the field, etc. Im not denying peak oil theories at all by saying this, since Im talking about specific North sea fields that are not the well-declined giants with decades of clear data behind them, but some of the newer ones that have not performed well at various points recently. Some of the newer ones look like duds, or ones that we burnt through real quick, but others are problematic but not without some remaining potential for increased production rates.

Speaking more generally, looking at north sea decline over a decade rather than 2011's figure in particular, the north sea is certainly an example of nasty decline rates that if repeated across the board globally would mirror some of the uglier peak oil predictions. But thats not a certain picture, it depends a lot on the detail of how giant fields behave in the future. We can for example believe that Saudi Arabia is very low on spare production capacity, but can we accurately predict exactly when Ghawar production rates will peak?

 

[free spirit]

Jesus, elbows, I like you but did you even bother to read the material I pointed out to you? It was only a few pages. Every single one of your queries is addressed by a bunch of world class petroleum engineers and energy economists.

Falcon,

Serious question for a minute...

Do you happen to know if / where data can be found showing oil production levels (inc unconventional oils) after consumption associated with the production processes has been taken off?

I'm sure you'll agree that this really is the figure that's needed to get a real handle on the actual oil that's available for use, and is increasingly the most relevant as EREOI figures vary so much between sources, and are increasingly dropping.

If the data's out there I probably can find it, but figured you might already know where it is.

Thanks

 

[Falcon]

Im asking YOU when YOU think the clock starts on the 10% decline per year that you are so fond of falling back on.

Elbows, it doesn't "start", it runs perpetually at an increasing rate. The global petroleum system is composed of around 70,000 discreet production units. Each unit begins to decline the moment you withdraw fluid. The system as a whole declines at the aggregate rate of decline of its component units. The aggregate decline rate increases over time because the discovery and commercial processes force the average production unit size to decrease over time. That decline rate is passing through 9.5%. This is fully explained in the reference.

Until now, that decline rate has been compensated for by drawing on the stock of previously discovered resource. That discovery process peaked in 1968 and has halved every 15 years subsequently. Our ability to sustain that process expired in 2008 and depletion is now barely being compensated for by the last of the production we can add for as long as we (1) can print money to pay for it (2) ignore the full cost of production associated with externalised emission mitigation costs and (3) poor people in far away places tolerate us liquidising their lunches to power Richard Branson's 747s before tearing down their governments.

 

[Falcon]

Ooh, Im well aware of the nature of North sea decline but I think its not safe ground to look at 2011's spectacular declines and assume the decline rate will be the same the next year. For a start we have to wait and see how much of that exceptionally steep decline was due to tax-related industry timing decisions.

Elbows, I spent 15 years running North Sea and other platforms. The North Sea is one of the least taxed provinces in the world, with no alternative investment provinces - the tax effect is marginal. (This is precisely why decline rates are now so severe - the low tax rate caused a glut of investment in the 90's which accelerated but did not add production). Any maintenance effects will only worsen as platforms age and exceed their safe working lives (remember Piper Alpha?) There is only one place to look to predict future production and that is discovery rates. Discovery rates have fallen catastrophically. This is garbage. Sorry.

but can we accurately predict exactly when Ghawar production rates will peak?

Yes. Because it is a matter of historical record, not forecast. They exceeded the safe injection pressure in 2008 in an effort to preserve the illusion of swing producer and fractured it, bypassing a significant fraction of reserves. At current domestic energy growth rates (population and water desalination driven) Saudi would cease export in 16 years. Deferral would have to come from increased production capacity, which would have to come from Ghawar - wiping out any modest deferral of peak that might be achievable with acceleration infill drilling. Ghawar at peak produced 5 million barrels a day. Depletion is wiping out 40 million barrels a day of capacity in the next 7 years. Ghawar's contribution is insignificant.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You'll have to excuse me because I'm by no means an expert and don't really know any of the technical terms, but just to clarify - peak oil has already happened and "we" are now just compensating for the reduction in availability of oil from the ground by using biofuels etc.? So basically if we want to maintain consumption at current levels, land that's being used to grow food will have to be used to grow whatever it is they make biofuels out of? And this is happening now - it's not a prediction, it's an observation of the present state of things?

If so, unlike a prediction, we can test that here and now - it's either true or it isn't, surely?

 

[Dr Jon]

(remember Piper Alpha?)

Yes.
A mate who still works in structural integrity / condition monitoring says that North Sea work has all but dried up. Like you say, it seems that companies are cutting corners, in which case we may see another Piper A...

 

[Falcon]

You'll have to excuse me because I'm by no means an expert and don't really know any of the technical terms, but just to clarify - peak oil has already happened and "we" are now just compensating for the reduction in availability of oil from the ground by using biofuels etc.? So basically if we want to maintain consumption at current levels, land that's being used to grow food will have to be used to grow whatever it is they make biofuels out of? And this is happening now - it's not a prediction, it's an observation of the present state of things? If so, unlike a prediction, we can test that here and now - it's either true or it isn't, surely?

Yes. Exactly correct. There are two types of oil - oil you can afford (the stuff that has powered industrial civilisation for the last 100 years) and oil you can't. Unaffordable oil is made so because you can't afford to make it in the gross volumes driven by its own manufacturing energy costs, or you can't afford to dispose of the emissions produced either by its manufacture or end use. "Unaffordable" means its price exceeds that which triggers economic collapse in its consuming economy - currently around $90/barrel. There are many types of unaffordable oil - for example, shale oil, oil shale, arctic oil, and biofuel.

Biofuel, when its manufacturing energy metabolism is correctly accounted for, consumes more energy in its manufacture than it releases in end use - it is largely an artefact of perverse tax incentives in the industrial agriculture system. It is more accurately thought of as a poor (i.e. highly lossy) energy carrier rather than an energy source, with the primary energy deriving from the hydrocarbon-based industrial agriculture inputs. Even with its hydrocarbon energy subsidy, biofuel requires colossal quantities of land and raw materials. For example, substituting current UK fossil petrol consumption by biofuel would require approximately the same surface area currently devoted to UK industrial agriculture. The ratio is much higher under conditions of solar agriculture production.

We can and do meter the two sorts. "Affordable oil" (also called "conventional" oil) peaked in 2005. That is a matter of record. We are currently rather in the same position as a junky who, having collapsed his veins, is now injecting the drug into his penis. It creates the same high, but not sustainably so.

 

[SpineyNorman]

If that's the case then how can there be any debate about it? You're not saying we will run out - you're saying we have run out. Seems to me that's a statement of fact that can be tested - it's either right or wrong. So why do some people disagree? That's what I don't get.

This is where I am on it - it scares the shit out of me. From what I've read it really is a major problem that could have dire consequences for all of us (all of us who aren't billionaires or military leaders anyway). But I do think, given the political will, the impact could at least be reduced - I find Bernie Gunther's arguments for small, sustainable communities persuasive.

And since they would be broadly in line with the kind of egalitarian politics I already believe in, and since in order for it to happen the power of capital would have to be smashed, I think the only sensible reaction is to continue with pro-working class politics. It works quite well for me - if you're right then I'm working towards something that could make life more bearable in future, and if you're wrong I'm still working towards the kind of society I want to see, so I've not lost anything.

Whether this is actually possible is another question but I think we have a duty to at least try.

Well, either that or I'll become baked beans Stalin

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not sure about small, sustainable communities. Cities are a pretty efficient way for people who do not work the land to live. Also, there are 7 billion of us and counting. We need large sustainable communities. I don't see any other choice.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yeah the whole eco-village thing is kind of a limit case. Specifically for minimising energy use in food systems. But energy use in food systems is only one of a network of constraints we're working under (albeit a pretty important one)

 

[elbows]

Falcon, now you are really pissing me off by deliberately picking and choosing which sort of decline you are talking about. Decline in reserves and contents of a particular oilfield is not the same as decline in current production.

I do not dispute the sorry state of proven reserves, lack of impressive discoveries, etc. I do not dispute that the north sea is in terminal production output decline, or that the remaining fields are more difficult, more expensive and subject to more outages.

But you were the one that went on about north sea production declining 25% last year and production declining by at least 25% this year.

Thats not the same thing is it? Its not safe to say that north sea output will be 25% lower this year than it was last year is it? It could happen, but its no certainty, because a certain percentage of what was offline last year might come back online this year. The Elgin leak doesn't help as thats knocked off somewhere int he region of 60,000 barrels per day from nearby oil platforms, and as a result the available loads of Forties oil for may is well down on the figures they had programmed in for April. But there is more to the north sea than that, specifically whether Buzzard is going to get over some of its issues and return to levels that are more similar to 2008-2010 than 2011. But even if it doesn't recover, your '>25% decline again this year' will require Buzzard or a lot of other fields to perform much worse this year than they did last year, and as last year already sucked this is not a safe presumption.

I don't give a fig how many years industry experience you have, how much you understand about the details of the decline. It no excuse for deliberately playing loose with the sort of decline you are talking about in any particular post. You are the one making the argument that we've already run out of time, and using decline figures of 10% to paint a picture of our daily energy availability dropping 88% in a couple of decades from now.

In fact as best I can tell right now, looking at oil production rates, oil production has been fairly stagnant for about 6 years, at best growing 0.5% in that period. The rest of the increase has come from substitutes. If you want to talk about production declines then you should give an indication of when you expect this figure to start falling rather than plateauing.

I have no disagreement with you about the implications we already feel from failure of supply growth, loss of buffer capacity, increasing chances of outages (political or technical) that have larger ramifications than they would when there was a nice juicy production buffer, and the affect of high oil price on the economy. And I do believe that we ran out of time for solutions that might enable at least the impression that its business as usual to continue for decades to come. What I am not prepared to do is start talking as if daily global production is already falling off a cliff.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Yeah the whole eco-village thing is kind of a limit case. Specifically for minimising energy use in food systems. But energy use in food systems is only one of a network of constraints we're working under (albeit a pretty important one)

But I'd imagine that the kind of things the eco-villages are intended to address - reduction in the distance your food travels, reductions in the distance you have to travel - would have to be a part of any sustainable solution. And the things that would be needed to make it work - reductions in economic inequality - would also have to be a part of that solution since if you've got people consuming twice as much as others they're clearly limiting the number of people the resources can sustain.

Since I'm not, and will never be, a scientist it seems to me that my time is best spent working towards those things.

Either that or collecting tins of beans.

 

[Falcon]

Cities are a pretty efficient way for people who do not work the land to live

... assuming there is some convenient source of abundant, affordable energy to power the infrastructure required by a city. We have a word for cities in which that is not the case - "shanty town".

 

[Falcon]

Falcon, now you are really pissing me off by deliberately picking and choosing which sort of decline you are talking about. Decline in reserves and contents of a particular oilfield is not the same as decline in current production.

Oil field decline is a relatively complex --- but not inaccessible --- subject. Please don't refuse to read the accessible tutorials I have supplied you with, then criticise my attempts to summarise them for you in order to maintain some sort of informed dialogue with you.

The time frame for decision making and implementing solutions is driven by the underlying natural depletion rate. That number is both non-negotiable and fundamental - that is why the number is relevant. Its magnitude is entirely masked by the fact that we have been living off past discoveries in a process which has now ended. Its proximity is entirely masked by the fact that at peak - by definition - the environment yields no signals of the magnitude and pace of the reversal that is now underway.

An attempt to mitigate that depletion will be made. The insignificance of those efforts cannot be judged without comparison to the magnitude and proximity of the natural depletion rate. That is why it is necessary to discuss both.

If we know the size of the discovered resource base (which we can estimate accurately because it peaked so long ago and has declined so rapidly since, narrowing the range of uncertainty of an estimate of its extrapolate), we can estimate what the production rate will be over and above the natural depletion rate assuming continuity of investment and technology. It looks like this:

(U) is the affordable oil we have and (under continued investment and technology) will discover. The lower line (N) is the natural depletion rate i.e. the uninvested rate that persistence of capital would yield if we suspended investment today. The middle line (H) is the rate of affordable oil production, assuming continuity of historical investment and technology capability. The upper line (D) is demand. The gap (D-H) is what would have had to be supplied by unaffordable oil assuming (1) it could be discovered and mobilised at the rate determined by (D-H), (2) we could afford it and (3) the biosphere could absorb its emissions. Meanwhile, (H) is an optimistic estimate because investment in real terms is in fact falling in relation to historical data from which the extrapolation is derived due to rising oil field costs (manpower, energy and materials).

I don't know if this makes it any clearer for you. The relevant point is that (D-H) is no more manageable than (D-N) from the perspective of continuity of the hydrocarbon fuelled industrial agriculture system which is why, in the interests of brevity, I haven't distinguished between them in much depth.

Regarding your speculation about the North Sea, you more or less answer and contradict your own argument. You haven't grasped the portfolio effect coupled with natural depletion. Some of what was offline last year might be online this year. But some of what was online last year will be offline this year. And since the whole portfolio is ageing, there will be more of the latter than the former. Meanwhile, the whole base has declined by another year's worth of depletion, for which no new Buzzards have been located to offset. The North Sea is one of the oldest and therefore best understood provinces in the world and there is little scope for (pleasant) surprise here. There may be some modest inter-year variation but the aggregate is consistent and ferocious. If you'll forgive me, in service of a claim that the OP consisted of misinformation you are flogging a dead horse.

 

[elbows]

Are you really trying to tell me that despite your obvious grasp of many aspects of the situation, you still believe that your proclamation that this years uk north sea oil production decline will be the same or greater than last years is safe?

Why don't you just admit that you shouldn't have made that particular claim? Or are you really telling me that you believe year-on-year decline rates will be by a greater percentage every year? Silly.

I mean these numbers are comparing year on year (or a particular quarter compared to the same quarter the year previous). So its quite possible to have a declining trend but to have years that buck the trend, let alone the faulty assumption that the decline this year must be greater than the decline last year.

 

[BigTom]

(U) is the affordable oil we have and (under continued investment and technology) will discover. The lower line (N) is the natural depletion rate. The middle line (H) is the rate of affordable oil production.

Can I just check if I've understood this, the difference between N and H is made up of the reserves previously discovered?
Would the area of the bit in green match the red bit to the right of the green production line and the white bit between N&H?

going to see end:civ on tuesday, which should make for interesting discussion on this subject, been reading this thread a lot more closely in the last few days.

 

[elbows]

I also note that you continue to use the words decline and depletion interchangeably, which is sloppy and had lead to this argument.

 

[elbows]

And just in case I am not making my point in a clear fashion, have some graphs:

http://earlywarn.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/update-on-north-sea-oil-production.html

Year on year production decline rate does not simply get worse every year, it fluctuates, hence your >25% this year comment was silly. Thats all Im trying to say, none of this other stuff you keep posting about which I largely do not dispute.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Can I just check if I've understood this, the difference between N and H is made up of the reserves previously discovered?
Would the area of the bit in green match the red bit to the right of the green production line and the white bit between N&H?

going to see end:civ on tuesday, which should make for interesting discussion on this subject, been reading this thread a lot more closely in the last few days.

Sounds interesting, that. I've found it online here:

 

[BigTom]

Sounds interesting, that.

Yeah, it does sound interesting. The group behind it sound pretty dubious - vaguelly fascist deep green types iirc, think I'll have some political disagreements with them.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Yeah, just watching the start now, it's very anti-technology and I'm getting the impression that it's heading in a distinctly primitivist direction. Plenty of wanky new age hippy shit too, half the time the bloke's trying to talk like some kind of neo-romantic poet or summat. Still contains some interesting facts though.

 

[Falcon]

Can I just check if I've understood this, the difference between N and H is made up of the reserves previously discovered?
Would the area of the bit in green match the red bit to the right of the green production line and the white bit between N&H?

The area under U is all the conventional/affordable oil we have discovered and will discover under the same investment and technology conditions.

You can't produce what you have not discovered. The area under H can't be more than the area under U. There is an infinite variety of curves H subject to the constraint that area(H) is less than or equal to area(U). The actual curve is a function of investment - this curve assumes continuity of investment (i.e. is optimistic). More investment now would accelerating production now at the cost of more severe depletion later. The theoretical maximum deferral is 2028, with zero production in 2029.

Curve N is what you get if you stop investing today. It is like a curve of your speed in your car if you took your foot off the accelerator and coasted to a halt.

 

[Falcon]

And just in case I am not making my point in a clear fashion, have some graphs:

http://earlywarn.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/update-on-north-sea-oil-production.html

Yup. Your data is aggregate UK, Norway and Denmark. Statfjord (Norway) and DUC (Denmark) enter decline next month so your data is optimistic both in general and as a proxy for UK. UK production is already down 16% on this time last year (ref), and 5 figure leaks are now routine and accelerating (e.g. reference).

Your original point (I believe) was that the original posting was a "mess of misinformation". Part of the evidence you supported your point with was refutation of the OP's claim that the UK is facing massive energy shock. To be clear, even a 10% annual reduction (reading the optimistic aggregate from your own graph) is a halving time of 7 years. A halving time of 7 years is a massive energy shock. I reject your claim.

 

[Falcon]

I also note that you continue to use the words decline and depletion interchangeably, which is sloppy and had lead to this argument.

Decline is a symptom. Depletion is a cause. The two are interchangeable in every sense that matters to your argument that the UK is *not* undergoing energy shock and that, therefore, the OP constitutes misinformation. Manufactured argument, based on a meaningless distinction.

 

[Falcon]

. [some weird board posting glitch thingy]

 

[Dr Jon]

The Other Inconvenient Truth

Terraculture - hmmm...

 

[free spirit]

If that's the case then how can there be any debate about it? You're not saying we will run out - you're saying we have run out. Seems to me that's a statement of fact that can be tested - it's either right or wrong. So why do some people disagree? That's what I don't get.

Peak oil isn't about running out. We've obviously not run out of oil, as it's still readily available at the petrol stations albeit at double the price it was not so long ago.

Peak oil is essentially about the point at which our ability to increase the rate at which we're pumping oil from the ground ends, and we reach the maximum ever annual output of oil.

I don't think any of the main protagonists on this or t'other thread actually have any particular difference of opinion on the basics of this, or that we're either at, very close to or just past this peak point.

The difference of opinions largely boil down to whether we'll actually remain at or around this peak point for any length of time, or whether production rates are now, or will shortly be dropping off significantly, and at what rate.

Falcon's right to point out that much of the peak has so far been masked through the increased use of unconventional oil such as oil from tar sands, as well as biofuels. Even the most optimistic would have to concede that these unconventional sources will not be able to replace conventional sources if/when the rate of decline in conventional oil really starts kicking in.

The global recession has also 'helped' by cutting demand, and allowing the politicians to continue turning a blind eye to the issue as they've been able to lay all the blame at the door of the banks.

Or to put it another way, do we have time still to put measures in place to enable us to reduce the impact of any reduction in oil availability, or are we utterly fucked (and if so should we still take what action we can, or run around like headless chickens screaming 'woe is me' at anyone who'll listen).

Personally, I veer between the positions of

'we're probably a bit fucked but must do what we can as early as possible to mitigate the worst potential impacts of the inevitable decline in conventional oil sources'

to

'Oil including unconventional sources should continue to be available at or around current levels for the next few years, before it starts to really fall singificantly, so we must do what we can as early as possible to mitigate the worst potential impacts of the inevitable decline in conventional oil sources.'

One further vital point that often get's missed in this is that oil is just one of many energy sources on which we rely. It is a vitally important energy source and no mistake, but viewing oil as part of the overall energy mix helps to put things into a bit better perspective.

Oil makes up approximately 33-34% of the worlds primary energy supply, so eg a 50% reduction in oil production would lead to around a 16-17% shortfall in the worlds primary energy supply, which is certainly significant, but nowhere near as catastrophic as is implied when people quote the percentage reductions in oil production in isolation.

For comparison, renewables currently make up around 8% of global primary energy production, and at recent rates of increase could well be approaching 16-17% by 2020 or so, and maybe 25-30% by 2030.

Soooo the real questions are what the actual rate of decline in oil production will be, what the starting point will be, how much can be made up from unconventional sources (allowing for the additional energy consumption in the production of those sources), how much can be made up from gas, coal, nuclear, how much can be made up from renewables (allowing for increased consumption during their deployement, but also greater efficiencies when in use), and how much we can increase the efficiency of our use of these energy resources globally without negatively impacting on the economy or living standards.

There are also issues with how much, where and how quickly oil can be substituted for another energy source, as for example, you can't simply plug a petrol car in to the mains, but can potentially replace a petrol car with an electric car, though this process will take far longer to have an impact than if you could simply substitute the fuels for one another.

This is intended as a brief overview of the sources of contention in this and the other threads.

 

[Dr Jon]

post cut - reserved for new thread...

ETA:
Ah free spirit has quoted it already so I'll put it back:

You're an antinatalist too? That really is based on horrendous logic and gross misanthropy. Barking, utterly barking.

Can you give me a single non-subjective, non-personal, non-emotional, objective, rational reason to propagate our species?

 

[free spirit]

Can you give me a single non-subjective, non-personal, non-emotional, objective, rational reason to propagate our species?

if you remove the main essence of humanity from the equation, it's hardly surprising that you'd struggle to justify our continued existence on the planet.

I'd contend that it would be a crime against both our ancestors and future generations for us to give up at this point just because we came across a bit of a problem with our current way of life. Think of the shit that they had to go through to get humanity to this point, then get a grip, put our current situation into perspective and start doing your bit to get humanity through this situation as best we can. Or as a minimum get out of the way and let those of us who are doing our best to solve the problems get on with it without having to fight against all this negative woe is me bollocks all the time.

 

[Dr Jon]

if you remove the main essence of humanity from the equation, it's hardly surprising that you'd struggle to justify our continued existence on the planet.

I'd contend that it would be a crime against both our ancestors and future generations for us to give up at this point just because we came across a bit of a problem with our current way of life. Think of the shit that they had to go through to get humanity to this point, then get a grip, put our current situation into perspective and start doing your bit to get humanity through this situation as best we can. Or as a minimum get out of the way and let those of us who are doing our best to solve the problems get on with it without having to fight against all this negative woe is me bollocks all the time.

Leaving aside Benatar's antinatalist argument, adding more people to a world population which already grossly exceeds sustainable levels is hardly going to make things any better, is it?

Is population growth a Ponzi scheme?

Each new human we don’t create is the equivalent of more than 70 years of 100% recycling. We save over 50 years of car driving, avoid tons of pollution, and prevent the potential for an additional procreation less than 20 years later.