We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ks2ua4imgU]
(Shaky videography and editing by James Ulvog)
Production of crude in the state increased to 1,211,180 bopd (prelim) in June from 1,202,615 bopd (final) in May. That is up 8,565 bopd. Only month with higher average production was December 2014 at 1,227,529 bopd.
Keep in mind the goal of the Saudis when they kicked off the price war was to take Bakken production off the table. I don’t think the results above are quite what they had in mind.
Ridicule is the appropriate way to address the false idea that oil production follows a bell curve and at any moment production will drop off and head to zero. Gonna’ happen any hour now. It is an undisputed scientific certainty…
Only problem is the inconvenient truth that production has consistently blown out every prediction from the peak oilists. It’s almost like the entire concept is bogus.
8/11 – Ronald Bailey, author of The End of Doom, at Reason – Peak Oilers Shut Up Forever Please – One of the main apostles of Peak Oil precisely calculated the peak of oil production would be Thanksgiving Day in 2005 with an inevitable, unavoidable decline thereafter.
The absolute peak production, never to be seen again?
85M bopd.
Please remember Peak Oil doctrine clearly states that production will drop the day after the peak and enter a bell shape curve decline, quickly heading to zero. Production graphs are supposed to have already resembled the image at the top of this post.
Petroleum liquids in July 2015?
Continue reading ““Everybody point and laugh” at Peak Oil doctrine – #41”
A couple of followup comments about my long post pondering Who will break first, Saudi Arabia or the American shale oil industry. I read Bruce Oksol’s comment on the article that drew my closest attention.
In his post at Million Dollar Way, Saudi Arabia Looking At Bankruptcy?, he recaps some comments he has pointed out before, which I will quote. Read the following to provide context for the article at the center of the above post. Continue reading “Update on who will collapse first”
VERSUS
Three fascinating articles to give some perspective on global oil market. Might want to get a fresh cup of coffee, this will be a long read.
From immediate appearances, Saudi Arabia is in financial distress because of low oil prices. On a longer-term perspective they are in extremely severe trouble. OPEC as an organization is essentially done. Entertaining to watch one writer tried to blow off all of the above information.
First, the immediate indication that Saudi Arabia is having serious trouble now.
8/5 – Financial Times – Saudi Arabia plans $27bn in bond issues – Saudi Arabia has already borrowed $4B in the bond market. They are floating ideas of borrowing $5.3B a month through the end of the year for an additional $27B debt.
With selling around 10.3M barrels a day at price of around $50 which produces somewhere around $188B a year, why are they tiptoeing back into the debt market?
Continue reading “Who will break first, Saudi Arabia or the American shale oil industry?”
Here is another case study, this time emphasizing the really high cost of leasing. The Wall Street Journal has an article in the 8/4 print edition: Solar-Power Fight Hits Home in Arizona/ New rules to require solar companies to tell potential customers how much systems will cost over the lifetime of their contracts.
Car dealers and bank loan officers, please sit down.
Apparently home solar installers are all up in arms because Arizona now requires them to tell customers how much they’re going to pay over the term of the contract. Yes, you lenders who have to deal with truth-in-lending laws that have been around since, oh, before you were born can now chuckle.
Typical roof-top solar contracts run for 20 years and have built-in annual price increases. When told the total of what they will pay, many customers choose to buy the system instead of pay an extra fortune over two decades.
Typical terms according to the article for an average system: Continue reading “Another case study in the cost of rooftop solar, this time focusing on the sky-high financing terms”
A 10 year study looking at nesting patterns of nine species of grassland birds in the Dakotas found that seven of the species relocated their nests away from good breeding ground after wind turbines were constructed.
Continue reading “USGS study shows grassland birds move nests away from wind turbines”
A series of posts at Million Dollar Way has me scratching my head on the amazing things happening in energy and what may be down the road. Consider the following:
7/30 – Saudi Arabia Begins Buying New Patriot Missiles From The US – Lots of countries in the Middle East are doing some serious shopping for serious defensive weapons. Today’s news is that Saudi Arabia wants to buy 600 more Patriot missile interceptors at a cost of over $5 billion.
Why?
Continue reading “Head scratching news from the open energy frontier”
Constructing turbines or solar panels consumes vast amounts of natural resources. Consider just some of the resource drain created by ‘renewable’ energy discussed on 1/13/15 at The Scotsman: Comment: Renewables drain our resources –
Wind turbine towers are constructed from steel manufactured in a blast furnace from mined iron ore and modified coal (coke). Turbine blades are composed of oil-derived resins and glass fibre. The nacelle encloses a magnet containing about one third of a tonne of the rare earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium. Large neodymium magnets also help propel electric cars.
A third of a ton of rare earth metals for every turbine. So what? Consider: Continue reading “Environmental devastation from constructing wind turbines and solar farms.”
Water in an area around a 215 turbine farm in Ayrshire contains high levels of E.coli along with other coliform bacteria. Water has far more than the safe levels of trihalomethane (THM). That stuff has been linked to a variety of cancers, miscarriages, and stillbirths. Discussed at New Evidence: Wind Farms Contaminating Water Supply in Scotland.
The power company running the slice-and-dicers denies having caused the pollution but does acknowledge that they failed to warn residents that the water supplies could be contaminated as a result of the turbines.
So in Scotland it looks wind turbines are causing human health damage from diarrhea and miscarriages in addition to causing ecological damage from killing off birds and bats.
Wind turbines contaminating drinking water? How does that happen?
Continue reading “Construction of wind farm in Scotland contaminated the water”
Energy Information Administration sent this tweet a few days ago:
How much of the total electricity generated in 2014 was from wind and solar?
Let’s do some math –
(Photo of drilling rig on North Dakota plains that will bring us half a million barrels of oil by James Ulvog.)
The falling rig count in Bakken is getting lots of attention. The importance of the number of rigs has dropped a lot in the last few years as the drillers created increasing efficiencies. The importance of the drop in rig count is less significant than it seems since the best crews are working with the best locations, which means the productivity of each of the current 70+ working rigs is far higher than the 190 in the field a year ago.
Here is a recap of the North Dakota rig count as I’ve been tracking it. All data from Million Dollar Way: Continue reading “Rig count in North Dakota, April to July”
Came across a helpful case study analyzing the economics of installing rooftop solar. This analysis is provided by a website whose owner is not readily identifiable. Keep in mind the purpose of this website is to gather leads which are provided to rooftop solar installers. Thus the goal is to sell rooftop solar.
You can find the analysis at How Much Do Solar Panels Cost.
The case study is designed for a typical household that is a customer of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. (This is relevant because a subsidy from LADWP covers 25% of total cost.)
In this case, a 3 kW installation is designed to cover 5600 kWh of the household’s 8,000 kWh annual consumption.
Total system costs are usually in the following proportions: Continue reading “Case study of the economics for rooftop solar panels”
Amazing things are happening at the energy open frontier. Vaca Muerta is a huge shale gas field in Argentina that I doubt will be a big player anytime soon. US passes Russia as largest oil & gas producer and OPEC revenue slumps.
6/10 – Yahoo Finance – U.S. Ousts Russia as Top World Oil, Gas Producer in BP Data – Data from BP shows that the U.S. is world’s biggest producer of hydrocarbons, surpassing Russia for the first time.
Hmm …. I wonder if there is some correlation to the following …
Continue reading “More news from the open frontier of energy – 7/17”
Initial reports hint that refracking an existing well might pay off big time. Also, what is Saudi Arabia after?
7/12 – Million Dollar Way – Random Update Of a Recently Re-Fracked MRO Well in Killdeer Oil Field – Re-fracking is going to be the next big thing, based on articles I have read. Here is an illustration of the concept –
This well had been producing about 1,100 barrels of oil a month from June 2014 through November. Re-fracking took place in December or January. February production was almost 14,000 barrels. The next three months were about 10,000 in each month.
…they are bogus.
Massaged.
6/10 – Say Anything Blog – UND Researchers Debunk “Inaccurately Derived” Satellite Images of North Dakota Flaring – Remember that satellite photo about two years ago showing the Bakken oil fields almost as bright as Minneapolis and spread over a larger area than the twin cities metro?
Now that the researchers point this out, I’ll mention that if you have been in Western North Dakota anytime in the last five years you will never mistake it for an urban area where there is a streetlight every 50 feet with a strip shopping center every half mile.
Continue reading “About those photos showing the North Dakota oil fields as bright as Minneapolis…”