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.
Check out this great graph from The Economist: Peak oil.
I don’t understand the copyright rules well enough to include the graph in my post. In case their article goes away, you can also see the graph at Carpe Diem – Chart of the day: Peak oil.
Let me describe the graph.
Continue reading “Can we finally bury the Hubbert curve? It keeps getting more wrong. Peak Oil #20”
Carpe Diem calls attention to the silliness of many past predictions of our dire future in his post, Great moments in failed predictions of resource depletion.
I’m not sure which is larger – the magnitude of error or arrogance from the cited prognosticators.
His discussion starts with:
The idiocy of “peak oil” and other claims of pending resource depletion have a long history, dating in many cases back to the 1800s. ”Peak nitwitery” experienced an especially strong revival in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to Paul Ehrlich and his 1968 book “The Population Bomb.”
Continue reading “Failed predictions of resource exhaustion – Peak Oil #19”
Carpe Diem quotes the current issue of “The Gartman Letter” in a post, Quotation of the day on ‘peak lunacy.’ The newsletter is subscription only and I’m sure it’s far beyond my price range, so I have to quote the quote.
Mr. Gartman recalls his undergrad days when the Malthusians said the world would be out of crude oil by 1984. He calls this “sheer lunacy.”
Since it is now 2013 and I’m still driving a car powered by gasoline, I think we can call that a failed forecast.
What is Peak Oil?
Continue reading “On Peak Lunacy, “you’ve been wrong long enough” – Peak Oil #18”
I’ve noticed a fun trend. In discussions of undeveloped oil fields where fracking could open up huge production the potential size of the field is compared to Bakken. Thus, a new unit of measure – how many Bakkens are in the new field.
Three examples.
Continue reading “Have you noticed the new unit of measure for large oil fields is “Bakkens”?”
One of the biggest reasons that Peak Oil is so astoundingly foolish is the assumption that there will never, ever be any more oil found under the ground. Another huge assumption is that those dirty, evil, money-grubbing oil barons will never, ever figure out a new way to get the oil out.
This month’s object lesson that both assumptions are completely wrong is Cline Shale. I will have another object lesson in a few days.
Yeah, I’ve not heard of Cline Shale before reading this afternoon’s post from Million Dollar Way – Peak Oil? What Peak Oil? Now We Have the Cline Shale.
Article in the Wall Street Journal indicates 2012 saw the largest increase in oil production since we started producing oil in 1859.
Here’s the lede from U.S. Oil-Production Rise is Fastest Ever:
U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any year in the history of the domestic industry, which began in 1859, and is set to surge even more in 2013.
The shale wells using horizontal production have a very high drop off rate in production over the first few years. The initial production (IP) is very high which falls fast (depletion rate). The wells then sustain production at a low level (terminal decline) for a very long time.
That is a very simple summary of what I’ve learned in the last year.
Here is a more detailed explanation from Michael Filloon at Seeking Alpha – Bakken Update: EOG Wells Model EURs Over 2 Million Barrels Of Oil
Here is his first comment that is quite helpful to me:
Continue reading “Background on Well Depletion in Early Years of Production – The Decline Rate”
“We are about to starve to death” is a recurringly popular idea. And it is recurringly wrong.
Rich Karlgaard surveys the Malthusians of several ages before giving two reasons such folks always miss the boat in his article Bad News Bear at Forbes.
Mr. Karlgaard mentions four people in the we’re-gonna’-starve-this-afternoon camp. I’ll add a fifth.
How much shale-gas is underground? The Wall Street has a great graphic in their article Global Gas Push Stalls (behind paywall).
Here are a few of the largest estimated deposits, in trillions of cubic feet:
There’s huge amounts of shale gas waiting to be tapped. Enough to power economic and manufacturing revival in many countries. What we’ve seen in the U.S. market in terms of dropping prices (benefiting consumers a lot) and generating manufacturing growth could happen in Argentina, Poland, France, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria, and Libya.
But will it? Doesn’t look likely at the moment.
Continue reading “We don’t have to prosper from all that oil we found, world edition – Peak Oil #15”
Bruce Oskol, writing at Million Dollar Way, gives some background why he started that blog:
Again, one of several reasons for starting the blog a couple years ago was to counter the naysayers.
The original naysayers doubted the Bakken even existed — hard to believe, I know; and then, when the numbers started coming out of the Bakken, the naysayers said the Bakken was good for North Dakota but that was about it.
I particularly enjoy citing this post from another blog as an example: “Don’t believe it. There’s some oil to be gotten out of Bakken, and it’s going to be exploited. But the “bonanza” is nothing but hype.” — June 25, 2010.
“Some oil to be gotten out of the Bakken … Nothing but hype.” Wow.
I checked on the link and found Bakken Oil Hype at The American West at Risk blog.
Wow is right.
I make it a high priority to avoid corrosive humor, such as sarcasm or ridicule, in my writing. But when it comes to the foolish Peak Oil concept, laughter seems to be the only appropriate response.
factual background
In a 1949 article, Dr. M. King Hubbert was able to calculate the total amount of oil that exists on the earth. Don’t take my word for it. See page 105 of “Energy from Fossil Fuels, Science” [scanned, 260 kb]. Won’t link to any specifics, but the ability he had to calculate the total amount of oil that will ever be known is a skill still present today.
Continue reading “Three of the six biggest oil fields ever found cannot exist – Peak Oil #13”
Contrary to what I have been saying, it actually is possible for us to hit a peak in oil production followed by a dramatic drop in output leading to a perpetual decline in the available energy we have.
How?
We as a society can decide that’s what we want. Or our politicians can choose that for us. Or regulators can impose their choice.
I’ve noticed a number of articles in recent months that make that point. Consider the following.
Mark Perry shows what’s happened in U.S. oil production one simple graph.
It shows production in Texas, Alaska, California, and North Dakota, the top 4 oil-producing states, from 2002 through 2012: .
Check out the graph at Energy chart of the day: Shale oil production in North Dakota and Texas has boosted US oil production to a 17-year high.
Amazing.
Continue reading “Dramatic increase in oil production told in one graph”
There is an old saying to describe someone who is brand new on the job. They are wet behind the ears. I’m so new to energy issues I need to towel off a while so I can move up to the level of merely wet-behind-the-ears.
But I’m learning fast. I hope.
If you’ve read many posts here, you know I haven’t found anything from the Peak Oil school of thought that makes any sense at all. Quite the contrary, it is nonstop foolishness to me.
Continue reading “New description for the debate over oil – Cornucopians vs Peak Oil”
Since I’ve started to pay attention to forecasts for the Bakken field, I’ll make note of one that is not so optimistic.
The Oil Drum has a post, Is Shale Oil Production from Bakken Headed for a Run with “The Red Queen?” that doesn’t see substantial increases in future output.
The forecast in that post is for production to stay at roughly the current level, which for July 2012 was 674K bopd state-wide and 609K bopd for Bakken only. Here are two key comments, the first from the findings and the second from immediately after the findings: Continue reading “Another forecast for Bakken production – we have probably already hit the peak”