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Page added on February 1, 2011
Peak Not: Running Into Oil and Gas
“Resources are highly dynamic functional concepts; they are not, they become, they evolve out of the triune interaction of nature, man, and culture.”[0] So said the institutional economist Erich Zimmermann, explaining why so-called fixed, depletable resources expand rather than deplete in free market settings. Julian Simon similarly stated: “Human beings create more than they destroy.”[2]
I have been thinking of Zimmermann and Simon when reading energy press reports about new oil and gas discoveries and energy-poor areas suddenly becoming energy rich.
One story concerned the doubled reserve estimate of shale gas made by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As reported in the New York Times:
Just last month, the Energy Department more than doubled estimates of recoverable shale reserves to 827 trillion cubic feet, the energy equivalent of roughly 140 billion barrels of oil. That’s slightly greater than the proven oil reserves of Iran, the world’s third largest repository of crude.
On the oil side, the Bakken Formation has made North Dakota the new oil power of the U.S., with some 11 billion of proved reserves. Move over California, Alaska, and Louisiana. Watch out Texas. The Houston Chronicle noted:
The Bakken doesn’t yet rank with Spindletop in the annals of oil lore, but it has yielded its share of tall tales. Over the past few years, the precise size of the reserves in the formation has been the subject of intense speculation and debate. A mythology about the Bakken has even sprung up: Some have conjured that the total reserve may be several times greater than that of Saudi Arabia, home of the world’s largest reserves. Well, not quite—at least not yet. But the speculation hasn’t kept the conspiracy theorists from wondering why information about the true Bakken reserves has been withheld.
Internationally, Israel
is now swimming in natural gas. The Houston Chronicle editorialized:
One of the frequent tongue-in-cheek laments over the years by Israelis since the founding of the Jewish state is that when God gave his people a promised land, he placed it in one of the few areas of the Middle East bereft of oil and gas treasures.
That appears to have changed thanks to the discovery by Houston-based Noble Energy and several Israeli partner firms of the newly christened Leviathan field in the Mediterranean Sea. The field contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas with a market value of tens of billions of dollars.
Given the existence of another field located in Israeli waters by Noble in 2009, the potential is there for Israel to develop international muscle as an energy exporter…. Even though the exploitation of the new reserves will take years, they have stirred dreams in Israel of a biblical bonanza. A former Israeli lawmaker, Rabbi Michael Melchior, told the Los Angeles Times, “Moses not only brought us the land of milk and honey, but also the land of gas, and perhaps oil too.”
Back in the 1970s, James Schlesinger, the first secretary of the Department of Energy, warned about “a classic Malthusian case of exponential growth against a finite source.” Peak oil? Peak gas. How wrong he was a third of a century ago; how wrong are the peakists today.
9 Comments on "Peak Not: Running Into Oil and Gas"
Pacman on Tue, 1st Feb 2011 6:21 pm
Why are peakists wrong about peak oil just because we find lots of natural gas? There’s a theory about peak gas too but the peakists didn’t predict it would peak as soon as oil The theory of peak oil cannot be wrong. However the prediction of when it happens and what the effect will be can be very difficult to be right about, that is until it’s history. The fear that the worst effects of peakoil might be realised may well be the motivation that saves us from those effects, but won’t change the fact that a finite resource will have a production peak
mos6507 on Tue, 1st Feb 2011 9:46 pm
Canada Free Press = Fox News of Canada, shill of the tar sands, AGW denialist central.
PeterPan on Tue, 1st Feb 2011 11:14 pm
I bet that writer of that article must have PhD in Energy, when basing the argument on pure faith… Reality don’t ask permission or your opinion how things are actually in real life.
Kenz300 on Wed, 2nd Feb 2011 1:11 am
Look at Egypt and Tunusia….
Lack of jobs….
Lack of resources(food, water, energy)..
Lack of opportunity…..
An ever expanding population…..
Resources are not unlimited….
Population at times acts like it is unlimited…
We have added a billion people to the world in the last 12 years and we are still growing…….
Will we have the resources to support an ever growing population?…..
Don S on Wed, 2nd Feb 2011 3:06 am
“Human beings create more than they destroy.”
Tell that to the bluefin tuna, et al… I’m sure they will find it greatly comforting as they become extinct. “Look, dad, more humans!”
James A. Hellams on Wed, 2nd Feb 2011 5:16 am
To evaluate how great the claims made in this article by the Energy Department, and the Bakken Oil Field are; you need to look at the backside (the oil consumption) that is not mentioned.
First, at the peak of worldwide oil production (passed in 2006), the annual production of oil was 30 billion barrels annually. This would wipe out the 140 billion barrel equivalent reserve claimed by the Energy Department in 4.6 years. This is hardly a huge find.
Relative to the 11 billion barrel reserve claimed for the Bakken Oilfield, the US consumption of oil annually is 7.3 billion barrels. The Bakken Oilfield would last the US consumption of the US for only for 1.5 years
Rick on Wed, 2nd Feb 2011 5:43 am
What a BS article.
cusano on Wed, 2nd Feb 2011 7:31 am
Shale oil is bought to us via a mining process, not a drilling process. Extracting it out of a rock, or pumping in out of the ground are two very different things. If oil supply from the Mid East is disrupted, then we’ll ‘see’ how shale oil will meet our needs. Better buy a bike.
ian on Sun, 6th Feb 2011 8:59 am
Its about time the govennments tell the the people about the energy cruch that comming. Its criminal not to. Not telling them just to will another election it a joke. Not just peak oil but peak exports as these countries are using more as there output decreases Get real with climate change to . Problem located instead oof fixing it just cover up. Americca is an expert at cover ups and discrediting facts. But we are dumb enought to beleive them. Humans dumbest thing to ever evolve. Insects are more sucessful than us. Looks like the greed of capitalism is turning out to be a wolf in sheeps clothing to
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