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Page added on April 10, 2013
Seven Years More Data in the Hubbert Model
On Monday, I objected to some statements by Dennis Meadows that oil production had clearly peaked in the past and would now decline by half within twenty years. He dismissed various possibilities for higher oil production from low grade sources as irrelevant. To make my objections, I pointed out by looking at average growth rates, that the last five years data had delayed one’s idea of peak oil (in the sense of average growth being zero) by around five years, and thus we can’t have a very clear idea of when peak oil is exactly.
One objection I got in comments was that looking at average growth rates was a poor approach, and I should do something more sophisticated like look at the Hubbert model. Fine; it happens that I did an extensive analysis of world production back at the Oil Drum in 2006. Using the methodology of Hubbert Linearization, eg as exemplified by this picture:
I summarized the analysis at that time:
- URR is 2250 ± 260gb
- K is 4.93 ± 0.32%
- the logistic peak is May 2007 ± 4.5 years
The estimated URR is now at 2500gb, right at the upper end of the 95% confidence interval of my 2006 analysis. So in seven years of additional data, during which time we used 210gb of oil, the estimate of total ultimate usage has increased by 250gb – more than we used in the meantime. Again, this should give you serious pause in thinking that we know the peak with much precision.
The peak date is now in mid 2010 – ie it has moved later by about three years. It is not out of the 95% confidence interval from my 2012 analysis, but I wouldn’t now bet on it not moving out of it over the next seven years. Instead, I’d be leaning on this caveat in my 2006 piece:
A last caveat. One of the major reasons for a linearization extrapolation to go wrong is that there’s a big chunk of discovery that isn’t even seriously started production yet. I do not think there are any such discoveries in the conventional oil world (the Caspian is quite small on the world scale, and I think deepwater is well under way). However, there are trillions of possible barrels of LQHCs (low quality hydrocarbons), such as tar sands, extra-heavy oils, coal-to-liquids, and then biofuels. That stuff can’t be ramped in a hurry, but it will probably get ramped up eventually (depending on the climate wild card). The linearization is not taking account of those things.
6 Comments on "Seven Years More Data in the Hubbert Model"
James A. Hellams on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 12:39 am
This gentleman leaves out a very important calculation. This is the calculating in of the energy return on energy investment (EROEI).
No matter how much oil is in the ground, if it takes increasing amounts of energy (production, refining, and transporting) to produce the oil; you will reach a point at which it becomes energy uneconomical to produce any more oil.
You have to factor in the NET energy from the oil production. This is the total amount of energy produced from the oil MINUS the energy invested to produce, refine, and transport the oil.
When you calculate the NET energy from the oil, the drop in oil production is much faster than what the graphs represent.
35Kas on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 1:03 am
What James said about EROEI is very important.
Back in meanders 2007-2008 I used to frequent The Oil Drum Daily, and they used to be very big on that. Also another thing that someone there came up with was the export land model, where extracted oil in places like saudi arabia would get increasingly used by these same countries at the cost of exports. So you would get the combined effects of EROEI and the export land model in synergy to get a big nice F*** Y** and TEOTWAWKI is ergo ever closer to us.
AWB on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 1:32 am
Further to Hellams’ comment above, Hubbert wasn’t including “unconventional” oil in his calculations. He did not figure in these sources, mostly because they did not exist at the time. So we are dealing with apples and oranges. Not only is “unconventional” oil ruinous vis a vis EROEI, it is increasingly expensive to the point of limiting global economic growth. Apples to apples, Hubbert was spot on.
BillT on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 4:39 am
You are both correct and the author is not.
shortonoil on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 5:01 pm
“This gentleman leaves out a very important calculation. This is the calculating in of the energy return on energy investment (EROEI).”
To avoid the “apples and oranges” contradiction mentioned above, our study “Depletion: A determination for the world’s petroleum reserve” employs an Exergy analysis, versus the traditional volumetric analysis (barrel counting). The first graph gives the ERoEI derived from the Etp model. The second graph below demonstrates the effect of declining ERoEI.
http://s1321.photobucket.com/user/TheHillsGroup/media/graph13_zps6ed1a0bd.png.html?sort=3&o=0
http://s1321.photobucket.com/user/TheHillsGroup/media/graph14_zpsbf6b7c51.png.html?sort=3&o=0
The second graph is a power function, r=0.950. The black dots are WTI prices reported by the EIA from 1960 – 2011.
As the ERoEI declines the price of oil increases. A point is reached (which is determinable) when the average barrel of oil is no longer acquirable by the average end consumer.
Jerry McManus on Thu, 11th Apr 2013 9:04 pm
And since Meadows name was mentioned (again) I would be remiss not to point out that our current situation is a close match to the scenario presented in the book “Limits to Growth” which he co-authored 40 years ago.
Specifically the trajectory where the capital required to obtain increasingly expensive and difficult non-renewable resources is allocated away from other sectors of the economy, eventually leading to collapse of industrial output and food per capita.
This combined with rising pollution, rising population, and other pesky knock-on effects such as ecosystem collapse and climate chaos, eventually leads to rising death rates and population collapse.
Staniford’s pointless exercise in bean counting is irrelevant to the point of absurdity.