Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on August 3, 2013
Peak Oil, EROEI and the Muffled Drum
An interesting thing happened last month. The Oil Drum, a well-regarded website + blog, announced it was ceasing operations and archiving itself for posterity. Well, everything has its day – we can all list blogs that were thriving a few years back but are no longer with us.
Some have suggested it was the extraordinary shale-based renaissance of US gas and oil production that did for the Drum. Probably not. But, fairly or unfairly, the Drum was associated with ‘peak oil‘, which at its simplest is a view (or theory or doctrine or whatever) that global oil production – as a function of oil-in-the-ground – is doomed to peak, after which we start ‘running out of oil’.
At its simplest, it is Malthusian hogwash. Of course, there are more nuanced versions than that, and the Drum shouldn’t be tarred with the brush one would use for countering hogwash. Much more important is the concept of EROEI – energy return on energy invested, which has been another Drum favourite. And this concept really does bear careful consideration. Declining EROEI could be the end of civilisation as we know it for, in the immortal words of James Lovelock – “civilisation is energy-intensive“. Better believe it.
So – no more drum-beat. But you’ll not stop hearing about EROEI.
9 Comments on "Peak Oil, EROEI and the Muffled Drum"
Plantagenet on Sat, 3rd Aug 2013 11:36 pm
The Oil Drum was a nice “peak oil” group blog that rose to national prominence during the BP oil spill, but because the Oil Drum was unwilling to criticize the current US administration’s energy policy the site eventually had little new or useful thing to say about peak oil or other current energy issues, and it faded into irrelevancy.
peakyeast on Sat, 3rd Aug 2013 11:49 pm
I totally disagree with you plantagenet.
The oil drum has been a great site for many years before GOM. The GOM incident didnt change much for those already there – and neither after.
It was the board on TOD that became strange in the head and decided to ruin the site through overregulation in various forms.
It is amazing that such a great site can close down since there are resourceful people that could keep it open, but it seems like a decision made on the board of TOD which no one outside has any possibility to interfere with.
Frankly that decision stinks.
If the old board is worn out – then step down and let others continue it, but no they are mothballing it and freezing the site for no good reason IMO.
Newfie on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 12:18 am
Peak oil is “Malthusian hogwash” ??? So oil production is going to keep increasing forever, is it ?
rollin on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 3:21 am
Yepper, and dat bio-generic oil will just a keep on comin’ no matter how much we done pumped outta da earth. Tarnation, ain’t they done figgered it out chet. Us’n do rule the world and it’s just gonna keep on comin out.
E-R-O-E-III Yippee Ki yeeeeh! Who gives a dern, it’s the proffeet dat counts.
I sure as peaches don’t hope ya believe in that there global warmin’ too, do ya?
Jerry McManus on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 7:38 am
I’m with peakyeast. TOD was deliberately destroyed when the decision was made that a diverse community of contributors and commentators was not good enough for them.
I personally suspect that the gigantic ego of Nate Hagens was behind the decision to strangle TOD, but of course I have no way of proving that.
jmm on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 8:56 am
op het moment dat je juist een side als peak oil nodig hebt stopt hij.
dat is toch vreemd.
ik verdenk dat er geld in het spel is.
want peik oil moet uit het hoofd van de mens gepraat worden voor de olie bedrijven.
om nog een laatste grote geld greep te kunnen doen.
Sudhir Jatar on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 12:56 pm
It is not only the EROEI. It is also climate change and global warming vis-a-vis the so-called ‘boom’ in unconventional oil production can also lead to the end of civilisation as we know it.
rollin on Sun, 4th Aug 2013 1:18 pm
It does not matter if we hear about peak oil. The geologic, technical, economic and environmental factors behind the overall effect, called peak oil, still exist. Minor variables like fracking will not change the overall picture.
Reality never needs to be advertised.
Big Gav on Mon, 5th Aug 2013 12:05 pm
Just responding to Jerry’s comment above – I don’t think Nate had anything to do with the decision to close TOD – the ISEOF board made the decision and the reasons they cited seem to be honest enough – the site has had a dwindling number of contributors over the years and those who are left are burnt out.
Its a shame they are closing the site rather than handing it over to fresh management but I understand the reasons.
It would be good if a critical mass of authors could emerge elsewhere to replace TOD…