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Page added on July 14, 2014
Peak Oil: Denial Magic 1
They should be magicians.
Successful magic depends on the artist being able to distract the viewers from the sleight-of-hand performed. Keep them preoccupied with one topic or one item and it’s then much simpler to create the illusion of magic.
Peak oil deniers are a lot like that. Toss out some carefully massaged facts bearing the imprint of near-truths but without context (just to be safe), engage in a pattern of irrelevancies to help muddy the waters, toss in some meaningless numbers while carefully shielding the important ones from the discussion, and presto! No more peak oil theories.
But as with magic, the show must end. We walk back out into the light and back into reality, where some of us still believe that facts matter. Perhaps not today while the Happy Talk keeps everyone entertained, but soon enough that show will end as well, and then the realities—good and bad—of energy production will matter once again.
A recent entry was a healthy dose of misdirection offered up in a Reuters article by John Kemp.
A favorite target of deniers is the late M. King Hubbert, a Shell geologist who predicted (accurately) that U.S. oil production would peak around 1970, as it did. But toss in some misdirection, add a few pieces of related but not exactly relevant quasi-facts, and soon enough we’re in a discussion about something not the same as the one we started. It works for them, so they keep trotting out the playbook on a regular basis.
Of course, “works for them” is an objective itself open to some debates as to the merits and benefits. Keeping the uninformed uninformed after the discussion ends is one goal, not an especially admirable or helpful one, but it is a goal they shoot for.
U.S. oil production peaked at 3.5 billion barrels in 1970 and then declined steadily to just 1.8 billion barrels in 2008….
But since 2005, Hubbert’s predictions have been spectacularly falsified.
Total petroleum output (which includes oil, gas and condensates) has surged from a low of just 5.15 billion barrels in 2005 to 7.13 billion barrels in 2013.
Output is at the highest level since 1973 (7.26 billion barrels) and is on course to beat the 1972 record (7.34 billion barrels) in 2014 (Chart 3).
The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which have enabled oil and gas extraction from previously impermeable rock formations, is responsible for disproving Hubbert’s thesis.
But it is worth asking why Hubbert’s theory proved to be wrong because it sheds light on why oil and gas supplies will never run out in any meaningful sense.
Let’s discuss a few of his disingenuous comments. If 3.5 billion barrels in 1970 is the peak in production [which it was, at approximately 9.6 million barrels per day], why are we discussing a 2005 production total of 5.15 billion barrels without any explanation of “total petroleum output” and then comparing it to 1972 and 1973 allegedly “record” totals? And did we really jump from 3.5 billion barrels in 1970 [when “U.S. oil production peaked”–as it did] to more than double that in just two years? What’s the peak, then? (And in what alternate Universe did the United States produce nearly 20 million barrels per day of anything close to “total petroleum”?)
Magic! (And nonsense.)
Hydraulic fracturing has in fact resulted in an increase in U.S. production totals in recent years, but we are still below the Hubbert-predicted 1970 highmark. And adding more generous definitions of what constitutes “oil production” is a nice bit of legerdemain, but facts are stubborn: they aren’t nearly as impressed with misleading, context-free discussions as some appear to be. Good of Mr. Kemp not to mention any of the difficulties which will impact future production totals from his touted shale formations [rapid decline rates, inferior quality, etc., but they do get in the way of a pleasant narrative, so there’s that justification].
But most of us who are concerned about peak oil [facts can be very persuasive], do not dispute that the “not running out of oil” meme is correct. But the clever “will never run out in any meaningful sense” qualifier is itself open to some differing interpretations. If society has at its disposal 90% of fossil fuel supplies available for use, or 63%, or 46%, or 22%, that may nonetheless fit neatly into Mr. Kemp’s definition, but how might our society continue to function as it does now? Less is less, and if we are all accustomed to and insist upon more (or at least the same), then less is not a good thing “in any meaningful sense.”
That there might be gazillions of reserves underground or under the sea is all fine and well if just proving that proposition is enough. But we’re having an entirely different discussion if we’re concerned with getting it from there to here for our use. That part of the discussion never finds its way into the Happy Talk narrative. If someone persuades us that Jupiter has quadrillions of barrels of conventional crude oil just waiting to extracted, and that’s the beginning and the end of the conversation, then great! But getting it from there to here [slight exaggeration to make the point duly-noted], then those totals stop being useful very quickly “in any meaningful sense.”
I‘ll have a few more thoughts on this in my next post.
9 Comments on "Peak Oil: Denial Magic 1"
Nony on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 9:52 am
Yawn. Hubbard failed on the amount of US production (more important to him than the timing, read the 1956 paper). He failed spectacularly on the timing and amount of world oil production. And he screwed up on US natural gas peak prediction. And every single failure was by predicting LESS than what happened. Typical doomer.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 10:30 am
“A favorite target of deniers is the late M. King Hubbert.”
As exemplified by Nony in his post above and by countless other posts by Nony on this forum. Attacking the credibility of Hubbert and trying to demonstrate that Hubbert’s predictions were wrong is a favorite pastime of Nony on this forum — he dedicates himself to it, you might say.
But what Nony doesn’t — apparently can’t — understand is that it really doesn’t even matter whether Hubbert’s predictions were correct or not.
What DOES matter that the ever-growing demand for more oil has run face first into the brick wall of geological constraints. While anti-peak oil advocates like Nony are comforted to know that there remain vast amounts of oil embedded in deep rock formations around the world, or many thousands of feet under the surface of oceans, the fact remains that getting that oil requires ever increasing amounts OF OIL just to extract, process and move the finished products to market.
Nony and anti-peak oil advocates don’t even want to consider the many trillion$ in global debt that the nations of the world have accumulated when they talk about oil availability and future oil extraction. They don’t want to recognize that THE primary reason for that ever growing global debt is to compensate for the extremely high cost of oil extraction, as compared to the “cheap and easy-to-get” oil that industrial civilization was built on.
The anti-peak oilers like Nony are most often focused on minutia of shale oil decline rates, the quality of that oil, the predictions and possibilities of further shale developments, the “new and revolutionary” technologies that will make it possible to squeeze even more oil out of those stubborn rocks. They are OBSESSED with shale oil, because shale oil is ALL THEY GOT to counter Hubbard’s original theme, and that is, the world is going to run out of oil.
We won’t ever run out of oil in the ground. What we will run out of is oil that we can get OUT of the ground. And the two reasons why we won’t be able to get it out of the ground is because it is either too expensive, or it takes more energy to get that oil out of the ground than the extracted oil would provide.
Nony and his like-minded kin: Typical deniers of reality.
Nony on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 11:49 am
Rockman challenged me to read the paper. I did. Have you, NWR? Thought about it?
It’s really quite accessible and even delightful to read (analogy to Age of Exploration, chemical feedstocks, coverage of coal and nuclear, etc.) I enjoy it as an analysis and as clear communication. Even the use of the graph paper and discussion of the integral being just counting the squares under the curve (I think in one section, he even describes total production as a set number of squares). Really…it’s nice.
Of course, he still screwed the pooch in terms of estimating the effects of price and technology. And he estimated low (typical peaker, doomer, Malthusian). But still…nice paper. Instead of riding the guy’s jock as some sort of patron saint who must not be disrespected, I think you do him more credit to look at his work critically (for one thing, it forces to actually read it!)
Plus he was supposed to be a jerk and intellectually intolerant. So he and I have that in common. He mah brotha. 😉
chilyb on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 12:58 pm
I have a question for Nony:
Do you not believe that the rate of oil extraction will peak and then irreversibly decline? Or is it a question of the time frame when this happens? IMO if the peak is 5 years or 50 years from now, it is still geologically a blink of the eye (or less).
Nony on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 1:17 pm
I agree with you (big picture, ignoring temporary blips…but smoothed, yes.) My issue is with the timing, with the conspiracy thinking (twilight in the desert, Savinar-strologist, ASPO picketing outside the EIA, etc.) and with people who ignore the role of economics, futures curves, technology, etc. There’s a history of simplistic depletion assumptions based on current reserves calculations and technology. And that view has been spanked several times in the past (Yergin documents some of these…sadly Hubbard despite his readable paper and nice synthesis is become one more of these). But eventually the peakers win.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 1:28 pm
“Plus he was supposed to be a jerk and intellectually intolerant. So he and I have that in common.”
Nony, that is an honest self-appraisal if I ever saw one. They say that facing up to your problem and admitting you have it means you’re half way there. Question is, do you even desire to go the other half of the way, or are you happy right where you’re at? My guess, you are happy right where you’re at. In the end, you are quite a mischievous devil, which is both why you aggravate me at times and why I immensely like you at other times. Oh, and your sock puppets too.
chilyb on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 3:12 pm
Cool, thanks for explaining your angle.
“But eventually the peakers win.”
I don’t think anyone really wins here!
GregT on Mon, 14th Jul 2014 9:01 pm
“But eventually the peakers win.”
Sorry Nony, there will be no winners. Peakers are not waiting with baited breath for the end of modern industrial society.
Peak conventional oil already occurred, and the resulting economic contraction is well underway. The only person here that repeatedly ignores the economic aspect of the peak, is you. Not only are you ridiculing those much more in the know than you, you have also mocked physics, biology, geology, and mathematics. Sorry Nony, but you are living in a cornucopian dream, while completely ignoring the reality that is unfolding before your tightly shut eyes.
Dredd on Tue, 15th Jul 2014 6:26 am
The oil imperialists got religion in the U.S.eh?:
So Elijah went to Zarephath, and as he came to the town gate, he saw a widow gathering firewood. “Please bring me a drink of water,” he said to her. And as she was going to get it, he called out, “And please bring me some bread, too.”
She answered, “By the living LORD your God I swear that I don’t have any bread. All I have is a handful of flour in a bowl and a bit of live oil in a jar. I came here to gather some firewood to take back home an d prepare what little I have for my son and me. That will be our last meal, and then we will starve to death.”
“Don’t worry, “Elijah said to her. “Go on and prepare your meal. But first make a small loaf from what you have and bring it to me, and then prepare the rest for you and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says; ‘The bowl will not run out of flour or the jar run out of oil before the day that I, the LORD, send rain.’”
The widow went and did as Elijah had told her, and all of them had enough food for many days. As the LORD had promised through Elijah, the bowl did not run out of flour nor did the jar run out of oil.
Oil-Qaeda wants us to believe that the LORD is with them, so, like in the case of the widow, production will not decline.
But we know they are not saints, prophets, or even truth tellers, no, they are toxic and deadly.