Peak Oil is You
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Page added on January 21, 2016
Dancing on the grave of “peak oil” – will it stay buried?
In my November 2007 column, Peak Oil Again?, when oil prices had reached $100 per barrel, I concluded, “Some day peak oil production will be reached, but most oil reserve estimates suggest that there are good reasons to doubt that that day is now at hand.” And that was before fracking and horizontal drilling had unleashed the shale oil revolution.
A quick Google check of the news finds that the more prominent peak oilers – Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrère, Kenneth Deffeyes, Daniel Goodstein – are maintaining a decorous silence as the price of crude sinks below $28 per barrel. After all, the International Energy Agency just warned that the world is “drowning” in oil. So no Jeremiads about the impending end of an oil-starved industrial civilization are appearing in the media. Nor, sadly, do many journalists seem interested in probing why the peakists’ widely touted dire forecasts have, once again, proven wrong.
Well, one peak oiler, Richard Heinberg from the Post Carbon Institute, has actually spoken up recently on RT (Russia Today) during a program that discussed the current “oil crisis.” The crisis is low prices, not peaking production. The RT interviewer asked Heinberg:
In your view will we ever see the oil prices return to their peak or are we here with this new reality for good?
R[ichard] H[einberg]: It’s impossible to say what oil prices will do in the future.
Well, yes. But Heinberg was not always so sagaciously reticent. For eample, in the 2010 foreword to his 2007 Neo-Malthusian classic Peak Everything: Waking Up to a Century of Declines, Heinberg declared:
I argued that the industrial expansion of the past century or two was mainly due to our accelerating use of the concentrated energies of cheap fossil fuels; and that as oil, coal, and natural gas cease to be cheap and abundant, economic growth will phase into contraction. I further pointed out that world oil production was at, or very nearly at its peak, and that the imminent decline in extraction rates will be decisive, because global transport is nearly all oil-dependent, and there is currently no adequate substitute for petroleum. Finally, I noted that the shift from growth to contraction will impact every aspect of human existence—financial systems, food systems, global trade—at both the macro and micro levels, threatening even our personal psychological coping mechanisms.
Nothing has happened in the past three years to change that outlook—but much has transpired to confirm it. …
Thus Peak Oil likely represents the first of the limits to growth that will turn a century of economic expansion into decades of contraction.
In 2007, global crude oil production averaged around 84 million barrels daily; it is now about 94 million barrels per day. Peak what? With regard to the availability of natural resources, much has happened in the last five years; and nearly all of it has refuted the doom-laden predictions made in Peak Everything.
Did I mention that I have a chapter, – “Is the World Running on Empty?” – in my book, The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century, that analyzes how resource doomsters like Heinberg always get it wrong?
23 Comments on "Dancing on the grave of “peak oil” – will it stay buried?"
roxy on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 3:41 pm
Oil will peak, whether oil prices are high or low. In fact, according to some we are now at peak. I doubt the world will ever exceed it again.
Harm on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 4:07 pm
Eventually, oil extraction will peak and decline. Problem is it’s impossible to predict exactly when. Which is why premature doomerist predictions are so problematic. The public reads screeds like this and think scarcity is a debunked concept.
dave thompson on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 4:33 pm
When I look at crude oil less condensate, corn squeezens, french fry oil, refinery gain hogwash and the like, I would call it the undulating plateau of peak oil. 73-76 bbls per day for the past 10 years or so.
shortonoil on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 4:56 pm
A very, very stupid article. Of course the world does not run out of oil, it runs out of oil that producers can make money extracting. At today’s $28 that is about now. When producers can no longer make money producing oil they will stop. 60% of the world’s resource will remain exactly where it has always been; in the ground. When producers can no longer make money producing oil the price does not go up, it goes down. The economy that oil powers disappears, and the demand for oil along with it. Simple one, two, three, 1) all the profit making oil is extracted, 2) producers stop producing oil, 3) the economy that buys it disappears. Now Johnny, “write that on the board 100 times”.
twocats on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 5:45 pm
I mean if oil is so plentiful, and this producing oil thing is such a flipping slam dunk, why are so many energy companies going belly up, borrowing at 10+% (and still not able to attract investors), and spreading contagion globe-wide? I thought this problem was solved with technology? And I also rolled up my sleeves, so there’s that.
twocats on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 5:52 pm
http://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-except-iran-has-peaked/#more-11308
and in actual peak news, Ron’s article got kind of breezed by earlier in the day, not sure if anyone saw it. I love Ron’s posts, but this headline of OPEC peaking except Iran, that’s really just an educated guess. He doesn’t really have an idea, and it doesn’t matter, their production is still right at undulating plateau set back in 2008, which might not be growing production, but its still not peak.
ennui2 on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 6:10 pm
This is koch brothers funded misinformation. At the same time, Doomer chicken little predictions only provide ammo to these people.
ghung on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 6:22 pm
In 20 or 30 years someone will write an article; <b<Pissing on the Grave of Industrialists. Hoping I’ll be around to read it.
Welch on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 6:29 pm
I don’t care how much some of you guys think you know, the price of oil is going to rise again, oil companies are going to profit again, and there will be economic growth again…at some point. Jesus Christ–yes we face many challenges, but most people I’ve been following on here and TOD for the past ten years have been flat out wrong in their poictions. Peak oil is now eh Short? Sorry I but I think you’re full shit. We’ll see.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 6:44 pm
“The Reason Foundation is a self-described “libertarian” [1] think tank. The Reason Foundation’s projects include NewEnvironmentalism.org and Privatization.org, as well as Reason Magazine[2] It is part of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation network.
The Reason Foundation is funded, in part, by what are known as the “Koch Family Foundations,”[3] and David Koch serves as a Reason trustee. [4]
According to the Reason Foundation’s 2009 Internal Revenue Source 990 return form, it took in $6 million in donation income against $6.7 million in expenses, with only $639,236 in subscription revenue and $113,575 in ad revenue”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Reason_Foundation
makati1 on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 6:59 pm
Welch, nice dream for those who give a shit about income from their oily investments. Some of us don’t.
Better the whole thing collapse’ now, while there is still enough ecology left for our kids and grands to exist on. Another 5-10 years of BAU and they too will be f–ked.
Mother nature does not give a damn about the two legged humans that infest her world. Natural laws are not negotiable. We seem to have already doomed the human race to extinction by 2100. The sooner our globalized, just-in-time system goes down, the better chance we have of dodging that bullet. Tomorrow is a good day for it to happen. Let’s get it over with.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 7:08 pm
Mak, it’s far too late. Planetary physics and biology guarantees our exit from the evolutionary stage before this century is out. Arrogant greedy cancer apes dug their grave decades ago. Apes are burying themselves alive.
More Signs of Winter Arctic Melt — Icebergs are Showing up off Newfoundland in January
“From pole to pole the ice is melting. Winter is retreating. And much of life and even the seasons themselves appear to have been thrown off-kilter. In the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic Peninsula, krill populations have dropped by more than 50 percent due to a shortening of the season in which sea ice forms. The North Pole now experiences near or above freezing temperature events during Winter with increasing frequency. Greenland appears to be undergoing melt episodes during Winter. And now, the iceberg season for Newfoundland is starting four months early.”
http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/21/more-signs-of-arctic-melt-icebergs-showing-up-off-newfoundland-in-january/
Davy on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 7:29 pm
“most people I’ve been following on here and TOD for the past ten years have been flat out wrong in their predictions.” Most? Flat? “Got backup” Welsh get with the picture. Ten years is not a relevant enough marker for evolving systematic events. Ten years just begins to show some good data. We know it would take twenty to fifty years to transition to a new economic and social system. In our case the transition will be back a few generations in decline and decay with population reduced to a more natural carrying capacity of 1BIL or less.
You talk about challenges. We have not met challenges like what we are about to meet. What we have done is squandered and pillage. How is that related to meeting challenges? Nope, sorry, this will be about meeting challenges once we are hungry and cold as a people. Now that we are in a deflationary demand and supply cycle of destruction with a population 6BIL into overshoot, yea, we are going to meet some challenges. Nothing about our past was a challenge. Our modern history is one of ignorance and hubris. If there were challenges they were created by our own stupidity and arrogance.
Boat on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 8:29 pm
Davy
“Nothing about our past was a challenge. Our modern history is one of ignorance and hubris”.
Bless your heart Davy you went off the deep end again. The people in the way of Genghis Kahn might feel different. How about the black plague. How about 20 -30 other bad events in human history. You think you can predict the
future and I will be here right with to show you the error of your rhetoric.
makati1 on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 8:31 pm
Ap, you are probably correct. I still hold out some ‘hope’ that there will be a correction by Mother Nature in the form of a massive volcanic eruption or some other off-the-wall event to lower the temps and shift the climate. Not likely though.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 8:57 pm
Boat, congratulation on finally learning how quotation marks work. 58 years is a long time. I’m proud of ya. Your next mission, if you should choose to except it, is to get a dictionary and look up the word “Unprecedented”.
There Hasn’t Been This Much Carbon in the Atmosphere for Millions of Years
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-the-earth-looked-like-the-last-time-co2-levels-were-this-high
Boat on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 9:04 pm
apeman,
Peer pressure from the Canadians. I am not to old to change. Except for the body which screams from normal work.
Apneaman on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 9:10 pm
We just want what’s best for you boat.
GregT on Thu, 21st Jan 2016 11:28 pm
“Peer pressure from the Canadians.”
Don’t give in to peer pressure Boat, keep communicating at the level of a 12 year old. Those Canadians don’t want you to look smart. They want you to continue to look like an idiot.
Cause that’s what all those peer pressuring Canadians do.
Apneaman on Fri, 22nd Jan 2016 12:50 am
The myth of US self-sufficiency in crude oil
http://crudeoilpeak.info/the-myth-of-us-self-sufficiency-in-crude-oil
shortonoil on Fri, 22nd Jan 2016 6:49 am
“I don’t care how much some of you guys think you know, the price of oil is going to rise again, oil companies are going to profit again, and there will be economic growth again…at some point.”
The oil production curve is an energy function; we use oil as a source of energy. There is more to it than just filling up barrels. If all we wanted to do was to fill up barrels, water would be a lot cheaper. The energy curve looks a lot like Hubbert’s curve. It goes up the front side, and down the back. Wealth is created up the front side, and wealth is destroyed going down the back. We are now on the back side of the energy curve. Using oil is no longer adding wealth to the economic system, it is taking it away. It is taking it away at a rate of several $trillion per year.
Basing an entire civilization on one commodity with the characteristics of petroleum probably wasn’t such a good idea! Faustian deals have a way of not working out very well!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
regardingpo on Fri, 22nd Jan 2016 8:21 am
I find this Boat fellow incredibly pathetic. He pretends like he’s all cool and calm, but his real face shows through the cracks.
Here’s one clue – he keeps misspelling other users’ names. He calls Apneaman – Apeman, for example. And then he feigns respectfulness.
I’m sure that in his mind this counts as a “win”, but in reality it’s childish and embarrassing.
shortonoil on Fri, 22nd Jan 2016 2:34 pm
“Peak oil is now eh Short? Sorry I but I think you’re full shit. We’ll see.”
Moodys just down graded over one-half $trillion in energy debt to junk. They don’t think the price is ever coming back. That is what we have been saying since the spring of 2014:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm
Looks like you have kind of a lonely vigilant!