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Page added on May 17, 2016
Peak Oil: Where To Begin?
The unpleasant truth now and soon is that the ready supply of oil and gas which we almost always take for granted [the occasional price spike notwithstanding] is on its way to becoming not-so-ready. A host of factors now in place are steadily converting possibility into likelihood. Thinking that we’ll just implement a few crash programs to straighten out that potential mess is a nice thought, but we simply do not have the means to make that happen—not the technological capabilities, not the personnel, not the industries, not the leadership … yet. Clearly, we do not have enough time to do it all with effortless ease and minimal disruptions.
The farther we continue to travel down that path which relies on fossil fuels to sustain us rather than on a new one marked “new future with new and necessary alternatives”, the longer and more difficult will our backtracking be. What supplied us on the front part of the journey will no longer be there for us on the ride back. We’re going to have to create entirely new systems and infrastructures and modes of production and transportation—or at the very least re-build extensively—in order to adapt to new sources of energy. So relying on current conditions and practices and customs and tinkering only along the edges simply won’t work because we are going to be dependent on entirely different energy resources.
A recent article highlighted the fact that many oil producers are continuing production efforts even though they are operating at a loss. Many factors obviously contribute to such an incongruous decision, chief among them the costs associated with resumption. How long should we expect those trends to continue?
With low prices anticipated for an extended period of time—which is a boost for consumers but not such a gift to oil producers—what’s the logical outcome? Should we be surprised if production efforts are curtailed even more than they have been [see this]? How can anyone honestly and honorably ignore the consequences of production shutdowns as they relate to production supply?
What magic is being counted on to maintain supply status quo under those conditions?
We are all free to ignore these matters, assuming Someone in the Know is working things out right this minute. We can fall back on our internal defense mechanisms, searching out that little nugget of hope or welcome possibilities for future energy supplies and latch onto that, dismissing all of the other legitimate factors.
These and related efforts won’t alter the underlying realities about what we can expect as a finite resource marches down the other side of the slope. None of these considerations bring much joy to the public or to the messengers. But what’s worse: pretend we have no problems and say nothing [or mislead]; or address the issues, point out the challenges, and begin the necessary public, political, and industrial dialogue which is going to have to take place eventually?
Does it make more sense to start the process of dealing with the long-term impact of a depleting supply of a finite resource while we still have some reasonable options and at least an ample enough supply to provide for the actual transition efforts? We don’t have to, of course. We are free to choose, just as we are free to decide which spokespeople we prefer as a source for information and then act accordingly.
Making sure that facts—all of them—are part of that decision in the first instance may be the best decision of all right now.
Peak Oil Matters by Rich Turcotte
60 Comments on "Peak Oil: Where To Begin?"
marmico on Tue, 17th May 2016 3:21 pm
Thinking that oil could reach $500 is just plain stupid.
Yet you were 99% confident that oil prices by 2020 will be about $208/barrel, or $6.88/gal for transportation fuels. This is probably survivable, but by 2025 those prices will have advanced to $329/barrel and $10.90/gal.
What a fuctard.
shortonoil on Tue, 17th May 2016 5:47 pm
Marm, well, well you’re back. When did they let you out? Hope the warden was too hard on you? How did you get along with the guards.
Apneaman on Tue, 17th May 2016 5:53 pm
Worry? There is one and only one thing the rockmen of this world ever gave a shit about. Same as heroin dealers.
Oil and Gas Quakes Have Long Been Shaking Texas, New Research Finds
Waste disposal from fracking has been the recent culprit in causing man-made earthquakes, but industry has likely been triggering them for decades, study says.
“A new study suggests the oil and gas industry has triggered earthquakes across Texas since 1925. The research, which publishes Wednesday, attempts to set the record straight on what has become a hot-button issue across the state.
With citizens expressing concern about the state’s growing number of quakes lately, scientists have published studies indicating that recent quakes are likely tied to the disposal of oil and gas wastewater, but state energy regulators say there’s still not enough information to explain what’s going on.
Last year, state regulators at the Texas Railroad Commission—the agency that oversees oil and gas exploration—cleared two energy companies of responsibility for causing more than two dozen earthquakes in North Texas with their waste disposal.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and the Southern Methodist University in their latest study, to be published in the journal Seismological Research Letters, classified those North Texas events—and dozens more—as being “almost certainly induced” by the energy companies.”
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/17052016/oil-and-gas-production-earthquakes-texas-new-research-fracking
shortonoil on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:15 am
“Worry? There is one and only one thing the rockmen of this world ever gave a shit about.”
There is no use worrying about; it is a self correcting problem. The petroleum industry is going broke:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm
Producers can no longer replace the reserves that they are extracting. They are now selling their assets (their reserves) to stay in business. The price only has a few more dollars to rise before enough demand destruction sets in to drive the price back down. That’s what the curve shown above is all about. Since oil powers 38% of the world’s economy when it is gone, so also will be the world’s economy. The industry will then lose the ability to drill a bunch of holes in the ground, and the world will have lost the ability to support 7.2 billion people.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
Davy on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:43 am
It is self-correcting or in natural terms there is rebalance. I want to add blaming is only valid if you blame anyone on this site with their computer now. Where do you draw the line and who has the authority to place blame? Can you blame someone mining oil when people are buying it and building a civilization on it and a civilization that will crash without it? Who has the authority to draw that line? We must go back to our very DNA for blame and if we do that then we must acknowledge DNA is beyond human direction. If that is the case it is nature’s fault. Nature is nature so in some unknown distant way it is natures will that we are as we are at where we are at. Blaming is a vicious circle with no exit.
shortonoil on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:44 am
“If that is the case it is nature’s fault.”
We are a species that built a civilization that was more complex than we could manage. Nature gave Homo sapiens a tremendous power to mimic; to learn from what was going on around us. That worked well for a ground dwelling ape on an African savannah. Nature gave us those traits, and but forgot to include the built in restrains. It worked, but it worked too well. We now find that we must crap in our own nest to stay alive. Nature also gave Homo sapiens the ability to recognize its own deficiencies. If we fail we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Robert Spoley on Wed, 18th May 2016 11:51 am
A population of 7.2 billion? Not really. Those were yesterdays numbers. The population is growing exponentially and the energy to maintain it is starting to shrink. The up coming global problem is obvious. Sure, we would all like to have energy supplies that are benign environmentally but sufficient to easily handle the upcoming problem. The problem is that we don’t and a solution is not readily apparent. A good start to solving the problem is to make existing energy supplies last longer. That is: increase efficiency. Another way is to cut the birth rate by 60 – 70%. That will solve a lot of the problem quickly and is relatively painless and requires no new technology. It’s all about self discipline. We can do it voluntarily or mother nature will do it for us INVOLUNTARILY. You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. Your choice. Who do we see about that?
Davy on Wed, 18th May 2016 12:26 pm
Robert, this is all true but we have the inconvenient reality of the gaming theory concept of the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” and the tragedy of the commons. We are only capably of effective self-discipline at lower levels and or smaller organizations not at the global level. We see this reality from the climate conference (parties) in Paris that were completely ineffective. We have another problem of competitive cooperation which works great during a growth period with increasing wealth but works miserably during a period of decline and falling wealth. The other issue is scale of time and the degree of rebalance of population and consumption needed to make an effective change. The numbers are so large as to appear to be unmanageable.
Boat on Wed, 18th May 2016 12:48 pm
Wind and solar are just at the beginning of reaping the benefits of scale. In 5 years growth per year will dwarf the last 5 years. The growth of wind and will be driven by the lowest cost of a btu. This price advantage will transcend politics, ideology, size of country etc. Places with poor wind and sun will suffer.
rockman on Thu, 19th May 2016 6:38 am
There is one and only one thing the fossil fuel consumers of this world ever gave a shit about. Same as heroin users. LOL.