[cat]

I am new to this and have been reading arguments on both sides of the aisle and I am having difficulty understanding a few things. First, it often doesn't seem clear when people are trying to determine when peak will occur what oil reserves they are taking into account. It seems that the most optimistic dates include shale and tar sand reserves and the more pessimistic dates do not. Is this generally true? From everything I've read it seems that tar sands and even more so shale should not be counted, especially damning is the recent Exxon/Mobile report. Also, what of heavy and sour crude? Are these reserves used in the more pessimistic peak oil dates? It seems that they should not be left out. From my understanding the current oil crunch is due to the fact we cannot process these heavier oils, but that is what we are getting from SA at this point. Which leads me to ask - is SA peaking in sweet light crude, but has much heavy or sour crude left? If this is true then in the next few years if we can build refineries that can process heavy sour crude wouldn't oil prices come down and things would go back to somewhat normal? Or, is the heavy sour stuff about to peak as well, or is it already included in the pessimstic peak dates? Or does it have some other obstacles besides refineries that can process it? Hope this makes sense - like I said I'm new at this.

[Doly]

Colin Campbell has studied all these issues. You can see his analysis at peakoil.net

[big_rc]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cat', 'I') am new to this and have been reading arguments on both sides of the aisle and I am having difficulty understanding a few things. First, it often doesn't seem clear when people are trying to determine when peak will occur what oil reserves they are taking into account. It seems that the most optimistic dates include shale and tar sand reserves and the more pessimistic dates do not. Is this generally true? From everything I've read it seems that tar sands and even more so shale should not be counted, especially damning is the recent Exxon/Mobile report. Also, what of heavy and sour crude? Are these reserves used in the more pessimistic peak oil dates? It seems that they should not be left out. From my understanding the current oil crunch is due to the fact we cannot process these heavier oils, but that is what we are getting from SA at this point. Which leads me to ask - is SA peaking in sweet light crude, but has much heavy or sour crude left? If this is true then in the next few years if we can build refineries that can process heavy sour crude wouldn't oil prices come down and things would go back to somewhat normal? Or, is the heavy sour stuff about to peak as well, or is it already included in the pessimstic peak dates? Or does it have some other obstacles besides refineries that can process it? Hope this makes sense - like I said I'm new at this.

[JoeGreene]

You bring up a most important subject and I hope there is help, I'll try to do my part.

With energy, there are two considerations: the amount and the resistance to putting it to use.

One analogy is a car battery; many have had this experience. Electrictly, every thing appears okay: radio, dash, lights, power seats ect. However, when the key is turned everything dies along with an onimous click.

Sure, it could be the amount of energy in the battery BUT it also could be getting the energy to its demand point in the time required to accomplish the task (i.e the connection or resistance). When starting a car, the thing that demands the most energy in the shortest time is the starter motor. Thus, in starting problems, the symptom of having a bad battery connection is identical to having a ba battery.

So, a car needs one big heavy piece of copper - well connected - to deliver battery energy to supply the load (the starter coils demand a lot of energy in a short time thus resistance has to be reduced for that one task: running the motor that cranks an engine).

Thus, energy from the sun is stored in a battery in the ground (in the form of hydrocarbons). We've build up humanity on the deliverability, portability of light crude. And, we've built humanity with the need of getting an ever increasing amount with time; our monetary system is predicated on growth (interest).

With all the wealth in and on the planet, we esteem and honor that which removes the most in the shortest time. The jury is still out, but the vertict is predictable; there's a lot more to peak oil than peak oil.

So, when someone suggests there is plenty of energy your response might question its deliverability with time.