[timmac]

Yep we have over a 100 years left of oil folks, Doom over sorry to ruin your party..

Probably in excess of 50 years before oil production drops below half what is currently. Counting natural gas in total hydrocarbons, probably 90 to 140 years before total hydrocarbon use drops to below half what it is currently. It is likely that this will be enough time to transition to renewables, nuclear, and biomass, with some oil still used for long distance transportation.

And now there isn’t as much DOOM. Peak oil pundits appear to have reached peak doom and are now running out.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/07/09/how-many-years-of-oil-do-we-have-left-to-run-our-industrial-civilization-keeping-in-mind-that-oil-is-a-resource-and-has-an-economical-end/

Happy Days are Back...

[Paulo1]

re statement: "Happy Days are Back... "

Unfortunately, so are you.

[AgentR11]

I think most of the "we're gonna run out soon" crowd left long ago, I think they're obsessing over immigration and FEMA camps right now, you might want to go look for them somewhere else.

Meanwhile.... Yep, we have decades of oil left.... decades of very, very expensive oil; oil that is too pricy to support an emratio of 63-65%, but is still a very good deal for economically productive uses, consequently we seem to be able to hold onto a 58-59% emratio at the current price. We had even less in the 50's to 70's as we hadn't fully opted in all interested female workers, and overall the economy still did the job of making sure most everyone had food and a place to not get rained on.

The question going forward is what will be the price of that barrel of oil, and how will any demand destruction work to limit price and further reduce the percentage of people with reasonably productive jobs.

[dashster]

I would bet that most people predicting an emminent peak in oil production would prefer to be wrong about it. That is, they wouldn't consider 100 years of oil a problem. Even if they are old and not expecting to live much longer, most would have kids and grandchildren who will be alive through any decline they are forecasting.

Although those predicting no problems with oil production in the future may be injecting their hope and desire that it does go up into their calculations, those predicting problems are not injecting a hope and desire that it goes down.

I don't think that Forbes is a good place to get reliable estimates on future fossil fuel production. And in this case, it is not a Forbes writer, but a Quora post that Forbes has chosen to feature on their site. This author is answering a question on future oil production, but in order to boost the optimism in his post he changes it to "Peak Oil (and hydrocarbons)" so he can talk about wind and solar production increasing.

[Peak_Yeast]

"Oil falling to half the production level in 50 years."

That means we have a big problem long before 50 years.

1. an impoverished ecology where we just cant go out and get "free food".
2. population is still growing.
3. declining eroei
4. declining production level
5. increasing pollution
6. water scarcity
7. resource scarcity

So this is a version of the Export Land model where "exports" are being eaten into not by two factors, but 7 or more factors. IOW: It can go very fast very suddenly.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'I') think most of the "we're gonna run out soon" crowd left long ago, I think they're obsessing over immigration and FEMA camps right now, you might want to go look for them somewhere else.

[Sixstrings]

The one thing that is true about the history of energy, is that every time someone said we're gonna run out, then things changed and "they figured something out."

The "they'll figure something out" crowd has always been right.

I posted about it a long time ago -- I have a vintage newspaper I got at a yard sale, from the 1920s. It's got a peak oil article in it. Headline was something like "oil men fear the oil will run out!" It was doomy, folks were worried about it.

They even talked about turning coal into oil.

Ok, so that was about a hundred years ago. They didn't foresee oil tankers, or offshore oil, or worldwide production and world oil trade.

And I remember when I joined this forum, and everyone poo-pooed tar sands and shale. Yet look at how they've worked out. Shale boom in US, coming worldwide shale boom.

Just as in the 1920s, there are things that we can't foresee now.

I've always been careful not to touch this third rail, since this is a peak oil website after all, but truth is I was always on the fence and never could really buy into the peak oil doom. I'm more interested in economics.. and that's been the event-shaper these past number of years, starting with the financial crisis.

[Strummer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')he one thing that is true about the history of energy, is that every time someone said we're gonna run out, then things changed and "they figured something out."

The "they'll figure something out" crowd has always been right.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', 'I')n fact, EVERY single large civilization collapsed when it reached its low EROEI / high complexity limits.

[Strummer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'S')eriously I joined this forum years ago now and I do remember everyone poo-pooed tar sands and shale. It'll "never work out," they said, and they had all these reasons why. Well, they have worked out.

[westexas]

The $64 Trillion Question

Production by the (2005) Top 33 net exporters was up slightly from 2005 to 2012, but their increasing consumption caused their net exports (what I call Global Net Exports of oil, or GNE) in 2012 to be below 2005, with a sizable rate of decline in their ECI Ratio (ratio of production to consumption).

Furthermore, because of rapid increases in oil consumption by China & India (“Chindia”), what I define as Available Net Exports (ANE or GNE less Chindia’s Net Imports, or CNI) fell much more rapidly than GNE.

What happens from 2012 to 2022 is what I call the “$64 Trillion Question.”

Here are the 2012 values for the Top 33 net exporters in 2005, along with 2005 to 2012 rates of change (total petroleum liquids + other liquids, EIA, for net exports):

Production: 63 mbpd (+0.3%/year)
Consumption: 19 mbpd (+2.2%/year)
Net Exports: 44 mbpd (-0.5%/year)

Chindia’s Net Imports in 2012 and 2005 to 2012 rate of increase:

8.8 mbpd (+8.7%/year)

ANE (GNE less CNI) in 2012 and 2005 to 2012 rate of change:

35 mbpd (-2.3%/year)

If we assume that Top 33 production falls at 1.0%/year from 2012 to 2022 and if we assume that consumption continues to increase at the same rate (2.2%/year), GNE in 2022 would be down to 33 mbpd, almost a 3%/year rate of decline. Given this decline rate, unless Chindia’s consumption of GNE falls at 3%/year, or more, the resulting rate of decline in ANE will exceed the GNE decline rate, and the ANE decline rate will accelerate with time.

For example, let’s assume that Chindia’s rate of increase in net imports falls to 5%/year (versus 8.7%/year from 2005 to 2012). Their net imports in 2022 would be up to about 15 mbpd. ANE would be 33 (GNE) – 15 (CNI) = 18 mbpd (ANE), approximately a 50% reduction in the volume of Global Net Exports of oil available to about 155 net oil importing countries (versus 35 mbpd in 2012 and versus 41 mbpd in 2005). The 2012 to 2022 rate of decline in ANE would be 6.6%/year.

Here is what happened from 2002 to 2012 in regard to the ratio of Global Net Exports of oil (GNE) to Chindia's Net Imports (CNI). At a GNE/CNI Ratio of 1.0, the volume of Global Net Exports of oil available to about 155 net importing countries would theoretically be zero. Note that the above described scenario would put the GNE/CNI Ratio at about 2.2 in 2022.

[radon1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', '
')Probably in excess of 50 years before oil production drops below half what is currently.

[ROCKMAN]

Sorry folks...late to the party. In case I missed it did someone point out that PO and its ramifications have nothing to do with how long we will be producing petroleum? Thus the entire premise is false. As far as being a "doomer" over the PO dynamic I'm certainly not a part of that crew. I'm Dog gone happy the way things are playing out...making big bucks sitting on my crippled ass in front of a computer. LOL. OTOH I might feel a bit doomerish if I were sitting in a VA hospital with my legs blown off by an IED while "exporting democracy" to some ME country. Or if I had to choose between how well my family eats this week or filling my gas tank up so I can go work.

Straw man, straw man, where for art thou, straw man?

[ralfy]

Reposts:

"The only true metric of energy abundance: The rate of flow"

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013- ... te-of-flow

"Commentary: Interview with Steve Kopits"

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')eak oil does not occur when we run out of oil. Peak oil occurs when the marginal consumer is no longer willing to pay the cost of extracting and processing the marginal barrel of oil. And we can actually calculate what the related numbers are.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '.')..truth is I was always on the fence and never could really buy into the peak oil doom.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', 'Y')ep we have over a 100 10X years left of oil folks...

[ROCKMAN]

MD - "They never left for those with perspective.". Actually these are some of the happiest of my 23,000 or so days. But, then again, I sell oil for a living as well as having a rather small fossil fuel footprint. Happy days indeed.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', 'Y')ep we have over a 100 years left of oil folks, Doom over sorry to ruin your party.. Probably in excess of 50 years before oil production drops below half what is currently.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'M')D - "They never left for those with perspective.". Actually these are some of the happiest of my 23,000 or so days. But, then again, I sell oil for a living as well as having a rather small fossil fuel footprint. Happy days indeed.

[ROCKMAN]

Steamie - And that's the sad reality of the energy dynamics: when I'm typically doing good my neighbors aren't. OTOH I don't think many of those folks shed tears for me when I was making $50/day delivering produce to restaurants in the mid 80's when the oil patch went through another of its cyclic busts. LOL