[JV153]

Nonsense, there is over a million years of oil left at low enough production rates.

1) Oil production will be half of what it is now 25 years from now unless CTL really gets going. CTL use on a large scale will seriously deplete coal reserves in a couple decades.

2) 25 yrs from now China+India+Brazil+plus assorted Middle Eastern and Asian countries will be using much more oil.

3) the amount oil needed to get at the remaining oil is increasing, in particular for LTO (light tight oil) requiring a huge number of operating wells and service to each well.

4) Biofuels and food are heavily subsidized by oil and natural gas. One could even do a rough estimate as to how much fuel is used just for food production.

On a plus note: wind, solar and natural gas use will increase and nat gas reserves seem to be a bit larger than initially thought. Tar sands production will continue to increase slowly. Fracking seems to have better potential for increased nat gas production. Large scale production of batteries is a problem, none of which are being used for really heavy oil users like ships, planes or heavy trucks, bucket excavators, tractors or combines, or even regular cars. As margins for trucking, shipping and flying decrease the incentive to buy new technology won't appear unless money isn't a barrier to adoption of new technology.

[ralfy]

From what I remember, the IEA forecasts a 9-pct increase for total oil and gas production worldwide for the next two decades, but only as long as crude oil production remains flat indefinitely.

Meanwhile, oil demand will have to go up by 1-2 pct a year to ensure economic growth, or something like a Saudi Arabia in new oil every seven years. And if the new oil has lower returns, and if demand accelerates, then even more will be needed.

[JV153]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'F')rom what I remember, the IEA forecasts a 9-pct increase for total oil and gas production worldwide for the next two decades, but only as long as crude oil production remains flat indefinitely.

Meanwhile, oil demand will have to go up by 1-2 pct a year to ensure economic growth, or something like a Saudi Arabia in new oil every seven years. And if the new oil has lower returns, and if demand accelerates, then even more will be needed.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JV153', 'T')here are 800-900 million vehicles out there, not including the real heavy diesel users like ships, means that already today many vehicles don't have enough fuel for originally planned demand.

[dolanbaker]

I don't think that the quantity really matters half as much as the distance travelled by people who own the least efficient vehicles. For example 100 US commuters doing 200km roundtrips every day will use more fuel that 10,000 Chinese motorists who just use their car for shopping and the like.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JV153', '
')
Oh, the IEA.. but what does Birol say unofficially ? Anyway a simple calculation shows that at 30 Gb/yr oil use 300 Gb of oil are used per decade and with proven reserves (2012) at 1350 Gb that isn't a long time. A simpler calculation shows that 10,000 heavy trucks (400 L diesel a day) use about 1 Gb in 25 years if operating continuously 365 days a year. (250 Mb diesel, at a 25% from each barrel of oil).
There are 800-900 million vehicles out there, not including the real heavy diesel users like ships, means that already today many vehicles don't have enough fuel for originally planned demand.

[Dybbuk]

Seems like all the anti-peak-oil arguments follow the same templates:

1. Straw man: "Peak oilers say that we're running out of oil! Here's some evidence that we have a lot of oil left!". Conclusion: peak oilers are kooks that should be ignored. Fact ignored: (most) peak oilers don't say that "we're running out of oil".
2. Guilt by association/false dichotomy: 1) Person A said X 10 years ago, and was proven spectacularly wrong. 2) Person B is saying something vaguely similar to X now. 3) Conclusion: since Person A was so wrong, Person B should be branded a kook and ignored.

[agramante]

Among other fallacies, the cornucopians tend to assume that oil production is a step function: flat, or nearly so, for its lifetime, with a vertical drop-off at the end: simply divide reserves (the more optimistic the better) by consumption rate, and boom, you got your horizon! But area-under-the-curve calculations become a lot funkier when there's an actual curve, not just a straight line. And most folks have checked off the math train long before that station.

One other remark, nothing at all to do with peak oil, but a longstanding peeve of mine--and actually, Rock, there's no evidence you got it wrong. What you wrote agrees with the real meaning of the thing--but enough people do get it wrong that it drives me batty. "Romeo, Romeo,wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Why do people think Juliet's asking where Romeo is!? She's asking why he is--you know, why does he have to exist, and screw up her life so much. But that's what archaic English--sort of like calculus--will do. And you (maybe ) asking why straw men exist, isn't such a stretch either.

Like another, much more longstanding beef I have...remember the old "Mikey Likes It!" commercials for Life cereal? And everybody got those wrong, and assumed that Mikey likes everything. No, people. Mikey hated everything. That's why it was so amazing that he liked Life. But, as a Mikey myself, I got so many "Mikey likes it!" as I grew up that I wanted to hit something.

Anyhow, thanks for listening. Just had to get that off my chest.

[Synapsid]

agramante,

Thanks for the "wherefore" comment. I struggled and struggled with my self (remember Juliet?) to keep from writing the very same thing. Now it's out there in spite of my failure of nerve.

[Outsailing]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dybbuk', 'S')eems like all the anti-peak-oil arguments follow the same templates:

1. Straw man: "Peak oilers say that we're running out of oil! Here's some evidence that we have a lot of oil left!". Conclusion: peak oilers are kooks that should be ignored. Fact ignored: (most) peak oilers don't say that "we're running out of oil".

[agramante]

Because supply is already becoming a problem. Limited supply, and the associated price spike, in them mid-2000's led directly to the global recession. And the ongoing lack of global recovery (particularly in Europe, which produces very little oil) can be correlated to ongoing high oil prices as well.

Now the numbers are hard to find--charts for global production tend to break things down by country, or by region (or economic grouping--OPEC, OECD, etc.), but not by liquid cateogry such as crude, tight oil, or condensate. Neither tight oil nor condensate can replace crude--both are too light. A number of contributors to this site, such as westexas, have done a lot of digging into exactly this topic, and have found that crude oil production--actual heavy crude, not the light & tight stuff--peaked around 2005. Production increases since then have been the result of fracking, condensate capture, and including still other things like refinery gain and even biofuels in the budget. A lot of photoshopping of an otherwise somewhat grim picture, in other words.

The additional, lighter fuels have thus far been enough to maintain the illusion of plentiful oil, but the still-staggering world economy--great in some places, and still prone on its face in others--is pretty strong evidence of the contrary. You can find grossly wrong predictions on either side easily enough, but that's no substitute for comprehension. More than three straight decades of production outpacing discovery is a grim enough reality.

[Dybbuk]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outsailing', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dybbuk', '
')2. Guilt by association/false dichotomy: 1) Person A said X 10 years ago, and was proven spectacularly wrong. 2) Person B is saying something vaguely similar to X now. 3) Conclusion: since Person A was so wrong, Person B should be branded a kook and ignored.

[Dybbuk]

...And I'm sure if you dig deep enough in some historical archive, you can find a quote by some corny who predicted that world oil production would be 100 million BPD by 2014. Well, he was wrong. So does that mean that any corny who is predicting now that we'll have 100 million BPD in 2030 must be also wrong?

[agramante]

We can only evaluate the claims based on the evidence we have right now, Dybbuk. And that evidence--a decade of straining, with huge investments in exploration and production leading only to a 5-to-10% increase in liquids production since 2005--while production of actual crude has been stagnant--doesn't bode well for a further increase over the next fifteen years. It could happen, of course. But there are a number of things happening already, which won't change: that production will be at greater cost than it is even now. Perhaps by then, the oil of the Monterey Shale will actually be economical to produce...and that might not be such a good thing for the average consumer. As 2008 should have taught everybody, capital is not unlimited. Endless inflation (the mantra of growth), however gentle, when confronted by constricting supply is a recipe for disaster. We've already weathered one such shock, in 2008, and I'd say that without the conscious and ongoing support of the world's major governments, the major banks would already have ceased to exist--they're still zombies, even if they don't know it. Even if supply expands slightly to 100 million bopd, higher oil prices will mean nothing but bad things for the global rank & file.

[DesuMaiden]

There is far less than 100 years of oil left in the ground. I say only 40 years of oil left in the ground at our current rate of consumption.

[ROCKMAN]

D - There will be many billions of bbls oil left in the ground in 50 years...100 years...etc. Today there are hundreds of billions of residual oil left in the ground in fields discovered over the last 100 years. I'm currently producing such oil from a field in Texas that was discovered 70 years ago. I couldn't drill for that oil when it was going for $35/bbl but now I can. But at some point much of that residual oil, as well as those yet to be discovered reservoirs, will remain in the ground because the global economies will never be able to afford what it will take to get it out of the ground. So as always how much oil is left to produce is more then just a function of how much is in the ground. Last year there was a significant amount of oil left in the ground in the shales that would be produced...at $100/bbl. Next year, at $65/ bbbl...or less, not so much.

And there's the standard response: PO isn't about how much oil will/won't be produced or how much oil is/isn't in the ground. It's about the max oil production rate available.