[Revi]

Kevin Anderson says that anything less than an 80% cut in the amount of fossil fuel we consume by the year 2020 would cause us to go over the 2 degree C threshold for catastrophic climate change.

Us humans don't seem to be able to limit ourselves, so we are going to go right over the tipping point if left to our own devices.

Along comes Peak Oil to the rescue.

Assuming that we are at the peak, and we drop 15% per year from here on, we'll be at 15% in 2016, 30% by 2017, 45% in 2018, 60% in 2019 and 75% reduction by 2020, which is close to where we need to be.

Gaia has a way of sorting things out.

Of course this doesn't say anything about the amazing amount of suffering that will transpire, but maybe we'll have a planet that will remain habitable for the survivors.

Please let me know what you think of my idea.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'K')evin Anderson says that anything less than an 80% cut in the amount of fossil fuel we consume by the year 2020 would cause us to go over the 2 degree C threshold for catastrophic climate change.

Us humans don't seem to be able to limit ourselves, so we are going to go right over the tipping point if left to our own devices.

Along comes Peak Oil to the rescue.

Assuming that we are at the peak, and we drop 15% per year from here on, we'll be at 15% in 2016, 30% by 2017, 45% in 2018, 60% in 2019 and 75% reduction by 2020, which is close to where we need to be.

Gaia has a way of sorting things out.

Of course this doesn't say anything about the amazing amount of suffering that will transpire, but maybe we'll have a planet that will remain habitable for the survivors.

Please let me know what you think of my idea.

[Revi]

Here's Kevin Anderson talking about the 2 degree target and why it matters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qZ8ATCIMoA

He says we have to do something soon.

[ROCKMAN]

Revi - "Assuming that we are at the peak, and we drop 15% per year from here on". I'm sorry but you model has zero basis in the dynamics at play IMHO. PO doesn't mean, nor has ever meant, a rapid decline in fossil fuel consumption. First the obvious: PO is Peak oil production and not peak fossil fuel consumption. Second, even if we lose the surge of new oil production from the shales and drop back to the decline of the conventional fields that rate is much lower than your 15%. And remember that while we might not be drilling as many shale wells as we had been the ones that have been drilled will keep producing. And since most of them have passed thru their high decline rate periods they’ll decrease slower than your 15%. IOW there is still a lot of heritage shale oil left to produce. And the world has just seen its oil bill cut about 50%. Common sense would tell us this will lead to more consumption...at least until all the excess capacity (however small that might be) is accessed.

And now consider the economic boost lower oil prices will give developing economies such as China and India. That’s not going to lead them to lower oil consumption. And if they can’t acquire the oil they need to fuel their new economic growth there’s always natural gas…and coal. And as discussed elsewhere whatever alt energy development anyone was forecasting for the future it’s easy to expect those projections will fall far short IMHO since a significant portion of the financial incentive to develop them has disappeared now that oil, NG and coal prices have dropped to lower levels.

[Paulo1]

Last night my wife and I talked about her Ukranian relatives who migrated to northern Alberta early last century. For many years they lived in sod dugout houses until they could get crops on track and lumber cut. They worked like fiends. It was beyond a hard life. It brought to mind an image of Doukobor women plowing the fields by hand, an iconic Canadian image. “In the lead an older tall
woman with a stern face moved with measured but heavy steps, looking at the earth. She knows what life is like and even this work does not
surprise her. She knows this is necessary.” The picture of women taking up the harnesses and plowing the fields is particularly powerful and
much publicized. This iconic image illustrates the ‘frontier spirit’ that was viewed admirably by Canadian society.

http://awmp.athabascau.ca/documents/cmo ... eality.pdf

I know Global Warming induced Climate Change is fact. The Earth will one day re-balance our disruptions and we will suffer. I am afraid the above is the alternative for many. I am thankful for living in the time of FF use and try and respect this useful form of energy by not wasting it. But I will never apologize for its use, or disrespect those who produce it. Perhaps society is like Slim Pickens riding that bomb all the way down, but I submit it was where we started from.

I am sceptical of those 'Green Folks' I see living the urban dream, protesting pipelines and pointing at their community garden plots as if it is a solution to FF use. Then, they go home to their Vancouver Yaletown townhouse and open a fine bottle of wine for a good days work well done. The next day they go back to work at their UBC/Simon Fraser adjunct teaching assignment. It reminds me of the scene in "Easy Rider", where 'the boys' are watching the commune folks spread their seed on the desert sand, somewhere near Taos NM, I think.

People refer to Gaia as if it is some bosom nestling Mother Earth who we forgot about as we try and make a better life. Certainly, awareness of environmental degradation, and our hubris, is a good thing. Thank you Rachael Carson. However, and I am being honest here, most of us will take what we have over a frozen Alberta dugout, plowing virgin ground by hand-dragging a plow, or using a Mother Earth News advertised broadfork.

Guess what? Our Ukranian relatives got a great big surprise shortly after WW2. One day, oil was found on their land. They never looked back. My wife's granddad unfortnately lost his land due to a gambling addiction. He lost it at cards. They moved to Vancouver and lived very poor in East Vancouver. Their house was sold off a couple of decades before housing and property values skyrocketed. My mother-in-law was the only one who made anything of her life working for a huge US shipping company based in Vancouver. The ships hauled grain, bulk oil of various grades, sulpher, and ore concentrates. I guess she didn't stray to far from her roots, after all. Interesting story.

regards

[Revi]

I am basing the 15% drop per year on the Hills group's prediction that the useful work of oil will decline until our society can't afford it, and quickly. He predicts that the going price for oil in 2020 is around $12 a barrel, which means nothing but the legacy fields are going to be producing.

"The Maximum Consumer Price curve is curtailed at 2020 at $11.76/ barrel. At this point petroleum will no longer be acting as a significant energy source for the economy. Its only function will be as an energy carrier for other sources. Production will continue as long as producers can realize the lifting costs at existing fields. E&D expenditures, and field maintenance costs will have been curtailed. All production from that point forward will be from legacy fields only."

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'u')seful work of oil will decline until our society can't afford it

[Revi]

Check out what he says here:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_018.htm

Basically the thesis is that it's going to be so expensive to produce oil that the average person won't be able to afford it by 2020.

[Revi]

I know, it's scary, but look at what's happening. The EROI is dropping really quickly. We aren't going to be able to anything pretty soon. Shale oil and tar sands don't make sense any more. What's next?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'C')heck out what he says here:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_018.htm

Basically the thesis is that it's going to be so expensive to produce oil that the average person won't be able to afford it by 2020.

[Pops]

Show me the link to the study that says oil has an ERI of 2:1

That is the gist of his argument (that and some chart that pretends inflation doesn't exist) and I have never seen a citation.

[KaiserJeep]

Paulo1, I very much enjoyed your post.

Everyone else, please remember that perfectly fine liquid fuels can be produced from coal for between $15 and $20 per US gallon, using processes that were not new when the Germans used them to support their entire wartime economy - and their armies in Europe - during WW2. (You may have heard of lower prices but $15 to $20 is in 2014 inflated US dollars.)

Don't get me wrong - producing such fuels and then burning them in ICEs has serious environmental downsides, even worse than pumping petroleum out of the ground and refining and burning that. Just about as bad as refining tar sands, or fracking tight oil, in fact. But have you ever noted an environmental downside to restrain an American from owning an 8000lb diesel 4WD pickup, or a 15,000lb RV? Or from driving that ridiculous vehicle down the block to pick up a cold 6-pack?

Our American lifestyle will continue as it must. I plan on owning at least two electric vehicles myself, and a lot of solar panels to charge them. One will be a utility vehicle for the retirement homestead, the other will be a road car. Before the end of my life I expect them to be cheaper transportation than gasoline vehicles, which is simply not true today.

As for Climate Change, color me UNINTERESTED. I remain unconvinced that it is real, and even if it was true - it will hurt us far less than did two terms from POTUS Barack Obama.

[Revi]

We all know that the useful portion of oil is going down. Why wouldn't it go down steeply? Right now we are using borrowed money to hold up most of the governments of the world. How's it going to go work out? There might be some oil around, but most of us will be too broke to buy it pretty soon. A lot of people already are.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e all know that the useful portion of oil is going down. Why wouldn't it go down steeply? Right now we are using borrowed money to hold up most of the governments of the world. How's it going to go work out? There might be some oil around, but most of us will be too broke to buy it pretty soon. A lot of people already are.

[KaiserJeep]

So we freaking PEAKED already. The peak is the midpoint of the chart, the median, and production will decline past this point. But the area under the curve past the peak is roughly equal to the area under the curve before the peak. M. King Hubbert told us what to expect decades ago. His basic premise still is valid, even if he did not anticipate how ingenious we would be in finding substitutes for conventional wells:



IIRC, Michael Ruppert called the period we are in the "jagged peaks" on his own charts. As unconventional energy sources become economical to exploit, the price rises and falls. Eventually the price will rise and never fall again - just WHEN is very interesting - my guess is around 2095 AD, and we will then be pretty much screwed, if we still live exclusively on the surface of the Earth.

[Pops]

Actually, no, we haven't peaked. That chart was from an ASPO newsletter in 2004 and predicted PO 5 years away (as Ibon pointed out btw)

As of today we are at about 34GB year of at least somewhat flammable stuff, January was 94mmbopd.
http://www.iea.org/aboutus/faqs/oil/


LOL, I just gotta tease revi, here from 2006; hoping for the big one (underscore is mine):
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') just finished the book, and I would say the most useful fact was that according to Deffeyes the peak is on Thanksgiving of this year. He even says he may be a month or so off, but Hubbert's technique points to this year. It's pretty convincing. It seems like recent events are telling as well. The Saudis just said they can't increase production anytime soon, so maybe this is it!

[Poordogabone]

I have a banana tree that produces 100 bananas per year. its productivity is set to decline by 15% per year because neighborhood dogs love that tree and constantly urinate on it.
first year of decline I get 85 bananas
2nd year 72 bananas
3rd year 61
4th year 52
5th year 44
6th year 37
7th year 31
8th year 26
9th year 22
10th year 19
Damned dogs.
Notice that on the last year it only went down by 3 bananas.

[Pops]

Pete I know all the arguments by heart, you ought to know that. I posted the earlier version of that chart a couple of years ago, I even made my own, LOL

"relabeled ... yada yada" runs in my engine just fine, nat. gas not so much. As for "corn liker" it might interest you to know that it replaced MTBE which was manufactured from methanol and butane, which came from ... natural gas.

It's just semantics, it means nothing to anyone except us.

As far as peak, either:
we haven't peaked
we peaked 10 years ago and gas is $3 anyway... but just wait!