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PeakOil is You

THE Prof. Kenneth Deffeyes Thread (merged)

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Postby Keith_McClary » Sun 24 Jul 2005, 03:27:40

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ardalla', 'H')eh, talking about the obscurity of 'eating crow', I was talking at work yesterday about Steve McQueen and Natalie Woods, and a woman said "Who is that?". The woman was 55 years old. I finally found someone she had heard of: John Wayne. People live in very different worlds.

Who is this "John Wayne" you speak of? :P
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Ken Deffeyes on E&E TV

Postby thorn » Wed 27 Jul 2005, 12:44:45

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Postby Raxozanne » Thu 28 Jul 2005, 19:16:36

Well after the latest reports on depletion coming in over the last few days Im beginning to think Deffeyes could be right :?
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Postby brentmeister » Thu 28 Jul 2005, 22:29:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ho is this "John Wayne" you speak of? :P


His real name was "Marian" also. same as M. King
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Postby PhebaAndThePilgrim » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 13:46:11

Good day: The following quotation is from "The Long Emergency" by Kunstler:
"Interview with Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton with Julian Darley of Global PUblic Media, APril 4, 2003. "The Oil and Gas Journal publishes lists of country-by-country world oil production in the last week of each year and lo and behold in the years 2001 and 2002...thenumbers showed that the world oil production had not been as big as it was in the year 2000.
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Postby shady28 » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 18:30:42

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Phebagirl', 'G')ood day: The following quotation is from "The Long Emergency" by Kunstler:
"Interview with Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton with Julian Darley of Global PUblic Media, APril 4, 2003. "The Oil and Gas Journal publishes lists of country-by-country world oil production in the last week of each year and lo and behold in the years 2001 and 2002...thenumbers showed that the world oil production had not been as big as it was in the year 2000.
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That illustrates the flaw in the whole peak oil theory. Oil production is really a map of oil *demand*, not the other way around. Peak oil theory is based on production views of regions where oil production is high vs max production because demand is high in that region. Specifically, the USA.

That's not to say that peak oil theory is completely false, but it's not really valid to look at one field or one region which is being used to near capacity and then comparing to dozens of regions and areas - many of which are not at capacity and have never been pumped at capacity because demand doesn't require it.
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Postby LadyRuby » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 18:58:55

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'j')delagado,

I think the April 2005 EIA report estimating world oil production exceeding world oil demand in the 4th quarter of this year gives Deffeyes PO prediction a little outside credibility. By saying he will eat crow, before we know, leaves you in vulnerable to eat crow. I don't know, but the inherent risk of predicting anything, whether its PO or someone eating crow, means the predictor will be a hero or eat crow. Better just wait and see, Thanksgivings not that far off.


Do you have a copy of this report? I'd love to see it.
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Postby Antimatter » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 04:10:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shady28', ' ')Oil production is really a map of oil *demand*, not the other way around.


I agree, the production curve diverted substantially from the theoretical unconstrained 'hubbert' curve after the first oil shocks, and has been demand constrained since then, hence the Deffeyes method of estimating URR from past production with P/Q vs. Q extrapolations probably won't work too well. Laherrere also tries to do this for Saudi Arabia, which has jacked its production up and down with OPEC policies over the years.
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Postby DefiledEngine » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 05:33:20

So oil "demand" of an oil field slumps down towards zero after a while? Don't think so. No one ever said a hubbert curve was completely smooth in real life.

Isn't it so, that there is some oil that is easy to get to, and other oil that's harder to get to? Couldn't that possibly have an impact on production capacity?
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Postby linlithgowoil » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 05:52:39

the hubbert curve is flawed when used to estimate world production. of course it is, campbell's been wrong a few times before using it.

hubberts curve assumes that each oil field is worked to capacity throughout its lifetime. oil fields in the middle east have not been worked to capacity - this is self evident from the production of, say SA. They've held steady at 9.5mb/day for a while now - that sounds like a country managing their fields prudently at a set rate so as not to damage them. A country that can hold a sustained rate for years is obviously running its fields very well, as compared to the UK, whose fields have been raped hard for years and we're now paying the price.

We'l still have a peak, but im guessing campbell is still 10 years off. I think around 2015 we'll see peak, and hopefully by then oil demand will be a lot lower due to alternatives for transport being in use at a much larger scale.
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Postby Oily_Bill » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 08:08:32

You've gotta ask, why has the oil price trebled over the past eighteen months or so, and become more volatile. And the various statements from OPEC ministers about having lost control, and now the Riots in Yemen, the shortages in Indonesia.

All this makes me think that Peak is Here, now.

Interesting that there does not appear to have been any demand destruction for US gasoline - up 3% over the past year - even though the proce of gas is up 50% or so. How high does the gas price need to go before we see any reuction in use ?
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Postby Cynus » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 12:30:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oily_Bill', 'Y')ou've gotta ask, why has the oil price trebled over the past eighteen months or so, and become more volatile. And the various statements from OPEC ministers about having lost control, and now the Riots in Yemen, the shortages in Indonesia.

All this makes me think that Peak is Here, now.

Interesting that there does not appear to have been any demand destruction for US gasoline - up 3% over the past year - even though the proce of gas is up 50% or so. How high does the gas price need to go before we see any reuction in use ?


It's got to go pretty damn high. You see, in the U.S. there is no other way to get around. The alternative to driving to work is not going to work at all, the alternative to driving to the supermarket is starving. We'll see demand destruction when it costs more to drive to work than you make from working :) (An exageration, obviously: there can be car pooling, maybe some more people can take the bus, maybe some people can move closer to work, but the majority of people are up the creek.)
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Postby BrownDog » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 13:59:54

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercrap', ' ')Marion King Hubbert is the geologist you are thinking of, Edwin Hubble was an astronomer.

Sorry. Brain cloud.
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Postby shady28 » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 15:27:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shady28', 'T')hat illustrates the flaw in the whole peak oil theory. Oil production is really a map of oil *demand*, not the other way around. Peak oil theory is based on production views of regions where oil production is high vs max production because demand is high in that region. Specifically, the USA.

That's not to say that peak oil theory is completely false, but it's not really valid to look at one field or one region which is being used to near capacity and then comparing to dozens of regions and areas - many of which are not at capacity and have never been pumped at capacity because demand doesn't require it.


The USA was and is made of individual fields, each of which endured depletion. It ran out of oil. Now let's try other regions. North Sea oil production is demand constrained? No. It has past it peak. It is actually two countries, Norway and Britain. 15-20 oil producing countries have past their peak. That is a geologic and industrial fact. Within each of those countries individual fields past their geologic and industrial peak One can extrapolate from a well, to a region, to a country, to the world. The planet earth is on its way to The Big Peak


I'm not saying PO is wrong, but the flaw in peak oil i mentioned is not in fact one that wasn't discussed by - Hubbert himself.

PO models existing, active fields and new discoveries vs depletion in a highly devloped easily accessible region (USA). The assumption is that the world mirrors this, or has been made to mirror it due to demand. We already know that there are a half dozen fields that are not being, nor have been, used to any great degree because it was not economically viable to pump that oil (as opposed to pumping oil in the USA, where the model comes from).


To illustrate, let's say that Siberia and the South China Sea were set and ready to drill right now. Have we reached peak oil, even with those online? Of course not. Would demand suddenly rise to meet our increased capacity? No, it wouldn't . In fact, capacity utilization across the world would go DOWN as the new oil wells ramped up. That by definition would make it different from US drilling operations. The difference between this and the USA alone is that the USA pumped to max capacity from day 1. We supplied the world with oil for a long time. When our capacity peaked, the onus switched to Norway and then OPEC.

That's what I mean by overall worldwide production modelling demand, not the other way around. But in a single region, where the infrastructure is good and it's easy to setup to drill a well (like the USA), you're going to run flat out. Other regions are not running flat out, or for that matter haven't been completely setup to drill in the first place.

How's this for an analogy. Lets say you're a caveman on a different planet, and it's just you and your cavewoman. Your cave has a small lake in it so you use that for drinking water. A few years down the road you have kids, but your drinking the water faster than it replenishes from the drops coming down the stalagtites. So, you wander outside your cave and find a small pond (Norway, OPEC). A generation passes, and you've got several small famlies living in your cave now = and now your pond is getting low, and the water in both the cave lake and the pond is kinda stale (heavy crude). But, you've found a couple more ponds farther away. You haven't used them yet because they pass by a bears den and a lions den (Russia and China), plus the distance you have to travel. You are still getting some water from your cave lake and the pond nearby, but now you need more water so you're going to do what you have to do to get at it.

PO models the curve of usage off the first pond, and says that is the model for all water production now and in the future. That's a pretty big fallacy really.
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Postby bruin » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 18:44:43

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shady28', 'P')O models the curve of usage off the first pond, and says that is the model for all water production now and in the future. That's a pretty big fallacy really.


PO model worked for the United States. I'd say that proves the theory in itself.
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Postby Russian_Cowboy » Tue 02 Aug 2005, 02:19:18

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')he very first commercial wells drilled anywhere were in Central Siberia in Baku in 1849.


Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan. It is not in Siberia, it is in the Southwest Caspian.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shady28', ' ')To illustrate, let's say that Siberia and the South China Sea were set and ready to drill right now. Have we reached peak oil, even with those online? Of course not. Would demand suddenly rise to meet our increased capacity? No, it wouldn't . In fact, capacity utilization across the world would go DOWN as the new oil wells ramped up. That by definition would make it different from US drilling operations. The difference between this and the USA alone is that the USA pumped to max capacity from day 1.


Siberia has been pumped to max capacity from day 1 too. The difference is that application of new oil extraction technologies in Siberia somewhat lagged that in the US. Not anymore. Even worse, there are no new significant oilfields in Siberia. All the new oil supply in Russia is coming from the Nenets Autonomous Area, which is technically Europe and Sakhalin island, just north of Japan. Sakhalin island has been produced since 1924.
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Postby OilyMon » Thu 04 Aug 2005, 16:10:29

Production capacity must be defined here. Does it mean the maximum amount of oil that can be extracted in a unit of time? Or does it mean the maximum rate of production that the geological structure will allow for without causing significant damage to the field? Maybe it means sustainable production while causing none or negligable damage to a field.

To say that many oil producers have been underproducing is wrong. Most, by the second definition of the term production capactiy as outlined above, have been overproducing. Think of squeezing a plastic bottle to raise the liquid to the top. If you squeeze too hard to fast you will cut off significant amounts of liquid under the pinched zone, but you'll get a hell of a lotta liquid very quickly.

According to Simmons, the Saudis overproduced their fields for years until the demand destruction of the Oil Shocks in the 70's and 80's. They used these times to rest their fields, ie: let the bottle expand again. Since then, they have been flogging thier field to try and get as much oil out as possible in the shortest amount of time. Production capacity has to stop somewhere.
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Postby lateStarter » Thu 04 Aug 2005, 17:20:20

He should not be sweating, you and I should be (from working on our land and preparations for PO)! On the other hand, if your heart is not really in it and you are only worried about survival (a strong motivation indeed), I would suggest that you just keep doing what you are doing now.

Lots of us though are just sick and tired of the way things are, and yearn to get back to something more sustainable and more emotionally/spiritually satisfying than 'working for the man' or even 'being the man'.

I am also beginning to suspect that a few people here just want to survive and continue to live at the same level of consumption as they are accustomed to now.

Plan for the worse and if doesn't happen - so what? Will you be unhappy?
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