[lateStarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Falconoffury', 'A')ren't the price gouging laws in the United States going to stop a natural balance between supply and demand?

Also, don't some countries such as Malaysia subsidize gasoline prices, resulting in lower prices than they should be?

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ohanian', '[')size=200]
This graph takes into account economic recessions.
[/size]

[RattlesnakeJake]

I found a chart on a DoE web site that lists world oil production since 1970. I modified the spread sheet to show the change in production from one year to the next and to show 10 year averages of the year to year changes. The red numbers represent a decrease in production. Here's the result:



As you can see from the data, the US is clearly past its peak (actually looks like a double peak), but the Persian Gulf and the World have not topped out.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RattlesnakeJake', '.')..the Persian Gulf and the World have not topped out.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RattlesnakeJake', 'b')ut the Persian Gulf and the World have not topped out.

[RattlesnakeJake]

Peak Oil, when it occurs, will be in the middle of many years of relative flat production before it begins declining. I don’t see the flat period, how can we be in the middle of it?

The recent increases in oil price are probably the result of increasing world-wide demand, rather than post-peak declines in production. For many years, continuously increasing production was more than enough to satisfy increasing demand. However, as oil production approaches peak, the increase slows and its corrective affect on increasing demand is eliminated. Small increases in production are no longer sufficient to satisfy the world’s desire for more and more oil, resulting in price competition for existing oil production.

According to the US Census Bureau, world population increased from 3.7 billion in 1970 to 5.3 billion in 1990, an increase of 43% in 20 years. During this period, according to the US Dept of Energy, oil production rose by 36%.

Since much of the world’s population increase occurred in under-developed countries, population increase alone doesn’t explain increased demand for oil. Here are a couple of items that might help:

1. According to Jay Stein’s article, referenced in the Number of Cars webpage, the world population of automobiles increased from 200 million in 1970 to 500 million in 1990, a 150% increase in 20 years.
2. According to this air traffic webpage, world airline traffic (passengers, baggage, freight, and mail) increased from 39 million ton-miles in 1970 to 161 million ton-miles in 1990, more than a 300% increase during the same period.

The good news: World oil production is not decreasing at this time.
The bad news: World oil production is not increasing enough at this time.

The good news will go away; the bad news is here to stay.

Our main concern about Peak Oil is rising prices and runaway inflation. I think the time of world peak oil is a trailing indicator for the expected problems. Rising prices and inflation will lead the peak by many years because they’re caused by increased demand rather than declining production. We may not be ‘way beyond Peak Oil’, but it sure feels like it. The consequences are here now.

[NEOPO]

I understand completely.

Do you understand what I am suggesting really?

I have a hard time understanding why this is not fully possible.

If saudi arabia and most of the worlds current areas in production are not being exploited with the best technology then tell me where it is being used and why there instead.

Big reserve = big money = best tech and that is why we could possibly be well beyond half way before we notice a decline in world production.

I am convinced that you/we are correct with our overall PO outlook - I am not convinced that this theory of WAY BEYOND PEAK is 100% yet I also cannot accept it as being an impossibility.

IMHO - there is a 50% chance I am correct in believing that the gas tank is 60%+ depleted.

I hope I am wrong.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RattlesnakeJake', 'P')eak Oil, when it occurs, will be in the middle of many years of relative flat production before it begins declining. I don’t see the flat period, how can we be in the middle of it?

[RattlesnakeJake]

I found an old (2001) webpage that shows the effect of increasing demand. The assumption here is: unlimited ability to pump and refine (no production peak), and with no price increases. The only variables are total reserves and increasing demand.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')var Nering is a professor emeritus of mathematics at Arizona State University. He lives in Scottsdale, he is 80 years old, and he began teaching math during World War II. Nering wrote an essay, "The Mirage of a Growing Fuel Supply," that recently appeared in The New York Times. Nering said he often used consumption of a nonrenewable resource as an example of the exponential function in his calculus classes, and the simple equation might be helpful to those making decisions about national energy policy.

"Say you have a 100-year supply of crude oil," Nering would say to his students. "That is, the oil would last 100 years if consumed at its current rate. Now assume that people consume the oil at a rate that grows by 5 percent each year. How long would it last now?"

Students had no problem with the calculation, Nering said. The oil would last 36 years.

"What if you had a 1,000-year supply of oil that people used at the same increasing rate of 5 percent each year?" he would ask.

Answer: 79 years.

"What if oil company geologists find an incredible bonanza-a 10,000-year supply of oil, and that oil is consumed at the same rate. How long would that last?"

Answer: 125 years.

The five-percent increase in oil consumption is not a real number; Nering used it as a handy example for his class. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts an average rise in world oil consumption of about 3 percent each year for the next 20 years. But the numbers don't matter as much as the fact that humans are using more oil each year than the previous year, Nering said.

[zensui-org]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')(...)
I believe peak production will occur well beyond peak oil and that these two concepts are most definately NOT the same.
(...)

[NEOPO]

ok whatever - read the whole thread and do some more homework and you may see.

[LateGreatPlanetEarth]

suppose a field has 1 well and has 1000 barrels reserves, and the well produces 100 bls per year for 5 years so that it reaches perk oil then.
now a second well is added in the 7'th year which would be peak production which is past peak oil. this is what SA may be doing.

[NEOPO]

Its also about EROEI, URR and energy density.
Heavy is not as energy dense as SLC, its harder to get (EROEI) and we wont get every last drop (URR).

After a review I am even more convinced maybe 75% that we are way past peak oil.
Its all in the definition folks.