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An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 14:18:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Colin Campbell, former president of the ASPO, has taken the USGS geologic info and other info and used it to calculate when peak oil is likely to occur. Ken Deffeyes (Princeton) and others in Europe have done the same. There are many published refereed journal articles and books with their results. To summarize for you....Hubbert 40 years ago predicted a peak ca. 2000, while Campbell, Deffeyes and others show the peak somewhere from 2005-2015. I'm surprised you post here so often without knowing any of these basic facts.

You should check these publications out. If Hubbert and the modern "peakers" are right, then the theory of peak oil has many interesting implications. :)


Here is the link to the 4 CD set of information done by the USGS, containing the maps, geologic basis and methodology, analysis from experts in a given area, references used, probabilistic models, quantifications, exclusions, and verbage on what was, and was not, assessed, and why.

http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/wep/pr ... epdata.htm

Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al, from which he drew his informed conclusions to write any of these peer reviewed papers and such? I'm sure for him to refute the USGS study on a level which meets your criteria for being a thorough rebuttal, it must be somewhere and I just haven't been able to find it yet. :-D
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 17:14:21

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Colin Campbell, former president of the ASPO, has taken the USGS geologic info and other info and used it to calculate when peak oil is likely to occur. Ken Deffeyes (Princeton) and others in Europe have done the same. There are many published refereed journal articles and books with their results. To summarize for you....Hubbert 40 years ago predicted a peak ca. 2000, while Campbell, Deffeyes and others show the peak somewhere from 2005-2015. I'm surprised you post here so often without knowing any of these basic facts.

You should check these publications out. If Hubbert and the modern "peakers" are right, then the theory of peak oil has many interesting implications. :)


Here is the link to the 4 CD set of information done by the USGS, containing the maps, geologic basis and methodology, analysis from experts in a given area, references used, probabilistic models, quantifications, exclusions, and verbage on what was, and was not, assessed, and why.

http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/wep/pr ... epdata.htm

Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al, from which he drew his informed conclusions to write any of these peer reviewed papers and such? I'm sure for him to refute the USGS study on a level which meets your criteria for being a thorough rebuttal, it must be somewhere and I just haven't been able to find it yet.


Thats because you don't seem to understand what you are looking at.

As we discussed several posts above, the USGS publications you've linked to don't contain an estimate of when peak oil will occur. The ASPO and Hubbert and Campbell and Deffeyes and a host of others are making such estimates..

Get it now? :)
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 19:54:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')
Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al, from which he drew his informed conclusions to write any of these peer reviewed papers and such? I'm sure for him to refute the USGS study on a level which meets your criteria for being a thorough rebuttal, it must be somewhere and I just haven't been able to find it yet.


Thats because you don't seem to understand what you are looking at.


Or visa versa. It strikes me that starting with the geology makes perfect sense. So you start with the people who do the geology and work through the problem from there. If Campbell et al doesn't exist to refute the geology, then all that is left is to accept it as the definitive work on the topic, and by extension the definitive numbers for the thing which was assessed.

Now we can discuss other options as to how those numbers can be used by Campbell et al, EIA, etc etc.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Planetagenet', '
')
As we discussed several posts above, the USGS publications you've linked to don't contain an estimate of when peak oil will occur. The ASPO and Hubbert and Campbell and Deffeyes and a host of others are making such estimates..

Get it now? :)


I was getting it, and saying it, before you started posting in this thread.But now that you are educating me, I'm wondering, can you refer me to the body of work upon which the Campbell, some unknown economist, and Deffeyes articles are based?

I would like to see their cost supply curves, ( by matching USGS region perhaps ) their projections of price for both oil ( and associated products like natural gas ) and the ancillary required products ( labor, steel, rig rates, etc etc ), the rate at which they converted undiscovered potential in a probabilistic manner into a production stream, by region and perhaps formation ( since the USGS tended to be geologically specific ), differences among well performance between regions ( the US wells certainly can't be expected to produce like Saudi Arabian wells now can they! ), the methodology chapter related to the statistical conversion I am VERY interested in, particularly the density functions and their correlations.

Just provide the reference to the body of work is all I need, I can go read their words on the methods and assumptions myself. :-D
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 21:21:21

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')
Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al,... It strikes me that starting with the geology makes perfect sense.

Just provide the reference to the body of work is all I need, I can go read their words on the methods and assumptions myself.


I suggest you read Prof. Ken Deffeye's book. He is a geologist who adheres closely to Hubbert's original approach, and his book is written to be accessible to the non-geologist.

Hubbert's Peak

Cheers! :)
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 22:18:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')
Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al,... It strikes me that starting with the geology makes perfect sense.

Just provide the reference to the body of work is all I need, I can go read their words on the methods and assumptions myself.


I suggest you read Prof. Ken Deffeye's book. He is a geologist who adheres closely to Hubbert's original approach, and his book is written to be accessible to the non-geologist.

Hubbert's Peak

Cheers! :)


I have Deffeyes's book. I also have Colins original 1998 Oilcrisis book. And Larry Drews. And plan on borrowing Matt Simmons Twilight in the Desert next month.

So far, none of them contain the information I've listed above. None of them even REFERENCE this information ( I checked, except for Simmons book. But I read his white paper referenced by Hook ).

Any idea why they don't reference some economic information, if they are estimating economic numbers...like EROEI? :-D
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 01 Jun 2009, 23:25:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')
Could you please point me to the actual work done by Campbell et al,... It strikes me that starting with the geology makes perfect sense.

Just provide the reference to the body of work is all I need, I can go read their words on the methods and assumptions myself.


I suggest you read Prof. Ken Deffeye's book. He is a geologist who adheres closely to Hubbert's original approach, and his book is written to be accessible to the non-geologist.

Hubbert's Peak

Cheers! :)


... some economic information, if they are estimating economic numbers...like EROEI?


Given that you disengenuously asked me for info about peak oil geology books you already have, I must assume your most recent question is also fatuous. :roll:
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Tue 02 Jun 2009, 00:28:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Given that you disengenuously asked me for info about peak oil geology books you already have, I must assume your most recent question is also fatuous. :roll:


peak oil geology is nearly an oxymoron.

Colins work certainly wasn't geologic, focusing more on reserves than any estimates of resources or economics, and I'm not even certain he mentioned EROEI in the entire book. This was back when he was using the IHS information...he appears to have since stopped. Unfortunate, according to PStarr it is the best there is...no wonder the guy keeps making all those peak oil calls and getting it all bollixed up!

Deffeyes work was worse, telling stories of the good ol days when he actually was somewhere in the lab with Hubbert, somewhere, sometime, for the short period of time that they were in proximity Hubbert may even have spoken to him! Talked about being on a rig once...and then didn't really mention much that his specialty at Princeton was the Basin and Range area of Nevada. Tell me again, how many oil and gas fields are in Nevada? :-D But he did have a prediction...but no economics....no EROEI that I can recall ( I hate to say that, now I'm going to have to go skim the book again so I don't have to do it next time ), no cost supply curves, nothing related to well or field performance, certainly not man years of work referencing the geology of places BEYOND the Basin and Range. He had some reserve information though if I recall correctly...again...not what is needed to convert geology into an actual production stream, economic, EROEI or other.

And I don't know what to do about Simmons. Last I heard he was investing in windmills offshore Maine to make ammonia to run cars...don't ask me what thats all about.

You tricky guy!!! You are just baiting me!! You really don't know of any books giving anyone the sort of information needed to massage USGS numbers into actual economic/EROEI production rates, do you!! [smilie=eusa_naughty.gif]
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Tue 02 Jun 2009, 13:14:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Given that you disengenuously asked me for info about peak oil geology books you already have, I must assume your most recent question is also fatuous. :roll:



Colins work certainly wasn't geologic, focusing more on reserves than any estimates of resources or economics, and I'm not even certain he mentioned EROEI in the entire book. This was back when he was using the IHS information...he appears to have since stopped. Unfortunate, according to PStarr it is the best there is...no wonder the guy keeps making all those peak oil calls and getting it all bollixed up!

Deffeyes work was worse, telling stories of the good ol days when he actually was somewhere in the lab with Hubbert, somewhere, sometime, for the short period of time that they were in proximity Hubbert may even have spoken to him! Talked about being on a rig once...and then didn't really mention much that his specialty at Princeton was the Basin and Range area of Nevada. Tell me again, how many oil and gas fields are in Nevada? :-D But he did have a prediction...but no economics....no EROEI that I can recall ( I hate to say that, now I'm going to have to go skim the book again so I don't have to do it next time ), no cost supply curves, nothing related to well or field performance, certainly not man years of work referencing the geology of places BEYOND the Basin and Range. He had some reserve information though if I recall correctly...again...not what is needed to convert geology into an actual production stream, economic, EROEI or other.

And I don't know what to do about Simmons. Last I heard he was investing in windmills offshore Maine to make ammonia to run cars...don't ask me what thats all about.


You've been sandbagging, shortonsense. Shame on you. :roll:

What is your professional background?
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby AAA » Tue 02 Jun 2009, 20:02:19

I'm not sure if PO.com is truly about peak oil. That is why I am taking a break
How can Ludi spend 8-10 hrs/day on the internet and claim to be homesteading???
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Tue 02 Jun 2009, 22:49:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')You've been sandbagging, shortonsense. Shame on you. :roll:

What is your professional background?


Sandbagging isn't against forum rules is it? :-D

Double major in industrial engineering and applied sciences for starters. Enough post graduate work to have seriously considered the PhD but decided I liked hanging out with the kids more, and the advanced degree wasn't worth any more money at work.

Got tired of the rat race, wanted to enjoy summer vacations with the kids so I "retired" into teaching. Do some occasional consulting on the side, to keep up to date. :-D
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 01:50:49

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')You've been sandbagging, shortonsense. Shame on you. :roll:

What is your professional background?


Double major in industrial engineering and applied sciences for starters. Enough post graduate work to have seriously considered the PhD but decided I liked hanging out with the kids more, and the advanced degree wasn't worth any more money at work.

Got tired of the rat race, wanted to enjoy summer vacations with the kids so I "retired" into teaching. Do some occasional consulting on the side, to keep up to date.


Sounds like you have a great technical background and a lot of life experience to back up your excellent knowledge of the peak oil literature.

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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 02:53:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Sounds like you have a great technical background and a lot of life experience to back up your excellent knowledge of the peak oil literature.


The kids taught me. I never would have ventured into this joint except it came up during a critical thinking exercise related to resources. The little buggers are excellent googlers, but they tend to reach for the internet first, and many of them stop there after they think they have found "the answer". So naturally the first information which came back were places like this, LATOC, etc etc, and all the usual Ruppert/Simmons/Heinberg references.

My brushback is usually actual science, studies, references that require a library and come from actual scientists, and I do like to mix in as many of them as possible. The internet is near crippling to the children of this world as far as I'm concerned, and after having hung around here for awhile now, I can see how it affects adults as well. Using only internet links as references is terribly limiting, too many advocates screaming as loud as they can, and when you google, of course you run into THEM first.

Global warming was last semester. I'm going to try and work in Malthus and Ehrlich next semester somehow. Population studies, effects, math, predictions, etc etc.
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 19:54:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')Global warming was last semester. I'm going to try and work in Malthus and Ehrlich next semester somehow. Population studies, effects, math, predictions, etc etc.


What is your personal view based on your review of the literature----Are you a global warming skeptic?

Similarly, Monte's views on overshoot and dieoff basically follow those of Malthus, Ehrlich, Club of Rome, etc. From your debates with Monte it seems you don't accept the work of Malthus, Ehrlich, & the Club of Rome indicating there are limits to economic and human population growth on earth?
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 20:39:16

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')Global warming was last semester. I'm going to try and work in Malthus and Ehrlich next semester somehow. Population studies, effects, math, predictions, etc etc.


What is your personal view based on your review of the literature----Are you a global warming skeptic?


I haven't decided yet. I am afraid that my very natural human fear of change and demonstrable effects of it like melting glaciers, versus my experience with variability within systems which is telling me that we don't have a clue what the planet is supposed to be doing, let alone our contribution to it, is leading me to analysis paralysis.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Similarly, Monte's views on overshoot and dieoff basically follow those of Malthus, Ehrlich, Club of Rome, etc. From your debates with Monte it seems you don't accept the work of Malthus, Ehrlich, & the Club of Rome indicating there are limits to economic and human population growth on earth?


I consider myself an empiricalist. I do not buy the angle that a bad concept, proven wrong, repeatedly, might actually someday, somehow, under some conditions, be right based on its merits. Its the "even a clock is right twice a day" routine.

There is however a practical limit to every system which is the foundation for all of those people you've mentioned to proclaim the end is near using any one of a myriad of excuses. That "practical limit" is usually scale based, from a tribe existing along the riverbanks of the Mississippi 1000 years ago to mankind mining Titan and the rest of the solar system to feed the colonies on Mars the resources they need.

I am having difficulty deciding, between those two end members, where to park myself and begin assembling the strongest defense of that position.
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 21:29:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', '
')Global warming was last semester. I'm going to try and work in Malthus and Ehrlich next semester somehow. Population studies, effects, math, predictions, etc etc.


What is your personal view based on your review of the literature----Are you a global warming skeptic?


I haven't decided yet. I am afraid that my very natural human fear of change and demonstrable effects of it like melting glaciers, versus my experience with variability within systems which is telling me that we don't have a clue what the planet is supposed to be doing, let alone our contribution to it, is leading me to analysis paralysis.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Similarly, Monte's views on overshoot and dieoff basically follow those of Malthus, Ehrlich, Club of Rome, etc. From your debates with Monte it seems you don't accept the work of Malthus, Ehrlich, & the Club of Rome indicating there are limits to economic and human population growth on earth?


I consider myself an empiricalist. I do not buy the angle that a bad concept, proven wrong, repeatedly, might actually someday, somehow, under some conditions, be right based on its merits. Its the "even a clock is right twice a day" routine.

There is however a practical limit to every system which is the foundation for all of those people you've mentioned to proclaim the end is near using any one of a myriad of excuses. That "practical limit" is usually scale based, from a tribe existing along the riverbanks of the Mississippi 1000 years ago to mankind mining Titan and the rest of the solar system to feed the colonies on Mars the resources they need.

I am having difficulty deciding, between those two end members, where to park myself and begin assembling the strongest defense of that position.


Empiricist.

That all seems eminently reasonable.

Nonetheless, I hope you'll agree that complex systems (like the economy or the oil market) are not easily modeled. The occasional "black swan" event does occur even when there exists a concensus that they cannot. "Tipping points" and thresholds are fundamental scientific concepts that do occur in nature. Monte is absolutely right that natural populations do crash when their carrying capacity is exceeded.
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 22:44:33

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Empiricist.

Nonetheless, I hope you'll agree that complex systems (like the economy or the oil market) are not easily modeled.


I am forced by the very obviousness of this statement to agree with it.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
') The occasional "black swan" event does occur even when there exists a concensus that they cannot. "Tipping points" and thresholds are fundamental scientific concepts that do occur in nature. Monte is absolutely right that natural populations do crash when their carrying capacity is exceeded.


Black swan events do occur. Asteroids hit the planet. The sun dims. Super volcanos explode. Suns go nova, or swell and turn red. Human settlements and populations have died off before. They will probably do so again.

And Catton references how humans have changed that carrying capacity on multiple occasions. Its hard to scare someone with a dieoff BECAUSE of carrying capacity ( or lack thereof ), when the answer to increasing carrying capacity in the past, and on multiple prior occasions, was just letting humans be humans.
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 03 Jun 2009, 23:00:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', 'I')ts hard to scare someone with a dieoff BECAUSE of carrying capacity ( or lack thereof ), when the answer to increasing carrying capacity in the past, and on multiple prior occasions, was just letting humans be humans.


Exactly right.

As Jules Simon famously pointed out, every time a commodity has become scarce and expensive in the past, the economic necessity for the commodity has resulted in the utilization of a replacement commodity. The economy has hiccuped and then continued to expand with the new, replacement commodity. The classic example of this is that petroleum itself was developed as a replacement for whale oil when whales became scarce in the middle of the 19th century.

However, the doomers certainly have a valid point that petroleum is virtually ubiquitous in the world economy and is used in such huge amounts today that replacing it will be very difficult. :idea:
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby shortonsense » Thu 04 Jun 2009, 00:57:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')However, the doomers certainly have a valid point that petroleum is virtually ubiquitous in the world economy and is used in such huge amounts today that replacing it will be very difficult. :idea:


I do not assume that "virtually ubiquitous", your attribution to Doomers, and "valuable commodity", what I consider an accurate representation, are one and the same.

I also do not assume that in EITHER circumstance, that the basic substitution regime you have described happening in the past ( whale oil and crude ) can't keep right on happening.

I do, however, assume that it isn't going to continue for much longer, because it just doesn't need to.

Human history through the eyes of Monte and Malthus is one of squalor and death in the near future, idiot monkeys in a cage gobbling up food without the brains to know how to get more.

And yet while Malthus was relying on the baser instincts of man to perpetuate his own destruction, there were others, greater men, men who would no more listen to such nonsense then Thomas Edison would be discouraged by a thousand failures.

Men who took a by product of the earths very internal workings, a sludge with only the ability to bring down property values because of its smelly and oozing uselessness, and turned it into the fuel to first build, and then power the world as we know it today.

And yet the awesome use of that sludge to build the world as we know it today is already obsolete, dust in the ash bowl of history. The power of tomorrow arrived years ago, but it was never cheap enough, fossil fuels are just too darn easy ( and will continue to be so for awhile yet ), but in the end it won't really matter. The future is already here. We powered the transport of this planet with fossil fuels, but for those with vision, and the ability to understand that a small pebble can make a pretty large ripple in a still pond, it isn't hard to imagine what OUR world might look like, as we make it look more like the transport system we installed years ago on ANOTHER world.

Powered by the sun, millions of miles from their place of origin, not an oil change or corner muffler repair shop in sight, slow, sure, but more durable than the average Pontiac, and prospecting in the cold isn't easy on a chassis or a person.

How much longer before this obvious fact dawns on even the sheeple of the world, and THEY demand cars which don't require $4-$5-$6/gal gasoline? And as fast as Malthus was reduced to a footnote on how NOT to predict the end of the world, and Ehrlich after him, and Monte here locally, suddenly, the world is different because for all the whining naysayers who have been proclaiming the end of mankind since its beginning, there are others who are already looking beyond the horizon which even us amateurs can already make out in the distance. They are arguing about the power and weight of the super capacitor required to run the car as long as a lithium-ion battery pack will now, whether or not neighborhood nukes are really the solution to dispersing the grid, or if small windmill and solar assemblies are the way to go.

So...you want to believe the world is going to end? Cool...its a free country. The good news is, from any reasonable perspective, that it won't matter in the least, because those who are changing the world certainly aren't about to be dissuaded by lumps on a log any more than Edison was discouraged by his first couple of hundred failed attempts at making the light bulb.
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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 04 Jun 2009, 02:02:20

Well...I'm an empiricist. Your utopian view of the future and Monte's dystopian view can't both be right.

Only time will tell if a new energy source can be found that will successfully substitute for oil.

Cheers!

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Re: An admission -- I'm not sure if Peak Oil is true

Unread postby Plantagenet » Thu 04 Jun 2009, 02:12:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', ' ')The future is already here. We powered the transport of this planet with fossil fuels, but for those with vision, and the ability to understand that a small pebble can make a pretty large ripple in a still pond, it isn't hard to imagine what OUR world might look like, as we make it look more like the transport system we installed years ago on ANOTHER world.

Powered by the sun, millions of miles from their place of origin, not an oil change or corner muffler repair shop in sight, slow, sure, but more durable than the average Pontiac, and prospecting in the cold isn't easy on a chassis or a person.

How much longer before this obvious fact dawns on even the sheeple of the world, and THEY demand cars which don't require $4-$5-$6/gal gasoline?


The only human transport system we've put into space and on another planet (actually the moon) is the moon buggy.

FYI, the lunar roving vehicle cost 38 million dollars in 1960s dollars and it was NOT powered by the sun. It was powered by NON-RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES brought fully charged from earth. It was NOT solar powered. Do you understand? It was NOT solar powered as you claimed.

Jeez---I hope you don't pass on this kind of blatant misinformation to your kids. :roll:
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