Not everything is a 100% guarantee.
If it was easy everybody would be doing it.
You don't see Google or Microsoft trying to get into the oil business do you?
Doesn't change anything I said earlier.
PeakOil is You
A bleak picture as oil production slides
Re: A bleak picture as oil production slides
by Maddog78 » Mon 05 Oct 2009, 17:12:08
No doubt. You make your best guess and you go for it.
Not everything is a 100% guarantee.
If it was easy everybody would be doing it.
You don't see Google or Microsoft trying to get into the oil business do you?
Doesn't change anything I said earlier.
Not everything is a 100% guarantee.
If it was easy everybody would be doing it.
You don't see Google or Microsoft trying to get into the oil business do you?
Doesn't change anything I said earlier.
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Re: A bleak picture as oil production slides
by Pops » Mon 05 Oct 2009, 17:17:31
To be honest, I've always thought EROEI is a silly over complication of the simple fact that oil production isn't a charity and when a well goes in the red financially its shut down.
However, there are things that oil can do that sunlight or wave action, for example, can't do. I have no trouble imagining spending energy produced by sun or wave to produce oil, even if the energy embodied in the oil itself is less.
That is of course if the use for the oil is valuable enough – like running my chainsaw.
However, there are things that oil can do that sunlight or wave action, for example, can't do. I have no trouble imagining spending energy produced by sun or wave to produce oil, even if the energy embodied in the oil itself is less.
That is of course if the use for the oil is valuable enough – like running my chainsaw.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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Re: A bleak picture as oil production slides
by jbrovont » Mon 05 Oct 2009, 17:36:14
I guess I can see the argument from an economic standpoint if other energy sources are used to subsidise oil production for the sake of extracting liquid fuel - say nuclear or natural gas for instance. However, what pstarr is talking about - I think - is something like this: The figure I've see used for oil production ca. 2000 was that for every unit of energy you put into oil production, you got about 30 back (30:1). Since the world economy runs on energy, a unit of currency's buying power can be roughly equated to how much energy it represents, which is where the physical science of EROEI couples to the economic concept of EROEI.
If the physical EROEI of extracting oil goes negative, or drops below that of another energy source and we subsidise oil with that energy source, regardless of how the paying for it gets spun, the overall total energy of the system (our economy) will decrease as a result of pumping oil. Oil may "increase" in price, but that increase will reflect the energy spent in extracting it, and not the energy "value" of oil. Rather it will represent the energy "value" of whatever source was used to extract it.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Maddog78', 'I')t may apply in theory if some theoretical scientist wants to try and figure it out for a certain field or project but in a real oil company office it is and has been an unknown, unmentioned and uncared about concept.
It's all about the money.
It may be that an uneconomic project also has a poor EROEI.
If you could figure out the EROEI accurately that is and I have my doubts about that.
It would not be the reason why it would not proceed however.
Repeat: It's all about the money.
If the physical EROEI of extracting oil goes negative, or drops below that of another energy source and we subsidise oil with that energy source, regardless of how the paying for it gets spun, the overall total energy of the system (our economy) will decrease as a result of pumping oil. Oil may "increase" in price, but that increase will reflect the energy spent in extracting it, and not the energy "value" of oil. Rather it will represent the energy "value" of whatever source was used to extract it.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Maddog78', 'I')t may apply in theory if some theoretical scientist wants to try and figure it out for a certain field or project but in a real oil company office it is and has been an unknown, unmentioned and uncared about concept.
It's all about the money.
It may be that an uneconomic project also has a poor EROEI.
If you could figure out the EROEI accurately that is and I have my doubts about that.
It would not be the reason why it would not proceed however.
Repeat: It's all about the money.
Last edited by jbrovont on Mon 05 Oct 2009, 19:29:55, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A bleak picture as oil production slides
by shortonsense » Mon 05 Oct 2009, 18:59:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 's')hortonsense, I'd really like to get to the heart of what your prescription is for peak oil mitigation (if any).
Its already in motion. The very sense in America that buying a smaller car might not be a bad thing, the very idea that new electrical generation is exponential growing with the use of wind has been happening for years now, the very idea that fuel cell vehicles, once a claimed "pie in the sky" technology which is now being prototyped and actually driven on city streets by real people, all of these things are the market searching for solutions to the problem of higher fuel costs. The idea that anyone would even pay attention to TB Pickens talking about CNG powered cars, or the obvious availability of huge amounts of CNG in the US to power them, all of these are things which have changed for the better since this website started, perhaps a half decade ago.
No prescription necessary, just get that price up, that drives awareness through the mechanism of economics, and presto, suddenly...things be different.
I seem to remember Monte using "the solution doesn't scale!" as some sort of favorite strawman....and he did it without ever talking about the obvious amounts of time available. Can everything be scaled tomorrow? Of course not, thats a strawman. Why? Because we've got 40 years of crude oil already sitting in inventory, not even counting how much more we'll find in the future or decide to use even though it isn't the favorite peaker type, or can create from other fossil fuels.
We'll be at this for decades, and obviously, with exponential growth over decades, it isn't hard at all to scale ANYTHING we want. Hopefully it will be smart growth rather than dumb growth, but I'm betting we'll do both just because...well....we will, its human nature.
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Re: A bleak picture as oil production slides
by Tanada » Mon 05 Oct 2009, 19:02:20
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')Not at all what I was trying to point out. What I am saying is the current demand destruction is insignificant over the course of a year because we will consume the amount we didn't use this year within the first 15 or 16 days of next year if nothing else changes. In terms of effecting peak oil the demand reduction is almost meaningless.
')Not at all what I was trying to point out. What I am saying is the current demand destruction is insignificant over the course of a year because we will consume the amount we didn't use this year within the first 15 or 16 days of next year if nothing else changes. In terms of effecting peak oil the demand reduction is almost meaningless.
So why isn't oil back at $147/bbl?
I don't think anyone really cares where we are on hubbert's curve as long as oil prices remain safely out of the red-zone that crashes the system.
Because even though production is down demand is down even more. Heck in 2005 it was consider unbelievable that Oil hit $70.00 when Katrina came ashore. Four short years later we see $70 oil for several months in a row and the reaction is more ho hum than OMG its a sign of Peak Oil.
It wasn't that long ago that nobody could believe Oil had broken the $45.00 barrier! How short our puny human memories are!
If, or more likely IMO when the oil production decline exceeds demand destruction the price will be going back up, and these early days will be foindly viewed as "the good old days".
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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