Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 19: Deny & Delay [Pt. II]

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Following up on Monday’s post, another observation on the same subject worth noting … and pondering, from James Howard Kunstler

Those inhabiting the economic wish-space got a case of the vapors last week when the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) published an annual report stating that the USA would overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer and reach the long-touted nirvana of ‘energy independence.’ The news was greeted in this country with jubilation. Thus, peak credulity meets peak bullshit….
Shale oil (and shale gas) share some problematical properties.
The cost of drilling each well is a big number, $6-8 million.
The wells deplete very rapidly, over 40 percent after one year in the Bakken formation of North Dakota.
The oil is not distributed equally over the whole play but exists in ‘sweet spots.’
The sweetest sweet spots were drilled the earliest and the quality of the remaining potential drill sites is already in decline.
The current trend shows declining first-year productivity in new wells drilled since 2010 running at 25 percent.
There are over 4300 shale oil wells in the Bakken formation of North Dakota producing about 610,000 barrels a day. In order to keep production up, the number of wells will have to continue increasing at a faster rate than previously. This is referred to as ‘the Red Queen syndrome’ which alludes to the character in Alice in Wonderland who famously declared that she had to run faster and faster just to stay where she is.

Happy Talk has its place in public dialogue, but if it is not coupled with facts, reality, evidence, information, the cherry-picked optimism only harms more of us longer and in more ways.

No one relishes, welcomes, enjoys, desires unpleasant news. But in the world we live in, facts aren’t always sunshine and happiness. And sometimes those same facts lead to obvious consequences and challenges to anyone paying even the slightest attention to the information conveyed.

Life as we know it, want it to be, expect it, or just insist on it no matter what, is going to change.

We can summon collective will and courage by recognizing that the Magic Shale Technology Fairy has some built-in limitations and unpleasant surprises in store the longer we ignore the facts, and start planning accordingly. Or we just continue to rely on Feel-Good half-truths.

Neither strategy is consequence-free. Do we choose to play a part in deciding how to deal with the inevitable outcomes of increasing demand crashing into the wall of declining availability of energy resources matched with inferior and more costly substitutes? Or should we just hold out hope that all will be well if we just close our eyes and click our heels a few times?

Choices….

Peak Oil Matters by Rich Turcotte