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Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert
The man and the movement – is it dead?
This week we’re going to look at a life that shaped energy expectations, a whole social movement, and American military policy in the Middle East. Finally, there is a biography of M. King Hubbert, the man who warned oil companies and the world about Peak Oil. We’ll ask author Mason Inman about the man, his legacy, and what it means now, in this brief time of oil glut.
Then I’ll check in with Australian extreme weather specialist Lisa Alexander, to get her measure of the record-setting Indian heat wave now cooling to the monsoon rains.
Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in Ecoshock 160608 Lo-Fi (14 MB) or Ecoshock 160608 CD Quality (56 MB)
ENERGY NEWS BRIEF: A WIN IN ILLINOIS AND NEW WORRIES IN CALIFORNIA
First, a couple of news notes:
Two weeks ago we talked about Exelon, America’s largest power company demanding more subsidy to keep it’s aging reactors going in the State of Illinois. With no public support, and no action from the legislature, Exelon has now announced two Illinois nuclear plants will close.
The Quad Cities reactors were built in 1972, using the same faulty General Electric Mark I reactor as the four reactors which blew up at Fukushima, Japan. One more of those gone, with 22 left running in the United States.
The other Illinois nuclear plant, the Clinton reactor was built later in 1987, with a different design, but was also plagued with safety issues.
Illinois has not and will not go dark. Electricity from cheaper natural gas plants, and increasingly wind power delivered from the mid-West, will power the state, with far less chance of an accident that lasts for thousands of years.
The late anti-nuclear campaigner Michael Mariotte battled against these reactors, including on Radio Ecoshock, and now he’s won.
Over to California. You remember the giant natural gas reservoir that spewed methane into the skies of California, and the atmosphere? The Aliso Canyon storage facility is still closed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has expressed concerns that California could experience rolling black-outs this summer, as hotter days mean more power demand for air-conditioning. That’s in a state drowning in potential solar power sites.
STORMS IN EUROPE
Of course, no sooner did the India heat wave give way, than Europe was hit with another extreme rainfall event. Parts of Paris flooded. The historic Louvre Museum had to move some of it’s priceless collection. People were swept away and died in the same extreme rain system in Germany. That’s following a storm that dropped over 300,000 lightening strikes in Europe.
I could bounce from one extreme weather event to the next, until Radio Ecoshock becomes a kind of weather porn station. Except I try to find the climate science behind these abnormal twists, when major media fails to tell us what’s causing it all.
Not this week. We have the story of M. King Hubbert, the man who changed so many of our lives.
M. KING HUBBERT: “THE ORACLE OF OIL”
Oil, gas and coal will not last forever. A civilization built on those fuels cannot last forever either. But for how long and then what? That’s the question asked by the Peak Oil movement, – after it was answered by one of the energy giants of the Twentieth Century.
In the 1950’s, while working for Shell Oil, the American geologist and geophysicist M. King Hubbert described the curve of fossil fuels. After being ignored, he was rediscovered in the 1970’s. But few people know much about him, or really understand his theory. Only now has the first authoritative biography of King Hubbert emerged. It’s by Mason Inman, an award-winning science writer who’s been published in everything from Scientific American to Wired Magazine. The title is “The Oracle of Oil, a maverick geologist’s quest for a sustainable future.”
Author Mason Inman
IS PEAK OIL DEAD?
Peak Oil spawned a world wide movement holding international conferences. Now it seems we are awash in oil and gas. Is peak oil dead? Inman and I discuss this.
Was Hubbert wrong? “No” says Inman. Conventional oil production did peak in 2006, and that makes up 90% of the oil we use now. Unconventional oil from fracking or oil sands has increased, but they are still marginal. But fracking can have a big impact on prices by adding content to the base of conventional oil.
Cheap credit is also a factor in increased oil production. Companies have not been able to boost their production of conventional oil. The biggest companies now accept it won’t go higher, as does the International Energy Agency. The major oil producers are optimistic to say the conventional oil will be flat at the current plateau.
In the interview, Inman tells us you can download the Epilogue from his book, which talks about the afterlife of Hubbert’s theories after his death, for free, by signing up for his email mailing list at Oracle of Oil book site.
My opinion is that Peak Oil is still influencing the energy market. For example, the most expensive ways to get oil, like the Canadian Tar Sands, are suffering with low prices, and investment is moving away from them. Even when the price of oil goes up again, I think that lesson has been learned. The Canadian oil sands, and other heavy oil projects will not get the level of funding they expected.
Fracking, on the other hand, is still going, but with less new activity. It’s lurking. As soon as oil goes above about $60 a barrel, fracking can come roaring back any time. But as Richard Heinberg points out, just as with conventional oil, the sweet spots of easy fracking may have already come and gone. It costs more and more to get less and less, so that fracked oil, and fracked gas will also peak at some point, with gas peaking later, as Hubbert predicted.
Meanwhile, the Peak Oil movement seems in hibernation, which is dangerous in two ways: (1) the wild rush to pump even more low priced oil will deplete the limited resources even faster and (b) with the threat of oil depletion out of the headlines (and consumer minds) there will be less pressure to change to clean energy sources.
LIMITS TO GROWTH
Hubbert was very stubborn (which was good and bad). He kept going on his messages, even when others were not listening. He did not get bitter about his difficulties, or jealous of others. When theLimits to Growth report got so much attention, he had already been talking about those issues for years. The authors of Limits to Growth, especially Dennis Meadows, got inspiration from Hubbert – and Inman talked to Meadows about that. Apparently, Inman tells us, Meadows asked Hubbert if he wanted to work together, but Hubbert did not. He was not always a cooperative thinker.
Hubbert supported “the Limits to Growth” report.
HUBBERT’S THEORY AND POLITICS
Reagan’s energy adviser talked about Hubbert as a pessimist who said we wouldn’t find more oil. Hubbert didn’t say that.
Hubbert had more influence during the Carter Administration. Inman spoke to James R. Schlesinger who was in the Carter Admin, and said they were aware of his work, and wanted to honor him with a medal (didn’t happen, James was fired first).
The Carter Doctrine said any threat to the Middle East would be a threat to U.S. military security, and U.S. would protect it militarily.
MORE INFORMATION ON HUBBERT AND RESEARCH SOURCES
For further research, these are notes I received from the author Mason Inman:
Here is Richard Heinberg’s review of Mason Inman’s book.
Here is a podcast with Inman on Chris Martenson’s show “Peak Prosperity” – but I warn you, they talk more about other current affairs than about Hubbert and his life. (Podcast May 7, 2016)
That same Chris Martenson podcast is available on Inman on Martenson You tube.
KEY PERIODS IN M. KING HUBBERT’S LIFE: THE QUICK NOTES FROM MASON INMAN
According to Inman, the key periods in Hubbert’s life were:
1930s: involvement with Technocracy, forming his ideas on the role of energy in society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
[My comment: In 1930’s New York, King Hubbert became involved in both academia and industry – even before finishing his PHD. During the Great Depression, Hubbert was one of the prime founders of a theory and movement called “technocracy”. Mason Inman gives us a quick primer on technocracy in this interview. As a mass movement, Technocracy is almost dead now, but still has an office in Ferndale, Washington State, with archives. Here is the official Technocracy web site.
I’m particularly interested in the Technocracy idea to substitute energy certificates for money. Maybe this could be one solution to drive a reduction in emissions, if we actually pay and get paid in carbon emission allowances.
1950s-1960s: issuing forecasts, battling to get them taken seriously
1970s-1980s: being proved right about US oil, being heralded as a “prophet” and an “oracle”—and yet seeing how difficult it was to get people to engage in a long-term energy transition
1990s-today (all since Hubbert’s death): the book’s epilogue brings the story up to today, with the so-called shale revolution, which I think proves how eager most people are to scrape the bottom of the barrel rather than make a transition.
As a sample of this book, you can read this epilogue from the book for free, if you sign up to Mason Inman’s mailing list Oracle of Oil web site.
DISSENTING OPINIONS:
American author and Professor Michael Klare Michael Klare article Common Dreams “peak demand” will come before “peak oil” ever develops! In Common Dreams he writes:
“According to experts Thijs Van de Graaf and Aviel Verbruggen, overall world peak demand could be reached as early as 2020.”
Well-known energy analyst and Peak Oil writer Gail Tverberg blog finds Hubbert was wrong…
WIKIPEDIA ON HUBBERT
“Biography of M. King Hubbert Wiki
Hubbert was born in San Saba, Texas. He attended the University of Chicago, where he received his B.S. in 1926, his M.S. in 1928, and his Ph.D in 1937, studying geology, mathematics, and physics. He worked as an assistant geologist for the Amerada Petroleum Company for two years while pursuing his Ph.D., additionally teaching geophysics at Columbia University. He also served as a senior analyst at the Board of Economic Warfare. He joined the Shell Oil Company in 1943, retiring from that firm in 1964. After he retired from Shell, he became a senior research geophysicist for the United States Geological Survey until his retirement in 1976. He also held positions as a professor of geology and geophysics at Stanford University from 1963 to 1968, and as a professor at UC Berkeley from 1973 to 1976.
Hubbert was also an avid technocrat. He co-founded Technocracy Incorporated with Howard Scott. Hubbert wrote a study course that was published without authorship called Technocracy Study Course, the precedent document of that group which advocates a non-market economics form of energy accounting, in contrast to the current Price System method. Hubbert was a member of the Board of Governors, and served as Secretary of education to that organisation.”
WIKI HAS THIS EXCELLENT UNSOURCED QUOTE ALLEGEDLY BY HUBBERT:
“I was in New York in the 30’s. I had a box seat at the depression. I can assure you it was a very educational experience. We shut the country down because of monetary reasons. We had manpower and abundant raw materials. Yet we shut the country down. We’re doing the same kind of thing now but with a different material outlook. We are not in the position we were in 1929–30 with regard to the future. Then the physical system was ready to roll. This time it’s not. We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered.”
You can watch M. King Hubbert speak briefly in this You tube clip, from 1976.
HERE IS AN INTRIGUING VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH HUBBERT, WITH MY NOTES
The video is titled: “Health Facilities and the Energy Crisis – A Conversation with M. King Hubbert” It was filmed in 1976 by WETA-TV and published on You tube Dec 19 2012 by Technocracy.
Despite the title, this interview has practically nothing to say about the health institutions. It is really a full exposition of Hubbert’s theories, complete with many graphics of the world energy supply, and his curves of depletion for coal, oil and gas. It’s well worth the watch!
Here are my notes:
3 min: energy is like water: it can flow along, and change forms, without adding to the amount of energy. It could go from light to heat for example.
Hubbert presents a chart showing the total energy system for the globe. It shows the sun is the largest energy source, with a vast potential.
6:30 He describes the process of creating oil (or gas) through plants that do not have enough oxygen to decay, become peat, get covered with soil, get compressed and become oil or gas.
7:50 he describes the status and process of coal as an energy source. Total coal production in the United States is varied over time, oscillating over the decades, up and down, except anthracite, which peaked around 1920. It declined ever since. “This illustrates the complete cycle of exhaustion of a fossil fuel”.
9:47 Hubbert does the same for the production of oil in the United States. It’s continually rising line starting about 1860 to about 1971.
10:48 How to develop a curve and prediction for the production of oil. His explanation of using the curve is a bit complicated.
12:46 How to construct the complete cycle (he again gives coal as an example). He shows a graph of world coal reserves by large geographical region (like Africa). Asia, including the USSR has more than half the world’s coal. North America has about 30% of the total, with 2/3 in the United States.
14:40 He describes using the graph with known recoverable reserves. The rate of production can go higher, but that shortens the curve of the depletion time in the future. The amount also depends on how deep the coal is before it becomes too expensive to get.
The middle 80% is what matters – the end curve will go on for a long time, but with very low (perhaps almost inconsequential) fossil fuels.
16:45 Hubbert explains his 1956 theory of peak oil. The general thinking was there wouldn’t be an oil shortage “any time soon” or in the time of his grandchildren. The depletion happens gradually, as more oil is found. But the date of the peak is around 1995, if we use the higher estimates of US oil reserves.
20 min “That prediction proved to be rather startling, and some would say ‘prescient’.” Hubbert says in 1976. He says the peak date actually occurred in 1970.
21 min The important 80% bracket lasts about 67 years, that is, within one human lifetime. The natural gas curve happens a bit later than oil.
22 min Hubbert shows a graphic of world crude oil production. It contains what has been produced and the reserves. Until 1975 the U.S. was the highest producing country in the world, despite having somewhat small reserves to start with.
23 min The complete time cycle for the world, the estimated peak would occur around 1995, the 80% middle spread is from 1960 to 2020 – “that presumes an orderly resolution”.
24:50 To appreciate the role of fossil fuels in history, he shows a graph from 5,000 years ago to 5,000 years from now, and the fossil fuel age is just a very brief spike, “a very brief epoch”.
25:40 Our options for the future: water power, solar power, wind, and he likes nuclear power.
26 min. He discusses tidal power, and finds the total amount is not very large.
27:20 Hubbert talks about nuclear in the United States (it was in a building phase in 1976). He discusses the hard to get Uranium 235, which is rare. He thinks it will become scarce in the US. in 10-15 years (after 1976) and in the world 10-15 years after that.
Hubbert finds a concern in what to do with nuclear waste, which can stay radioactive for 1,000 years. What about accidents, saboteurs, wars “we are dealing with a very hazardous thing”. Most people wish we had another way to produce power, he says.
30:20 thermal power – including the largest geothermal plant in the world in California (in 1976)
31 His estimate of the amount of solar input, and says we know how to capture it. He demonstrates a little machine converting light into electric power. He’s a solar fan. “We have the technology right now, we know how to do it.”
33 min: “what does the future look like?” (asks host) Hubbert shows a graphic “Human Affairs in a Time Perspective”. Past doubling rates for population was about 32,000 years, but we are slated to double (from 1976) in 35 years.
35 If we drop in our energy level, then we have to scale back the human population, Hubbert says.
35:40 “we are in a little window of history”
Then after 36 minutes he gets to the impact on health facilities, when there will be a tight situation for hospitals, “they better take a very serious look at solar energy for their institutions.”
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON THE INDIAN HEAT WAVE – DR. LISA ALEXANDER
The gigantic and record-setting heat wave over India has started to break up, as the Monsoon rains begin to develop in the South. The previous week, the heat moved from Northwest India, including the Punjab, toward the Northeastern Indian states. Is the 2016 heat wave in Pakistan and India a beginning example of what we can expect in a warming world?
Here to help is Dr. Lisa Alexander, an extreme weather specialist and senior researcher at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, in Australia.
Dr. Lisa Alexander
I know Australia had to add new heat zones to it’s maps a couple of years ago. But I wonder if many places in the world will experience temperatures over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, or 49 degrees Celsius. While Alexander tells us that kind of extreme is common in some parts of the world, it is now coming more often. And as in India, new absolute heat records for different areas continue to be set.
Lisa, also chairs a World Meteorological Organization special team on climate risk. We talk about the WMO’s role and relationship to national meteorology authorities.
As Australians know too well, heat deaths increase when night-time temperatures don’t cool off enough. Lisa tells us this relates to human physiology, the need to cool down core body temperatures. The same factor applies to the fact that humans can take a day or two of extreme heat, but just adding one or two more days can create a public health emergency.
I’ve been looking into a new study published in the journal Climatic Change. The title is: “Benefits of mitigation for future heat extremes“. Lisa gives us some key points from that paper – and the message for all of us.
You know it’s interesting: a survey of media coverage, India heat wave about this Indian heat wave found few Western sources, including the BBC and CNN, did not mention climate change. Indian newspapers and Indian politicians talked more about the climate connection.
44 Comments on "Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert"
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 1:11 pm
It’s a shame that Hubbert failed to realize that shale/tight oil and advanced mature-field recovery could greatly prolong the global peak for decades (and also lead to a second U.S. peak). And that the Club of Rome/LTG scientists underestimated both the effectiveness of the Green Revolution and how far the TPTB would go to protect BAU and stave off collapse.
Because these well meaning oracles of overshoot were wildly off on their predictive models’ assumptions (and dates of reckoning), the media and public are convinced that both camps were 100% wrong about everything. The very idea of physical limits to growth of any kind is now totally discredited.
Degrowth, deleveraging, reversing population growth, deforestation and industrial pollution, halting anthropogenic extinction, global warming and re-localizing the economy should be top of everyone’s priority list right now. But it’s not, and not likely to be anytime soon.
“We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all”
–George Monbiot, 2012
dave thompson on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 2:45 pm
BBls per day/year no longer can be counted as the be all and end all of “peak oil”. What we are facing is a crisis well predicted by Hubbert. That is the total amount of energy available.
Plantagenet on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 3:20 pm
Dr. Hubbert is worthy of fame for his peak oil theory. However, Hubbert’s mathematical model that purports to describe the timing of peak oil and the pattern of oil decline after peak oil is clearly wrong.
For instance, Hubbert predicted that US oil prediction would peak in 1970 and decline every year from that peak. However, US oil production started going up again in 2005 and has almost reached the 1970 peak, proving that Hubbert’s mathematical model failed to predict the actual current levels of US oil production..
Cheers!
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 4:02 pm
Planter is empirically, factually correct on this point. I don’t agree with him on lots of other debatable topics, but… facts are facts. Why do so many here prefer denial to accepting the incontrovertible reality? Does denial somehow make you feel more virtuous?
Dredd on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 4:49 pm
Hubbert?
Is he that librul scientist who made the Earth finite and a globe?
He should have left it flat and infinite.
And he should not have added magic to ocean water (On The Origin of the Sea-level Seesaw – 4).
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:26 pm
“Why do so many here prefer denial to accepting the incontrovertible reality?”
Because planter is full of shit, as has been proven here ad nauseam, and she knows it. She’s just being a troll.
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:49 pm
@GregT,
Like I said, I disagree with Planter on tons of topics. This isn’t one of them.
Call it the “broken clock” principle if you like, but… s/he’s right. U.S. oil production peaked in 1971 as Hubbert’s model predicted, and then (too early to call it for sure) probably just hit a second peak a few months ago, a smidge below the 1971 peak. Hubbert did not predict 2 peaks, ergo his model and assumptions are/were incorrect/imperfect.
We *still* have not yet hit a world production peak, despite all protests to the contrary and debates over the definition of “oil and liquids” (as if that matters, as long as you can burn/refine/generate work from it).
And thanks to the magic of central bank ZIRP and unlimited credit/”money” creation, there is nothing to prevent unlimited CB financing of shale/tight oil drilling elsewhere in the world on a scale comparable to what was just done in the U.S. If the central banks can make $Trillions in losses from MBSs, credit swaps and derivatives disappear, reflate the housing *and* stock market bubbles all over the world –and they just did exactly that– then monetizing a few tens of billion more in overseas fracking will be CHILD’S PLAY to them.
1. The central backs have all the tools, authority and political will they need to finance fracking worldwide on an American scale.
2. Global fracking will eventually be necessary to maintain BAU and the elite’s power over everyone else as long as possible.
Ergo…
3. It will happen.
Plantagenet on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:52 pm
@Harm
I appreciate your attempt to engage in a reasoned discussion on this topic with GregT but it isn’t going to work. He’s still in the potty mouth stage.
Cheers!
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:36 pm
From Hubbert’s 1956 paper;
pg. 14
“Since the production curves here considered are of crude oil only, then the pertinent reserve data must also be limited to crude oil.”
Pg. 24
“One other contingency merits comment. By means of present production techniques, only about a third of the oil underground is being recovered. The reserve figures citied are for oil capable of being extracted using
present techniques. However, secondary recovery techniques are gradually being improved so that ultimately a somewhat larger but still unknown fraction of the oil underground should be extracted than is now the case.
Because of the slowness of the secondary recovery process, however, it appears unlikely that any improvement that can be made within the next 10 or 15 years can have any significant effect on the date of culmination.”
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf
Hubbert’s model was referring to conventional oil production using then available technologies.
Planter is full of shit.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:44 pm
Furthermore;
Hubert goes into detail about Oil Shales and Tar Sands on page 19. He clearly differentiates between them both and what he refers to as ‘liquid hydrocarbons’, or conventional oil.
makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:06 pm
HARM, you seem to believe that the current financial system is going to continue. I somehow doubt it will last much longer. When it goes, all of the props of globalization will go with it including money printing to keep BAU going. Total collapse is just that … TOTAL. Nothing exists alone in today’s world.
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:28 pm
@Planter 🙂
@GregT,
Thanks for the citations. Given that Hubbert acknowledged the possibility of “secondary recovery techniques” recovering an “unknown fraction of the oil underground” (back in 1956 no less!), I am even more impressed with his predictive powers. He also limited his prediction to “the next 10 or 15 years” to account for recovery technology improvements that could be made later.
Nonetheless, he didn’t specifically exclude frack oil (or other forms of “tight” oil) from “crude oil”. And if frack oil is still “crude oil”, then Hubbert did not predict the second U.S. peak, which makes his prediction –no matter how amazingly good for 1956– partly wrong. Then there is the fact that global production has also not peaked 10 years after Hubbert’s predicted date for it passed.
Amazingly brilliant man, incredible work based on 1956 data and 1956 technology, but… actual observed results do not completely fit the predicted result.
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:39 pm
@makati1,
The “current financial system” is now the basis of the .1%’s power over the entire world. The elites will throw everything they have at it (and not limited to just financial WMDs either) to preserve their privilege and power. Eventually it may end, yes, but I doubt it will be in my lifetime.
I have seen many predictions of total collapse, “day of reckoning”, “limits to growth”, “trees can’t grow to the sky” etc. in my 40+ years, and… none of them came true. The status quo has proven to be astonishingly resilient to change and impervious to even the most tepid reforms. I believe things will have to get orders of magnitude worse for ordinary people all over the world before revolutionary change even becomes *imaginable*, much less possible. Because well fed (or obese) people don’t riot. Not even when they (dimly) perceive they are powerless and things are on the wrong track.
Wake me up when Paul Ehrlich’s food riots really start happening. Until then, it’s cheap beer, video games, ESPN and more of the same. Panem et circenses.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:53 pm
Read the paper Harm. Hubbert was not partly wrong at all, and his paper has all of the bases covered. His model was for production of known conventional oil reserves, with then used technologies. It you are not willing to read his paper, you have no grounds to critique it.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:09 pm
“Hubbert did not predict the second U.S. peak”
There has still only been one US production peak Harm. That was in 1970.
dave thompson on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:11 pm
Crude oil volume, aka barrels per day, are no longer a true measure of usable net energy due to the rapid loss of EROeI.
HARM on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:28 pm
@GregT,
That URL isn’t working for me, but I’ll try to skim it when I get a working link and enough time.
Aside from how Hubbert defines “oil”, the second U.S. peak appears to have happened on or about November 2015, just a smidge below the 1971 peak. And that’s assuming we’re actually *past* the second peak (hard to determine only 7 months out).
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/us-crude-oil-production-alaska-tight-april-2016-data.png
Boat on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 8:57 pm
Whether it is Hubert, greggiet or any other human they use word play to describe oils. Tight oil is just as valuable as conventional. In fact tight oil that short calls camel pee with an api up to 50 brings a higher price than Venezuelan oil whose oil runs at api 19. Venezuelan oil is called conventional oil.
There are tankers floating around Venezuela, filled with camel pee for their refineries, so they can process the heavy stuff.
You don’t call fracked oil oil but the api price list is a more valuable guide than idiots with talking points.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:13 pm
The entire point of Hubbert’s work was that discovery of any play is followed by a ramp up in production, a peak, and then a decline, and that the trend tends to follow a bell shaped curve.
Hubert was not graphing tight oil, vegetable oil, camel pee, or horse manure. He was graphing conventional oil production using best available reserve data at the time, produced with then utilized technologies, and his projections turned out to be amazingly accurate.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:16 pm
All oil is not created equal Boat. It is the cost to produce that oil, and the energy available to our economies that matter. Give it whatever name that you like. Totally irrelevant.
Ipissonlosers on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:40 pm
The peak of net available energy was probably around 2005 at the same time that the number of barrels of conventional oil peak.
Tar sand, shale oil, deep water oil have lower content energy. The peak of net available energy was 2005. The way that the economy behaves is more like a system that has past the peak energy then a system at peak net available energy.
The following weather pattern can be explained by a decrease solar activity.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-x-ray-flux
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-update.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDuekULiTKA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaqR9uJWd4
Plantagenet on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:10 pm
Hubbert predicted US oil production would peak ca 1970 and then decline. Yes, it peaked in 1970. Yes, it then declined for the next 35 years.
But then US oil production started to increase. By 2015 US oil production was back at near 1970 levels.
That is definitely not what Hubbert predicted, i.e. Hubbert was wrong
Cheers!
farmlad on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:15 pm
Lets not forget peak oil per human happened sometime around 1979 at 5.4 barrels per person of comparatively easy to extract oil compared to 3.8 in 2012. the peaks that really matter are all in the rear view mirror.
GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 10:18 pm
What part of;
“One other contingency merits comment. By means of present production techniques, only about a third of the oil underground is being recovered. The reserve figures citied are for oil capable of being extracted using present techniques.”
Are you having such a difficult time wrapping your little brain around planter?
Davy on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 5:49 am
It is good to dwell on the idea of peak oil per capita in addition to peaks in quality and quantity. This is because oil and people are a system and there are more people today. It is important to consider where the development of civilization is in the vicinity to these peaks. We could view this combination as a systematic peak of oil and civilization. The peak oil had a different meaning in Hubbert’s time as it does today where everything is so interconnected with globalism. We went through a period of profound technological changes from Hubert’s time until just recently. Our population has more than doubled. Our lives today are in many ways unrecognizable from that time frame.
We appear to be in the vicinity of a quantity and quality peak along with a many times deeper oil per capita deficit. You can argue oil quantity but try to view quantity in the context of chemical and economic quality. We all know that difference but with oil it is easy to diminish the concept away in the ether of macroeconomic dispersion of costs across the global oil complex. The haze is worse when you add the ideas of technology. The subject of quantity should also be made in reference to new reserves. High quality conventional oil reserves are definitely depleting. We mostly have the nebulous argument of reserves form abstract ideas of all the huge unconventional and the probable reserves of regions not yet explored. That is the old game of counting your chickens before they hatch. We have these very real concepts of physical limits of per capita oil, quality oil, and quantity oil. We can argue these but the fact we are arguing at all means we are approaching them. Something is not right or why the discussions?
Along with these physical limits to our foundational energy source we have indications of macro systematic stagnation to globalism from diminishing returns to the efficiency and innovation process. We have had years of existential substitution occurring from technological changes. These changes have come from efficiency and innovation. Most would consider these changes positive yet, the destructive side effects of efficiency, innovation, and substitution are occurring. Quality of life is going down in many areas because of progress. The old mantra of the market gurus of the benefits of destructive change is turning out to be a paradox.
When we put this existential state of being in the vicinity to various peaks in our foundational energy source of oil and existential diminishing returns to efficiency and innovation we see a dangerous combination of turbulence to our global system. This system thrives on properties of complexity. Globalism has vital attributes of dispersed and just in time production and distribution. Efficiency of trade and exchange are vital to allow confidence in fiat currencies. There are tight minimum operating levels because of the dispersion and efficiency. Vital parts cannot be held up too long or you have a negative feedback to the production and distribution chain. The financial sinuses are even more fickle with panic and confidence being wild untamed spirits that can turn ugly at any time.
The worst side effect of our global advancement in regards to peak oil dynamics, diminishing returns, and physical limits is delocalization of locals. Our resilience and sustainability at the local level has been compromised so we can benefit from global efficiency. Local resilience, sustainability, and carrying capacity are less efficient and consequently less prosperous than embracing globalism. We are driven towards ever great efficiency as our primary route to greater prosperity. This has been an adaptive and self-organizing process. This modern trend is without resistance. It is a de facto global religion usurping everything else.
We are now unable to care for ourselves at the local level anywhere in the world rich or poor. You can cherry pick that statement all day long but the fact is the conditions and or the combination of overpopulation and overconsumption are present across the globe. Globalism along with our foundational commodity oil has allowed a detachment from environmental and traditional social realities. We have peoples living far away from their food or water sources brought to them via oil. We have a changed social fabric because of globalism and modern complexity away from traditional activities of food production towards industrialization. Everything human and environmental is now being turned on its head and it is not yet clear if globalism is a paradox or progress.
We can’t separate the civilization from the foundational commodity oil hence peak oil discussions must include civilization. We are an oil based society and oil is produced by this society. When one or the other is unstable both suffer. We see this today with supply and demand instabilities to oil and globalism together and in isolation. We have to look at peak oil differently than we did in the past especially different than Hubbert did. We are global now and along with oil production issues we have civilization issues which are both economic and social. Complicating this even more is the environmental and climatic disturbances.
We must have a holistic approach to peak oil dynamics, civilization, and environment. When you put peak oil in this holistic context you see the peak date does not matter just the movement in that direction matters. When so many other holistic aspect to our human experience are in decline and decay even a slight lurch towards peak oil is very dangerous.
JuanP on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 7:42 am
Harm “The very idea of physical limits to growth of any kind is now totally discredited.”
Maybe for you, and people like you, the idea of limits to growth has been totally discredited, but not for me and mine. My wife and I know and understand Peak Oil and Limits to Growth, and do not believe these theories to be discredited at all. We have refrained from producing biological offspring because of this knowledge and understanding. We have also prepped for decades and have stores of water and long shelf water to last a decade. We also have decades of training and experience in primitive survival skills including personal defense, food growing, energy systems, and water storage and purification.
I feel sorry for you, Harm, if you feel these theories were discredited for you and you failed to prepare for the times we are living, you should have studied them more and listened to your intuition, like I did. You don’t have to be a genius to understand PO and LTG, or do you?
JuanP on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 7:52 am
Harm, YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT! I have read Hubbert’s paper many times and know as a fact he never claimed the things you say he did. You sound like a stupid, ignorant fool criticizing the work of a very well educated genius without having even read it! Hubbert didn’t make any mistakes, retard! Why don’t you read the paper first and criticize it later, fool? If you expect anyone worth their salt to respect your criticism of Hubbert’s work, you have to read said work before criticizing it, not after, moron!
JuanP on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 7:58 am
I can’t believe that Harm, Plant, and Boat are still making those invalid arguments. Plant, I would expect better of you. I know you must have read the paper by now, probably many times! I can understand someone who hasn’t read the paper like Harm criticizing in his ignorance what he doesn’t know and understand, but, Plant, you should know better.
Hubbert’s predictions were properly qualified in his paper, IMO, and everything he said was essentially correct as far as I can tell.
ghung on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 8:33 am
Hubbert’s work occurred before the Nixon Shock, and couldn’t predict unlimited credit’s effects on markets. It’s pretty much as simple as that. As long as folks like Harm equate conjured petro-dollars with economically/profitably produced energy, the petro-dollar ponzi scheme will let us extend and pretend.
marmico on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 8:34 am
Let’s not forget Hubbert’s wildly inaccurate natural gas forecast. The U.S. is producing about 5 times as much gas in 2016 than the forecast.
https://outrunchange.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/gas-prod-actual-and-hubbert.jpg
ghung on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 8:39 am
I’ll add, as long as fools like marmico equate conjured petro-dollars with economically/profitably produced energy, the petro-dollar ponzi scheme will let us extend and pretend. Don’t burst his carefully-constructed bubble.
JuanP on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 8:47 am
Marm is here! We need Hello for a full roll call of fools! Where is Hello when we need him? Heloo, are you there?
oracle on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 9:19 am
Hubbert was right on target. World production of inexpensive conventional crude peaked in the mid-2000’s, roughly about when Hubbert predicted. Anyone remember the inability for supply to meet demand during that period, and the sharp rise in oil prices? (which, btw, launched the ship of fools on their quest for wealth in tight oil)
Here’s what most people overlook. Tight oil is not the same as inexpensive conventional crude. One is not a substitute for the other. Lumping tight oil and other unconventional liquids with conventional crude is just a (self-)deception. This makes about as much sense as adding oranges to a basket of apples and then saying you have more apples.
Inexpensive conventional crude has peaked. We’re now in a post-peak world, temporarily oversupplied on account of a foolish investment in tight oil.
Apneaman on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 10:40 am
UPDATE 4-Wildfire prompts more Canada oil sands production cuts
“Oil sands producers Canadian Natural Resources Limited and Cenovus Energy shut projects and evacuated workers at Pelican Lake facilities in northern Alberta as wildfires threatened western Canadian output for the second time in a five weeks.”
http://in.reuters.com/article/canada-wildfire-cenovus-energy-idINL1N190147
Apneaman on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 10:47 am
The Fort McMurray wildfires: an indication of what’s to come
SEAS researchers predict that wildfires will only get worse, more frequent with climate change
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2016/06/fort-mcmurray-wildfires-indication-of-what-s-to-come
JuanP on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 11:44 am
Wildfires, floods, heatwaves, droughts, earthquakes, and storms are on the news every single day. We are living in a new world already in many ways. The only certain thing is constant change.
rockman on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 2:43 pm
“As soon as oil goes above about $60 a barrel, fracking can come roaring back any time.”
Of course it will: all we have to is look back to how quickly the rig count was falling when oil hit $60 – $65 per bbl.
Boat on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 2:43 pm
“World production of inexpensive conventional crude peaked in the mid-2000’s, roughly about when Hubbert predicted. Anyone remember the inability for supply to meet demand during that period, and the sharp rise in oil prices?”
Do you remember GW going to war in Iraq? That was in 2003. Is convential oil production from the middle east rising fast now? Yeppers. Is there a new peak ahead? Yeppers.
GregT on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 3:07 pm
The increase in Iraqi oil production since the illegal invasion of Iraq barely makes up 1.5% of total world production. That would also include unconventional oil, which makes up for an over 6% increase in overall global production during the same time period.
HARM on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 9:24 pm
@JuanP,
Thanks fir taking one quote out of context and completely misrepresenting what I said and what I meant.
“Because these well meaning oracles of overshoot were wildly off on their predictive models’ assumptions (and dates of reckoning), the media and public are convinced that both camps were 100% wrong about everything. The very idea of physical limits to growth of any kind is now totally discredited.”
You’ll notice that I never said that *I* personally believe there are no physical limits to growth –only that the MAJORITY OF THE PUBLIC AND PRESS BELIEVE this (true), and also that the public BELEIVES that “Mathusians and LTG doomers” have been totally discredited (true).
Do you see the difference?
So is it better to skim and assume, or to read and ask probing questions?
Davy on Sat, 11th Jun 2016 7:05 am
First you need to ask yourself “shut down what”. There are so many places to start. The shut it down needs to start inside yourself first. You need to ask yourself how you yourself within yourself need to “shut it down”. We need to start at square one and that square is you and your attitudes and lifestyles. There are so many blamers and complainers on this board that can’t look in the mirror. They act special and righteous. Their day is spent pointing out other people’s problems saying things like “Do” “not wish” BS. These people represent the worst of man and that is a vicious cycle of narcissistic pathologies.
At society’s level where do you start? Do you start with poor food choices or destructive leisure? Do we want to point to consumerism or decadent capitalism and dysfunctional democracy? We are the problem as humans. We have chosen a de facto religion of progress through technology and prosperity. Most all of us are touched by this. Most of us base our worth on success and prosperity. Not all of this is bad but a significant part of this is part of the problem because when destructive attitudes combine with complexity a destructive self-organizing system develops. This system becomes adaptive and expansive. Modern life is now a cancer of unsustainability and destructive progress.
We are destroying ourselves to advance ourselves. We are in effect getting nowhere so what we consider progress is in reality existential suicide. We are powerless to change because this is all we know. If we were less an immediacy creature and more a spiritual creature we could reflect better on this. Instead we come up with all kinds of insane reasoning to justify it and perpetuate this existential insanity. Our modern way of life is a systematic mechanization of a species drive to survive that has gone haywire. It has gone beyond human to the mechanical and electronic. Our equipment of life are based on it. Our computers promote it. We are now slaves and cogs like no other time in history yet we feel in many ways exceptional because we can fly around the earth or google life’s deepest realities.
Modern life is a paradox that has turned catch 22. This is a trap because what we are programed to think is right is wrong. No, not the basics timeless ethics of life just the way of life. This religions of globalistic consumption is now in its late stages of corruption that all systems enter. This is the basis of lifecycles and succession. It is the frequency of life. Natural systems have complexity that become brittle and impervious to beneficial change and bifurcate in a cycle of growth and decay.
If we can do anything in this situation it is to emulate nature. Traditional religion cannot help us at this level because it has been corrupted by this reality. Don’t worry about discarding them because their dysfunctions heal when nature is embraced. We must properly place ourselves in relation to nature’s way. Nature must be our guide and we must submit to her. Nature is clearly in an evolutionary process of extinction and environmental complexity reduction currently.
We can say this is our fault but at a deeper level it is a natural expression of life. At this level then we must quit the blame and complain and adapt to collapse as a new religion. This involves acceptance of death and destructive change. It acknowledges decay as the predominant force in the natural ecosystem. If Nature then becomes our mother and garners real and genuine respect you will change and you will shut “it” down. You will know what the “It” is when you attain this spiritual level. If not you will continue to do as you are doing. We are in a spiritual age of material destruction. The momentum of this epochal paradigm of destructive change is beyond our control at all levels but it is not above our acceptance.
What matter is inside you. If you want to get closer to the truth and embracing the truth is the real value in your life then you will shut it down in your own little world. The best humans can do in this end game of modern man is embrace the end game as nature’s way because “it” is. Acceptance of this takes you to a level and then you will go forth on nature’s behalf and become her handmaiden. You cannot lose because the stars are on your side.
If my morning preaching sounds full of BS it is because I am describing a nonlinear multiple ascending level of reality with linear thinking with a handful of words. To find real transcendence you must break the linear bonds and go nonlinear. My point is to be nonlinear and for humans this means embracing and submitting to nature without linear reflection. Just know it is right and go forth on her behalf. It is so simple it is an enigma.
onlooker on Sat, 11th Jun 2016 8:02 am
Anyway Davy, it is quite true we are in a Catch 22 or Paradox. We have become so inured and reliant on Civilization to provide for us and we completely divorced ourselves from other options and discarded them. Yet, paradoxically it is Civilization which is bringing all the human species closer to total ruin. So, the thought or idea that has crystallized inside my head in this one. We have a simple yet profound choice to make all of us. It is consistent with your idea of the need for Acceptance. We have to chose if we wish to maintain Industrial Civilization or a Living planet. We cannot have both. To chose means for every person on this planet to the least possible support Civilization and be plugged into it. It means most of us having to courage to go into the unknown without the support of structure and order so as to allow natural processes to run their course. It would signify much loss of life, stability and certainty but it would also give life including our species the chance for a future. To prolong this insanity is to forgo ANY FUTURE
makati1 on Sat, 11th Jun 2016 8:45 am
onlooker, from my observations, reading and contacts, I don’t believe we have time to do any of those things except personally. Certainly humanity as a whole isn’t going to change voluntarily. Never has. Never will. If we had a few more generations, a miracle may happen and we will all see the light. But,we do not. Maybe a few years.
I don’t think we have to worry about the future too much. TPTB want a war. A nuclear war. Nothing less. You do not threaten a nuclear power with nukes like we are doing to Russia and expect them to bend their knee in fear. Russia has not submitted to anyone since before Napoleon. They will not kneel now. If they suspect that the US s about to launch nukes, they may just be the one to push the button first in a “use it or lose it” gamble. The US will not survive.
Then to add insult to injury, the US is trying the same tactic with China, Russia’s new financial and military partner. Encirclement, intimidation and moving nukes into South Korea are not friendly gestures.
If you listen to and read the comments of the military war mongers in charge today, you can see the insanity infecting the US today. They have gone past the Cold War mindset into believing they can actually win a nuclear war. If they continue, the US will be radioactive glass, along with Europe and much of Eastern Russia and coastal China. THAT is why I hope the US is ruined financially before it can happen. Let the Us become a failed nation, like it has done to so many before and is still doing today.
Ah, well, I will now be shouted down by the deniers and the ignorant. So be it. No one could wish it will never happen more than me. Either way, the over consumption by the 1st world has to end before we all end, forever. Not likely to happen voluntarily. Most humans are not wired for self sacrifice. Especially Americans.
onlooker on Sat, 11th Jun 2016 9:48 am
Agree Mak your scenarios are much more likely than mine.