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Page added on March 4, 2012
Hidden in plain sight: Total Liquids is a Big Lie
There are a fair number of reports which present a particular data series:
Total Liquids in Barrels over Time.
For an example of this I will use a recent post to The Oil Drum which features a chart based on US DOE EIA data for total liquids in barrels over time.
January Oil Supply
Stuart Staniford / The Oil Drum / February 24, 2012
according to OPEC and the IEA.
So what is wrong with this chart?
Energy Units and Conversions (link)
by Dennis Silverman / U. C. Irvine, Physics and AstronomyCrude Oil [contains] 5.6 million BTU/barrelNatural gas liquids [contains] 4.2 million BTU/barrel
Approximate values, but good enough for this statement:
To combine various liquid fuels with different energy densities into a single count of barrels over time conceals reductions over time in the available energy from those liquid fuels.
As an analogy would you expect to see a report covering up a copper shortage by showing only combined data of pounds of copper plus pounds of cement? Yet few people question reports showing combined barrels of liquids that contain very different amounts of energy.
Creating a chart showing Total Liquids in BTUs (not Barrels) over Time would not be a complicated thing to do. Such charts probably exist in private and they probably look frightening because the world is probably running on less energy from liquid fuels over time now.
4 Comments on "Hidden in plain sight: Total Liquids is a Big Lie"
babystrangeloop on Sun, 4th Mar 2012 3:13 pm
“AstronomyCrude” needs a br tag.
John Kintree on Sun, 4th Mar 2012 8:47 pm
Yes, the graph of total liquid fuels should be adjusted both for
1) the different energy contents of different fuels (light sweet crude oil, heavy sour crude oil, natural gas liquids, biofuels, and so on) and
2) the energy required to extract and produce the different fuels.
Both of those factors contribute to declining EROEI, and to declining net total liquid fuels.
BillT on Mon, 5th Mar 2012 4:21 am
John, if they actually showed a graph of the energy production from all liquid fuels, I suspect it would show a huge drop over the last 30 years as we have gone from easy sweet light crude to asphalt like sludge and moonshine.
liquids on Tue, 6th Mar 2012 1:30 pm
Hey, nice post on liquids. I never herad of that before. Thanks. Bye, Evelyn.