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Page added on September 16, 2016
Where Hubbert Went Really Wrong On Peak Oil
If you happen to be interested in the topic of “peak oil”, you almost certainly know the name M. King Hubbert. While you may know that Hubbert is widely credited with accurately predicting the peak of U.S. oil production, you may not know the full context of his predictions — which are legendary in peak oil circles.
The history of the scientific study of peak oil dates to the 1950s, when Hubbert, a Shell geophysicist, reported on studies he had undertaken regarding the production rates of oil and gas fields. In a 1956 paper, Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels, Hubbert suggested that oil production in a particular region would approximate a bell curve, increasing exponentially during the early stages of production before eventually slowing, reaching a peak when approximately half of a field had been extracted, and then going into terminal production decline.
A peak in oil production, that is the maximum rate of production after which a field, country, or the world as a whole begins to decline is at the core of the peak oil issue. A country is said to have peaked, or reached peak oil after it becomes apparent that oil production in the region is steadily declining year after year.
Oil production in the U.S. from 1900 through 2010 did approximate a bell curve, with peak production occurring in 1970. I documented this production curve in my book Power Plays: Energy Options In The Age Of Peak Oil:
Source: Power Plays: Energy Options In The Age Of Peak Oil
Hubbert’s fame in peak oil circles comes primarily from the assertion that he accurately predicted the 1970 U.S. peak. Because of this prediction, Hubbert is widely-regarded among peak oil adherents as a visionary. He has been called an oracle and a prophet. A recently published article — What Hubbert And Pickens Got Right About Oil, And What’s Next — recounts the uncanny accuracy of his prediction.
The truth, however, is much more nuanced. Hubbert got a lot of things tremendously wrong, and his much-heralded 1970 prediction contains a large caveat of which most people are entirely unaware. Here is what his 1956 paper actually stated.
Hubbert estimated that the ultimate potential reserve of the Lower 48 U.S. states and offshore areas was 150 billion barrels of oil. Based on that reserve estimate, the 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd) extraction rate in 1955, and the fact that 52.5 billion barrels of oil had been cumulatively produced in the U.S. already, Hubbert estimated that oil production in the U.S. would reach maximum production in 1965. That was his base prediction. He wrote “the curve must culminate at about 1965 and then must decline at a rate comparable to its earlier rate of growth.” Hubbert illustrated this 1965 peak in his paper:
Source: Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels by M. King Hubbert
As shown in the illustration, Hubbert projected a U.S. oil production peak in 1965 at an annual production rate of about 2.8 billion barrels, or 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd). However, note that there is another curve rising above and extending beyond the 1965 peak. This was Hubbert’s “contingency case.” He calculated that if the U.S. oil reserve was 200 billion barrels, peak production would occur in 1970, a delay of five years from his base case. However, he indicated skepticism about the reserve being that high, noting that this would imply “an amount equal to eight East Texas oil fields” beyond the 150 billion barrel estimate. Nevertheless, if the U.S. reserve was as high as 200 billion barrels Hubbert estimated a 1970 U.S. oil production peak at 3 billion barrels, or 8.2 million bpd. Oil production in the U.S. did in fact peak in 1970, albeit at 9.6 million bpd.
While Hubbert’s prediction was in the ballpark, those who cite him don’t seem to be aware that his “perfect” 1970 prediction was based on a secondary case about which he expressed skepticism, and it was about 15% too low on the production rate. Hubbert’s base case — a prediction made in 1956 of a 1965 peak — was off by 5 years and was 20% too low. Or to put it another way, his base case at that time was that U.S. oil production would peak in 9 years, but it actually peaked after 14 years and at 15% higher production than he projected.
My point here is to address his oil production predictions based on what he actually wrote. Still, as someone who frequently makes predictions, I will say that his predictions about U.S. oil production were pretty good. They weren’t prophetic, or nearly as exact as many peak oil adherents claim. But they were in the ballpark.
Yet when we look at what he had to say about global production and natural gas production, his predictions were way off the mark. He arrived at an estimate of the ultimate conventional oil production of the world by comparing a number of estimates. He settled on an estimate of 1.25 trillion barrels for the ultimate potential conventional oil production. We now know that this estimate was far too low. But based on this estimate, Hubbert projected that the global peak in crude oil production would occur around the year 2000 at 34 million bpd. In reality, crude oil production in 2000 was more than twice as high at about 75 million bpd. Further, while conventional crude oil production did flatten around 2005, more than a decade later there is no evidence that it has begun to decline. (Overall global production has continued to grow, primarily because of the rise of shale oil production). So this was a big miss.
Hubbert’s defenders will argue that he only really missed the date of the conventional crude oil peak by 5 years. But, his methodology specifies a peak and decline. That is not what we have seen. In fact, until conventional crude begins to decline in earnest we really don’t know how far off the mark his peak 2000 prediction may be. The longer conventional production holds steady (or even modestly increases), the further off the mark his prediction.
In any case, 34 million bpd was not remotely in the ballpark of the production rate in 2000. And Hubbert noted “variations of this assumed maximum rate will advance or retard the date of the culmination.” If you plug in the actual production rates instead of the much lower rates he assumed, his estimated global peak would have been moved far back, likely into the 1980′s. So the cumulative miss over time is huge. By 2016 his curve shows production having fallen for 16 years from the 2000 peak, when in reality conventional production is up a lot since 2000, and has advanced somewhat since 2005.
Hubbert’s natural gas estimates also underestimated production volumes. Using the same methodology he used for oil, he projected a 1970 peak in U.S. natural gas production at a rate of about 38 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). In reality, 1970 production in the U.S. was 57.6 Bcf/d, and would grow to 59.5 Bcf/d in 1973. (Today’s production rate of 74 Bcf/d is a result of an explosion of shale gas production, which Hubbert didn’t consider).
His estimates of coal production follow a similar pattern. He predicted a peak in global coal production of just over 6 billion metric tons per year around the year 2150. His global coal production estimate for ~2016 was about 4 billion metric tons per year. In reality, coal production has been over 8 billion metric tons in 3 of the past 4 years.
Why were Hubbert’s predictions consistently low? One reason is that even though he allowed for improvements in recovery techniques, he underestimated the impact. Indeed, ”eight East Texas oil fields” were discovered as a result of improved drilling and recovery techniques.
But the biggest issue was simply the underestimate of reserves. U.S. conventional oil production has already surpassed Hubbert’s stretch case for what could be ultimately recovered. Globally, by the year 2000 the world had already produced about a trillion barrels of conventional oil. But the remaining conventional reserve at that time — 1.3 trillion barrels — was still greater than his total estimate of 1.25 trillion barrels made in 1956.
Conclusions
While Hubbert’s defenders are correct that his predictions applied to conventional oil production, as someone who actively participated in peak oil debates a decade ago I can attest that essentially nobody believed that unconventional oil production would ramp up fast enough to prevent a global decline in oil production. The “conventional” part of Hubbert’s prediction only began to get a lot of attention once it was clear that total oil production was still growing steadily. Thus, the impact of unconventional oil on global oil supplies was underestimated. To the extent that Hubbert’s technique has been applied to provide quantitative estimates of future oil supply, or the timing of peak oil supply — it has failed. At the end of the day, the oil markets don’t care whether the oil is conventional or unconventional. What matters is how much is being produced and at what price. (The environmental issues are another matter entirely).
However, this should not be considered a repudiation of Hubbert’s work. As someone who is concerned about future oil supplies, I have found the ideas that Hubbert put forward useful in understanding qualitatively what’s going on. His work also spawned tremendous awareness about the issue of peak oil and resource depletion in general. To reiterate, the purpose of writing this is not to diminish Hubbert’s novel ideas, but rather to strip away the mythology and put his work in proper context. There are certainly things to be learned from Hubbert’s work, but the more it is idolized and treated as prophecy, the less useful it becomes.
Consumer Energy Report » R-Squared Energy Blog by Robert Rapier
34 Comments on "Where Hubbert Went Really Wrong On Peak Oil"
RIch Hilt on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:22 pm
Thanks. You are absolutely spot on.
Hubbert underestimated the Oil/Gas resources and almost on the last page of the report, as an aside, he states that the solution is Nuclear Power — for which he overestimates the amount of Uranium.
People interested in “Projection” of fuels would do well to look to Isaac Asimov’s book “The World of Carbon.” We forget that before he was a science fiction genius, he was a Biochemist. His book looks at Carbon, the element. His prediction was that when we exhaust extractive Hydrocarbons, that we would turn to carbon fuels from alcohol from plants.
Now there’s a good prediction!
ghung on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:27 pm
Albert Einstein was wrong about some things as well. We don’t reject everything Einstein did or said.
Cloggie on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:41 pm
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/robert-rapier
Robert Rapier is a chemical engineer who works in the energy industry. He is the director of alternative-fuels technology for Advanced Green Innovations LLC, a Chandler, Ariz.-based technology-development company focused on alternative-energy resources and delivery mechanisms. Robert has 20 years of international engineering experience in the chemicals, oil and gas, and renewable energy industries, and holds several patents related to his work. He has worked in the areas of oil refining, natural gas production, synthetic fuels, ethanol production, butanol production, and various biomass to energy projects.
After the Heinberg debacle I am slightly more inclined to listen to solid engineers, rather than fairy tale aficionados:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Heinberg
Heinberg, after two years in college and a period of personal study, became personal assistant to Immanuel Velikovsky in November 1979 and after Velikovsky’s death assisted Mrs. Velikovsky editing manuscripts.[1][2] He published his first book in 1989, Memories and Visions of Paradise: Exploring the Universal Myth of a Lost Golden Age,[3] which was the result of ten years of study of world mythology.
jjhman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 1:12 pm
I think reading both Heinberg and his peers as well as Rapier and his peers is good for your perspective.
As much as I am, by training and experience, a technologist I probably wouldn’t be eagerly reading Rapier if I hadn’t first read “The Party’s Over” and “Twilight in the Desert”.
Plantagenet on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 1:28 pm
I’m sure Hubert would be surprised to see that 16 years after he predicted world oil production would peak and then inexorably decline, the world is producing more oil than ever and has entered a multi-year-long oil glut.
Cheers!
green_achers on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 2:11 pm
A useful exercise for someone with the tools would be to run Hubbert’s calculations using a more realistic number for URR. A minimum case could be made by assuming 2016 as the peak, and fitting a Hubbert curve to the data of his time. Then we would know where he would have placed the peak. Seems obvious to me, so I hope someone already thought of it.
green_achers on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 2:16 pm
I didn’t quite say that right. I mean use 2016 as the peak and plot a symmetrical decline, and use that to get URR. Then go back to 1956 figures and use it to run his numbers.
Apneaman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 2:27 pm
Planty, I’m sure you are playing games again (Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder) and know full well that fracking and offshore were not in his analysis since you have been told this 5000 times by those who, unlike you, actually read the original source material and we all know that conventional, which is what he was addressing, peaked in 2005.
It’s no coincidence that 2005 was also the year the oil overlords and their propaganda depts, disguises as helpful and informative “energy agencies” and “think tanks” changed the definition (moved the goalposts) of what counts oil. BIC Lighter fuel, although awesome in it’s own right, is not oil, except maybe to a dip shit like you.
How changing the definition of oil has deceived both policymakers and the public
“It’s wrong not because the range quoted above can’t be found in official sources. It’s wrong because the numbers include things which are not oil such as natural gas plant liquids and biofuels. If you strip these other things out, then world oil production has been running around 75 mbpd this year. The main thing you need to know about the worldwide rate of production of crude oil alone is that it has been stuck between 71 and 75 mbpd since 2005 (calculated on a monthly basis). And, that has already had huge negative effects on the world economy and world society through high energy prices that are partly responsible for our current economic stagnation.”
“Facing up to this reality will be difficult because it will require so many changes in our thinking and our society. And, it would require the immediate markdown of the value of one of the world’s largest and most powerful industries because it now faces contraction in the not-too-distant future. No wonder the powers that be decided to change the definition oil instead of accepting reality.”
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.ca/2012/07/how-changing-definition-of-oil-has.html
marmico on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 2:36 pm
Hubbert also made a 1938 prediction of a U.S. peak in 1950.
http://tinyurl.com/zfn9vjo
rockman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 3:58 pm
And one more complete misrepresentation of Hubbert’s report. If one actually reads it they’ll discover he specifically points out his prediction was only for trends already developed in the lower 48. He also SPECIFICALLY says his model does not includes yet to be exploited trends such as the shales and the offshore. He also SPECIFICALLY predicts that the bell shaped curve of the production from the trends in his model will be very asymmetric. Yes: a “bell shaped” curve DOES NOT imply a decline side rate decrease similar to the build up side rate. Hubbert, again, SPECIFICALLY said the decline of the trends in his model will have a much longer tail then the growth side. Which, if one understands the math of the “area under the curve”, means the 50% of URR will not be seen at the peak of the production rate curve.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has studied the production curves of individual oil fields:rarely is as much oil produced before the field peaks then afterwards. For instance the field the Rockman is currently redeveloping was discovered in 1946 and 70% of the 28 million bbls produced to date happened after the field’s rate peaked. BTW this field was part of Hubert’s data base her built his model on.
Not a big enough field to impress you? OK, let’s look at the largest field in N America…Prudho Bay. When it reached PO in 1989 it had produced 5.7 billion bbls. To date it has made 12 billion bbls with an estimated URR 16 billion bbls. IOW it will have only produced 36% of its URR by the time it peaked. Can we say “asymmetric”? LOL.
I seriously doubt Hubbert ever saw the production curve of a single field which had produced half of it’s URR by the time its production peaked.
OK, a contest: for every DOCUMENTED conventional oil field that has produced 50% of its URR on or before it reached peak production rate the Rockman will consider awarding a voucher for a half gallon on Blue Bell ice cream. That should be more then enough motivation. LOL.
Boat on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 5:01 pm
Poor Plant. She didn’t say anything inaccurate. Since we live in a global market who really cares what Hubbert thought. And ape, that light and heavy oil that is not conventional burns in cars and trucks.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 7:06 pm
“the world is producing more oil than ever”
Fucking retarded cunt.
The world I’d producing less crude plus condensate today than it did 11 months ago in November 2015.
For a ‘peak oil’ site this echo chamber for retards is frequented by a lot of retards who just don’t understand data. Typical American stupidity.
Apneaman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 8:53 pm
Boat, condensates are not crude oil, light or heavy, but you go ahead and define it however it makes you feel best little fella.
Harquebus on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 9:08 pm
Peak production can be an undulating plateau. It doesn’t have to be a bell curve.
Also, unconventional oil has been produced using debt which, has yet to be repaid.
A reckoning is coming.
Boat on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 9:58 pm
ape,
Now that your an expert on LTO what percentage is condensate. What does it sell for.
tk on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 11:13 pm
What EROEI ratio are we at globaly right now?
Any guesses?
What Hubbert and many scientists and
engineers really got wrong was that the
downside of the global bellcurve will end
abruptly at EROEI 1:1
ALL [!!] “money, currency, debt, credit and financial gimmick”, the thousands of years
old “price-system”, the “hierarchical matrix”
ITSELF ultimately disappears… AT ONCE!
That’s what Mike Ruppert got absolutely right.
I think this year…
with luck and enough “system inertia” next year…
Apneaman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 11:36 pm
Boat, depends and I never claimed to be an expert and neither are you just because you have an internet connection and what difference does it make what the percentages of the condensates are. They are not oil. What are you going to ask next to try and change the subject – how each one smells? Hey aren’t you familiar with those feedstocks from your PVC pipe making days? Yeah PVC pipe making is as close to real world experience with the oil industry you have. I’m somewhat closer than you since I’m a journeyman BoilerMaker and have built refineries, tank farms and petrol chemical plants and done many a shut down on all of them. Neither one of is a petroleum engineer or a chemical engineer though are we? Try and spin it any way you want boy, condensate is not oil and none of your misdirection tricks can change that fact. Try standing on one leg with one eye closed and count backwards, in Sanskrit, and see if you can get the result you want that way.
Moving goalposts is on the first page of TPTB manager/legitimizers playbook. They did it with oil in 2005 and Obama’s manager/legitimizer team just did it again with the Median Income numbers.
Deconstructing Median Income Bullshit
“Look at that jump! The biggest since 1967 when record keeping began.
How fucking likely is that?”
“The second knock is that Census moved the goal posts.
Ah, make the data look better by doing the measurement differently. The usual move.
Starting in 2013 with a partial phase-in, which was fully implemented in 2014, Census changed the questions and the methods in calculating household income.
For example, Census, starting in 2014, began to “collect the value of assets that generate income if the respondent is unsure of the income generated.”
Also, the government started to use “income ranges” as a follow-up for “don’t know” or “refused” answers on income-amount questions.
Those are the redesigned income questions.
UPDATE: Census Bureau guidance states that the redesigned income questions increased their estimate of household median income by 3.2%. And see here, Appendix D, Table D-1.”
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/09/deconstructing-median-income-bullshit.html
“Ah, make the data look better by doing the measurement differently. The usual move.”
“Ah, make the data look better by doing the measurement differently. The usual move.”
“Ah, make the data look better by doing the measurement differently. The usual move.”
“Ah, make the data look better by doing the measurement differently. The usual move.”
Amazing how they keep getting away with it huh? No not at all. Tell the sheeple what they want to hear and the majority will believe every time.
Here is part 2 of Dave’s article where he explains why it keeps happening in language so simple even you should get it boat.
Humans Will Believe Anything
“It doesn’t matter that all measurements of things like median household income are bound to be flawed, not least because humans with hidden agendas are doing the measuring.
What matters is that the historically standard measurement was modified to make the results look better than they would have been under the previous standard. Moreover, extraordinary factors (e.g., very low energy prices leading to very low inflation) further distorted the Census results, given their standard method for accounting for inflation (see yesterday’s post).
Importantly, those extraordinary factors went unacknowledged by the Census Bureau and those in the media evaluating its household median income results.”
“Let’s ask a simple question — how can we explain this astonishing disparity between reality and human perceptions of it?
Well, it’s not that we haven’t seen this kind of thing before. That’s what Flatland is all about. But let’s be specific—
Humans love good news. More than anything, humans want to believe that they’re not fucking up. You can throw out the old adage which says if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. If the news is good, human credulity is unbounded. If the news is good, humans will believe anything.
For those with a vested interest in the status quo, or those with a particular political bias, confirmation bias makes it self-evident that the good news must be true, no matter how implausible the news is on the face of it.
Humans automatically (unconsciously) submit or defer to authority. The modern incarnation of authority is expertise. The sacred Census Bureau represents authority in this context.
Anyone rejecting the good news, or questioning it, risks social ostracism or marginalization. Doing so poses a subtle existential threat to the existing social order. So it doesn’t happen very often. Regarding marginalization, skeptical voices will simply be ignored (filtered). Under this interpretation, me and the New York Post guy are invisible.”
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/09/humans-will-believe-anything.html
“If the news is good, humans will believe anything.”
Don’t stop believing Boat.
dissident on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:25 am
The only thing that Hubbert got wrong was the assumption of a symmetric (in the time-axis) bell curve production distribution. Secondary peaks from bottom of the barrel dredging are irrelevant. They will never replace the dying conventional supply and keep the party going forever.
The decline phase of global oil production will be much faster than the increase phase before ultimate peak. Whenever this peak (or global maximum, it does not have to be a on a monotonic distribution and can be on some undulating plateau) occurs, the fact remains that the global oil demand is not going to mirror the pre-peak evolution (i.e. demand will not decline as if time was run in reverse).
The demand curve should always be considered when predicting the production curve. Demand drives production so resources are extracted from the ground faster with higher demand. This process effectively contracts the post-peak tail of the global all time production curve towards the peak and more than likely creates a plateau rather than a single peak. The current plateau is not and indication of cornucopia. It is a flashing red alarm that the production crash in the near future will be steep.
shortonoil on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:45 pm
“In reality, crude oil production in 2000 was more than twice as high at about 75 million bpd.”
Interesting, in 2000, according to the EIA, C&C production was 68.49 mb/d.
What the author misses was Hubbert’s greatest accomplishment. He determined that petroleum’s accumulated production followed a logistic function. The EIA used that from 1960 to 2001 to adjust their production numbers. In actuality, no one has ever counted all the barrels produced. A good share of the world’s production is never reported, or it is influenced by political considerations. The old Soviet Union was notorious for inflating production numbers of all kinds.
The greatest error that Hubbert made was in not recognizing that accumulated production was not a normal logistic function, it is a skewed logistic function:
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_013.htm
We shouldn’t be too hard on him for that because the mathematics to describe a skewed logistic function had not yet been invented when he was doing his work. Quantile Statistics did not come into existence until 1973, when Peres published the first work on it.
All and all, Hubbert was an exceptionally brilliant analyst.
dissident on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:08 pm
The skewed logistic function as you plot it is dead wrong. The future production tail will not be long and thick. The integral under the skewed logistic function would have post-peak production exceeding pre-peak production. On what basis? Both the fact that demand is not going to drop off after peak as if petroleum is fungible like whale oil and that discoveries of new oil fields (including non-conventional) have been collapsing since the 1960s point to post peak production being shorter lived than pre-peak production.
shortonoil on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 6:44 am
“The skewed logistic function as you plot it is dead wrong. “
You are “assuming” that production will follow the curve out onto its right tail. It won’t. By 2030 it will be approaching the “dead state”, where the average field has reached an ERoEI of 6.9:1. It is where a discontinuity appears in the function. After that perhaps 1/3 of the world’s fields will remain producible. That also assumes that there is enough civilization remaining that still has the capability to use the oil. Average world water cut will have exceeded 60%.
Davy on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 7:24 am
If one takes a simple look at oil as a foundational resources without substitution in substance nor timing you see we are committed to oil for a status quo world. Can any of you imagine anything different? You just got up and booted up your internet experience. What will it be like to have a flickering grid? Surely not what you just experienced booting that computer up. How about breakfast? Wow look at that empty frig. UUMM lets hop in the car on a Sunday morning and go to the park….damn fuel shortages.
When you understand what the ETP model is revealing and understand system dynamics then you see we have minimum operating levels required to maintain a complex modern civilization. The ETP model is telling us we are going to drop below minimum operating levels relatively soon if you connect the dots. It is the approach to these minimum operating levels that will mean failure. The failure does not tell us what kind of world will take its place but it is obvious that economic activity will fall considerably and with that fall our ability to feed 7BIL people. You can equate the ETP with a die off if you are brave enough.
If you are in denial and afraid of the horrible world ahead you will see many angels of salvation in technology with innovation and efficiency. Technology does not work without a stable economy and abundant cheap oil. It is as simple as that. A shiny renewable world is the only competing view and it is rather obvious there is little ability for renewables to power up and transition our global civilization in quantity and timing. There is just enough going on with renewables to fool the foolhardy. This is all about scale. It is not about someday we can do it. It is about we must get it done quickly or else. We have a very short time to reconfigure a global civilization and it is apparent to those with intellectual substance and honesty to self this vast undertaking is nothing but fantasy. Fantasy like colonization of the solar system we had just a few decades ago. Results are what matter and the results of a transition away from oil are not at the level needed to ensure a transition. A joke when I was a kid was “Almost doesn’t matter except in horseshoes and hand grenades”.
marmico on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 7:35 am
The ETP model is fucking garbage. It does not take 9 times as much energy to refine a gallon of oil nor does it take 9 times as much energy to deliver the refined product to your local fueling station in 2016 relative to 1960.
More bullshit from a fucking innumerate prepper digging fence post holes with a spoon while his kids are yelling “Daddy the PS4 is down again”.
Davy on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 8:01 am
I love when I get your attention Marmi. You are such a pussy for an easy challenge.
marmico on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 8:08 am
Typical nonresponsive innumerate fuctard. I’m surprised you didn’t challenge me to a knife fight.
Remember folks, it takes 9 times as much energy to deliver jet fuel from the refinery to Davy “indigestible word salad” Greenacres’ parents Lear Jet in 2016 relative to 1960.
What an ETP fuctard.
Davy on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 9:56 am
Marmi I Love when you get all hot and bothered. Your true dirty slut fem qualities shine bright like when you cuss like a sailor. Lol!
Lots of bad news for you lately. I wonder how long you are going to last here on our doom board. What ever happened to your buddy Noony?
shortonoil on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 11:26 am
“The ETP model is telling us we are going to drop below minimum operating levels relatively soon if you connect the dots.”
It is amazing how many emails we get where people say “I have come to understand the Etp Model, and its implications. Even still, I can not imagine a world without oil.”
It really is a damn hard thing to get one’s head wrapped around. The world is sailing into uncharted waters, and we don’t even have a compass!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
energyskeptic on Sun, 18th Sep 2016 1:33 pm
This article is so wrong in so many ways it exasperates me. Hubbert came up with over 5 different ways and papers of calculating peak oil in 1970 and a USGS geologist came up with a 6th way that also arrive at this result. To see the many other errors of this piece, read Mason Inman’s outstanding book “The Oracle of Oil” which was recommended by both top science journals Science & Nature. And he’s a really interesting guy as well, it is far from being boring charts and oil curves…
Robert Rapier on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 2:12 pm
Rockman: “And one more complete misrepresentation of Hubbert’s report.”
Let’s see about that.
Rockman: “If one actually reads it they’ll discover he specifically points out his prediction was only for trends already developed in the lower 48.”
Correct, but has no bearing on what I wrote.
Rockman: “He also SPECIFICALLY says his model does not includes yet to be exploited trends such as the shales and the offshore.”
Not true. He does say this for shales, but I am not considering them in the production numbers. So that’s irrelevant. But he specifically includes offshore estimates in his ultimate reserves numbers. Under “Reserves of the Fossil Fuels”, he has several paragraphs devoted to offshore estimates, which he adds to the overall reserves number he used to estimate the peak.
Rockman: “Yes: a “bell shaped” curve DOES NOT imply a decline side rate decrease similar to the build up side rate. Hubbert, again, SPECIFICALLY said the decline of the trends in his model will have a much longer tail then the growth side. Which, if one understands the math of the “area under the curve”, means the 50% of URR will not be seen at the peak of the production rate curve.”
It’s “approximate”, not exact, but he specifically wrote “the curve must culminate at about 1965 and then must decline at a rate comparable to its earlier rate of growth.”
So I am certainly not seeing any misrepresentation at all here. What you noted correctly here is correctly reflected in my article (or doesn’t impact the conclusions), but you also got some things wrong.
Robert Rapier on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 2:14 pm
“The only thing that Hubbert got wrong was the assumption of a symmetric (in the time-axis) bell curve production distribution.”
Nope. He underestimated production rates in all cases, and in some he grossly underestimated them.
Robert Rapier on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 2:22 pm
“Interesting, in 2000, according to the EIA, C&C production was 68.49 mb/d.”
Under the EIA’s International Energy Statistics (which I just checked), they show 2000 oil production at 77.7 million bpd. In any case, 1). I used the BP Statistical Review; 2). Whether it’s 75 or 68 doesn’t change the fact that it was a big miss given his estimate of 34.
Robert Rapier on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 2:33 pm
“This article is so wrong in so many ways it exasperates me.”
Feel free to list a few.
“Hubbert came up with over 5 different ways and papers of calculating peak oil in 1970 and a USGS geologist came up with a 6th way that also arrive at this result.”
This is exactly the kind of revisionist history and misinformation I am trying to correct with this article.
If you read his paper, you will see that he estimated the U.S. peak in 1965 because he underestimated U.S. reserves, and expressed skepticism that it would be as late in 1970. He allowed for a case in which it took place that late (yet he underestimated the rate of production), but noted that it would require the U.S. to find a lot more oil. He said “I predict X, but if the unimaginable happens, then Y could result.” Then Y was the result, and people go “He was spot on.” Most people don’t even realize that X was his base prediction (or once again, the he under-predicted production rates in every case).
“To see the many other errors of this piece, read Mason Inman’s outstanding book”
Given that you are here and we don’t all have Inman’s book, why don’t you oblige us and just list them.
“And he’s a really interesting guy as well…”
On that we can agree. But some of you are just demonstrating the point that I was making. Too many people treat his predictions as sacred cows. When you start worshiping sacred cows, you lose objectivity.
Robert Rapier on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 3:14 pm
Rockman, just one more comment. You wrote:
“Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has studied the production curves of individual oil fields:rarely is as much oil produced before the field peaks then afterwards.”
If you look at Figure 21, which I included in my article, he says that 52 billion barrels have been produced at that time, and then that next sliver he shows is 30 billion barrels, which goes just slightly past the peak of his curve. In that case he is assuming 150 billion barrels of assumed reserves (total area under the curve), so he is clearly projecting peak just about the time that half the oil is produced. It’s clear from the curve he produced (which, by the way, is pretty symmetrical).
Apneaman on Tue, 20th Sep 2016 6:09 pm
RIch Hilt, Asimov was a giant. Never read the book, “The World of Carbon” cause I never heard of it until you. Thanks for the tip and hopefully my library has it. Here’s a short clip of the man reflecting on another prediction.
Isaac Asimov on the Greenhouse Effect: 1989
“This video is part of a longer presentation at the Humanist Institute in New York in 1989, and it demonstrates yet again that the broad outlines of the climate change story have been understood for decades by, well, intelligent men who are guided by science.
It’s been a recurring theme in this series – that the science was essentially complete long before Al Gore, long before the IPCC, long before the Hockey Stick.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tSYRY90PA