I don’t have a horse in the Peak Oil race, but Energy Security is too important to let the government “disappear” inconvenient reports. As David Archibald points out, at one time the Australian Government went to great lengths to make sure we would be more self sufficient. Lately there are times when Australia doesn’t even have three months supply.– Jo
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Guest Post by David Archibald
Inconvenient report disappeared
About a week ago, the Australian Government released what it called a “Draft Energy White Paper”. It is available here: http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/facts/white_paper/draft-ewp-2011/Pages/Draft-Energy-White-Paper-2011.aspx
World Annual Discovery (red) and Production of Oil (Blue) See below for details.
The White Paper contains a number of strange statements and inanities:
Page 67: “For a major global energy exporter like Australia, pursuing a goal of national energy self‐sufficiency is counterintuitive.”
Page 69: “Energy security does not equate to energy independence or self‐sufficiency in any particular energy source.”
Page 123: “As a result of increased daily net imports in recent years, the level of oil stocks in Australia has regularly fallen below the 90‐day requirement since mid‐2010. The National Energy Security Assessment found that this does not indicate an emerging domestic energy security problem. However, Australia’s stockholding obligation is an important compliance issue under an international treaty that is intended to be a credible response mechanism to a major global oil supply disruption. The Australian Government is currently considering possible options to respond to this issue.”
It is interesting that the Federal Government wants Australia to be an example to the World with the carbon tax, but is also aware that it is breaking a treaty obligation with respect to oil stock levels.
What is most interesting about the Energy White Paper is what it does not mention. That is Report 117 produced by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics which in turn is part of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport. Anthony Albanese is the Minister.
Report 117 is entitled “Transport energy futures: long-term oil supply trends and projections”. This report was not only not mentioned in the White Paper, it has been disappeared from the Departmental website. No reference to it exists. As ASPO notes on its website – “This report is no longer available from BITRE, but no reason has been given for its withdrawal. The report is available on a French website [PDF].
So an Australian Government report is not available on an Australian Government website but is available on a French website.
Why would that be?
It would be because Report 117 contradicts the findings of the Energy White Paper which says,”Demand for petroleum fuels will continue to be strong, although this will be increasingly met by a growing level of imported product through well‐established and proven supply chains.”
Report 117 is the best analysis of peak oil that I have seen
…the World’s oil supply is going to fall off a cliff.
It is a very detailed, thorough, and methodically correct report forecasting oil supply to the end of the century. What it says is that the World’s oil supply is going to fall off a cliff. The words the report actually uses are, ”A predicted shallow decline in the short run should give way to a steeper decline after 2016.”
Figure 13.9 from the report sums up the situation:
...
The red line is the annual discovery rate of oil, which peaked two generations ago in the early 1960s. The green line is the predicted production rate to 2100. Looking at the green line, the conclusion you come to is that we are going to have to find something else besides oil to fuel our cars and industry, and we have to do that very soon if we want to avoid a lot of pain. The current oil price means that coal-to-liquids is a commercially viable way of avoiding that pain. That would involve producing a lot of carbon dioxide. The Federal Government would rather sacrifice liquid fuel self-sufficiency, and thus national security, on the altar of global warming than admit that there is a problem.
Once upon a time the Australian Government recognized the importance of energy security
Back in the 1960s, Australia imported almost all of the oil it consumed. The Federal Government subsidized oil exploration because it was then commonly realized how important liquid fuel self-sufficiency was to national security. When the Bass Strait oilfields were discovered, the low price of oil imported from the Middle East made them uneconomic to develop. So the Federal Government imposed a tax on imported oil in order to make their development economic. Liquid fuel self-sufficiency is the foundation of national security.
If and when Australia is involved in a regional conflict, or even if the conflict does not involve us, the first ships to be sunk will be the crude carriers. Not a drop of oil or refined product will reach these shores. It is idiotic to think that we will get supply from Singapore when Singapore will be in the conflict zone.
The Draft Energy White Paper has the provision for submissions, including electronically, by 16th March 2012. I recommend that everyone who cares about this country go to that French website, download the report and then on-send it to the Energy White Paper Secretariat, contactable here: http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/facts/white_paper/sub_process/Pages/default.aspx
When you make your submission, copy it to your Federal member of parliament.
Australia’s standard of living is being sacrificed on the altar of global warming. It may end up that the whole country will be sacrificed on that altar. Report 117 should be used to stop that possible future.
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Disclaimer: Views expressed in a guest post are those of the author.
I’m getting nothing when I click this link.
Anyone else tried it?
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It is a large document – 474 pages, depending on your computer and internet it may take a while to download and may look like nothing is happening. Click on the pdf link and go make a cup of coffee and see if it materialises. I had no problem downloading it, but My son is an IT wiz and demands I have good gear and connections!
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Thanks for the advice Jaymez. My old 800MHz Mac G4 (thru’ a rural exchange) is a bit slow sometimes.
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I get nothing but a dark screen when I click this link.
Has anyone else tired it?
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A computer dunce and I managed. It took a little while so be patient.
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We will only run out of fossil fuels if the irrational environmentalists continue to obstruct the exploitation of plentiful, accessible new sources, such as shale and coal seam gas, and the Alberta oil sands.
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Yes, the graph did not show the other important factor in peak oil.
That is the development of the new finds. Idiots like Obama are preventing the US from exploiting the known reserves it has, that would make it self sufficient for decades.
He & similar minded people missed the boat with shale gas. The development started before they woke up to how much energy it would pump into the system. They are trying to catch up, & stop further development of this “new” source for some reason.
Is it really just an irrational hate of fossil fuels behind this, or is there some more sinister motive? Any ideas?
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How about the other other factor. The oil price will top out at the price that doing the below becomes viable for more people. So oil cannot run out…ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxNktERFO8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJeg7aKYa0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWf9nYbm3ac
The best part of the above “Green systems” is that they will help to green the planet by producing more of the lovely life giving gas.
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In our area of the Manning valley we have ongoing concerns over CSG exploration and extraction. I believe the fundamental problem is one of land rights in that freehold landowners, wether of town blocks or farms, don’t have any control over the drillers coming on to their land. Now if drillers had to negotiate terms with the landowner much of the current angst would ameliorate. Secondly, the “facts” concerning fracking, extraction and salt dispersion are hard to find. Sure the industry do the research and provide a clean bill of health. There is considerable doubt over those results ( getting the results you pay for) and until we have some independant assessments few will be willing to support CSG.
I support the above and I support the use of our resources including CSG but I do want to ensure we don’t end up with a Frankenstien. There is too much emotion and too few facts at the moment. The Greens are revelling in it of course but I do think CSG will be used and so will coal liquifaction. We just need a government with balls and protection for land owners. The latter is easy since we have had it before. The former is the more difficult.
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It opened for me…all 473 pages of it…should keep me busy over the Christmas hols!
Speaking of which: a very happy Christmas to Jo and all her contributors to this site. It is a favourite of mine for the simple reason that the science is so readily understood. Thanks, Jo, and please keep up the good work.
Very sincere greetings from the UK.
BTW: can anyone tell me who first said ‘Any fool can bugger up the British economy but it takes a real genius to mess up the Australian system’
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If you do get to study this document well please let us know what you think of the stats and figures for The Falkland islands, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand.
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Does someone want us to believe we’re short of energy?
On ABC Radio(702) I recently heard a sensible sounding bloke say that Au has two centuries supply of gas if we keep it for domestic consumption. The latest liquid LPG injection cars seem fine to me. For electricity production a gas turbine followed by a more conventional thermal plant gives about 60% efficiency according to many sources. If we were going to get really keen we could then use the thermal generator’s waste heat to distill decompressed sea-water at only 90ºC.
It’s all tried and tested technology but I get the sense that someone doesn’t like ‘tall poppies’. Bad for the New World Order or something like that.
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I spent a month or so sorting out just such a waste heat desalination plant on Day Dream island, [Whitsundays], running off a 6 cylinder Blackstone generating plant. Those things don’t put out all that much heat, but it could supply enough water for a whole resort, & a huge pool, when running properly.
It was a pretty simple bit of gear, giving problems only because the resort did not pay well enough to attract a competent permanent powerhouse engineer.
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You may find this post of mine interesting.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/17772
I was digging around the Climatgate 1 code and discovered what *could be* evidence of a decade (1998-2008) of ‘hide the decline’ and data fudging.
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Well that was certainly OT, but worth a read. I have come across the accusation before but haven’t seen the code as it was written to support it.
If the fudging you highlight only exists in the IPCC AR graphs, and not the respective original published papers, then it is wrong to cite those original papers in respect to the ‘Hide the Decline’ spaghetti graph. If they did the same fudge in their respective original papers, then how/was the ‘fudge’ disclosed/explained in their papers? If it wasn’t then perhaps the publications need to be advised to seek an explanation or do a retraction?
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I would suggest that Australians become familiar with this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste
It basically describes what was originally the US plan until Jimmy Carter screwed it up and what is the current Chinese nuclear power fuel cycle philosophy.
One thing Australia COULD do is in addition to being a supplier of uranium to other countries is develop a program of reprocessing/recycling spent fuel for other countries to help eliminate the problems of long-term nuclear waste disposal and nuclear proliferation. Providing fuel “poisoned” with a bit of P-240 makes it quite usable for fuel, but completely useless for weapons.
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It would be much better for Australia to develop nuclear power plants using Thorium instead of Uranium.
One ton of Thorium produces as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3,500,000 ton of coal. It is a waste product from mining rare earth metals, and but more readily accessible than Uranium. So there are no supply/demand issues, nor a need to negotiate with anyone to mine the stuff. Australia has the largest known sources, some 19% of the worlds supply.
All thorium is potentially usable as nuclear fuel, compared to just 0.7% from uranium as much of the uranium available has already decayed.
The half life of Thorium is a fraction of processed uranium meaning waste storage issues are a matter of decades not centuries.
U.S. scientists knew in the late 1940s that thorium was a better nuclear energy fuel but the waste is not practical for nuclear weapons so uranium and plutonium won all the funding. Remember the motivation for nuclear power was first as a weapon!
Thorium nuclear reactions are easy to shut down, just switch off the power, so there is no risk of meltdown. Thorium wins in every respect!
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/thorium-pushed-as-uranium-alternative-20111106-1n1z3.html
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Jaymez, yes Thorium has been favoured by Anthony Watts on WUWT. The potential advantages of Thorium over Uranium are compelling. However, for these advantages to be realised in the nuclear fuel cycle, Thorium requires irradiation and reprocessing which will add to the final price we pay on our power bills. As always money is the bottom line and only when Thorium is demonstrated to be economically viable will it be adopted as a serious replacement to Uranium and fossil fuel energy. Unless of course the implications of peak oil to the global economy are so dire we have no choice. But one thing is for sure, wind farms and solar panels are not going to cut the mustard when oil starts running out!
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The thing about a fast neutron reactor is that you can directly make fuel from natural or depleted uranium. If you have a facility that has, say, two conventional modern plants and one fast neutron reactor and reprocessing plant, after the initial fuel load you never need to move enriched uranium around again. All you ship into the facility after that point is natural uranium-238. A “spent” fuel rod still has 95% of its energy capacity unused. That rod can be reprocessed and recycled.
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Those “spent” fuel rods come in handy for blowing holes in the enemies war machines – Iraq for instance.
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Crosspatch,
Was this discussed in an IEEE Spectrum article, “Nuclear Reactor Renaissance”, published 10/09/2010?
I have always thought that some of the concepts were exciting and very promising. But that was before Fukushima, of course, with all the propaganda opportunities that represents.
I have always been fascinated by the concept that some of these designs can be made to convert spent uranium into materials that is not radioactive at all.
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*sigh* Kevni, “depleted uranium” is NOT “spent nuclear fuel”. In general terms, it is natural uranium minus around half of the radioactive bits. Think of it as extra-dense lead – that’s why it’s used as ballast, radiation shielding, armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles.
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Please read up on the molten-salt thorium breeder cycle. Solid reactor fuels were known to be problematic even before they became common, dominant practice.
Operating a reactor at near-atmospheric pressure, without needing a very large containment vessel to accommodate a liquid-to-gas transition of water when that is used as a primary coolant, moderator and thermodynamic working fluid, largely offsets the costs of having in-situ liquid fuel processing using various techniques.
I’ve written some relevant introductory text on my blog on a page that discusses a variation on the molten-salt breeder to circumvent an inherent problem. Please also look elsewhere! ORNL provided copious documentation on their MSRE (Molten Salt Reactor Experiment) which was the predecessor to the MSBR (Molten Salt Breeder Reactor). The MSBR was never built. Not because of any technical problems.
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If what you say is true (it very likely is), why don’t we just DO IT! Why do we have to wait for Government permission?
Governments exists based upon our permission and not the other way around. The Government is subject and We the People are sovereign. When will we start acting that way?
As it is, we meekly stand aside while the Government presumes it has the right to rule our every thought, word, and deed. It is time to say NO and start taking responsibility for our own existence. It is time we stop giving away our power to those who don’t know enough to come in out of the rain and who have proven themselves totally incompetent to run either their own lives or that of anybody else.
Oh? They have the guns? Who invented the guns? Who built the guns? Who taught them how to use the guns? Who pays for the whole charade? We do! Any power the Government has comes from us. In and of itself, Government has no power, no wealth, no capacity to create wealth, and no capacity to do anything at all.
Stop giving your power away! That is all we need to do to make it happen. If we do nothing, we lose everything. If we try to say no and still lose everything, we are no further behind. If we say no and make it stick, we win our lives, our Liberty, and OUR pursuit of happiness. That is all we need to win the universe.
Rather than do that, we act like a bunch of domesticated sheep willing to be sheared and led to slaughter to become their clothing and evening meal. We beg, “we have given our all, haven’t we given enough?” We tremble at the thought their answer would be no. I am almost ashamed to be a member of the human race. We have done much better and can do even better than that.
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This is well stated. I agree. We should not be putting up with this crap for the government.
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Lionell,
I agree with you. But it does sound like you need another cup of tea …
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I am brewing a cup right now. Thanks for the idea.
Yes, it was a rather down message but sometimes I get so fed up with all this waiting for the next stupid idea from Government. It’s like Waiting for Godot. The waiting is so pointless. We know that the next idea from the Government will be as stupid than the last if not more so. We need to do an end run around the Government and simply get the job done.
Ah yes. The tea is ready. A few sips and one does feel a bit better.
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Lionel,
This might be a show stopper –
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
National Geographic – What if the biggest solar storm on record happened today?
Repeat of 1859 Carrington Event would devastate modern world, experts say.
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Re Thorium – see: Coal Combustion:Nuclear Resource or Danger
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
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That is quite an old paper that you refer to. I am sure thinking will have progressed past that point, even allowing for the last revision date being 2008.
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Thinking hasn’t progressed. The nuclear industry became comfortable in producing mainly water-cooled reactors. Everything else has been “risky”; i.e. doing something which is far removed from their experience and rules of how things ought to be done.
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Fort St Vrain in Colorado used thorium with CO2 cooling, as did another in eastern US.
St Vrain has been de-activated and now uses natural gas.
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A while back I threw a question out here “to the heavy hitters” on the relative costs & technological capacity of Coal to Gas & Gas to Liquid. Here in Aus we have a couple of listed players playing around with it( to produce diesel & naptha/jet fuel equivalents)
To my delight Richard Courtney chimed in & admitted to having played a role a Thatcher Government’s program to investigate the feasibility & build a test plant in Wales.
Apparently the program was so successful it was shut down & suppressed so as not to de-stabilise the price of Brent Crude. ( now there is a clue!!!!!!!!!)
Given that Australia is completely dependent on liquid fuels to economically provide dense energy sources for transport bridging the distances of a large low population country & fuelling the far greater part of our foreign exchange earning ( mining & agribusiness) industries, why do we as a nation drag our heels & allow our politicians the luxury of Prima Donna antics?
Sadly, we get the politicians we deserve.
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Check out SASOL in South Africa
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They’ve been doing it for what, 40 years already? So the process must be pretty much perfected by now. From my recollection the South Africans developed this in response to the fuel embargoes of the sanctions era.
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The Germans started the ball rolling before WW2.
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I understand (limited by not being a chemical engineer) that the Fischer-Tropsch process is very energy-intensive. It requires a great deal of heat which is usually obtained from the fuel stock being turned into a liquid fuel.
This results in a relatively high production cost for the liquid fuel. At current rates, that can produce fuel at an oil-equivalent of around $100/barrel.
However; if the source of heat is nuclear, then one can turn much more of the fuel stock into liquid fuel, substanially lowering the cost. I don’t know if it’s feasible (do I have to know everything?) but it’s worth looking at using off-peak capacity of nuclear power to drive a coal-to-liquid (CTL) process. i.e. “throttle” electricity generation by diverting more heat to the CTL process. It may be worthwhile, especially at larger power stations.
The same applies for gas-to-liquid technologies.
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How does this compare with Willis Eschenbach’s paper on Watts up With That <a href="“>WUWT that indicates that the world still has 40 years of reserves, a figure that seems to stay fairly constant? However I agree with the concerns over Australia having less than 90 days of reserves.
According to a March 2001 agreement, all 28 members of the International Energy Agency must have a strategic petroleum reserve equal to 90 days of prior year’s net oil imports for their respective country – not much with any serious disruption to the world’s oil supplies.
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Jo – for a contrary view, may I suggest you take a look at the following post by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT recently:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/13/the-rp-ratio/
Some of his graphs have rather different implications to yours. It is possible that your graph is out of date and/or does not include non-conventional reserves such as tar sands and shale oil. It is also perhaps not unreasonable to look at oil and gas (and perhaps coal) together, given that major discoveries of gas reserves have been discovered recently (including via fracking). There would also seem to be a big gap between “proven” and “unproven” reserves.
I have no dog in the peak oil (or peak anything) fight, but I am suspicious of the subject, which in my experience can lead quickly to alarmism of the worst kind. Bear in mind that many players in the oil industry, including most governments, have a natural vested interest in encouraging peak oil alarm.
I note that the fall in oil consumption follows the sharp increases in oil prices in the 1970s (caused by OPEC countries restricting supply), and to a lesser extent following the wars in Kuwait and Iraq. This suggests that global oil consumption is price sensitive.
In any case, I recommend considerable caution on this subject, unless you are very confident of your facts.
All the best.
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The world’s oil supply isn’t going to fall off a cliff. We have a reasonable estimate of how much oil there is and how much it’ll cost to extract. Oil companies forecast the demand and cost of supplying that demand about 20 years into the future. Because price spikes are bad, oil companies try to maintain a gradual price rise over an extended period. Many people in the oil industry want a unified response to climate change because it makes forecasting a hell of a lot easier therefore resulting in a more stable price.
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Tristan, I agree with you except for your last sentence. The industry is in substantial agreement that CAGW is a scam. True, some companies have paid lip service and homage to the greens and have taken the path of appeasement. However, the “unified response” that the vast majority of those in the oil and gas industry want is to see is CAGW exposed as the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race.
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Also on that Australian Dept of Resources, Energy and Tourism (strange bedfellows?) website:
“An Energy Security Fund will be established with two key components:
– $5.5 billion in transitional assistance, in the form of allocations of free carbon permits and cash payments, to generators with an emissions-intensity above 1.0 tCO2-e/MWh on an ‘as generated’ basis. The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency will be responsible overseeing transitional assistance
– funding to support the closure of around 2,000 megawatts of highly emissions intensive generation capacity before 2020, open to generators with an emissions-intensity above 1.2 tCO2-e/MWh on an ‘as generated’ basis. The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism will be responsible for implementing this measure.”
So in the interests of energy security, we are going to shut down 2000 MW of coal-fired electricity generation! But don’t worry, it will all be funded by our Government Santa – with our money, whether through taxes or higher electricity prices.
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Every twenty years or so they keep telling us that the world will run out of oil in another twenty years and… It never happens! Why? Well, we just keep on finding new oil reserves! Hubberts peak is a mathematical certainty, we just don’t know all the variables.
Please don’t misunderstand me as I am well aware of the importance of energy security but the real threat is geopolitical peak oil. If you can’t get to the reserves because of a hostile environment then all the reserves in the world will not do anyone any good!
The other big threat to energy security comes from the greens. They hate oil and don’t have the humility to admit that they cannot live without it. Why? Because they are misanthropic animist who put people on the same level as they do the mosquito. How many times have you listened to some green hypocrite extolling the virtues of a low carbon footprint just prior to taking a private jet to get a hamburger or for some other equally worthwhile purpose!
When Americans pay at the pump they are paying a green premium. The greens try to obstruct domestic production and the import of foreign oil. This raises the price for everybody and that hurts the poorest of the poor more than anybody. As Obama once said, “under my cap and trade policy energy prices will necessarily skyrocket.” And, ” you can build a coal burning power plant but it will bankrupt you in the process.”
The world runs on cheap energy. Joe Six Pack has been living the good life in the USA. True, Joe wasn’t paying very much attention but now that the greens are trying to pick his pocket Joe is beginning to. The more the greens make Joe’s lot in life worse the closer they come to receiving the justice they deserve.
We need to round up the leaders of the green movement and try them for crimes against humanity for the millions that they have already murdered. Then, after a fair Nuremberg style trial, swift and public executions. There is a word for this: justice!
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using it to get a hamburger. I like that one!! Reminds me of someone currently living in Washington D.C.
(Aussie or Livingincanberra.Which one will you use from now on?) CTS
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Welcome back Eddy. You have been missed.
Now all you need to do is to reconnect your Gravitar to whatever login you are using now, and life will be restored to a semblance of normality.
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Agree.
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I know some greens (once was one) and I don’t see them as evil. Rather as well intentioned, totally misguided individuals who are blindly following “leaders” whose motives are marketed as good but in fact are greedy and destructive. I see the greens as the modern equivalent of the Hitler youth.
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As the price rises the more expensive to access reserves become viable and one day even the Falkland Islands may be extracted but 30m swells are an issue for oil rigs.
Before then I reckon we’ll simply utilse the existing oil more efficiently. I’m fitting a water electrolysis unit to my old Ford Transit ute. The 2.4 diesel is sluggish on my own bio-diesel but by adding H & O to the air intake the diesel combusts with more heat. The US Dept of Transport did some work on this a while ago and reckons it is particularly effective for large cylinder volume engines. The man who is making my Pulse Width Modulator for better gas liberation says his 3 litre Toyota Hilux ute regularly does an extra 20% per tank of fuel.
Generally, unit cost of energy is the governing factor. As the cost rises, innovation occurs but at only A$1.50 / lit for diesel there’s not much incentive yet.
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Many of these predicted declines have already failed to eventuate.
Does the discovery line account for stuff like this?
http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/26/science/geochemist-says-oil-fieldsmay-be-refilled-naturally.html?pagewanted=all
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“Oil fields may be refilled naturally” geochemist says.
Then oil isn’t dinosaur soup afterall.
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No exploration is done at the earths lower levels which are deeper than the “dinosaur” era.
Seismological surveys will tell you that there is nothing below.
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“nothing below” A vacuum at absolute zero?
Seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJdNqYeVwX4
This graph looks so similar but the dates are not the same.
http://watd.wuthering-heights.co.uk/chartpages/p/p5oilprodworld.html
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Sliggy
Thanks
I found the speakers telling of the origin of ‘fossil’ fuel and why peak oil is a myth to be very informative.
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Kevin you may like to listen to this USGS corecast. I find it interesting that they call this oil that they estimate at 3.65 Billion barrels “UNDISCOVERED”. Yet they know it is there. So how much other oil around the world do they know is there but call undiscovered. Is it counted on the charts above…yet?
http://gallery.usgs.gov/audio/corecast/ep38/20080410_38_Bakken_Formation.mp3
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This is all discussed with Willis Eschenbach’s usual clear logic at WUWT which you can read here. Oil companies only look forward for a certain window into the future. This is never taken into account when “peak oil” is brought up as some sort of impending doom.
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For those thinking that shale and the Alberta tar sands will save the day, think again. These are essentially mining operations, the NROEI is low, for every 1 barrel of oil invested, 3 or 4 may be recovered. Sure they will help, but, they are not EASY, CHEAP low hanging fruit with a NROEI OF SAY 20-1 OR EVEN 10-1.
Peak oil proponents readily agree that there is plenty of oil left out there. Problem is, its under the Artic shelf, or 2kms under water, or located in tar sands.
Peal oil is about production not being able to meet demand and the economic/social impact of same. It is a reality, and we are here now. Do you really think companies want to work in the tar sands which produce a much lower output at a much higher cost? How about deep water drilling, its EXPENSIVE OIL.
As demand exceeds production the price rises, this very price rise will cause demand destruction, industries close, people don’t drive as much, it inhibits growth, its a simple reality. The oil price will even drop marginally, until once again demand exceeds production capability. Its a rocky road, the oil price going up then down, mosts always higher highs and higher LOWS however. You will see oil at $300+ a barrel.
Why do you think China is buying natural resources? Oil, natural gas, agriculture land et al. These are the things that will sky rocket price rise in years to come.
You dont find it odd that AGW has arrived at around the same time as the reality of peak oil?
Look, you can’t put a time scale on these things, because generally you will be wrong.
But consider this, if peak oil proponents were correct, what if they were correct about what transpires after peak oil? No, its not the end of the world, but its a very different world, zero or negative growth, shortages, significant change in lifestyles. Thats $300+ oil folks, its a finite resource where as our economic paradigm is based on infinte growth.
Its all about the oil, the cheap easy to get stuff, there aint much of it left.
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10 points out of 10 for this post.
The cheap oil is gone.
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This is all just modelling folks …
Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows swat about how much oil remains under the earth, where it all is, and how much it will cost to extract.
So we make assumptions about the unknowns, and we put them through an economic model, and we get a graph very similar to the one in Report 117. But it is only similar in shape. If we change our assumptions the timeframe goes out (or comes back) so we can optimise for the midpoint. If we change our assumptions the rate of discovery and production go up and come down, so we can optimise for that.
But then we find that the two sets of optimisations do not coincide, so we repeat the process until they have the least variation, and voila – we have an answer.
But this is modelling – we have found an answer – the real problem now is to try and figure out what the question is.
The answer we got was based on a range of assumptions we made. Who is to say that the range is correct? Could there be multiple “maxima” and “minima”, how did we exclude that possibility? How do we know that the economic model we are using is correct, could there not be other significant variables that we have not considered?
It is all modelling folks – and modelling is not reality.
The only good thing I see in this line of investigation is that it makes a good case for the next generation (no pun intended) of Nuclear energy.
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Consider Hubbert’s modelling. Not to bad considering when they were made. I really don’t understand whats so difficult to comprehend about peak oil. Nations have been hitting peak oil individually for decades now, their output is mostly declining. This is public record people.
When was the last land based super giant found? You think a 5 billion barrel field is huge, divide that by 85 million barrels a day, that’s 58 days of oil given current consumption levels, find 10 of these fields, whats that, a year and 2 thirds worth of oil?
Its not extracting it, its extracting it at a production level that can meet demand, and at a price that people are willing to pay. Because its a sure thing if you have to drill offshore or mine shale that the cost will go up. It does not matter anyway, if the return on shale is 1 unit to get 3 you are already in trouble. Ghawar costs approx 1 unit of energy to extract 15 -20. And this is the cheap stuff, not like shale.
YES, there is plenty of oil left, but most of it will be expensive to extract and therefore buy. it will not be able to be extracted at the same daily volume as say Ghawar, that’s the peak oil, maximum output volume cannot be increased, decline sets in.
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Banz,
Your post was interesting to read.
Although there is a possibility that peak oil may be upon us we are likely to see several decades before it occurs. Coal can be converted into oil and so can natural gas. There is probably enough coal available to be converted into oil and to keep the world humming along for another two centuries. Assuming of course the greens don’t succeed in destroying the planet with their insane bullshit!
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We do know swat re : all the cheap oil is gone.
I worked in the oil game in the late seventies early eighties. All our industry experts predicted the end of all recoverable oil within 25 years i.e going over the steep cliff in the year 2000. We had many seminars and conferences where we were lectured to by the “experts”
The field I worked at ran out (or became uneconomical in the late nineties). This field has more resources however due to an ongoing political armed conflict no more exploratory wells have been able to be done.
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Unknown knowns
The mystery of eugene island 330
Eugene Island is a submerged mountain in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast. The landscape of Eugene Island is riven with deep fissures and faults from which spew spontaneous belches of gas and oil. Up on the surface, a platform designated Eugene Island 330 began producing about 15,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1970s. By 1989, the flow had dwindled to 4,000 barrels per day. Then, suddenly, production zoomed to 13,000 barrels. In addition, estimated reserves rocketed from 60 to 400 million barrels. Even more anomalous is the discovery that the geological age of today’s oil is quite different from that recovered 10 years ago. What’s going on under the Gulf of Mexico?
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm
Re.Silligy @ 14
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The oil is probably comming from below – The russians presented different oil genesis theories to the western theories (Abiotic Oil and Gas) 40 to 50 years ago and they were laughed at and ignored. Since then the Russian have found deep oil and seem to be doing OK at oil and gas exploration.
If I remember rightly the russian oil nationalisation carried out by Putin was enacted just before a US company took over a Russian oil major, maybe he was keeping the technology and knowledge secret?
The russian theory seems to be based on targetting deep structures (presumably providing channels down to the deep oil and gas) – your deep fissures and faults fits the bill.
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A number of posts above mentioned Willis Eschenbach’s thread on Peak Oil at WUWT
Here again is my point on this:
“It is true that both private and Govt organisations (eg. OPEC, Russia) routinely restrict (censor) hard data on oil Resources and Reserves (gold and other minerals as well). This is done for “national security” reasons. It is almost impossible to access accurate, reliable geological/engineering data on these … hence your 40 year “magic pudding” (R)
The future rate of extraction (P) depends on the future rate of consumption. We would need to predict with accuracy the future consumption of China and India over the next 50 years to be in the hunt for a reliable estimate of P. Not much hope of accuracy here, I believe
Whenever Peak Oil advocates rear their wishful thinking (Peak Oil is almost always used to scare people), I list out these two factual questions and inquire whether they have reliable answers. Then the only reply is dead silence”
Unsurprisingly, dead silence was again the only answer. I’m beginning to think that people prefer arm-waving to actual analyses … 🙂 I mean, who would have thought that ?
BTW, the “missing” Report 117 (easily downloaded from the French website) really struggles with these questions – but at least it acknowledges them in a convoluted fashion
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To suggest that the future rate of production depends on the future rate of demand is a fairly obvious point Ian. For example if oil hit $250.00 a barrel, demand would drop, demand destruction would occur, price would drop, simply demand and supply levels would reflect altered market conditions. However, as demand increases, price increases again…this is the rocky road, up and down.
The world consumes 85/90 million bpd, what do you think will happen when production declines to 75/80 million bpd. Sure demand will drop, have you considerd the economic and social consequences of such a drop? Jobs lost, food production declines? The pie just got smaller. There is less to go around.
Ian, the super giants have mostly peaked, this is the easier to get stuff, light and sweet and CHEAP. Now its shale and tar sands, deep water, artic shelf, much more expensive, cannot attain the same production volumes.
Why would any company MINE the tar sands, which is EXPENSIVE, and does not provde the same return in terms of energy investment, if there were more light and sweet and CHEAP supergiants out there? Why drill 2kms beneath the sea?
Demand will not determine output, output will determine demand, and at a high price.
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1984 has arrived
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The French site had the file and I have saved it to read later.
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David,
I find myself rather on the sceptical side of this arguement.
First – I feel that it is unrealistic to think that Australia can become independent of imported oil.
Prospecting from satelite etc is now very scientific – if there were large reserves her, the big oil company prospectors would be here in force.
Second we are more than self sufficient in total energy needs for the foreseeable future – we export coal and uranium and import oil.
In the event of a major war we would be in big trouble which could suggest that we use our good offices to bring the USA, China and the middle east together, rather than taking sides as at present.
Now as to global oil – I feel that we should not panic – as time goes by, we will switch from convential to new sources of oil and probably come to rely on electical cars as well – these seem to have real prospects, once oil gets too dear – they are quite in a different category to wind power and solar etc. But the development time to real commercialisation will be much longer than envisioned by the greens think. Transistion will happen quite naturally without government intervention.
So I’m in Willis’ camp on this one at present.
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Electric cars? Dan there is 7 gallons of oil in one tyre. Now consider the paint, plastics, metals etc.
Now consider this, there are 1 billion internal combustion engines (ICE’s) on the planet. There aint enough oil to convert 1 billion ICE’s to electric running, understand? We wont be building 1 billion anythings anymore. Its not running the car Dan, its having enough cheap oil to build them.
Folks understand this, everything around us has been built with cheap, light, sweet crude, roads, cities, homes, cars, boats, toothpaste, clothing. Consider the substantial increase in world population since the advent of the use of oil. Our entire society is based on the edifice of cheap oil.
I keep on reading how new fields are being discovered, a 5 billion barrel field found today, would supply oil to the world for 58 days at current consumption levels. That’s not even 2 months.
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What sort of gallons of oil in a tyre?
Not just oil. A great deal of coal is used to produce energy for manufacturing.
That includes tyres.
Allowing e.g. nuclear power to provide the energy needs for the big producers of goods and electricity reduces the pressure on carbon-based resources; so that those resources can be used for other purposes.
It is however very difficult to displace liquid (and gas) hydrocarbon fuels from the transport sector. Energy density and ease of handling are the compelling reasons why those fuels are being used. Electric cars and heavier vehicles will only be generally acceptable when they satisfy those demands. Here’s a relevant essay that I wrote a while back.
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i was convinced in the Nineties that peak oil was of great concern, but have observed so many major oil and gas finds in the last decade, venezuela now having 20% of proved oil reserves ahead of saudi arabia’s 18%, new north sea, etc, i am now not sure the problem is as urgent as i previously thought.
war loot:
21 Dec: Forbes: Exxon Preparing To Tap Into Iraq, Stock Going To $93
Kurdistan is believed to hold around 40 billion barrels of oil, and the Kurdish Regional Governments’s willingness to negotiate lucrative production sharing contracts is attracting large explorers to start exploration there. Competing oil major Chevron is also rumored to be in negotiations with the KRG to start operations in the future…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/12/21/exxon-preparing-to-tap-into-iraq-stock-going-to-93/
(scroll down to graph)Estimated reserves by country
Total of top seventeen reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
22 Dec: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: North Sea tax grab blamed for record slump in UK oil and gas production
The Government was forced to deny that its North Sea tax hike had hit the UK oil and gas industry, after official figures revealed the biggest year-on-year quarterly production drop since records began.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8973994/North-Sea-tax-grab-blamed-for-record-slump-in-UK-oil-and-gas-production.html
23 Dec: ABC: Liz Foschia and staff: NSW landowners to get veto on wind farms
There are concerns new planning guidelines for wind farms in New South Wales will kill off the industry.
Just two days out from Christmas, Planning Minister Brad Hazzard revealed draft planning guidelines which give landowners the right to veto wind farms proposed within two kilometres of their homes…
The guidelines match the approach taken in Victoria where written consent from nearby landowners is needed before turbines are erected.
But noise levels from new wind farms will be more strict, with a limit of 35 decibels, five decibels less than in Victoria.
Low-frequency noise will also be taken into account.
Mr Hazzard says where that cannot be achieved there will be an appeals process…
The Government is currently considering 17 wind farm applications…
But Kane Thornton from the Clean Energy Council says there is still a path forward.
“The draft guidelines come with an acknowledgment by the NSW Government that the wind industry is very important for the NSW economy and certainly the wind industry welcomes that,” Mr Thornton said.
“These guidelines represent an opportunity to provide certainty for the wind industry to unlock some $10 billion of investment.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-23/nsw-landowners-to-be-given-veto-on-windfarms/3745768/?site=sydney
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Pat, 40 billion barrels of oil would fuel the world for 470 days.
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And for every oil find, there is a field declining
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The energy resources of the world are very very large, and it is just possible, probable in fact, that new resourses of cheap easy to obtain oil will be found. However it is also very likely that the bulk of new oil discoveries will be quite costly and probably in inconvenient locations. What I find rather ludicrous is that there is no plan in place to produce liquid fuels from the abundant reserve of deep coal that this country possesses. The technology is well proven, first by Germany in the world wars and later by South Africa when it was subjected to embargoes during the apartheid era.
Australia could easily become a net exporter of clean sweet diesel fuel, avtur and even lighter petrol fractions.
Here again we see the evil hand of the leading greens, who try to place every obstacle in the way of similar developments. Using arguments and playing on the lack of knowledge of our farming community by opposing coal mining CSG, shale gas etc. I predict that one day, and probably not too far in the future we will heartily regret not having such a plan in place.
By the way and slightly OT The bureau of rural science produces a listing of land use in Australia. It’s not particularly up to date (last done 2005-6) Among the more interesting numbers
Nature conservation 529380 SQ Km 6.89%
Urban intensive use 14031 SQ Km 0.18%
Mining 1366 SQ Km 0.02%
Seeing that mining underpins most of our standard of living and urban intensive use area are where most of the temperature measurements used by our alarmist friends in the BOM, come from, this ought to be food for a lot of thought!
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You’re only playing their game by concentrating solely on oil. The carbon dioxide catastrophist crowd use peak oil as an argument whenever they want to frighten major energy users and switch seamlessly back to killer coal CO2 when the argument grinds into its usual information fog.
Stop it! Global warming and peak oil alarmism are unrelated bits of nonsense.
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There’s no shortage of ideas:
http://www.rexresearch.com/index.htm
I have no idea how viable they are but they’re certainly interesting. One such is Eric Cottell’s ‘Combustion Method and Apparatus Burning an Intimate Emulsion of Fuel and Water’.
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If anyone is interested in becoming a billionaire there is more than one billion barrels oil equivalent of easily recoverable high grade shale oil on the outskirts of Brisbane near the North Pine Dam. It was discovered in the 70s but has never been developed.
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My thinking on this subject is to strategically shift research and development to thorium fusion, with many small plants for local distribution of electricity.
Continue to sell coal and Uranium for overseas use and ensure that residue from that uranium is tracked and returned for reprocessing and development for future fuel if needed plus investment and the economy building plants for future energy self sufficiency.
Once we have sufficient strategically located thorium fusion plants producing “clean” energy, start to phase out coal burning power stations unless we have mastered clean burning for electricity production as a parallel development.
Australian oil to be reserved for producing lubricating oil and imports limited to Diesel for trucks and goods and public transport systems until LPG distribution can replace or conversion of low grade coal to liquid fuel is viable along with LPG stocks for that purpose.
A Government with vision can mandate this change making us virtually free of dependence on overseas cartels to the point that they will have to compete and lower prices to get their product into a reduced niche market. The pace of change and complimentary legislation should be easy as new energy sources come on line and GDP grows.
If we can continue to manufacture and support both heavy and light industry and also technological innovation, we will have the infrastructure and wealth to buffer this economy from world manipulation of currencies and able to aid those that truly need help to develop their economies and assist them to improve from poverty levels.
I would much rather support such a strategic government even if it meant initial personal sacrifice and channeling funds to this worthy objective and also uniting all Australians to that purpose.
I have no love for the oil companies, they have shifted the majority of refining overseas where we cannot check the claimed base costs in what is now a government controlled marketing and pricing environment, but without any real protection of Australian consumers.
As it stands even if there is a world glut of refined oil and product, this can be concealed and controlled without any real semblance of competition.
Strategically the movement of refining capacity severely weakens Australian defence capacity, on shore storage of product, and serves to preserve ever higher fuel costs and pressure on the domestic economy and living standards.
In my view its time to recoup, rebuild, and strengthen rather than weaken our economy and certainly not be dictated to by the likes of the United Nations and tinpot dictators.
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Not fusion. That’d be thorium-based fission.
It’s not that thorium itself that fissions; it’s the product of the transmutation, the 233-U that fissions, releasing energy and neutrons that are captured by the thorium allowing the transmutation to produce fresh 233-U.
Merry Christmas.
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Greens and various other supporters of the the Green Agenda and the UN Agenda 21 drive for global governance will fight tooth and nail to prevent many forms of available energy from being developed. The hysterical campaign being waged against fracking is one currrent example.
From http://green-agenda.com
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy,
because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
– Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
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From ‘Conclusions'(Bitre Report, Chapter 15)
“However, on balance, when an aggregation is done across the globe, it is likely that we have entered around 2006 onto a plateau in potential oil production that will last only about another eight years to 2016. After that, the modelling is forecasting what can be termed ‘the 2017 drop-off’. The outlook under a base case scenario is for a long decline in potential oil production to begin in 2017, which will stretch to the end of the century and beyond.”
“The first option opens the whole debate about alternative fuel sources. For example, coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids production in Australia and worldwide is set to begin in earnest at about the same time as foreseen here for the beginning of the decline in conventional petroleum liquids (about 2017). How much of the constant annual decline in production foreseen can be replaced by continually ramping up production from ‘fungible’ fossil fuels? What about the greenhouse gas implications?”
“If electric vehicles begin to make inroads, what are the the infrastructure requirements and lags, and what about the greenhouse gas implications of the elctricity generation energy sources—coal or renewables?”
Were this a scientific study these “conclusions” would be thrown out by any self respecting reviewer as being a range of speculative innuendo and unknowns, bearing little relationship to data. The conclusions resemble instead what Churchill eloquently coined as a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ (please forgive the gross malapropism). What seems clear is the paralysing influence of green policy manifest in the usual “global warming” CO2 rhetoric bound up with this report. It strikes me as a significant shortfall that whilst every effort is made to assemble oil data, the anthropogenic hypothesis of global warming is accepted without an equal and rigorous analyses. Considering the importance of this latter subject and its bearing on the overall tenor of the report it seems a glaring omission. But then, it is often what is not written that reveals more about the true character of a policy document, eh, I mean ‘report’.
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When the Ranger, then Jabiluka uranium deposits were discovered in 1969 & a bit later ( was on site for the latter), they caused the global curves for uranium supply to be scaled up by a factor of almost 10. Count in the Canadians, the Rossing people in SW Africa and suddenly we had another scaling up by almost an order of magnitude. So far as I know, only a foolish person would place a peak on a uranium supply curve. For one thing, it can be extracted from seawater at costs that are not unrealistic. Still, people doing this type of exercise often assume a certain symmetry in the abundance curve of useable resources, indicating that we will deplete them at about the same rate as we discovered them.
That is the case for the several oil curves at the introduction to the “French-preserved” paper report 117.
It is customary to calculate such curves for oil in a more restricted way than for other commodities such as many metals. This is largely because, in very rough terms, oil is like a liquid in a solid host and has a more measurable capacity, like water in a bath tub. For many metals, the abundance curve has no downturn due to pulling the plug in the bath; downturns are caused by costs becoming excessive, usually as grades become lower. For oil, I see the symmetry in the curves as an artefact, because they fail to properly account for natural gas (and its conversion to liquid a la SASOL in Africa) and tar sands. These bell shaped curves said to predict supply and consumption have a history of becoming wrong overnight with the release of a piece of major exploration news.
Like the Club of Rome, they fail, again and again, to incorporate a critical factor named human ingenuity.
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“”That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight. If THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should…”
http://governmentprinciples.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/north-america-oil-reserves/
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“The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.”
Mate, that’s 43 days worth of oil.
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2010/01/mexican-oil-production-continues-to-dive/
This is peak oil.
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43 days? If this was the sole source for the world but it is not!
This says a more recent estimate is 18 billion barrels but they were only extracting it at 458000 per day so that is 107 years! Some peak and what will the estimate have increased to by then?
“Petrobras plans to more than double production from its current 2.772 million barrels of oil equivalent a day (boe/d) to 6.418 boe/d million by 2020,”
oh and
“Brazil’s platforms and rigs sit above 2,000 meters of water. The oil is anywhere between 2,000-7,000 meters below the sea bed”
So how far below the dead dinos is that now?
http://www.txchnologist.com/2011/brazils-oil-frontier-sub-salt-drilling-could-net-billions-of-barrels-by-dom-philipps
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Yes, and Cantarell used to produce 2 million barrels a day, its now under 500,000.
Siliggy, if brazil is having to drill between 2000 – 7000 meters below the sea bed, then does that not support peak oil?
All the easy to get to, the cheap stuff, is mostly gone.
Now we will have to spend serious energy and money to get whats left.
There is plenty of oil left, but PRODUCTION OUTPUT has peaked.
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Brazillian production has not peaked.
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/07/brazilian-oil-production.html
“An estimated 11 billion barrels in oil reserves have been found off Namibia’s coast, with the first production planned within four years,”
So when will this peak?
http://www.observerindia.com/cms/sites/orfonline/html/africa/awr22.html
“With relatively little fanfare on the international stage, Lundin Petroleum and Statoil (and partners) have just recently jointly discovered one of the largest oil fields ever found in the North Sea.
No peaks here!
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8746#more
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This is not how you describe a peak:
“the latest sign that U.S. energy production is set to surge.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577038433625587776.html
No peaks in Argentina.
Repsol YPF SA’s discovery of a huge amount of shale oil in the south of Argentina could boost its energy reserves by 44% and mark a massive potential windfall for the country and the oil company.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577024302471954104.html
Hang on is an oil glut on the way?
“The government expects India’s crude oil production to increase by 21% to 45.57 million tonnes in 2013-14”
http://www.indian-commodity.com/economy/india-s-crude-oil-output-to-increase-by-21-in-2013-14-reddy.aspx
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Well it is little wonder that the oil price has been falling since April is it.
“Ghana’s oil production to increase substantially”
http://ghanaoilonline.org/2011/10/ghanas-oil-production-to-increase-substantially/
Oh no It is looking like an over supply situation.
“Colombia plans to increase oil production 50% by 2015”
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/20707-colombia-plans-to-increase-oil-production-50-by-2015.html
Looks like the price will go through the floor!
“Increase in Kuwait’s oil output timely”
http://gulfnews.com/business/oil-gas/increase-in-kuwait-s-oil-output-timely-1.933564
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Where are we going to store all this oil?
“Sakhalin Energy plans to increase 2012 output due to platform upgrade”.
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Oil/3856661
Perhaps we could all have oil tanks installed under our houses?
“Kazakhstan, four times the size of Texas, holds slightly more than 3 percent of the world’s recoverable oil reserves and plans to raise crude output by more than 60 percent to 132 million tonnes by 2020.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/kazakhstan-rating-idUSL5E7ML28Q20111121
Maybe we should just drink the stuff!
“Imperial Oil Limited is set to expand the Kearl Oil Sand Project near Fort McMurray, after its board of directors approved the plans. The project is central to Imperial’s plan to double its production to approximately 600,000 oil equivalent barrels per day by 2020.”
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/21/imperial-oil-to-expand-kearl-oil-sand-project/
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The conversion of natural gas to liquid energy and tar sands mining are both energy intensive. Its 1 unit of energy expended for a return of 3 units of energy, you are using more energy to create energy than say from a land based super giant (1 -15). Yes they will be helpful but cannot fill the void created by the decline of the super giants (Cantarell, etc.)
Look, for every field found, one declines, a 5 billion barrel field will supply the world with 58 days worth of oil, that’s all.
Its here, again I ask, do you think companies want to mine tar sands, or drill off shore, 2 kms deep. ITS expensive, its hard to get, you are investing more and more energy to get energy(nroei).
Look at the price of Brent crude, its been over a $100.00 a barrel nearly all year, most of the world is suffering from recession or low growth and still the price is high.
Have a great xmas folks.
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but not permanently.
“In Ukraine, the gas fields Proletarske, Bilousivka, Chornukhi whose total produced gas was 20.6x1012m3, were abandoned as exhausted fifteen years ago, along with several other similarly exhausted fields. However, when tested recently, these fields now produce the same quantity of gas, at the same pressure and rate of production as when initially discovered.”
http://www.gasresources.net/OnSpontaneiousRenewalVasyl.htm
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well that’s great, all those super giants like Cantarell and Gahwar will just start self replenishing.
Seriously.
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YES!!
“The best example of this is Green Island in the Gulf of Mexico. When all the oil that could profitably be extracted had been pumped out, the wells there were closed and forgotten about. Then, twenty years later, those wells were found to contain more oil than before any had been removed!”
http://amlibpub.blogspot.com/2006/12/is-oil-fossil-fuel.html
“Mideast oil was a finite resource and could last 40 or 50 years at best. Yet over the past 25 years, reserves have more than doubled. With no new wells geologist have been hard pressed to explain why and it appears there is no end in sight.”
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-if-oil-is-life-form-oil-wells-that.html
“For over fifty years, Russian and Ukrainian scientists have added to this body of research and refined the Russian-Ukrainian theories. And for over fifty years, not a word of it has been published in the English language (except for a fairly recent, bastardized version published by astronomer Thomas Gold, who somehow forgot to credit the hundreds of scientists whose research he stole and then misrepresented).”
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/davemcgowanstalinandabioticoil05mar05.shtml
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“It has been noted in particular that after a period of enforced idleness, a number of producing wells whose initial output had declined along with the high and rising pressures of their formations and whose produce was water cut were able to restore their original parameters in three or four years. The list of such examples in different parts of the planet runs into the hundreds, indicating a systematic and regular natural process that is everywhere well-developed.”
Sergey Ostroukhov ,
Senior Research Fellow of LUKOIL-Engineering,
Vitaly Bochkarev, Director of the Department of Reserve Management and Auditing Of LUKOIL
http://www.oilru.com/or/49/1052/
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David Archibald chucks in one of his Mills bombs and a lively discussion follows.
But what can we take from all of this, is Willis Eschenbach’s take on “peak oil” correct or is David’s? Do we have reliable data on reserves, do we or should we include “unconventional” oil and gas reserves? Should we be seriously considering the implications of “abiotic oil”, or other modes of natural replenishment of exhausted fields.
World liquid/gas fuel reserves is a topic prone to alarmism, and misinformation promoted by a range of vested interests, ideological, political and financial. So how do we mortals best weigh up these factors to reach an informed conclusion?
I’m convinced the CAGW orthodoxy is nothing but a monumental scam pure and simple, and that many involved in promoting the scam are aware that that is in fact what it is. But when it comes to “peak” oil well ….?
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The finding of methane and complex carbon chains in space has always been problematic to those that believe that oil is of a biological nature.
The recent discovery that drilling deeper, way passed where oil could possibly exist according to the pundits, more oil. Too hot and too much pressure for it to exist, and yet it exists.
Oil will try and find its way to the surface and leak, thus the easy oil was found. Chemists have puzzled over the composition of oil for no process to this day has been found that can convert organic remains into the complex molecules.
Peak oil and gas will happen when we have tapped all possible sources and are using it at its maximum replenishment rate. That will be some way long time into the future.
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Peak oil is when maximum production extraction has been reached. From Wiki;
“The demand side of peak oil is concerned with the consumption over time, and the growth of this demand. World crude oil demand grew an average of 1.76% per year from 1994 to 2006, with a high of 3.4% in 2003-2004. After reaching a high of 85.6 million barrels (13,610,000 m3) per day in 2007, world consumption decreased in both 2008 and 2009 by a total of 1.8%, due to rising fuel costs.[15] Despite this lull, world demand for oil is projected to increase 21% over 2007 levels by 2030 (104 million barrels per day (16.5×106 m3/d) from 86 million barrels (13.7×106 m3)), due in large part to increases in demand from the transportation sector.[16][17][18] A study published in the journal Energy Policy predicted demand would surpass supply by 2015 (unless constrained by strong recession pressures caused by reduced supply).”
Note the bolded increase to a daily oil requirement of 104 million barrels. With the super giants mostly in decline, tar sands, shale, deep water becoming more necessary to fill the gap, its a pretty safe bet to determine that peak oil has arrived.
Oil is no longer cheap…period, consider what the priced will be once these super giants have all declined, that is a drop of 2.2 million barrels per day, to less than 500 thousand(Cantarell, mentioned above), this is cheap oil, to be replace by expensive oil, once that averaging kicks in oil will goto the moon.
The outcome is recession by way of demand destruction, then we start all over again.
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[…] of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. As I say in this post on Jo Nova’s site: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/inconvenient-energy-paper-vanishes-from-government-site/, it is the best report on peak oil I have seen. While Report 117 was issued with an ISBN number, it […]
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[…] of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. As I say in this post on Jo Nova’s site: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/inconvenient-energy-paper-vanishes-from-government-site/, it is the best report on peak oil I have seen. While Report 117 was issued with an ISBN number, it […]
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If the planet produces oil as an abiotic process in proportion to the available CO2 it is a pretty safe bet that peak oil will not arrive.
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