Peak Oil

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/8/24/161535/296 (4%, 7%, 11% decline rates; all's well, contraction and collapse of society)

Looking at worldwide oil production numbers lately, it looks like 2005 will be the peak. Then it's all downhill forever after that. Sigh.

Or maybe this is just a crock invented by oil companies to bilk the rest of the world. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin ...

{You are deluded. You can't consume at an exponential rate anything and not deplete the universe.}

Nope. Even if there are gagillions of megabarrels of oil deep in the Earth's crust, even if the North American plate is literally floating on an ocean of oil, none of that is accessible.

About the only difference that confirmation of petrol's primordial origins would do is it would enable drilling for petrol in fields that have been ignored because there's no source rocks. And even if that happened, any finds wouldn't make it to the consumer for many years too late.

It's entirely possible to believe in both peak oil and the primordial origins of petrol. They have nothing to do with each other.

Oil discovery peaked about 30 years ago, and has declined since. Well, deposits do not produce forever, and older ones are either dead or almost so, and others are declining in production, and younger ones will do so soon. MEANWHILE, consumption is expanding exponentially. We expect demand to permanently outstrip supply in the next 20 years, anywhere from this year to 7 years from now being most likely. Worst of all, the producing nations have exaggerated their reserves, so we do not know exactly when, or how much is really left. WE will not know until 3-5 years after the peak has passed. When it comes, oil will be in short supply at ANY price. The price will climb, no relief, and the combination of short uncertain supply and high price will stifle growth, stifle prosperity, and slowly strangle a petroleum-based world. Gas is just as bad, and coal is not much better- and is dirtier besides. -- KirkBailey

You can't say oil discovery peaked unless you know it won't peak again in the future. No one knows how much oil hasn't been discovered.

[That's not quite true. Based on the amount of energy stored in the hydrocarbon bonds, the calculable amount of it that has been consumed, and the knowledge of how much output the sun has had since the Earth has been around, one can calculate an upper-bound. So please stop trying to save the ugly system of gross consumption.]]
That's only true in the extreme sense that one can't prove anything about the future with absolute certainty; it's false in the usual sense: specialists have modeled the world's oil supply for many decades, based on theoretical models combined with/compared with empirical data, and used that to predict the peak of production and rate of decline of remaining reserves. This modeling process is not perfect, and aspects of it have been controversial, but Kirk has stated a summary that reasonably accurately reflects the general consensus.

Consider supply and demand. As the supply goes down, the price will rise. This will, in turn, reduce demand as alternate approaches become more viable (not to mention more expensive sources of crude - eg. TarSands?). Even if we have reached peak oil, the monstrous fearmongering about a sudden cataclysmic collapse is ridiculous. Things will get harder gradually, and businesses will respond to realities as they become apparent. Notice that even the new Hummer, a symbol of wealth and environmental apathy, is smaller. -- MartinZarate

Demand for oil is very inelastic (research ElasticityOfDemand?). It's not that things will all immediately collapse, but as the cost to extract oil rises and the cost per barrel rises, it will have profound effects on an economy built on the luxury of cheap oil. That is, until suitable alternatives can be found. Electricity needs may be forestalled with coal and nuclear, but consider that half of U.S. 20 million barrel a day consumption is devoted to gasoline for automobiles

All the alternatives yield significantly less energy. So no matter what, we are talking about less energy in the future, not more.

See also TheComingOilCrisis

Important Terms:

Energy Profit Ratio
Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI)
Hubbert's Peak

The following are links which somehow touch on the subject of peak oil, either the core matter or some peripheral aspect of it. It's best if you understand the subject already before you plunge into it. For instance, one site goes through all possible alternatives to oil and dismisses every one for solid technical reasons (EPR is too low, not enough land to produce it, etc), except for nuclear which it dismisses because it's evil.

Observations worth considering

Note that a solution to the energy problem that involves the combustion of massive amounts of hydrocarbons is a solution which generates "greenhouse" gases; whether it is oil, natural gas, coal, ethanol, biofuel, wood, or even garbage.

Well, actually, with biofuel presumably you are growing the replacement while consuming. The carbon dioxide source created by the consumption will be canceled by the carbon dioxide sink created by the replacement plants growing.

Actually this is completely false. Fuel is a really cheap form of agricultural product and probably compares badly even to growing grass for cows. As a result, nobody remotely sane would turn over prime, or even not so prime, agricultural land over to growing biofuel. So what they'll do is they'll cut down virgin forest. And we know they'll do this because this is what's actually happening in Malaysia. So not only are you burning up a huge carbon store just to get started in biofuel, but the carbon which is stored in the soil also gets depleted. Carbon in soil is just one of those reasons why the idea that growing forests store carbon is a ridiculously stupid oversimplification of reality. Very young forests are generally net carbon producers. The only form in which biofuel is a win is when you're burning literal trash, like sugarcane bagasse, rice husks or used cooking oil. And none of those are capable of powering the world, or even contributing significantly on real terms.

There are a few solutions which do not generate such gases, do not require drilling or mining, the construction and maintenance of pipelines or transportation facilities for moving massive amounts of fuel to a power generation facility. Four come to mind: HydraulicPower, WindPower, SolarPower and NuclearPower. Only two of these can be built almost anywhere the sun shines and only one of these has sufficient capacity to satisfy expected demands. A second solution is that of reducing the quantity of energy consumed to a level which can be satisfied by renewable resources. Another way involves the rationing of fuel and limits on the number of energy consuming devices and mandating of high efficiency for those which are allowed. The spaces which will be temperature-conditioned per person would need to be reduced from levels of thousands of cubic feet to that of hundreds or even tens of cubic feet. The wastefulness of single-occupancy commuting via privately owned fuel-consuming vehicles the tens and hundreds of miles per week will be eliminated by commuting of the work instead of commuting of people.

''(You know, these issues you bring up aren't conservation issues so much as they are American issues.)

People go on and on about "renewable" as if it were something positive and meaningful. Renewable shmenewable, it's neither positive nor meaningful.

What matters is Energy Profit Ratio and Energy Opportunity Cost. If you have to sink 10 years' worth of existing energy upfront into the construction of some kind of a powerplant, then all other things being equal, this is a much, much worse investment than a powersystem whose cost is spread out over time. Similarly, if you have to use arable land to build your power system, then this is a bad investment, no matter what.

Hydroelectric power is particularly bad since all its costs are upfront and it displaces massive amounts of arable land. Photovoltaic and windpower are equally as bad at upfront costs. Old-style nuclear used to be as bad as PV and wind but promises to be much better in this aspect.

Energy Profit Ratios

Photovoltaic 4
Wind systems
Nuclear (old style) 4
Nuclear (PBMR)

Speculation:

Thin film photovoltaics 10-15 ??
Wind systems 50 ??

http://www.awea.org/faq/bal.html

: Energy payback of solar panels at 2200W/m²? That's impossible to achieve unless you install them on Venus! I sure hope that's the only grave error lurking in there...

In Nov05 science TV program it is said half of people in the oil industry think PeakOil will be reached at around 2008. That is assuming Third world (and China) demand rising at the same rate as in recent years.

OffTopic but please TolerateOffTopic unless there is MoreHeatThanLight