We are at the peak in world oil production...

Here in Canada and America, we put tar sand gasoline in our engines all the time. And the title to the thread isn't "we're at the peak of oil light, sweet crude oil production which is real important even though it is some small portion of the oil we will be using over the next century"?

They already have. California has been growing for more than a century on the heavy oil production it has been using. And coming from someone who once lived in California, compared to now, boy have they grown!

Why, in a thread about peak oil (of only sweet light apparently)? While I understand that the price we all pay for crude is important, the amount of energy (human, solar,wind, electrical, tide, nuclear or natural gas based) which goes into retrieving it strikes me as somewhat irrelevant, as long as there is a profit to be made.

My analogy makes perfect sense within the context it was used, which had nothing to do with energy production, but the size of fields, and somehow big ones only being the important ones. If I give you 3 gold nuggets weighing 10 ounces each, I can assure you that they are more important than 1 weighing only a pound.

 

Saudi oil fueled the Marshal Plan via TAPLINE and the fuel for the Vietman War.

Texas is producing about a million bpd..

How much is OPEC producing??

As long as real oilmen are at work, they will be drilling for oil...

There are 70 wells in Iran that have been capped for 5 decades..

 

Follow your own advice. The topic isn't peak energy production, but peak oil production. Certainly peak energy production would have some pretty bad side effects, so don't confuse a relatively important energy topic with something relatively minor. The topic is the minor part, in case you are unfamiliar with which is which.

 

Pretend? I dare you to tell the difference when you put it in your car at a gas pump. It doesn't say "87 Octane Unleaded built on Canadian tar sands" with a pump beside it which says "87 Octane Unleaded built from Californian heavy" and yet another entitled "87 Octane Unleaded built from WTI".

Danger Will Robinson! Choose your fuel wisely, lest something bad happen to you!

It doesn't say any of that for a reason. It doesn't matter. So why all the focus on an oils viscosity?

 

Now I'm confused. Get what? That peak oil happened aways back, and caused crazy Americans to over borrow against their houses? Or peak oil happened, and the Greeks went berserk going on nice vacations, the government hired lots of new bureaucrats, and everyone bought a second home?

I don't have any trouble with the idea that getting through peak oil has been a little rough, what with price volatility and whatnot, but it certainly hasn't been that big of a deal. Sell your SUV, get a hybrid, move on to something important.

 

and fortunately, work well.

 

And you do so at ever greater cost, further making my point.

You believe California has "grown" since 2005? By what metric? I'm pretty sure the state has come closest to insolvency the past few years than any other.

I guess a drop to 0.4% GDP increase (when your expected to maintain 2.5%) is technically "growth," in the same way that walking your way through the Boston Marathon is technically moving forward. But here in reality, 0.4% growth is not maintaining capital for investments depending upon steady growth rate. It's hardly surprising the state has a $25 billion gap to close, and gas there is the most expensive in the union.

Herein lies the problem. Junior Milton Friedmans everywhere just can't get their heads around the fact that energy dictates to the markets, not the other way around. You all, to a man, are convinced that as long as someone is making money somewhere, that everything is running smoothly. You simply can not conceptualize that poorer people, and smaller businesses, just might not be able to operate the same with higher energy and food costs.

Input cost is at the very core of this debate. To dismiss it out of hand indicates you don't really understand what we're talking about, or you're so deeply mired in denial that you must remain obtuse.

No, it doesn't at all. It's a painfully weak analogy that doesn't attempt to grasp the subject matter at hand. Gold is a mineral that represents a bartering system. It doesn't produce energy, which is the ability to actually do work.

If you have all the gold on your continent, and I have all the oil on mine, which society do you think is going to prosper?

More important for what? Trading goods? Great. Think of a better analogy.

There are 5-6 billion more people on the planet than just 125 years ago, entirely due to our ability to harness efficient fossil fuels. It has absolutely zero to do with how much gold we've mined.

LOL. So, the most efficient and versatile natural resource our species has ever discovered is "the minor part?" I guess 3 trillion barrels of heavy synthetic is the "major part?" Gotcha.

The topic is peak energy production, and conventional oil production is the spine of that equation. So, while you prefer to play semantics games, most of us understand that global oil production is axiomatic of the overall energy equation.

No, but it does say $4 per gallon (and rising). At what point do you stop pretending that input cost doesn't affect end cost?

Whatever you say, Detective Drebbin

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjK2Oqrgic"]Nothing to see here - YouTube[/ame]

I dunno about you, but a 600% increase in price over 12 years combined with the uniform conclusion of international energy monitoring agencies is worth focusing on. Why not you?

Oh, now I see what I'm dealing with here. To you, it was all the borrower's fault, not the lenders. The epistemic closure loop all makes sense now.

LOL. False dichotomy fail

Unfortuantely for your "nothing to see here" argument, $15 trillion in global TARP-tastic corporate socialism says differently. Hooray for money printing!

Let me know how "no big deal" it all was when nations begin defaulting in the next couple of years.

 

Oh, and by the way... We haven't "gotten through" peak oil. It's just starting.

 

I am unclear as to what your point is. Peak oil production isn't about the price of crude (currently about the same in real terms as it was back in 1979).

California has been producing the heavy crude you say isn't worth anything since 1900 or thereabouts. Are you saying California HASN'T grown using these types of crude in the past 112 years?

Perhaps you do understand the concept of inflation? It was going on much worse back during the 70's, why are you excited about only this particular round? You do realize that inflation has been going on, to lesser extent, even since the late 70's, right?

A silly question considering that gold wasn't being used in the context of energy. As has already been explained to you.

The most efficient and versatile item our species has discovered is the ability to transmute worthless items (like crude oil, a waste product of the planets natural activities) into a useful item. The ability to transform a waste product into something useful is far more important than the item being changed into a more useful form.

Maybe it was once upon a time. But as others have already shown, the US has stopped a Hubbertian decline, reversed it, and is growing oil production for the first time in 30 years. Who knows where that behavior might end? The beauty of dipping ever deeper into the resource base is that the deeper you go, the more there is.

Only for those who use oil and energy synchronously, as you have. Those who know better would never assume such a thing, because it is axiomatically not true.

At what point do you mention that changes in crude prices don't translate at a 1:1 ratio with input costs?

Let them default. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is the peak in world oil production. Why do you keep avoiding the topic, and trying to distract from it by confusing with other stuff?

 

As has already been pointed out, we are post peak by 6 years now. The IEA has said so. You might get to make up any interesting conclusions, links, or breathless speculation you wish on the consequences, but you do not get to make up your own facts.

http://www.the9billion.com/2011/05/...international-energy-agency-chief-says-video/

 

You continue to have a laughable blockage differentiating between "at peak" and "pask peak." The IEA is correct that we are at peak. That is a fact. But no one said we were "past peak," and you do not get to change definitions and create straw man arguments that stick.

Do better.

 

Your solution?

 

You have been "unclear" since you engaged me on this topic, despite it having been explained to you a number of times now. Dismissing "net energy" as intrinsic to this discussion, as you have, showed there is only so far I can lead you along before you must get through the denial stage on your own.

I love when denialists point to the short-term 1980 prices as a comparison to what we face today. Forgetting, of course, that 1) the 70s oil shock was man-made, while this one is geological, and 2) that price spike was extremely temporary, whereas this one is permanent* and going on 4 years now.

((* "permananent" provided demand isn't crushed via war, depression, etc.)

I said it's "not worth anything?" ... Wow... where?

Oh wait, I'm dealing with someone who relies 100% upon false dichotomy and straw man argument.

When you are able to represent my position accurately, you might get a deserved response. For now, I'm saying California's (and the U.S.'s) growth is based on global conventional production growth. Not heavy, unconventional production, which is still a tiny fraction of all liquids production, for good reason.

Has your pay increased 600% since 2000?

Anyhow, here are real oil prices, annually, since WWII. I have no doubt 2012 will be higher than 1979, provided a deep depression doesn't crush demand.

Either way, the long-term trend is up, up, up. Economies take decades to adjust to inflation. Not 4-5 years.

It sure wasn't, which is why it was such a horrible analogy and compromised your agenda perfectly. Thank you for underlining my point.

That's an invention, not a discovery. Learn the difference. My point remains, and you appear to be in agreement, despite your tedious tendency to shift goalposts.

LOL... If a meager 2 mbd increase (of enormously expensive heavy oil) is your idea of insisting Hubberts peak is now "reversed," my work here is complete, and you've been reduced to a champion of cognitive dissonance.

No, in fact, I made a point using the best natural resource known to man. Meanwhile, your equation attempts to include muddier, dirtier alternatives. It's like you're trying to pretend watermelon provides just as much potassium density as a banana because they're both fruit. Fail.

Learn what an axiom refers to.

I don't need to, nor did I. Try and focus on what I type, not what you hope I mean.

LOL!!!!! It has EVERYTHING to do with it!!!! It is clear that I am wasting time arguing with a "free marketeer" who has absolutely ZERO idea how net energy affects the global markets.

Project much?

 

You won't like it.

Once I'm done dealing with the rampant, factually-challenged denial that peak is even here, maybe we can talk about that part.

As any addict will tell you, you have to admit there's a problem in the first place before you can attempt to beat the problem.

 

Semantics. You see, no one was proclaiming the horrors of plateau oil back in 2005, because no peaker ever suspected that enough oil would be found to turn a peak and decline into consistent production spanning the better part of a decade. Why is that?

The reference I provided didn't say "at peak", as in 2012. It said peak was in 2006. So by definition everything after that is NOT peak. If you have trouble with how international energy organizations proclaim peak, I recommend you take it up with them.

Do better? I wasn't "doing" anything, only noting that international energy organizations appear to have jumped the gun on the topic of this thread by more than half a decade. And you apparently didn't notice.

 

So you want converts to your faith, without disclosing salvation? How green of you.

 

Gibberish. Your inability to explain your points is not my shortcoming.

Unconventional production has reversed US oil production decline. And Canada's production. And will Venezuela's as well. I recommend a broader perspective. California has been depending on what you consider to be an inadequate oil type longer than you have been alive, claiming that an economy cannot grow on such oil types is patently false, regardless of its availability to other states/countries around the globe.

Nope. But my gasoline expenses haven't gone up 600% either. Like I said, sell your SUV, buy a hybrid. Better yet, ride a bicycle. For the record, my gasoline expenditures for regular driving/commuting around town hasn't increased at all. I recommend everyone take steps to mitigate against higher costs, be they of gasoline, food, housing, medical care, tuition, or whatever.

The long term trend of inflation has always been up. I recommend you reconsider this nonsense of pretending it is only a recent invention of some maybe peak oil, maybe not concept.

The best natural resource known to man is fresh water. Or sunlight. Again, I recommend you think about these things before typing.

 

No one was? Or you just didn't hear it? I can name several off the top of my head, but you'll likely punt to "so? they're not bankers!!!" again.

More false dichotomy fail.

No, "by definition" everything after is simply not more than the peak. It can plateau for a while, buttressed by ever-more expensive poor grade oil that you seem to be championing over and over again, while missing the point of net energy entirely.

How have they "jumped the gun?" They were entirely correct, a point you and I both seem to agree upon. The only difference here is that you don't think that the flattening of world C+C production is a problem, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is a problem. Unfortunately, all you have is "I don't feel it"... whereas my evidence includes 1) a world economic system coming apart at the seams, 2) a dearth of new discovery data keeping up with dying existing capacity.

Again, you can rest your entire argument on 2.5:1 EROEI heavy, unconventional oil found in mountain ranges and deep under sea beds and salt formations if you like. I'll be over here reminding you that "net energy" is at the very core of this equation, and complex Western nations can not run the same on crap synthetic "oil."

You're not very good at this, are you?

 

This from a poster who can't even grasp the importance of energy density. I explain my points painfully clear. You seem to be having a very difficult time dancing around them.

OK, let's try another angle, and then perhaps maybe you'll start to get it. Please link to any source you think you can find that declares tar sands production will ever go above 3 million bpd. The same for oil from shale. Who is claiming that unconventional production can ever get us back to our peak production of the early 1970s?

No, just 300%. But the world doesn't really run on gasoline, does it? The world's fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, lubricants, enamels, rubber and jet fuel doesn't require gasoline, does it?

LOL... So you admit peak is here, just that everyone should toughen up and endure the higher costs. Afterall, there's plenty of "oil" if we just are willing to pay more. No doubt, the world is as well off as you, and owns an SUV, and has the capacity to downside.

Just like a free marketeer to have absolutely no concept of how the poor huddled masses truly live.

Straw man argument, for the win!!

Fail. Try and focus on what I say, not what you think I must mean.

 

Sounds like a whiff to me. Why don't you answer the poster's question? A common problem with the "OH NOES!! THE END IS NIGH!" gang (be it Harold Camping or human haters like peak oilists) is that they just confused and whine, generating hysteria at every opportunity but avoiding solutions at all costs.

What might your solution be Jiggs?

 

Interesting that he does display the characteristics of trying to convert someone to his religion. Faith based statements, throw in some mumbo gumbo pseudo science and a prophet like Campbell, avoid talking about the history of the group lest others notice they have been claiming the same thing (without results) for a long, long time.

 

I recommend you learn a little bit about bell shaped curves, and the duration of the inflection point at the peak. How is it you can even contemplate discussing this topic for a second without knowing the basics of the profile you claim dictates oil production rates?

So peak oil really did happen in 1989 as Colin Campbell first postulated? Interesting, I thought you were now maintaining the position that peak is happening now? And using the same source who declared it in 1989 to verify the idea? Have you written Colin to let him know that his video in 2005 is more than a little late, if the peak he claimed in 1989 actually came true. And if it didn't, are you seriously suggesting we should listen to someone who has been claiming peak oil for longer than the internet has been around to convince the gullible to buy into the concept? Like those, for example, who think that bell shaped curves have flat spots built into them at the peak? Someway? Somehow?

The conventionality of oil has nothing to do with what it is under. What kind of fool would confuse the physical properties of oil with the location of the reservoir rock it is contained within? Does a reservoir lying under both onshore and offshore locations suddenly change just because some of it is under water, and some not?

Where do you get these weird ideas?

 

Well, then EXPLAIN one of them. Certainly I don't put "net energy" in my gas tank, any more than you can avoid putting heavy oil based gasoline in yours.

Your point is that peak oil is now? When international agencies like the IEA say it happened in 2006? So...which is it? Choose.

I don't know of anyone claiming it. I only know what you are claiming in this thread, which appears to ignore international energy agencies saying otherwise. How do you reconcile your position of peak now, when it has been claimed so many times in the past? How is your claim NOW any different than those claims THEN?

 

At least religion claims to have a method of achieving salvation.

I don't see any viable, CO2 neutral, alternatives to oil, in the next 10 years.

 

I think we will become MORE efficient.. and I think we will supplement energy with local solutions.

Saudi Arabia has built a solar power plant on Farasan Island and its a wildlife preserve..

My brothers are building new businesses on tremendous innovation and new technology.