Did peak oil go away?

Peak oil is real... but not quite in the sense that the peakists thought. We are not facing peak oil SUPPLY or theoretic availability -- i.e. "peak oil" in the sense of absolute geologic constraint -- but rather peak oil PRODUCTION for reasons other than geologic limitation. Long term, oil production is too damn expensive and with slowing economies it gets worse. Fortunately, developments in renewables over the last 5 years (crashing prices with no end in sight) bode very well for an energy transition away from dirty and too-costly fossil fuels without the peak oil doomsday scenarios.

Jad Mouawad recently wrote in The New York Times, "Some analysts predict oil could fall to $30 to 40 a barrel as the world economy worsens." He goes on to cite the conservative Cambridge Energy Research Associates that estimate that "As much as 4 million barrels of future oil could be jeopardized if prices remain below $60 a barrel."
Quoting several energy executives, The Financial Times reported last month that "delays in developing projects in Russia, Angola, Nigeria, Australia and elsewhere mean there will not be enough oil available once the world economy is ready to get back on its feet."

What lends special significance to this development, however, is that it is part of a larger trend of underinvestment in the industry that predates the current drop in prices. Western oil companies have been decapitalizing in recent years, buying stock back and otherwise returning cash to shareholders, rather than exploring for large new fields that just aren't there.

[link to oilsandstruth.org]


discussion please

this is to hide peak oil being full swing

just wait a little while

Peak oil was predicated on the model of "easily extracted reserves", known reserves to be precise.

With the advances in technology and the ability to quite easily extract shale reserves and tar sands, the old peak oil model is obsolete.

So in short, forget about peak oil, that's way off into the future, perhaps hundreds of years away.

One word. A_B_I_O_T_I_C


Look it up.

It peaked in 2005. It's playing out pretty much exactly as predicted. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean anything. Even though the daily production totals look like they are higher, it doesn't take into account how much more energy we have to spend to get it.

Peak oil was predicated on the model of "easily extracted reserves", known reserves to be precise.

With the advances in technology and the ability to quite easily extract shale reserves and tar sands, the old peak oil model is obsolete.

So in short, forget about peak oil, that's way off into the future, perhaps hundreds of years away.

Correct. It's cheap now because there's a glut. There's a glut because demand has crashed. Demand has crashed because the economy exploded in the face of the stratospheric oil prices that happened around the time conventional oil peaked.



Shale isn't easily extracted. It takes massive resources and the EROEI is minimal compared to conventional oil. Production also drops of a cliff after a couple of years and wells need to be continually re-fracked. Shale is a fad and will hopefully go away soon enough.

Peak oil is here and so is catastrophic climate change. We need to learn to move to a low carbon future thirty years ago.

FWIW an executive of a plant that makes fracking fluid
told me that he thought it would last at least 50 years.

many, in the business claim 100 years.

Jad Mouawad recently wrote in The New York Times, "Some analysts predict oil could fall to $30 to 40 a barrel as the world economy worsens." He goes on to cite the conservative Cambridge Energy Research Associates that estimate that "As much as 4 million barrels of future oil could be jeopardized if prices remain below $60 a barrel."

Quoting several energy executives, The Financial Times reported last month that "delays in developing projects in Russia, Angola, Nigeria, Australia and elsewhere mean there will not be enough oil available once the world economy is ready to get back on its feet."

What lends special significance to this development, however, is that it is part of a larger trend of underinvestment in the industry that predates the current drop in prices. Western oil companies have been decapitalizing in recent years, buying stock back and otherwise returning cash to shareholders, rather than exploring for large new fields that just aren't there.

[link to oilsandstruth.org]


discussion please

One word. A_B_I_O_T_I_C


Look it up.

Correct, oil is a renewable resource. I worked in the natural gas and propane industry for many years and came to the same conclusion, after much investigation.

Abiotic Oil

What would happen if it were proven that "fossil fuels" weren't the result of decaying plant and animal matter, were actually created within the Earth due to simple chemistry and you could not be scared into believing that we were "running out" of oil and natural gas?

There have always been those who claim that oil is a natural substance that forms automatically in the Earth's mantle. They say that it is virtually everywhere, if you can drill deep enough to tap it. 50%<

[link to viewzone.com]


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