# Requiem For The Oil Drum



## BrotherBart (Aug 13, 2013)

"The decision to shutter "The Oil Drum," the leading website devoted to peak oil, has come to symbolize the end of an era - and sparked a furious debate about whether the theory was all along based on a fundamental mistake.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/07/22/The-Death-of-Peak-Oil-End-of-a-Flawed-Theory#page1


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## firebroad (Aug 13, 2013)

Interesting article,  my two cents worth, whether educated or not:

Peak Oil elicits the same reaction from society as Overpopulation.  One faction denies it, another affirms it, and the majority simply ignore it.

The IEA could predict confidently that oil, gas and coal resources "are sufficiently abundant" to fuel the world until cleaner alternatives have been developed.
Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/07/22/The-Death-of-Peak-Oil-End-of-a-Flawed-Theory#ZlYWbBPAClPSQt4F.99 

This is the sort of mentality that keeps us lazy.  As soon as some authority makes such a statement, the persuit of alternative energy falls by the wayside.
Even if oil is found in incredible abundance, I would lay odds that the price will not go down any lower than it is today.  Greed will out.


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## StihlHead (Aug 13, 2013)

No fundamental mistake. Its just that peak oil has just been eclipsed by peak energy, with NG/fracking, coal, nukes and other "cheap enough" energy sources allowing for continued energy expansion, as well as more expensive oil sources. The basic premise remains the same, but has been shifted out a few more decades. There is also the new issue of the obvious effects of burning FF (climate and global warming) and the old issue of the swelling global human population. At some point the population will strip global resources. It is just a matter of time.


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## woodgeek (Aug 13, 2013)

In a simple culture, an organism grows exponentially until it runs out of an essential, limiting nutrient OR some waste product accumulates until it limits further growth. These organisms are not simple or stupid, and can often adapt their biochemistry to run on different foods, or to adapt to the waste accumulating in their environment.

In beer, yeast run out of sugar before the EtOH rises to toxic levels, they live in a 'peak sugar' world. In sweet wine, the EtOH reaches a concentration where the yeast die before the sugar runs out, they live in a 'pollution apocalypse' world.

For humans, 'Peak Oil', or Peak Energy or Peak Whatever is the beer case. Excess CO2 destroying the biosphere, agriculture and then us via global warming, drought and ocean acidification is the 'wine case'.

Over the last few years, the 'wine case' for human limits to growth has started to look more likely than the 'beer case'. Mastering renewable energy and sustainable industry/food (all technically feasible) suggest that, unlike yeast, we can decide to evolve into photosynthetic algae and live the good life a LOT longer. The question is how many of us get to come along for the ride, e.g. equality of distribution.


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## btuser (Aug 13, 2013)

The water is muddied by the petro-dollar. Nixon was a smart cookie.

I'll know things are getting back to normal when the CASH-4-GOLD places start closing down.


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## Grisu (Aug 14, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> No fundamental mistake. Its just that peak oil has just been eclipsed by peak energy, with NG/fracking, coal, nukes and other "cheap enough" energy sources allowing for continued energy expansion, as well as more expensive oil sources. The basic premise remains the same, but has been shifted out a few more decades. There is also the new issue of the obvious effects of burning FF (climate and global warming) and the old issue of the swelling global human population. At some point the population will strip global resources. It is just a matter of time.


 
I could not agree more. Despite massive investments in renewable energy they are still a minuscule fraction of worldwide energy production. The bulk are still fossil fuels with some uranium sprinkled in which all will be depleted at some point. I am even wondering whether we really will reach peak energy in a few decades or not much earlier. The current complacency reminds me of the stock market in 99 and 06/07 when we were "in a new era and the economy will go up forever". When looking at the fracked NG boom for example I am pretty sure we will see double the current prices within two years. I also doubt that we will really get 100 years worth of NG from fracking. Maybe 30 years if we are lucky and use it wisely. In any case, my kids will certainly see life beyond peak energy; I don't envy them.


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## woodgeek (Aug 14, 2013)

The Peak Oil call has happened several times since oil was first developed in the 19th century.  And in each time, the price signal has lead to the development of new resources, sometimes relying on new geographical exploration, and sometimes relying on new tech for extraction.  In all the earlier cases, as that new region got developed or new tech matured, the price fell back to something cheap (i.e. cheaper than milk).  Will the price fall back this time?  Are the new technologies really so fundamentally difficult that they won't get cheap too?

The amount of C below ground is vast.  Unless you have a complete CAT scan of the Earth's crust and a crystal ball for future tech, I don't know how anyone can call a peak for anything.

The problem with FF is CO2, not limited supply.


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## Grisu (Aug 14, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> The Peak Oil call has happened several times since oil was first developed in the 19th century. And in each time, the price signal has lead to the development of new resources, sometimes relying on new geographical exploration, and sometimes relying on new tech for extraction. In all the earlier cases, as that new region got developed or new tech matured, the price fell back to something cheap (i.e. cheaper than milk). Will the price fall back this time? Are the new technologies really so fundamentally difficult that they won't get cheap too?
> 
> The amount of C below ground is vast. Unless you have a complete CAT scan of the Earth's crust and a crystal ball for future tech, I don't know how anyone can call a peak for anything.
> 
> The problem with FF is CO2, not limited supply.


 
When would have been those other times when there was a production shortfall that was overcome by new technologies? Oil spikes in the 70ies were not due to insufficient reserves but politically motivated. Just looking at what we put our hopes on now (oil shale, tar sands, offshore drilling in the arctic, deep sea production) should tell everyone that we are currently going for the scraps. I doubt that there is much beyond that. Certainly not enough to power a growth-dependent economy.


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## begreen (Aug 14, 2013)

Agreed, there is still oil out there, but the extraction is getting a lot harder. Fracking can and does fail at times. Human nature being what it is, corners will be cut in some cases. When there is a large, catastrophic aquifer failure due to fracking that process may grind to a halt. The tar sands in Alberta makes some of the epic Soviet era environmental messes seem tame. There will still be oil, but at what cost?


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## firebroad (Aug 14, 2013)

All boils down to SHOULD WE rather than CAN WE.
And fracking can keep prices down, but I have read so many horror stories about it, I am not sure it is a viable alternative.


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## btuser (Aug 14, 2013)

What I see is a lack of motivation.  You can't own the sun, or the wind, and uranium\thorium are too widespread a resource to monopolize.  How are you going to make money that way?


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## begreen (Aug 14, 2013)

Money talks, nobody walks.
http://fracking.casajurnalistului.ro/english/


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## woodgeek (Aug 14, 2013)

Grisu said:


> When would have been those other times when there was a production shortfall that was overcome by new technologies? Oil spikes in the 70ies were not due to insufficient reserves but politically motivated. Just looking at what we put our hopes on now (oil shale, tar sands, offshore drilling in the arctic, deep sea production) should tell everyone that we are currently going for the scraps. I doubt that there is much beyond that. Certainly not enough to power a growth-dependent economy.


 
Oil started out being pulled out of hand dug wells like old fashioned water wells. The first oil crisis was when that stopped working in the 19th century.

The situation in the 70s was complicated....there were two spikes, a short one led by OPEC, and a longer one later due to a supply/demand imbalance, due to the tapping out of the then developed, onshore conventional reserves (remember, the US 'peaked' in the 70s). So what happened... offshore (Gulf), Alaska, North Sea, African onshore and offshore, and enhanced oil recovery EOR tech everywhere. All of which were developed from the profits on the second (longer) price spike, and which brought so much new supply on line, the price crashed for 20 years afterward (until many of those new resources in the early 80s started to peak, like the UK in the 2000s). Those major corporations that poured into renewable energy in 1980 then lost their shirts, and they still remember to this day....they won't invest big capital until they are convinced that the current high prices are a new permanent condition.

At the time offshore was seen as prohibitively expensive, marginally profitable, and A lot of folks thought EOR was also too expensive or ineffective vapor-ware.  None of that proved to be true, and all that stuff is now 'conventional' too and plenty profitable.

No one knows (yet) how much can ultimately be collected from fracking, or even how to avoid dry holes. And yeah, the US lower 48 shales won't power the US or world for 50 or 100 years. But all the continents have shales, and our overseas trading partners and competitors are also eyeing their shale resources greedily, many of which have not been surveyed yet. How much oil and gas can we get if we fracked all the continents? Enough to keep all the engines of capitalism going for the next 20-30 years (easy), but also enough to break the climate.


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## StihlHead (Aug 14, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> The problem with FF is CO2, not limited supply.


 
You actually believe that there is an _unlimited_ supply of FF?


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## woodgeek (Aug 14, 2013)

Not at all. Just that FF is well in excess of that required to lead to a v bad global warming outcome. IOW, I think we will end up deciding to leave some/most FF in the ground AND prob resort to geoengineering to moderate the worst effects of current and future CO2 emissions.


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## jharkin (Aug 14, 2013)

Thing is, the arguments put forth by the oil drum was never so simplistic as to claim oil would simply dry up. The argument was about flow rates- that unconventional sources, even if total reserves are huge, can't keep increasing the daily production rate much longer.

Looking at it that way, is the theory really dead? Or rather have high prices served to moderate demand to fit stagnant daily supply growth?


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## woodgeek (Aug 14, 2013)

Can't move the goal posts. Many predictions from the PO crowd were for falling production and prices so high that oil was not usable at a level needed to maintain civilization functions, resulting in a 'die off' of most of humanity. Some predicted this was to occur in a time frame that has already been exceeded. Can we make a new theory called 'supply and demand determines price', and 'price modulates demand'? Yup. That is what predated PO theory, its called economics.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 14, 2013)

Agree that current thinking is that we will run out of clean air/water long before FF. Going to be interesting to see how what remains will be divided.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 14, 2013)

jharkin said:


> Thing is, the arguments put forth by the oil drum was never so simplistic as to claim oil would simply dry up. The argument was about flow rates- that unconventional sources, even if total reserves are huge, can't keep increasing the daily production rate much longer.
> 
> _*Looking at it that way, is the theory really dead? Or rather have high prices served to moderate demand to fit stagnant daily supply growth?*_


 
Yes it would have been interesting if the recession had not happened & growth/demand had continued on the curve they were on. Up here we were getting close to the limit of production given what's in the ground for pumping capacity. It was hard to keep up with demand for everything here. Kinda scary to imagine what it would have looked like without a small break in the action. Add to that continued growth at unheard of rates in China & India & well????


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## woodgeek (Aug 15, 2013)

Of course, to be fair to Jeremy, there were also Drum authors who favored a long 'bumpy plateau' in oil production, with swings in price in a high to higher range, and demand destruction, and a slow (decades long) decline in production. Usually, these are not 'die off' folks, just that the whole system will slowly decay and come apart (and become less pleasant and more brutish).

I don't suppose that has been ruled out yet.

In the alternative scenario the entire oil price behavior (including triggering the great recession, arab spring, etc) from say 2005-2015? is just a bump or swing in the normal oil market function, not unlike the one from 1975-1985. People forget that oil is a capital heavy business with huge sunk costs....to make money you may need to run your rig/pump/refinery for 30 years. When the price falls (to a 1990s price), you all hunker down, keep running what equipment you have, and hope the stuff doesn't rust out before the price goes back up. Eventually the lack of development (and field depletion) leads to a supply crunch, a price spike and THEN a whole wave of new development (drilling and tech). I.e. oil is a cyclical industry.

So, perhaps if the price of oil bottoms out nearer $50/barrel for an extended period, we can say the latter explanation makes more sense. This is a tough scenario for many reasons....it would wipe out some unconventional oil producers (who failed to reduce costs in time, or were too debt heavy), could lead to increased consumption (esp in developing countries) and new fleets of lower mileage cars, EVs might tank, RE development might tank in a cheap NG environment. IOW, the oil companies are 'worried' that it will be the 1990s all over again.


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## Circus (Aug 15, 2013)

Anyone really think fossil fuels are going to last forever? The troubling question is how will the population, fossil fuels made possible, survive? Kind of gives a sense of urgency for answers from our little forum.


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## begreen (Aug 15, 2013)

Circus said:


> Anyone really think fossil fuels are going to last forever? The troubling question is how will the population, fossil fuels made possible, survive? Kind of gives a sense of urgency for answers from our little forum.


 
We have vast reserves of coal, but this is a dirty fuel. Regardless, there is the simple case of the doubling factor that will have us spending a whole lot more for whatever fuel in a shorter time than perhaps we realize. Population growth is a key issue here.




a worthwhile watch if you have the time:


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## woodgeek (Aug 15, 2013)

Pop growth is def slowing, and most projections have 'peak humans' in the next 50 years.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 15, 2013)

I will have to do some reading on how resources fair with world pop of 10 - 11 billion. I also noted that most areas with large projected growth are already having substantial habitat destruction. Interesting times indeed, I will miss it but the grandkids will be right in the thick of it.


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## Grisu (Aug 15, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Pop growth is def slowing, and most projections have 'peak humans' in the next 50 years.


 
Like this one? 




http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html


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## woodgeek (Aug 16, 2013)

Yes.  That would be one possible outcome.


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## jharkin (Aug 16, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Like this one?
> 
> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html


 

Looks like he didn't get the memo from the Oil drum folks... everything is fine....nothing to see here... party on dude.


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## woodgeek (Aug 16, 2013)

??? There are multiple possible limits to growth for humans. I think science is a good tool for sorting out which threats are the biggest, and engineering will be useful for confronting or adapting to those threats.

I am v worried about global warming, which is backed up by more than a century of good empirical science by thousands of researchers publishing in peer reviewed journals, whose major conclusions have not changed significantly over that period and is consistent with the historical climate data.

In contrast, peak oil was promulgated (in the latest round) by a handful of enthusiasts publishing themselves on a website, with a big messy comments section, selling fiction and non-fiction books on the topic, and hounding/banning folks with a contrary view. What passed for empirical evidence was based on 'fits' to cherry picked geological data and economic info over short time horizons, and extrapolating the fit forward for a couple decades. History (and longer baseline data) showed a contrary view that PO theory had become popular and faded multiple times previously, during periods of high prices and prior to major exploration and development cycles.

Of course oil and all FF are finite, but there are enough of all of them that their shortage or price does not currently appear to represent an existential threat.


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## Grisu (Aug 16, 2013)

First, I think the "demise" of the Oildrum is widely exaggerated. It is simply that they have said what there is to say. Now it is just waiting for the predictions to come true (or maybe not although I am not too hopeful about that). I was quite a frequent visitor at the Oildrum myself for some time but have not looked at it much for the last year. I was also getting tired of reading the same over and over again. There is now a minority that believes in PO, a minority that rejects it and a majority that does not care. Those boundaries will only shift when PO will become reality, not through more posts on some websites or articles in newspapers. 

Second, I also believe that climate change is real as will be water scarcity, soil erosion, shortages in industrial metals etc. etc. Humankind will essentially run in a "peak everything" scenario within this century. Too bad, we will also lack the energy then to mitigate any of those effects. I am also sure that we will not stop pulling FFs out of the ground because of climate change or pollution. We may find something better (unlikely), we may not have the integrated economy anymore to support the technology to do so (very probable IMHO) but voluntarily we will not leave anything behind. One current proof: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23722204 
Here are some potential scenarios by the EIA. Be optimistic and take the green line assuming we will be able to extract close to 4 trillion barrels of oil. 





Unless there is 0% growth in oil consumption my children will certainly see peak oil and have then to live in a world that has to cope with an annual decline of 10%. Now, 0% oil production growth will not allow our economy to grow like we are used to it which will shred our monetary system. Hence, our economy may take a nose dive before we ever run out of oil. An when you tout the climate change research then you should also note that PO models are getting more refined. Here are two of the IMF trying to integrate economic and geological factors:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12109.pdf
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12256.pdf
We will be living in interesting times; that's for sure.


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## Delta-T (Aug 16, 2013)

i think oil only has a few years left as a serious energy idea. its high density energy, and fairly easy to transport...those are its main features IMO. Electric vehicle, will drive oil into the ground in a decade. once we have storage under control, all manner of renewables will grow exponentially. We can keep the price of oil high enough to be unappetizing for mass use by reducing refining. The developing world wins in this scenario because they will not have such a vast infrastucture based on FF use (gas stations, oil for HH...not unlike the developing world and cell phones...easy to adopt when you're not forced to build and maintian a legacy hard line system like we are here). Just my opinion of course.


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## Grisu (Aug 16, 2013)

I just wish the guys who actually are supposed to develop the batteries we will need for all that renewable energy would be so optimistic: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201207/electriccars.cfm
"Paul Alivisatos, Director of LBNL, and a Fellow of APS, summarized research needs: “It remains true today, as in the past, that we need a fundamental understanding of the physics of how energy-conversion processes take place, at a much deeper level, in order to achieve a truly sustainable energy future.”
With other words we don't even have the basic understanding yet to design better batteries not even talking about building them.


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## Delta-T (Aug 16, 2013)

we still don't know why/how gravity and megnetism really work...hasn't stopped us from doing some pretty fantastic stuff.


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## btuser (Aug 16, 2013)

Grisu said:


> I just wish the guys who actually are supposed to develop the batteries we will need for all that renewable energy would be so optimistic: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201207/electriccars.cfm
> "Paul Alivisatos, Director of LBNL, and a Fellow of APS, summarized research needs: “It remains true today, as in the past, that we need a fundamental understanding of the physics of how energy-conversion processes take place, at a much deeper level, in order to achieve a truly sustainable energy future.”
> With other words we don't even have the basic understanding yet to design better batteries not even talking about building them.


Asking the DOE to solve renewable energy challenges is akin to asking the FDA to safeguard the health of America, or the DHHS to solve, uh, anything.


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## woodgeek (Aug 16, 2013)

Grisu said:


> First, I think the "demise" of the Oildrum is widely exaggerated. It is simply that they have said what there is to say. Now it is just waiting for the predictions to come true (or maybe not although I am not too hopeful about that). I was quite a frequent visitor at the Oildrum myself for some time but have not looked at it much for the last year. I was also getting tired of reading the same over and over again. There is now a minority that believes in PO, a minority that rejects it and a majority that does not care. Those boundaries will only shift when PO will become reality, not through more posts on some websites or articles in newspapers.
> 
> Second, I also believe that climate change is real as will be water scarcity, soil erosion, shortages in industrial metals etc. etc. Humankind will essentially run in a "peak everything" scenario within this century. Too bad, we will also lack the energy then to mitigate any of those effects. I am also sure that we will not stop pulling FFs out of the ground because of climate change or pollution. We may find something better (unlikely), we may not have the integrated economy anymore to support the technology to do so (very probable IMHO) but voluntarily we will not leave anything behind. One current proof: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23722204
> Here are some potential scenarios by the EIA. Be optimistic and take the green line assuming we will be able to extract close to 4 trillion barrels of oil.
> ...


 
The quality of the postings in the last few years had degraded badly, to the point of being amateurish photologs, back of the envelope calculations and speculative meanderings. That 4T barrel number is interesting....I learned form the Oil Drum that we have (so far) extracted about 1T barrels. In 2007, they said we had another 1T barrels left to extract, and we were thus on the peak (halfway), and all the curves looked like your plot, but with the peak in 2008-2010, where your green curves intersect. If you are convinced that we still have another 1T barrels to go before peak (i.e. we are just halfway to the peak), and the PO will occur in the 2035-2075 timeframe....well they would have laughed you out of OilDrum back in the day, calling you a dirty 'cornucopian'!

I guess running a doom and gloom website doesn't work well when the 'end is nigh' becomes 'the end is in 20-60 years'. 

If we are just waiting for prediction to come true....I think peak oil demand will come in the next 100 years, and then production will fall after that. I'll update this post every 10-20 years.


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## woodgeek (Aug 16, 2013)

Grisu said:


> I just wish the guys who actually are supposed to develop the batteries we will need for all that renewable energy would be so optimistic: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201207/electriccars.cfm
> "Paul Alivisatos, Director of LBNL, and a Fellow of APS, summarized research needs: “It remains true today, as in the past, that we need a fundamental understanding of the physics of how energy-conversion processes take place, at a much deeper level, in order to achieve a truly sustainable energy future.”
> With other words we don't even have the basic understanding yet to design better batteries not even talking about building them.


 
Paul is a nice guy, but is not IMO going to develop a revolutionary battery.  Why do we need batteries for renewable energy?  Studies say we can overbuild RE resources like wind about 60-80%, and then idle them when we have an excess, and have very few outages.  Outrageous wasteage you say?  What about needing 150% extra primary energy for thermodynamic losses in FF heat engines? IOW, intermittancy in RE has a cost premium of 60 to 80% extra, when the the penetration gets high, none before that.  NO new mass storage tech required.


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## Grisu (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> The quality of the postings in the last few years had degraded badly, to the point of being amateurish photologs, back of the envelope calculations and speculative meanderings. That 4T barrel number is interesting....I learned form the Oil Drum that we have (so far) extracted about 1T barrels. In 2007, they said we had another 1T barrels left to extract, and we were thus on the peak (halfway), and all the curves looked like your plot, but with the peak in 2008-2010, where your green curves intersect. *If you are convinced that we still have another 1T barrels to go before peak*


 
That is not at all what I wanted to say with that graph which was actually published by the EIA. They just assumed different total extraction numbers and how probable they are. So with 95% probability we will extract 2.2 trillion barrels, 50% probability 3 trillion and 5% probability 3.9 trillion. What that means is that even when we assume a pretty much best-case scenario that has only a 5% chance we will see the peak within the lifetime of our children if not ourselves. So far, we have about 80 countries that passed peak already and maybe a dozen that have not reached it yet. Once all are through their peak global production will fall, too.  



> (i.e. we are just halfway to the peak), and the PO will occur in the 2035-2075 timeframe....well they would have laughed you out of OilDrum back in the day, calling you a dirty 'cornucopian'!
> I guess running a doom and gloom website doesn't work well when the 'end is nigh' becomes 'the end is in 20-60 years'.


 
When you have a train running towards a broken bridge when do you want to pull the breaks? When is it still safe to stop or when you just have a few feet left? The problem with PO will be that we will only know for sure that we passed it once it is well in the rearview mirror. At that point we will be struggling for survival in an economy that just collapsed. 



> If we are just waiting for prediction to come true....I think peak oil demand will come in the next 100 years, and then production will fall after that. I'll update this post every 10-20 years.


 
Oil will always be in demand given its widespread use. E. g. our chemical industry would be unthinkable without oil.


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## Grisu (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Paul is a nice guy, but is not IMO going to develop a revolutionary battery. Why do we need batteries for renewable energy?


 
How do you power an electric vehicle without a battery?



> Studies say we can overbuild RE resources like wind about 60-80%, and then idle them when we have an excess, and have very few outages.


 
How much electricity can we generate that way? I saw a study ( http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2006.135.4.112) that suggested even when we use all suitable land for wind power generation we get ~2 terawatt of electricity. Current global energy consumption: 17 terawatt. Did your studies also say how much of the rare metals needed are still available to build all those windmills?


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2013)

Grisu said:


> That is not at all what I wanted to say with that graph which was actually published by the EIA. They just assumed different total extraction numbers and how probable they are. So with 95% probability we will extract 2.2 trillion barrels, 50% probability 3 trillion and 5% probability 3.9 trillion. What that means is that even when we assume a pretty much best-case scenario that has only a 5% chance we will see the peak within the lifetime of our children if not ourselves. So far, we have about 80 countries that passed peak already and maybe a dozen that have not reached it yet. Once all are through their peak global production will fall, too.


 
Got it.  But that distribution of the amount of extractable oil increases over time.  Fifty years ago, the best guess was 1T barrels.  In the Oil Drum heyday, they said 2T was it.  Now the EIA says the best guess is 3T.  In 30 years, maybe the number will be 5T.



Grisu said:


> When you have a train running towards a broken bridge when do you want to pull the breaks? When is it still safe to stop or when you just have a few feet left? The problem with PO will be that we will only know for sure that we passed it once it is well in the rearview mirror. At that point we will be struggling for survival in an economy that just collapsed.


 
I hear you, and would apply the same analogy to AGW.  We need to put the brakes on CO2 now.

Part of my PO skepticism has to do with powerful negative (rather than positive) feedbacks on price.  Back in the day, the Drummers assumed the price could go to $200, $400, $1000/barrel, and never come back.  The 'problem' is that at $100 tar sands oil, ultra deepwater and oil shales all look like a good business proposition with existing tech.  I.e. at sustained prices of $100 they will all be developed at a large scale, as we have seen. At $150-$200 coal to liquids and gas to liquids look like stupid easy ways to make $$.  IOW, At $200 there is almost an unlimited amount of (synthetic) oil to be had from converting coal.  From an (existing) tech perspective, sustained prices above $150-$200 appear effectively impossible.  Here 'sustained' means the 2-4 years required to build a lot of plants. 

And then learning curve makes all this (existing) tech cheaper.  Maybe the $100 shale oil and tar sands and ultra deepwater can, with some development make money at half that in 5 more years of operation/learning/amortization?  Then the current demand/supply equilibrium price could drop to that level...If we went for Coal to Oil in 2025 or 2035 at $150 (current $$), maybe after a few years, it could drop back to $75-100, etc.  

Sounds kinda skeezy, but the history of oil development and technology reads just like the above.  Two steps forward on price to develop tech, then one back on learning curve, with short term (2-4 year) spikes on top.



Grisu said:


> Oil will always be in demand given its widespread use. E. g. our chemical industry would be unthinkable without oil.


 
Not sure about this at all.  Only thing oil has going for it is price.  I can make syngas and syncrude from any biomass, garbage, coal or lignite at prices not much higher than current oil price.  And that stuff works fine for making the whole slew of petrochemicals.  And even in a no-FF future, there is plenty of (cellulosic) biomass to make the existing (non-fuel) petrochemicals we currently consume. Just not that big a stream.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2013)

Grisu said:


> How do you power an electric vehicle without a battery?


 
Koreans are fielding a stretch of highway where the cars are fed juice via high freq magnetic waves through the pavement, basically a split transformer. If batteries remain expensive, existing batteries work for around town, and put the korean HF transformers on the interstates.



Grisu said:


> How much electricity can we generate that way? I saw a study ( http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2006.135.4.112) that suggested even when we use all suitable land for wind power generation we get ~2 terawatt of electricity. Current global energy consumption: 17 terawatt. Did your studies also say how much of the rare metals needed are still available to build all those windmills?


 
Yup, clearly we need some solar and offshore wind. and to move some solar energy east and west a timezone or two, schedule loads (i.e. heavy industry, DHW tanks) for the daytime, etc.  The 17 TW you cite is primary energy, with thermodynamic losses included.  It only takes ~7TW of RE to replace 17 TW of primary FF power, maybe 10-11TW if you require it to be fully dispatchble.


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## Grisu (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Koreans are fielding a stretch of highway where the cars are fed juice via high freq magnetic waves through the pavement, basically a split transformer. If batteries remain expensive, existing batteries work for around town, and put the korean HF transformers on the interstates.


 
Good that I don't have a pacemaker, then.  Sure, a lot is possible but do we still have the energy and resources to achieve all those technological wonders? 



> Yup, clearly we need some solar and offshore wind. and to move some solar energy east and west a timezone or two, schedule loads (i.e. heavy industry, DHW tanks) for the daytime, etc. The 17 TW you cite is primary energy, with thermodynamic losses included. It only takes ~7TW of RE to replace 17 TW of primary FF power, maybe 10-11TW if you require it to be fully dispatchble.


 
Careful, that is current use and does not include further population growth neither growing living standards in developing countries. If by 2050 all humans wanted to use as much energy as an average US citizen we would need ~100 TW; essentially unattainable with renewable energy. Here is a short summary of the article I linked to: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3000/followup-why-dont-we-ditch-nukes-em-and-em-coal


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Good that I don't have a pacemaker, then.  Sure, a lot is possible but do we still have the energy and resources to achieve all those technological wonders?


 
We apparently have enough that the best selling vehicles are still SUVs and Ford pickups.  I suspect that a EV with a split transformer will require fewer resources (including highly earth-abundant and recyclable steel) than a F-350.



Grisu said:


> Careful, that is current use and does not include further population growth neither growing living standards in developing countries. If by 2050 all humans wanted to use as much energy as an average US citizen we would need ~100 TW; essentially unattainable with renewable energy. Here is a short summary of the article I linked to: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3000/followup-why-dont-we-ditch-nukes-em-and-em-coal


 
If europeans have been living with 50% of US primary energy consumption, why in the future will everyone be using US levels of energy?   At European levels, that is 'only' 50TW now.  In a time of level and decreasing population (2050), heavy industry (city building) is much reduced, is 50 TW still required?  And there is plenty of solar resource (again requiring earth abundant Si) to provide that much power, provided folks have enough money to pay for it.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 19, 2013)

What I don't see is any allocation for us (human's) behaving as we always have. Essentially killing each other for more stuff or cheaper stuff. Several conflicts over cheaper oil, or the currency that someone's oil is sold for come to mind. Modern warfare is powered by oil, lot's of it too. This will continue & is likely to get far worse in the event of shortages/price increases. We are in a quiet period right now but history says it wont last long.

I also did not see any allocation for the decreasing number of major oil co's. If I control the majority of refining capacity well I simply could care less what the price of a barrel is .... oil will sell for what I say it will sell for. Take it or leave it. Most will be in the position of having to take it no matter how hard it may be. Make a list of the people & co's that do not need oil for their survival & then you have a list of whom I cannot control...directly. Other methods required.

I find that quite often the RE crowd or the we will engineer ourselves out of this group simply fail to account for the human factor, not just pop growth but the nasty, evil, dirty things we are willing to do to each other to have more, or at least to ensure someone has less. Think not?, remember the "let em die" chants/cheers?, that's not the only issue that these folks could be whipped into supporting/fighting for/killing their neighbour for, not by a long shot.

So you see I already have quite a large volunteer army, yes it's an army of fools but an army nonetheless. They only listen to me so your logic/rationale/reason will be useless on them. This makes them quite an effective army , like a machine that will accept no new programming & has no off switch. I just have to be careful when & why I turn them on as they could easily turn on their maker if used in the wrong way/at the wrong time. Gotta get to work on a built in kill switch, after all machines that could turn on their maker are not a good long term investment.

This won't change anytime soon. If I already have control in any or multiple sectors, well good luck getting me to sit down at a negotiating table for a fair & balanced discussion. I will simply continue to take more. After all what interest would I have in your welfare when I am only considering my own? Unless of course you can be made to serve me...then I will care...just a little...or at least pretend to.

Gotta factor in the human equation. Sucks when we do but it needs to be in the equation. Lots of money to be extracted from 9 billion or more people!


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 19, 2013)

And yes the human equation is far different here than in western Europe.


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## Grisu (Aug 19, 2013)

The other problem that gets rarely mentioned are the trillions of dollars that have been invested in the current fossil fuel infrastructure and that would need to be written off if we switch to most of those fancy new technologies. That is the reason we all cling to the idea of the electric car as a viable alternative. Not because it is the best system that we can think off but because it will allow us to use most of the current infrastructure. Will we switch over to a different technology voluntarily before PO will set in? I doubt it.


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## begreen (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Paul is a nice guy, but is not IMO going to develop a revolutionary battery. Why do we need batteries for renewable energy? Studies say we can overbuild RE resources like wind about 60-80%, and then idle them when we have an excess, and have very few outages. Outrageous wasteage you say? What about needing 150% extra primary energy for thermodynamic losses in FF heat engines? IOW, intermittancy in RE has a cost premium of 60 to 80% extra, when the the penetration gets high, none before that. NO new mass storage tech required.


 
The Korean experiment still needs a battery on board. It would be disasterous for the power to go out suddenly and the vehicle not at least being able to get to a safe location or off the road. It's also very costly technology to implement.

This is a tech to watch that may challenge batteries as we know them today.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...or-reaches-lead-acid-battery-capacity.112102/


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 19, 2013)

Even after PO there will be a lot of big money resistance to a switch. Until of course the big money has controlling interest in the next oil. Easier to buy the other guys ideas (patents) & mothball the thing until you are in a position to profit from them. The game is real easy when you can have a substantial say in it's outcome. Kinda like seeing most of the cards in the deck in a poker game. Serious leg up.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2013)

All very good points. People are still people, will still fight wars over something, and greed will make the world go around, as it does now. I don't think we will build a new RE infrastructure in the next 5 years b/c of global warming concerns, and then have a sing along. Just saying that technical solutions and RE resources exist to keep us from a (more or less) imminent PO doom. Whatever humans decide to do at a macro-level over the next **50 years** or so will be driven by many hard to predict factors, but IMO FF and oil scarcity are likely to be way down the list. Making a buck, keeping the kids warm, and national security will prob all rate a lot higher.

I think RE will be developed when there is big money to do so, and that will depend on subtleties with the pricing of both RE and FF (i.e. RE subsidies, carbon tax, future cheap oil, etc). Might be next ten years, might be 50 from now. But not impossible for technical or geological reasons.

On the oil front, I think the new tech/development is shifting the playing field a bit. Canada is getting a boost, the US is in less of a hole. The UK is struggling (as the North Sea is depleted). Let a bunch of countries go big for fracking and where will we be? This will all change geopolitics in hard to predict ways. I for one will be not surprised though when we annex Alberta as our 51st state, we will rename it Upper Texas.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2013)

begreen said:


> The Korean experiment still needs a battery on board. It would be disasterous for the power to go out suddenly and the vehicle not at least being able to get to a safe location or off the road. It's also very costly technology to implement.


 
Indeed EVs will need batteries. Will they need to be better than what we have now? A couple times cheaper? Maybe. Does this require a 'revolution', I don't think so. Could oil fall to $50 for a decade or two and kill off the entire current crop of EVs? Maybe. Could oil go to $200, and foster some real rollout on EV tech, maybe, but I'm not ready to bet on it. Neither one would constitute PO doom.



begreen said:


> This is a tech to watch that may challenge batteries as we know them today.
> 
> https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...or-reaches-lead-acid-battery-capacity.112102/


 
I am always surprised that the 'in production' tech (e.g. Li-Ion batteries) gets no love despite being with a factor of 2-3X from being a killer app, in favor of 'in lab' tech whose feasibility and ultimate pricing are totally unknown. Of course, I will be the first in line to buy the graphene powered, retro styled, manually steered, 2033 model year Ford 'Carbo 3000'.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> On the oil front, I think the new tech/development is shifting the playing field a bit. Canada is getting a boost, the US is in less of a hole. The UK is struggling (as the North Sea is depleted). Let a bunch of countries go big for fracking and where will we be? _This will all change geopolitics in hard to predict ways. I for one will be not surprised though when we annex Alberta as our 51st state, we will rename it Upper Texas._


 
Nope, not hard to imagine at all. Btw in the patch we have been called Texas north since before I was a kid. A leftover I think from the Colorado & Texas wildcats that opened the field here.



woodgeek said:


> Let a bunch of countries go big for fracking and where will we be?


 
When this happens & it will, we will finally find out whats in the fracking cocktail, when we foul the water for say a city of 10 million. 10 thousand & meh no one cares, 10 million & some eyes will open.


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## begreen (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Indeed EVs will need batteries. Will they need to be better than what we have now? A couple times cheaper? Maybe. Does this require a 'revolution', I don't think so. Could oil fall to $50 for a decade or two and kill off the entire current crop of EVs? Maybe. Could oil go to $200, and foster some real rollout on EV tech, maybe, but I'm not ready to bet on it. Neither one would constitute PO doom.
> 
> I am always surprised that the 'in production' tech (e.g. Li-Ion batteries) gets no love despite being with a factor of 2-3X from being a killer app, in favor of 'in lab' tech whose feasibility and ultimate pricing are totally unknown. Of course, I will be the first in line to buy the graphene powered, retro styled, manually steered, 2033 model year Ford 'Carbo 3000'.


 
Li-Ion batteries are getting lots of love. They are what powers our car and Teslas. And development continues on them. But the holy grail is to have the charge be as quick as a gasoline stop. Super capacitors have that ability.


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## jharkin (Aug 19, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Part of my PO skepticism has to do with powerful negative (rather than positive) feedbacks on price. Back in the day, the Drummers assumed the price could go to $200, $400, $1000/barrel, and never come back. The 'problem' is that at $100 tar sands oil, ultra deepwater and oil shales all look like a good business proposition with existing tech. I.e. at sustained prices of $100 they will all be developed at a large scale, as we have seen. At $150-$200 coal to liquids and gas to liquids look like stupid easy ways to make $$. IOW, At $200 there is almost an unlimited amount of (synthetic) oil to be had from converting coal. From an (existing) tech perspective, sustained prices above $150-$200 appear effectively impossible. Here 'sustained' means the 2-4 years required to build a lot of plants.
> 
> And then learning curve makes all this (existing) tech cheaper. Maybe the $100 shale oil and tar sands and ultra deepwater can, with some development make money at half that in 5 more years of operation/learning/amortization? Then the current demand/supply equilibrium price could drop to that level...If we went for Coal to Oil in 2025 or 2035 at $150 (current $$), maybe after a few years, it could drop back to 75...


 
But the thing is, oil didn't top out at 150 due to all these miracles of technology. It topped out due to the reason you already mentioned - supply & demand. $150 oil was unaffordable to a large enough part of the population it cratered the economy. Over extended people had to chose gas or the mortgage, defaulted and then we all saw the results. Lots of people out of work means a lot of people who can't afford gas, reducing demand back down to levels that $100 oil tech can meet.


Problem with oil is that supply/demand curve is backward. When you are producing widgets, the more you make the lower the unit cost. Oil is opposite, the more we produce the more expensive it gets. Our economy isn't built to deal with that.


Economy recovers, demand up, price goes up, crash, rinse and repeat. Does anyone really thing we are in a genuine recovery? That is anyone but stockbrokers?


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## btuser (Aug 19, 2013)

Because our currency is innately tied to oil Americans have a tilted perspective to the petrodollar.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> But the thing is, oil didn't top out at 150 due to all these miracles of technology. It topped out due to the reason you already mentioned - supply & demand. $150 oil was unaffordable to a large enough part of the population it cratered the economy. Over extended people had to chose gas or the mortgage, defaulted and then we all saw the results. Lots of people out of work means a lot of people who can't afford gas, reducing demand back down to levels that $100 oil tech can meet.


 
In a lot of developing countries, oil is subsidized at the consumer level, and those folks didn't see the spike....it just showed up on the govt balance sheet. In Euroland, the price was already so high from taxes, and consumption lower, that the smaller % price increase for the crude price was not a 'shock'. A lot of other countries are producers, and made out. IMO, the US was the only big country that got gobsmacked by that price spike....we the people were left wide open to that threat as a result of the peculiar way we have dealt with oil/energy politically and vis a vis urban development, car fleet choices, etc. for the last 30 years. Blame Reagan.

And while I agree about the oil trigger, the real estate bubble was bigger than the oil deficit....all that HELOC money didn't go to paying the oil man.



jharkin said:


> Problem with oil is that supply/demand curve is backward. When you are producing widgets, the more you make the lower the unit cost. Oil is opposite, the more we produce the more expensive it gets. Our economy isn't built to deal with that.


 
Actually price going up with volume is the **default case** for any product in any economic text book. You are conflating that with learning curve, which says that over longer terms, new technology will get **slowly** cheaper. While everyone knows Moore's Law, it is a great foolishness of our age to expect it to apply to cars, chicken eggs, college degrees or penicillin. This is the crux of my point. Supply/demand does cause price spikes from market dynamics, and mismatch between supply infrastructure and new demands (e.g. oil equipment from the 80s vintage and new Chinese oil demand in the 2000s). But investment in new equipment/tech is the negative feedback, that tends to damp out those oscillations, and then bring the price back down gradually, along a tech-limited curve (which is hard to predict).



jharkin said:


> Economy recovers, demand up, price goes up, crash, rinse and repeat. Does anyone really thing we are in a genuine recovery? That is anyone but stockbrokers?


 
That is the narrative these days, BUT on the price front it seems prices have been remarkable **stable** for the last 4 years around $100. I don't think most would have predicted that back in 2009. When heating oil hit $5 back in 2008, I would not have believed it would be under $4 for 5 more years afterwards. Of course, it is the new resources coming on line (at production costs closer to $100, setting a short term floor price), and the Saudi's are regulating the market again. They are fine with the new spendy resources coming on line, but don't want too much demand destruction (and indeed, Ford pickups are again the best sellers in the US market).

And yeah, there IS a recovery, it is just leaving a LOT of folks behind. US exports and GDP per capita are above 2008 levels, and making all time highs, corrected for inflation (that's not just stockbrokers). The folks being left behind are the less educated, the poorer, and folks mostly over 50 whose jobs have been replaced by new technology. The rich, the young with 'good' college degrees, and everyone else whose jobs are not automatable are as a group doing just fine.

IMO, people are happiest when they are getting raises regularly and that has not been happening. Economists think employment is only now getting tight enough that we will start to see 'happy time' incremental raises. We'll see.  'Financial doom' and talking down the economy actually feeds into wage suppression.  Folks get raises when they demand them, and folks haven't been doing that.


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## jharkin (Aug 20, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> In a lot of developing countries, oil is subsidized at the consumer level, and those folks didn't see the spike....it just showed up on the govt balance sheet. In Euroland, the price was already so high from taxes, and consumption lower, that the smaller % price increase for the crude price was not a 'shock'. A lot of other countries are producers, and made out. IMO, the US was the only big country that got gobsmacked by that price spike....we the people were left wide open to that threat as a result of the peculiar way we have dealt with oil/energy politically and vis a vis urban development, car fleet choices, etc. for the last 30 years. Blame Reagan.
> 
> And while I agree about the oil trigger, the real estate bubble was bigger than the oil deficit....all that HELOC money didn't go to paying the oil man.


 
I dont disagree it hit us worse then elsewhere, but its a stretch to say hte rest of the world was immune. When I was in India in March I heard a lot  of complaining about the cost of living. There where fuel riots over there last year over gasoline prices. 

Dont forget that the price of crude effects the cost of nearly everything around us. Shipping, food, raw materials for ht emanufactured goods we buy.  You dont have to be a direct consumer of unsubsized gasoline to feel the effects.




> Actually price going up with volume is the **default case** for any product in any economic text book. You are conflating that with learning curve, which says that over longer terms, new technology will get **slowly** cheaper. While everyone knows Moore's Law, it is a great foolishness of our age to expect it to apply to cars, chicken eggs, college degrees or penicillin. This is the crux of my point. Supply/demand does cause price spikes from market dynamics, and mismatch between supply infrastructure and new demands (e.g. oil equipment from the 80s vintage and new Chinese oil demand in the 2000s). But investment in new equipment/tech is the negative feedback, that tends to damp out those oscillations, and then bring the price back down gradually, along a tech-limited curve (which is hard to predict).


 
Hmmm well I will admit I am no economist. Im an engineer by education and my only real exposure to econ was engineering economics courses where we analyzed how per unit cost goes down with volume in manufacturing due to the fact that the more units you build the more your R&D and capital costs get amortized, and eventually you get other benefits of economy of scale like discounts for volume orders of raw materials, etc.  Im pretty sure this holds true for most manufactured goods.  Perfect example just follow the car industy and introduction of new cars like the volt and other hybrids, there is always a break even point in sales they have to reach to start turning a profit.




> And yeah, there IS a recovery, it is just leaving a LOT of folks behind. US exports and GDP per capita are above 2008 levels, and making all time highs, corrected for inflation (that's not just stockbrokers). The folks being left behind are the less educated, the poorer, and folks mostly over 50 whose jobs have been replaced by new technology. The rich, the young with 'good' college degrees, and everyone else whose jobs are not automatable are as a group doing just fine.
> 
> IMO, people are happiest when they are getting raises regularly and that has not been happening. Economists think employment is only now getting tight enough that we will start to see 'happy time' incremental raises. We'll see. 'Financial doom' and talking down the economy actually feeds into wage suppression. Folks get raises when they demand them, and folks haven't been doing that.


 
I'll wait and see. I still see a lot of record profits riding more on cost cutting than real growth. I also see lots of folks loosing there jobs to off shoring - and its not just factory automation. Its everything from engineers to computer programmers to lawyers.  Pretty much the only thing truly immune are direct service jobs.

Maybe its just the high cost area I live in is a tougher market than most that I dont see this magic recovery. Sure its there in my 401k statement but nowhere else really - ask me again in 30 years if that made any real difference in my life.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> Hmmm well I will admit I am no economist. Im an engineer by education and my only real exposure to econ was engineering economics courses where we analyzed how per unit cost goes down with volume in manufacturing due to the fact that the more units you build the more your R&D and capital costs get amortized, and eventually you get other benefits of economy of scale like discounts for volume orders of raw materials, etc. Im pretty sure this holds true for most manufactured goods. Perfect example just follow the car industy and introduction of new cars like the volt and other hybrids, there is always a break even point in sales they have to reach to start turning a profit.


 
Cost per unit goes down due to 'economies of scale', and goes down over time due to learning curve. Your engineering profs were correct. But plant construction (and new tech development) are all on too long a timescale to set prices in the market **today** when my product flies off the shelves. That's why economists always draw their supply/demand curves like this, curving upward with supply (higher unit prices):






Caption: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.

As an engineer, imagine that if we wanted to make more product NOW, we would have to pay our folks overtime pay, scramble to find new raw material suppliers that might be more expensive, shipped from further away, or gouging me in my desperation, etc.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> I dont disagree it hit us worse then elsewhere, but its a stretch to say hte rest of the world was immune. When I was in India in March I heard a lot of complaining about the cost of living. There where fuel riots over there last year over gasoline prices.
> 
> Dont forget that the price of crude effects the cost of nearly everything around us. Shipping, food, raw materials for ht emanufactured goods we buy. You dont have to be a direct consumer of unsubsized gasoline to feel the effects.


 
Yeah, India is def a big loser from expensive oil too. Lots of imported oil, low GDP per capita and not a lot of US dollars to swap for oil (unlike China). The rupee has also been tanking slowly, and fast more recently which is NOT a good development.

As for the cost thing....I would argue that cheap oil was such a tiny fraction of costs back in the day, $100 has not lead to an 'inflation shock' in other goods.

Inflation from 2003 to 2008 was 17%, but from 2008 to 2013 just 8%. So, maybe you could say the oil price spike from 2003 to 2008 lead to (17-8)/5 = 1.8% extra inflation per year. Hardly a shock. And of course, we are comparing inflation in a 'happy time' when everyone is getting raises, to a 'recession', when everyone is hunkered down. So I would argue that the above inflation difference is more likely that, and that there was no obvious net inflation signal from the end of cheap oil (in the US) 2003-2008. So, while you are quoting PO dogma re PO-induced hyperinflation, where is the evidence?

Of course, there was a food price spike that is credited with the Arab Spring, etc, and PO types like to say that was all the price of oil....but how much was food demand driven (e.g. more demand for food/meat in China), reduced food/feed supply due to corn ethanol in the US, etc?


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

Inflation is only part of the problem of the 2008 downturn. CPI-U rates were higher than 2% for most of time during 03 to 08 but you have to follow the money to understand why people started defaulting on their mortgages:





That's the US trade deficit which doubled from 03 to 08 from $300 billion to $600 billion per year. That means dollar get exported to other countries and don't come back. Hence, not enough money left to pay back debts. Since oil is a big reason for our trade deficit (~3 billion barrels per year imported at $100 per barrel = $300 billion) the rise in oil prices precipitated the housing crisis.  

And why do prices not increase much right now? Remember, money is created through increasing debt. No new debt, no additional money, no pressure on prices:




See what happened in 2008?


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

In related news: Today we "celebrate" Earth Overshoot Day!

"August 20 is Earth Overshoot Day, the approximate date humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what Earth can renew in a year. In just 7 months and 20 days, we have demanded a level of ecological resources and services — from food and raw materials to sequestering carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions — equivalent to what Earth can regenerate for all of 2013....We will maintain our ecological deficit by depleting stocks of fish, trees and other resources, and accumulating waste such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans." 

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/ 

Just too bad that nature's resources are not a fiat currency with unlimited line of credit.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Inflation is only part of the problem of the 2008 downturn. CPI-U rates were higher than 2% for most of time during 03 to 08 but you have to follow the money to understand why people started defaulting on their mortgages:
> 
> That's the US trade deficit which doubled from 03 to 08 from $300 billion to $600 billion per year. That means dollar get exported to other countries and don't come back. Hence, not enough money left to pay back debts. Since oil is a big reason for our trade deficit (~3 billion barrels per year imported at $100 per barrel = $300 billion) the rise in oil prices precipitated the housing crisis.
> 
> ...


 
We agree that oil spiked the trade deficit, but I do not think that it follows from that all mortgages had to default.  Do you mean this 'impressionistically'?

If the trade deficit caused the mortgage defaults directly, why did it affect sub-prime lenders, and some states disproportionately....and now follow a pattern of folks buying more from overseas having less money to pay on their mortgage.  I would suppose a lot of sub-prime people did NOT consume much foreign made crp.  I just don't see how it makes any 'micro' sense at all.


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> We agree that oil spiked the trade deficit, but I do not think that it follows from that all mortgages had to default. Do you mean this 'impressionistically'?
> 
> If the trade deficit caused the mortgage defaults directly, why did it affect sub-prime lenders, and some states disproportionately....and now follow a pattern of folks buying more from overseas having less money to pay on their mortgage. I would suppose a lot of sub-prime people did NOT consume much foreign made crp. I just don't see how it makes any 'micro' sense at all.


 
Because those $ are then missing in the domestic economy to buy products which would then enable the businesses to pay salaries. It is not the person that "exports" the money that may be short but the economy as whole will lack it. Remember the post where I introduced the family with the $100. Imagine now you would pay every year the neighbor $5 for something. That's your trade deficit; Your money supply would continuously shrink. Now imagine people in your family had borrowed money with interest in the anticipation that the money supply will rise over time. They will default on their loans.


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## webbie (Aug 20, 2013)

Entire deal was based on myths. No one can claim high prices helped because, over time, oil and energy inflation is nothing much.

I won a couple bets from those crazies - I remember one which I gave 2 to 1 that oil would not be over $5 a gallon in 2011 (it was 2006 when we bet). Never collected, though - not worth my time digging through my emails.

Fact is, for general discussion, energy is unlimited. That is, there is plenty of it. No one cares whether their oil comes from fossils or from bacteria. 

As far as the climate, it's a real problem but one we are not likely to solve because it's the perfect human greed problem....that being that we can pollute now and others will pay later. There has rarely been such a problem solved by capitalism. No reason to. There is more money to be made from cheap energy and even disease and dislocation, etc. than there is from proper planning. It's a version of the Trolley Problem. Give most people a choice between some $$ and pleasure in their lives now...or helping out someone in 100 years, and the results will likely be the pleasure now.


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## jharkin (Aug 20, 2013)

Whaaaaa ? Winning a bet on gas prices proves energy is infinite???


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> Whaaaaa ? Winning a bet on gas prices proves energy is infinite???


 
Of course, , there is precedent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager


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## webbie (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> Whaaaaa ? Winning a bet on gas prices proves energy is infinite???


 

Well, it proves something - mostly that looking at a single "sounds right" theory and drawing conclusions based on that is poor judgement!

There is certainly plenty of energy to fuel mankind - we are a blip on the radar when it comes to energy! When it comes to liquid or other portable fuels, it currently is a matter of innovation which is somewhat tied to price. That is, at over 60-80 a bbl lots of alternatives make sense - like biodiesel:
http://mobilebiofuel.com/processors/

or plant based liquid fuels:
http://solazyme.com/

In summary, it was silly to consider - given current technology and the available money and resources we can throw at the problem - that only oil from wells was in the equation.


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## jharkin (Aug 20, 2013)

Ahh I see, those of us who don't believe the techno-cornucopia vision are gullible simpletons.what was I thinking 

Funny thing is if you actually read stuff published over there, they were not counting only conventional crude, and mostly not predicting the mad max scenario. Details smetails....

Oh well, have fun discussing - I'm out before it goes to the can ....


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## webbie (Aug 20, 2013)

jharkin said:


> Ahh I see, those of us who don't believe the techno-cornucopia vision are gullible simpletons.what was I thinking
> 
> Funny thing is if you actually read stuff published over there, they were not counting only conventional crude, and mostly not predicting the mad max scenario. Details smetails....
> 
> Oh well, have fun discussing - I'm out before it goes to the can ....


 
Hmmm, no one is asking you to take offense with my opinion - I don't take any with yours!

I'm a generalist. My discussions about this were usually with people who knew very little about the overall energy picture, but had latched onto a Oil Drum article or other link as a reason why they knew things were going to get bad quickly...

My "research" consisted of simply believing that Boeing, Airbus, GE and all those other companies are not fools and if this was real ($10+ a gallon by now and running out) they would not be designing the nest generations of aircraft. These companies have to think 30-50 years down the pike. 

$5 or $10 a gallon wouldn't be Mad Max, which is just the point. The folks I was debating with insisted that it was. The odds of a Mad Max scenarios in the modern world are very low. It's possible, but I'd give it fairly low odds. Something like 1 in 10,000 over the next 30-50 years combined. 

Then again, the odds of the last financial crisis were given at some ridiculously low number also. Way lower chance than that.

Hey, if those folks were right - or become right - I'll be the first to admit I got it wrong. But I do believe that technology, by and large, will save us. In fact, it's almost the only thing left that can.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

Not simpletons....just an echo chamber where a lot of critical thinking went out the window.  Certain crucial hypotheses went unexamined and taken for granted for many years.  Several folks who didn't tow the line got banished, after writing several articles that considered a less grim outcome.


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

webbie said:


> Well, it proves something - mostly that looking at a single "sounds right" theory and drawing conclusions based on that is poor judgement!


 
Funny that  it is called a "theory" when someone simply says a finite amount of something will be exhausted at some point if consumed continuously.    



> There is certainly plenty of energy to fuel mankind - we are a blip on the radar when it comes to energy! When it comes to liquid or other portable fuels, it currently is a matter of innovation which is somewhat tied to price. That is, at over 60-80 a bbl lots of alternatives make sense - like biodiesel:
> http://mobilebiofuel.com/processors/


 
Not to rain on your a-wish-will-come-true thinking but biomass can supply about 7 to 10 TW of energy per year assuming we and animals just don't eat anymore. We consume currently about 13 to 14 TW in energy already not counting future population growth or increased demand through economic development of other countries. 



> In summary, it was silly to consider - given current technology and the available money and resources we can throw at the problem - that only oil from wells was in the equation.


 
In summary, at the time we will need it we may neither have the time or the resources left to "throw at the problem".


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

webbie said:


> My "research" consisted of simply believing that Boeing, Airbus, GE and all those other companies are not fools and if this was real ($10+ a gallon by now and running out) they would not be designing the nest generations of aircraft. These companies have to think 30-50 years down the pike.


 
Is that really a metric you rely on? And you call PO theory nonsense? What are all those companies supposed to do? Just declare that the products they want to sell will be obsolete in 10 years, close shop and write off billions in investments? So when the banks said in 2007 that CDOs were perfectly save you would have also believed that unquestioned? 



> $5 or $10 a gallon wouldn't be Mad Max, which is just the point. The folks I was debating with insisted that it was. The odds of a Mad Max scenarios in the modern world are very low. It's possible, but I'd give it fairly low odds. Something like 1 in 10,000 over the next 30-50 years combined.


 
And on what research do you base your numbers? Was the Great Depression also highly unlikely but, OMG, also just happened? 



> Then again, the odds of the last financial crisis were given at some ridiculously low number also. Way lower chance than that.
> 
> Hey, if those folks were right - or become right - I'll be the first to admit I got it wrong.


 
That will help a lot once we are over the peak. I am sure our children will appreciate our apologies.  



> But I do believe that technology, by and large, will save us. In fact, it's almost the only thing left that can.


 
Save what? Our entitled lifestyle to which we are clinging with all might? We can save ourselves pretty easily if we would acknowledge that we have partied to much, accept the hangover and leave our kids with a world that still has the resources to support their livelihood. Nevertheless, that would assume we all scale back our life tremendously. It is so much easier to believe some magic will happen.


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## webbie (Aug 20, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Save what? Our entitled lifestyle to which we are clinging with all might? We can save ourselves pretty easily if we would acknowledge that we have partied to much, accept the hangover and leave our kids with a world that still has the resources to support their livelihood. Nevertheless, that would assume we all scale back our life tremendously. It is so much easier to believe some magic will happen.


 
Well, yeah, I do rely on observing what happens to plan what might happen! It certainly beats a slogan or something posted on the wall.

GE can very easily move more of their resources to wind energy, electric generation, etc. and give up on the jet engine development. Same goes for the others. They could easily use their engineering prowess to develop higher speed trains, ships or other Big Picture items.

GE has been in business since 1892. They've seen change.

So, yes, I unabashedly look to people much smarter than I am to see which way the wind may be blowing.

As to magic, it's said that real high technology is indistinguishable from it.

Problem is, one thing does not negate the other. Of course we have partied too hard. The Europeans did so too when they cut every tree on the continent. The dust bowl and many other events - same thing. I think fossil fuel use and maybe even energy use per capital will go down in the short term. In the longer term, it may depend on how clean the sources are - nothing wrong with using energy if it's relatively benign in terms of effect.

My kids are using MUCH less energy than the last generation (in a general sense). I just read that, on average, those born after 1985 or so are driving 20% less. That is a major change!
"The average annual number of vehicle miles traveled by young people (16 to 34-year-olds) in the U.S. decreased by 23 percent between 2001 and 2009, falling from 10,300 miles per capita to just 7,900 miles per capita in 2009."

Another "technology" benefit:
"Younger Americans are also using technology to substitute for driving, connecting with friends and family online, substituting Facebook, Twitter, Skype, or FaceTime interactions for in-person visits and using online shopping and e-commerce in place of driving to and from grocery and retail stores, the report notes."

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/co...-are-driving-so-much-less-their-parents/1712/


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Save what? Our entitled lifestyle to which we are clinging with all might? We can save ourselves pretty easily if we would acknowledge that we have partied to much, accept the hangover and leave our kids with a world that still has the resources to support their livelihood. Nevertheless, that would assume we all scale back our life tremendously. It is so much easier to believe some magic will happen.


 
This is exactly my rub. What does geology have to do with our 'entitlledness'? Are we running out of oxygen because we drive cars that are too big and forget to turn off the lights? The earth does not care not care about politics, or who is using resources or for what purpose. The ill thing about the Drum, was that the core audience over there had a vested/emotional interest in believing in the crash scenario or die off or whatever, because it was poetic justice or something. In my mind the two things are simply **not related**. Good people can get cancer at 40, and azzhats can live to 100. Selfish materialistic societies can find the world has plenty of FF, and (in an alternative universe it seems), a bunch of hippies could be left shivering in the dark.

All this PO stuff makes me mad not b/c I think lefties are coming to take my energy and make me wear a scratchy hemp sweater, but because it is a colossal distraction from the genuine problems in our society, like financial inequality or AGW.

I also have to agree with Craig that PO and associated doomer scenarios are also a money making scheme at this point, by which unscrupulous folks like Beck prey on the unwary. While you have given this a lot of thought, a lot of folks are risking their life savings or retirement plans on bogus goldbug investments and huge MRE stores.


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

webbie said:


> Well, yeah, I do rely on observing what happens to plan what might happen! It certainly beats a slogan or something posted on the wall.
> 
> GE can very easily move more of their resources to wind energy, electric generation, etc. and give up on the jet engine development. Same goes for the others. They could easily use their engineering prowess to develop higher speed trains, ships or other Big Picture items.


 
Only if they have customers for it. As long as we all believe things will continue to grow for decades to come, they have zero incentive to change their business model. Pretty much everyone knows smoking is bad for their health but Altria et al still make a killing. Plus, how many of GEs earlier competitors went bankrupt because they did not see some technology change coming. Ever heard of Kodak?   



> So, yes, I unabashedly look to people much smarter than I am to see which way the wind may be blowing.


 
That is why I look at the research and numbers behind it and also consider the agenda of the source. What do the people from the Oildrum have to gain from PO versus companies from us not believing it? 



> My kids are using MUCH less energy than the last generation (in a general sense). I just read that, on average, those born after 1985 or so are driving 20% less. That is a major change!


 
Really? That means they will need 5 years to use what we consume in 4 years. Still sounds like a tremendous difference? Math, how inconvenient.


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> I also have to agree with Craig that PO and associated doomer scenarios are also a money making scheme at this point, by which unscrupulous folks like Beck prey on the unwary. While you have given this a lot of thought, a lot of folks are risking their life savings or retirement plans on bogus goldbug investments and huge MRE stores.


 
Which follows the failed assumption that a society can "save" for retirement with money or money-equivalents such as gold. The only thing that will matter at the time we "retire" is whether the economy can supply the goods and services we would like to have to resume our lifestyle. Burn away those resources and all retirement savings just became worthless.


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## webbie (Aug 20, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Burn away those resources and all retirement savings just became worthless.


 
Time to start that "off the grid survivalist retirement community" site. Beckster will surely promote it as his rates get lowered when the audience dies off or loses power.....


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## Grisu (Aug 20, 2013)

webbie said:


> Time to start that "off the grid survivalist retirement community" site. Beckster will surely promote it as his rates get lowered when the audience dies off or loses power.....


 
Take the retirement out of the title and that is exactly what we should be doing. Isn't it funny that the concept of "retirement" only started with the industrialization which began with the discovery of fossil fuels? Saving for "old age" was previously accomplished by getting lots of children who supplied the labor to keep someone alive when they could not work themselves anymore.  

Laugh about it as much as you want but if you are right and we do as I suggest, it is a mere inconvenience. If I am right and we do you as you suggest, you may just have accomplished the extinction of the human species.


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## Frozen Canuck (Aug 20, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Take the retirement out of the title and that is exactly what we should be doing. Isn't it funny that the concept of "retirement" only started with the industrialization which began with the discovery of fossil fuels? Saving for "old age" was previously accomplished by getting lots of children who supplied the labor to keep someone alive when they could not work themselves anymore.
> 
> Laugh about it as much as you want but if you are right and we do as I suggest, it is a mere inconvenience. If I am right and we do you as you suggest, you may just have accomplished the extinction of the human species.


 
On the last point I think the third world will be the survivors in a scenario like that. They have been getting by on what we would consider nothing for a very long time & they have gotten good at it. They also tend to deal with each other is social circumstances in a much more humane manner. They learned the value of sharing & getting along & have kept it by & large despite our attempts to "modernize" them.

Now in the first world in that scenario...totally different, gonna make a nasty zombie apocalypse movie look like a real yawn. We will happily kill each other for whatever stuff remains. Until there is no more "the other guy" or no more stuff, probably the former. Glad I will be dust, should that scenario come to pass.


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## Grisu (Aug 21, 2013)

Here is some peer-reviewed academic research showing that we already consume about 25% of all biomass carbon. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/30/1211349110.abstract

Still convinced biomass can replace oil?


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## woodgeek (Aug 21, 2013)

So what I'm getting here Grisu is that you *don't* think that PO theory is dead. 

We are talking past each other because we have not agreed on a definition of PO theory yet. WE can keep moving the goal posts and changing the definitions and we have an irrefutable hypothesis.

*1)* As promulgated by the Drummers in the mid 2000s, the peak of oil production was 2005 (or 2006 or 2007), global production would then fall some fixed percentage per year (an exponential decay) set by geological limits and when this happened (starting ~2008) prices would skyrocket exponentially to levels like $100, $200, $400, $1000/barrel that would cripple society, destroy our lifestyle, and lead to the dying off of most humans.

OK, that didn't happen. The exponentially increasing price topped at $150, fell to $50, and settled on a plateau of $100 for 4 years and counting.

*2)* After the oil price collapse in 2008/9, the story changed....PO was still important b/c it had caused the financial crisis that everyone was talking about. Of course, it also lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union in their telling. But the price forecast had to be changed---the PO induced financial crisis had destroyed demand, and bought us a few additional years of survival, but the geological limits were still there. As soon as the economy recovers, they predicted, oil demand will rise to the previous level, the price will rise again, and a new PO-induced recession will occur. The prediction is that the global economy will never be able to grow much above its 2008 peak, and each oil price spike/recession will be worse than the last, and take us to a lower standard of living and GDP.

OK, that hasn't happened either. The US and global economies have been growing since 2009, at a pace consistent with their different circumstances. China has been booking solid growth consistent with the typical 'emerging market' growth curve versus per capita GDP. The US has been growing at a slower pace, consistent with being a more developed economy. The EU took an austerity route, and has been enjoying a mild recession. None of this looks like the (revised) PO prediction....poor counties (China) would be priced out first and die off first. The US would be crippled by its greater dependence on oil per capita, and the EU would adapt better and be more resilient in a PO plateau world.

*3)* When folks point out ~2011 that oil prices are stable, oil supplies are growing, GDP is making new highs, the PO folks won't give up. Rather than being a 'commodity supercycle' like the 1975-1985 period, where a lot of new resources were developed after a price spike, the PO folks insist that PO and the geological limits are still there....waiting, always waiting, to kill off us foolish humans.

--They say that shale oil and shale gas are fictions, not that they are bad/polluting, but that they **won't work**, because EROIEIO is below 5, or 3 or whatever, and that is impossible, or that decline rates are exponential and 60% per year. Soon all the companies doing fracking will soon go out of business, existing wells will deplete in 1-2 years and then we are back to the previous PO story.

--They say that GDP growth is fictional. The US is NOT making more products (per capita) and selling them overseas then it ever has before. If it appears that way, it is not stable....only the result of cooked financial data from a crooked US govt (most be both parties, since the same cooking of the books occurred with both parties in the white house), or the result of QEx goosing the system in a totally unsustainable way, that depending on who you ask will result in weimar hyperinflation, or the collapse of the US govt and GDP as soon as rates start to rise when QE is ended, etc.

*4)* When folks in 2013 point out that PO has all the trappings of a falsified hypothesis (i.e. multiple failed predictions and resulting moving of goalposts and revising of predictions), PO folks retreat to safety. They issue easy platitudes like 'oil is finite', 'exponential growth cannot continue forever on a finite earth', 'PO was never about the oil just running out one day', 'fracking is really bad, people won't go for it', 'the EIA predicts PO in 2035, this will all come to pass then, we better get ready for it'. Uh huh.

There we have it folks, no die off, no oil production peak, oil prices in a narrow band around $100, gas guzzlers still the most popular models (in the US), GDP at new highs and growing at rates comparable to pre 2005 period. But we are deluding ourselves...its all a trick by Obama and Bernanke...one of these days the crash will come and the hard geological limits of PO theory will rise up again.


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## woodgeek (Aug 21, 2013)

To develop Craig's 'smart money' point a bit....

If PO were a threat to civilization, you would think that different governments around the world and the UN would be funding a huge effort....

In the US, you would see...
—The bodies whose job is to make projections of energy industries, the EIA and its international counterparts would be sounding the alarm (and asking for more $$ for research).
—The POTUS would ask the National academies, NAS and NAE, to convene panels of senior scientists and engineers to study the problem at depth, identify strategic paths and solutions, and prepare a lengthy report
—The DOE and NSF would fund significant programs to model the petroleum extraction problem, petroleum technology generally, undertake massive alternative energy programs, in the name of averting PO.
—The govt would pay the oil companies to build an array of syncrude (coal to liquid) plants in Montana and Utah, and contract to buy their products for xxx years.
—The govt would, in the name of national security, proceed to build out an electrified transportation system, e.g. electric rail, to support necessary interstate commerce (and travel) in a post PO world.

If you think the civil govt is blind/incompetent, you also have to say that all the military and spooks are too...this is supposed to be THE major threat to our existence in 2005, and they would get the civilian govt on board. IF they are all incompetent, the scientists at the oil majors would be telling their execs that this is the business opportunity of their lifetimes....how much will civilization pay to prevent collapse and die off? Every dime they have. So, those execs would be lobbying the govt to do the above, and contract them to build syncrude plants, develop marginal resources, etc.

Can't you imagine Cheney coming out in a gravelly voice and telling us of this grim threat to our way of life, and that it can be solved if we just give Exxon and Schlumberger ~$300B for a crash program to build "Freedom Oil" syncrude plants in Utah? 

Beyond the US, you would see other countries doing much the same sorts of things, everyone rapidly covering their azzes before the big PO boom comes down.

How much of that happened in the 2000s? None. The EIA revised its long term oil price and supply projections over the space of a few years. The DOE and DoD paid for some biofuel programs, and did some biofuel demos with aircraft. The military rolled out some solar PV, and the US embarked on a massive ethanol program. All of these were either small scale experiments, or done in the name of AGW, or were really Ag programs. AFAIK, the govt funded ZERO research into the PO issue. No startups or large companies got govt loans to help remediate/avoid the PO problem. The US Govt bet with their wallets....$0 total.

How does the PO community respond to this glaring lack of attention, back in the 2000s? They said (1) that govt is incompetent to let the PO problem get this far (2) there are no solutions so none are being sought (3) to admit PO would cause 'mass panic' that would trigger the collapse/dieoff, so the whole thing has to be kept an (apparently well known) secret and (4) the entire Iraq War was a (secret) plan to seize enough oil reserves to keep the US going in a PO world, don't you see?

Yeeeah.

Instead we got a website, The Oil Drum, (that at its peak was smaller than Hearth.com), that published an original article every few days. There was also the ASPO organization, which had a (rather small) conference every year to discuss PO. All these folks were self-funded 'enthusiasts' and amateurs. When was the last conference held? 2008! IOW, interest in the PO problem has been on the wane for 5 years already, and even the die hard believers can't scrape together enough funds or interest to hold an annual conference.

As tinfoil hat groups go, the Evolution deniers and AGW deniers appear to be much larger and better organized and funded.


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## webbie (Aug 21, 2013)

Grisu said:


> Take the retirement out of the title and that is exactly what we should be doing. Isn't it funny that the concept of "retirement" only started with the industrialization which began with the discovery of fossil fuels? Saving for "old age" was previously accomplished by getting lots of children who supplied the labor to keep someone alive when they could not work themselves anymore.
> .


 

and the concept of hundreds of millions traveling long distances went crazy with the wheel and safe ships. It doesn't mean those things were false economies or we'd wake up one day and wheels would no longer work.

Most people didn't live to old age - or at least on average, so it was not as big of a deal. Also, read your history. You can find much about retirement in even the founders writings which were before any real use of fossil fuels. In other words, you are making up that "fact", IMHO. Of course, the Industrial Revolution did pull us off of farms, so we needed to change the structure of how we feed and house ourselves in old age! 

"From the Roman Empire to the modern nation state, rulers and parliaments have found it expedient to provide pensions for the workers who carried out their policies and, thus, helped perpetuate their regimes. The history of these public sector pension plans is both colorful and instructive. More than two thousand years ago, the fall of the Roman republic and the rise of the empire were inextricably linked to the payment, or rather the nonpayment, of military pensions"


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## btuser (Aug 21, 2013)

They did get the government on board when they rolled back Clean Water Act and laws to legalize fracking.  

We've been putting the kibosh on production in this country for almost 40 years, waiting for the easy oil to run out.  It was a good plan, because shale oil can't compete with $2/bbl oil from the middle east.  What's changed?  We are no longer the market force that drives price. 

This country can produce a hell of a lot of oil.


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## webbie (Aug 21, 2013)

btuser said:


> They did get the government on board when they rolled back Clean Water Act and laws to legalize fracking.
> 
> We've been putting the kibosh on production in this country for almost 40 years, waiting for the easy oil to run out. It was a good plan, because shale oil can't compete with $2/bbl oil from the middle east. What's changed? We are no longer the market force that drives price.
> 
> This country can produce a hell of a lot of oil.


 

The middle east borrowed so much money that they need $60 or more (probably $100 over the long term) to stay solvent. 

I owe, I owe, so it's off to work we go.....etc.

The reason, IMHO, that nat gas is so cheap now is because they have not yet worked out the logistics of shipping it everywhere...and, of course, your comment about fracking applies. When you don't have to pay for your mistakes, you can deliver products cheaper.


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## btuser (Aug 21, 2013)

I said we can produce a lot.   I didn't say we should.

1/2 the air pollution in Los Angeles California originates in China.


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## webbie (Aug 21, 2013)

btuser said:


> I said we can produce a lot. I didn't say we should.
> 
> 1/2 the air pollution in Los Angeles California originates in China.


 

No doubt the world is screwed up. We have to look out for the nuke stuff now, as that plant in Japan is probably going to cause a world class disaster....

I don't doubt global warming or limited resources or that we have/are screwing up things in our quests for energy - I guess the difference in outlooks is that I tend to see change(s) as long term directions as opposed to the almost instant results and ramifications claimed by some.

Thinking that the world works in concert with our lives, calendars, decades, etc. is probably a mistake. It's a big place and too many systems are at work for any one theory to ever be that accurate - such as Peak Oil.

They were probably more right than wrong in their stats, etc. - the problem was that they drew a conclusion.


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## woodgeek (Aug 21, 2013)

Indeed, some really bad things happen so slowly that folks growing up in a impoverished world think it is 'normal' and impoverish it a little more.


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## begreen (Aug 22, 2013)

We may have our own water ghettos here the way we are fracking. This seems to be a time bomb waiting for its own Macondo moment.


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