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Posted by Rodney King to CHICAGOFARMER
On News/Activism 03/29/2004 7:04:11 PM CST #13 of 18

2. Current Oil in the ground estimates that around the year 2010 most all known reserves of oil will have been located as 90% are known today.
Theoretically, how does one know by what % one has discovered and unkown quantity?

xxxx

yea I know for the intellectuals in this worlds, not knowing the unknown means it is unknownable.

Google the title and study the graphs

OIL PEAKING Presentation at the Technical University of Clausthal
C.J.Campbell
December 2000

1. Title
Ladies and Gentlemen
· Thank you for inviting me to make this presentation.
· To-day, I am going to talk about the depletion of oil. I am a petroleum geologist and have been studying the subject directly and indirectly for many years. It is a very important subject, as is amply confirmed by recent events.
· I compliment the organisers for raising the subject in Germany. It is a large and strong country, which can exert its influence both on Europe and the World. Truth has always proved a powerful weapon. It needs to take action.

2. Sub-Title
The title of my talk is Peak Oil. It truly is a turning point for Mankind. It will affect us all. It is a large subject, and it will take us about an hour to work through it.

3. Purpose
The purpose of the talk is to evaluate the resource base and its depletion. Then we can go on to study the present crisis and try to see how it will evolve. Finally we can think specifically about Germany's predicament.

4. Main Points
In summary, these are the main points that we have to grasp:
· Conventional oil - and I will explain what I mean by that - provides most of the oil produced today, and is responsible for about 95% all oil that has been produced so far.
· It will continue to dominate supply for a long time to come. It is what matters most.
· Its discovery peaked in the 1960s. We now find one barrel for every four we consume.
· Middle East share of production is set to rise. The rest of the world peaked in 1997, and is therefore in terminal decline
· World peak comes within about five years
· Non-conventional oil delays peak only a few years, but will ameliorate the subsequent decline
· Gas, which is less depleted than oil, will likely peak around 2020

5. Discontinuity
· As I said, peak oil is a turning point for Mankind.
· The economic prosperity of the 20th Century was driven by cheap, oil-based energy
· Everyone had the equivalent of several unpaid and unfed slaves to do his work for him
· These slaves are now getting old and wont work much longer
· We need to find how to live without oil.

10. Depletion
Depletion is an easy concept to grasp.
· Think of an Irish pub full of happy people. Think of their pleasure at the first sip from a full glass
· Think of the frowns that begin to cross their faces when their glasses are half-empty. They know they have drunk more than is left. It is the turning point
· Watch them savour the last drops
· But the evening is young. When the glasses are empty, they can order another round.
· But eventually closing time comes when there are no more rounds to be had
· That is the meaning of depletion
· We need to know how big each glass - or oilfield - is, and
· We need to know how many more rounds there are - that is to say how many more oilfields are left to find

11. Date of Peak
I stress that we are not about to run out of oil, but production is about to reach a peak. When peak comes depends on the issue of Rates
· Discovery Rate - we now find one barrel of conventional oil for every four we consume
· Extraction Rate is controlled by the physics of the reservoir
· Demand is driven by economic growth and price.
Remember price is not the same as cost. It depends on cost but also tax and scarcity

12. What to Measure
Before measuring something, the first step is to decide what exactly to measure. It is a question every butcher asks. Does he weigh the meat or the bones as well?
· There are many different kinds of oil
· Each has its own endowment in Nature, characteristics, costs, and rate of extraction.
· Production of each type starts and ends at zero reaching a peak in between,
· Some rise to peak slowly, others quickly
· We need to identify and measure each type : we need to separate the meat from the bon

27 Creaming Curve
This is the so-called creaming curve.
· It plots discovery against exploration wildcats. They are the wells that either do - or do not - find a new field
· The largest fields are usually found first for obvious reasons, being too large to miss.
· The curve flattens until new discoveries are too small to be viable. It gives a good idea of how much is left to find.
· There are other statistical techniques but there is n't time to cover them here

HAVE FUN