Posted on 01/21/2016 6:57:52 AM PST by doldrumsforgop
The Wall Street Journal recently printed an excerpt from "The Next Oil Crisis Looms Large – and Perhaps Close," printed in the Aug. 28, 1998 issue of Science magazine. According to a study from the International Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "sometime between 2010 and 2020 the gush of oil from wells around the world will peak at 80 million barrels per day, then begin a steady, inevitable decline."
Well, not quite. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 1998, when the article was written, global oil production was 75.7 million bbl/day. In 2014 it was 93.2, and our problem is too much oil.
It's useful to remember such things when the "experts" grandly tell us what's going to happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Also, the 'peak oil' theorists forgot that the price of oil was artificially high due to monopolistic practices by OPEC rather than based upon its intrinsic value.
This propping up caused the innovation by the Western world of horizontal drilling, stage fraccing and the shale explosion. In one sense, we should thank OPEC as it sealed their fate of erosion of their stranglehold on the world of high oil prices as otherwise this innovation would have been delayed.
I’ve found that often people who cloak themselves in “Science” know very little about science at all.
Exactly. Same way as global warming et al.
Global cooling, no...global warming.
Eggs are bad, no...eggs good.
Breakfast best meal, no, wait.
Fats are bad, perhapsnot.
Hmmm, methinks a pattern developeth.
Always remember that at the bottom of the smart scale are journalists and politicians.
Hydrocarbons are very likely being constantly renewed under the earth due to great heat and pressure acting like a natural reactor for carbon and hydrogen.
Peak oil is a reality, but it is not a description of absolute resource.
At $10 a barrel, our production won’t match that of now or the past.
At $100 a barrel, the production rate will continue to climb.
Also throw in Technology changes, include alternatives.
The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. Neither will our oil dependence. We use what is best suited for our purpose with what we have available. The only certainty is change is coming.
I was wondering if the peak oilers moved over to the hot earth research center?
Heat and pressure break down the complex long-chain hydrocarbons found in crude oil into smaller lighter molecules we use for fuel. We do it every day in our refineries.
Moons of Jupiter posses oceans of methane, a hydrocarbon.
And they lack the oxygen that would have resulted in H20 and C20.
Methane, Ethane and the like are greatly simpler and lower energy than the Paraffins, Naphthenes, Aromatics and Asphaltenes found in crude oil.
... and our problem is too much oil.
++++
I’m still trying to figure out why this is a problem.
I remember the good old days when Supply and Demand was considered a law. Now, for some unknown reason, it’s a problem.
OK, I understand it’s a problem if you are selling oil. But if you are buying oil as I am from people like Exxon, Shell, Chevron and the like it definetly is not a problem. In fact it is not a problem for anyone who is a consumer and not a seller of energy.
Take out the word "likely". The earth is 9% elemental carbon. Hydrogen is constantly released from unstable radioactive elements in the mantle and core of the earth, along with inert helium. This is why the inside of the earth is so freaking hot. After that, it doesn't take much to make hydrocarbons, just put hydrogen and carbon together. It's called methane.
Except for those that sold pipe, valves, pumps, motors, controllers, cables, structural steel, etc to oil companies and their support companies.
The reason oil company profit margins are not sky-high during their best years is they are investing for the future and driving a lot of manufacturing and service jobs outside direct oil company hires.
PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL, GET IT? GOT IT.
1976 Presidential Debate, Jimmy Carter said we will run out of oil in 35 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXHTmEUGR7c
Hydrocarbons are naturally occurring compounds in the universe. Fact.
King Hubbert, the originator of the "peak oil" theory, and fitted a "logistic" curve to the history of oil production. The "logistic" is a "growth curve." It starts out slowly increasing, then increases rapidly, then tapers off slowly as growth reaches some limiting factor.
The "logistic" is commonly used to forecast such things as the way an innovation will take over a market. It's a legitimate forecasting tool.
The "trick" in using a "logistic" for forecasting is to get the upper limit to growth correct. In forecasting the "takeover" by an innovation, the upper limit to growth is obviously 100% of the market.
However, in forecasting not a percent but an absolute number (like barrels of oil produced annually), getting the upper limit right is crucial.
Hubbert used a mathematical procedure that didn't just fit a logistic curve to the historical data on oil production, but attempted to extract a value for the upper limit from the early data. In the forecasting business, this is a "no-no." There had been numerous articles in the journal TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE (I'm on the editorial board) showing that such a procedure leads to gross errors.
Thus at the time "peak oil" was being widely touted, I knew that the forecasts were likely to be way off the mark. However, the truth doesn't sell nearly as well as "the sky is falling" does. No one wanted to hear that Hubbert's forecast used faulty methodology and was likely to be badly wrong.
Okay, "I told you so but no one listened." I'll borrow a phrase used by a well-known politician: "At this point what does it matter?" We now know "peak oil" was at best a mistake and at worst a fraud.
Just take a lesson from the incident. The next time someone says "The sky is falling," he might possibly be right, but better check his calculations.
Algae and the like that gets trapped in sediment, buried for a few million years, naturally produce our crude oil that we use commercially.
Fact.
Methane is a hydrocarbon. It is abundantly found in planets with carbon and hydrogen but insufficient oxygen. It is not crude oil.
BTTT
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