As Fracking Rises, Peak Oil Theory Slowly Dies

On July 3, the administrators of The Oil Drum, a blog/discussion forum site dedicated to and frequented by those who advocate for “Peak Oil” theory, announced the site would close at the end of July, marking an end to an eight-year existence. During that period of time, “Peak Oil” theory has basically gone the way of the California Condor, from widespread existence and acceptance in the oil and gas environment to near extinction as its environment has dramatically shifted thanks to the discovery of and ability to access massive oil shale reservoirs not just in the United States, but all over the world.

Eight years ago, some of the leading thinkers in and around the oil and gas industry, like the late Matt Simmons, were proponents of this theory, which advocates the belief that worldwide oil production has reached or has very nearly reached its peak overall production, and the world faces a long period of decline of the resource. Today, given the new abundance of shale oil, almost no real industry thought leaders are Peak Oil proponents, and the theory is now mainly advocated by self-promoting opportunists looking to gain free media attention by being contrarians to prevailing belief, and environmental activists who cobble together misleading data and fright scenarios to justify costly policies that throw billions of public dollars at renewable energy schemes.

At his Carpe Diem blog on Tuesday morning, Dr. Mark J. Perry posted a great chart illustrating the levels of interest from 2005 through today in the topics of “peak oil” vs. “fracking” using the Google GOOG -0.55% Trends tool. Anyone wondering why the administrators of The Oil Drum are unable to sustain a critical mass of interest in discussions and news around Peak Oil theory need only view this chart to get the picture.

In the early days refineries did only distillation but along the way they learned how to crack or break the longer chain hydrocarbons(alkanes) into shorter chain hydrocarbons. Theoretically you can take a 20 carbon alkane which might be called didecane and crack that into 12 carbon alkane called dodecane which would go into diesel and an 8 carbon alkane called octane which would into gasoline.

What you say about steam and removing a hydrogen is right. Take the ethane out of natural gas and steam crack it to remove hydrogen to make ethene aka ethylene which is used to make polyethylene(polemerized ethylene) , a common plastic. if the suffix is ane(alkane) it is a single bonded carbon. If the suffix is ene(alkene) it is double bonded(2 less hydro-gens)

3HC-CH3 ethane is steam cracked to remove 2 hydrogen which gives you 2HC=CH2 ethene/ethylene.

Similarly Propane from nat gas can be used to make propene/propylene to make polypropylene

Butane to butene to butadiene to synthetic rubber. In butadiene there are two double bonds, either in the 1,2 position or the 1,3 position.

“...Just like socialism and AGW Theory will never die. ...”

Exactly. The so-called “peak oil” is just a horse to ride in order to carry The Collectivist Agenda to greater glories.

What most people would be surprised about and won't believe is that ? petroleum products can be produced and refined from wood.
Yes, wood, when a piece of wood or paper is burned there is a chemical process that is released that releases butane, methane, and other gasses.
Even gasoline can be, or a form of it can be produced from wood.

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