Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Terry, Nick,
If I have given offence I apologise. As I stated I do not doubt that peak oil has arrived, but Terry, to say that it will hit us in less than 2 years is far to hard to swallow.

What you are saying would be common knowledge to those in power. So then I have to believe that those in power are turning a blind eye to this immediate threat to us.

I cannot accept that.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Yes, as Cameron has said "ding ding". A bit of healthy debate is OK, as long as it does not get too much between 2 people and personal. I think those involved are big boys and won't carry it any further and I'm sure have not taken offence either. I know that the idea of peak oil can be a contentious issue, so please keep any postings as scientific and factual as possible and I'm sure that those involved won't take offence.

[Captain Echidna Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captain Echidna]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

. So then I have to believe that those in power are turning a blind eye to this immediate threat to us.

I cannot accept that.

I think I understand your thinking, I do think it may be flawed however.

A high court judge at uni said if you believe the people in power are (at the time) Keating and hawke you are mistaken. It is the Packers and Murdock’s that control the way we think, what we think is important, and ultimately what the politicians do. The media had made (in WA) mandatory sentencing a political issue, and wishing to keep their jobs the politicians made it law. He said incarceration was effectively sending people to criminal school, and the laws were sending one time idiots to learn from the best. I dont think shows on self sufficency will out rate "big brother", and saying why you need to know it will get viewers onto the other stations quick, as I believe TV to be the "dummy" of the ignorant masses. They have power, they just arent going to use it for good....

When the GST was introduced everyone had a bit more money in their pay packet, and the tax on fuel was reduced by about 2c. So what happened to the price of fuel? Went up. No politician has the guts to stand up to them then, and I dont think its likely to change...

Thanks Terry, a good aricle on "eating diesel", I think I can see then end of the obesity epedemic in America comming...

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Here's a very recent article on what's happening regarding Australia's oil supplies. It has lots of charts to show the probable exports to Australia from our major suppliers.

The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Australia and the Export Land Model

[morris Member Find all posts View Profile Close morris]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

This is from Geo Science Autralia, the Nation manager & inventory agent.
"Crude oil and condensate remaining reserves in 2003 could sustain production of 33.4 GL or 210 million bbl per year for 13 years. This average production level was calculated for the period 1993 to 2003. The onsumption of crude oil and condensate in 2004 could be sustained by remaining economic reserves for only 9.3 years." From Oil and Gas Resources of Australia (OGRA) Report 2003

I suspect this is supportive of Terry's stance, sorry for the deliver a load of concrete into the hole of discussion. ML

[geewizztoo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close geewizztoo]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Hi Slippery,

You've stated in threads on another Forum that you spend many hours on the internet researching oil from algae and getting your pilot plant started. I applaud you for this as it is one possible future source of oil and it is something that I would like to try myself. But you may want to divert a few minutes of that research time to the impending demise of the global oil based economy. I think the only debate is over 'when' and not 'if'. Don't think the politicians are going to look after you, they are well and truly in the pockets of the fatcats in the big oil companies. You may need to accelerate your plans for your algoil farm.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Geewiztoo,

I urge you to not think about trying the algae growing thing - just do it.

I am taking time to look into Terry's thead and if what he says is the genuine article then we will need as much alternative sources as we can lay our hands on.

As I have noted elsewhere, we have a current capability of producing around 250 000 000 litres of biodiesel ( if all plants go full bore which will never happen because of a lack of feedstock) - that is less than 2% of national usage.

If, as I have noted in other posts, our diesel production drops by 30% we will need to find somewhere in excess of 5billion litres of alternative juice, and that is just diesel - no idea of the figures for petrol.

I am developing ideas around producing biobutanol but I would have to guess that petrol consumption is higher than diesel, and then there is jet fuel!!!

Excuse me, I am just going to turn up the heat on my algae.

[Westwinds Donating Member Find all posts View Profile Close Westwinds]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Gday,I would like to say a thank you to Terry for his reseach and links to the information on peak oil and the coming oil crises.My grandparents had a car during the great depression and they could not afford the fuel.They put the car up on blocks and went back to the horse and sulkly.they survived by having a huge vegetable garden,orchard,milking cow and sheep to kill for meat.I imagine a very exciting time for those of us who can grow crops for our fuel needs and a frightening future for the masses in suburbia who have poor public transport and massive increases in food prices.I could waffle on but i am a one finger typist.regards westwinds

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Westwinds, you're welcome. Too bad the pollies don't want to look at any of the information.

You might try an experiment with your local MP. Send him some copies of some of the information and see what you get back. My bet will be a form letter and how there is a committee that is looking into it and will report back in another 18 months, blah, blah.

The Liberal Ian McFarlane MP was at least honest enough to say he didn't have a clue about what to do (so like, why do people elect him?), although he was very forthcoming about all the millions of dollars of taxpayer money that had been spent on various projects (none of which provided a damn thing, but did fatten up a few pocketbooks).

I wasn't born cynical, I had to work for years to get this way.

[gwalker Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close gwalker]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Here's a very recent article on what's happening regarding Australia's oil supplies. It has lots of charts to show the probable exports to Australia from our major suppliers.

The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Australia and the Export Land Model

Thanks for another exceptional link.
George

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

My interest in the Peak Oil issue began when I read Duncan's 'Road to Olduvai Gorge' in about 1998. I'll see if I can find a link to it.

Here it is - Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age, by Richard Duncan

Here is recent article that was linked from the popular 'What Really Happened' webpage. A link from this webpage will bring the concept more into the general public's awareness of energy issues. The article is an update of the energy resources from the 1989/1996 Duncan thesis. Yes, we are still on the road to Olduvai, however the collapse has been shifted a few years.

The Oil Drum: Europe | Olduvai revisited 2008

After you have conceptualise this fundamental idea, you will be better understand the implications upon hearing in the news that North American natural gas has peaked or that the Cantrell oil field (second largest in the world) in Mexico will be depleted in nine years. All these news tidbits begin to fit into the mosaic for the completion of the final picture.

Understanding the Olduvai theory is not for the faint hearted. Please use your discretion before you jump into the deep end of the pool.

Another good source of information is Dieoff.org. Jay Hanson's articles are always done well.

DIE OFF - a population crash resource page

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Three recent Australian articles on rising fuel prices in Oz. The Caltex article is an implicit admission of Peak Oil, but you have to read the last one by the President of the NRMA to realise how clueless some people can be that should know better - and absurdly collect membership fees to pay for their superior management skills!

Caltex Australia's unpleasant truth about gas prices | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

[Guest Close Marc1]

Peak oil ?

Peak Oil ?

The World Has Plenty of Oil

By NANSEN G. SALERI
March 4, 2008; Page A17

Many energy analysts view the ongoing waltz of crude prices with the mystical $100 mark -- notwithstanding the dollar's anemia -- as another sign of the beginning of the end for the oil era. "[A]t the furthest out, it will be a crisis in 2008 to 2012," declares Matthew Simmons, the most vocal voice among the "neo-peak-oil" club. Tempering this pessimism only slightly is the viewpoint gaining ground among many industry leaders, who argue that daily production by 2030 of 100 million barrels will be difficult.

In fact, we are nowhere close to reaching a peak in global oil supplies.

Chad Crowe Given a set of assumptions, forecasting the peak-oil-point -- defined as the onset of global production decline -- is a relatively trivial problem. Four primary factors will pinpoint its exact timing. The trivial becomes far more complex because the four factors -- resources in place (how many barrels initially underground), recovery efficiency (what percentage is ultimately recoverable), rate of consumption, and state of depletion at peak (how empty is the global tank when decline kicks in) -- are inherently uncertain.
- What are the global resources in place? Estimates vary. But approximately six to eight trillion barrels each for conventional and unconventional oil resources (shale oil, tar sands, extra heavy oil) represent probable figures -- inclusive of future discoveries. As a matter of context, the globe has consumed only one out of a grand total of 12 to 16 trillion barrels underground.
- What percentage of global resources is ultimately recoverable? The industry recovers an average of only one out of three barrels of conventional resources underground and considerably less for the unconventional.
This benchmark, established over the past century, is poised to change upward. Modern science and unfolding technologies will, in all likelihood, double recovery efficiencies. Even a 10% gain in extraction efficiency on a global scale will unlock 1.2 to 1.6 trillion barrels of extra resources -- an additional 50-year supply at current consumption rates.
The impact of modern oil extraction techniques is already evident across the globe. Abqaiq and Ghawar, two of the flagship oil fields of Saudi Arabia, are well on their way to recover at least two out of three barrels underground -- in the process raising recovery expectations for the remainder of the Kingdom's oil assets, which account for one quarter of world reserves.
Are the lessons and successes of Ghawar transferable to the countless struggling fields around the world -- most conspicuously in Venezuela, Mexico, Iran or the former Soviet Union -- where irreversible declines in production are mistakenly accepted as the norm and in fact fuel the "neo-peak-oil" alarmism? The answer is a definitive yes.
Hundred-dollar oil will provide a clear incentive for reinvigorating fields and unlocking extra barrels through the use of new technologies. The consequences for emerging oil-rich regions such as Iraq can be far more rewarding. By 2040 the country's production and reserves might potentially rival those of Saudi Arabia.
Paradoxically, high crude prices may temporarily mask the inefficiencies of others, which may still remain profitable despite continuing to use 1960-vintage production methods. But modernism will inevitably prevail: The national oil companies that hold over 90% of the earth's conventional oil endowment will be pressed to adopt new and better technologies.
- What will be the average rate of crude consumption between now and peak oil? Current daily global consumption stands around 86 million barrels, with projected annual increases ranging from 0% to 2% depending on various economic outlooks. Thus average consumption levels ranging from 90 to 110 million barrels represent a reasonable bracket. Any economic slowdown -- as intimated by the recent tremors in the global equity markets -- will favor the lower end of this spectrum.
This is not to suggest that global supply capacity will grow steadily unimpeded by bottlenecks -- manpower, access, resource nationalism, legacy issues, logistical constraints, etc. -- within the energy equation. However, near-term obstacles do not determine the global supply ceiling at 2030 or 2050. Market forces, given the benefit of time and the burgeoning mobility of technology and innovation across borders, will tame transitional obstacles.
- When will peak oil arrive? This widely accepted tipping point -- 50% of ultimately recoverable resources consumed -- is largely a tribute to King Hubbert, a distinguished Shell geologist who predicted the peak oil point for the U.S. lower 48 states. While his timing was very good (he forecast 1968 versus 1970 in fact), he underestimated peak daily production (9.5 million barrels actual versus eight million estimated).
But modern extraction methods will undoubtedly stretch Hubbert's "50% assumption," which was based on Sputnik-era technologies. Even a modest shift -- to 55% of recoverable resources consumed -- will delay the onset by 20-25 years.
Where do reasonable assumptions surrounding peak oil lead us? My view, subjective and imprecise, points to a period between 2045 and 2067 as the most likely outcome.
Cambridge Energy Associates forecasts the global daily liquids production to rise to 115 million barrels by 2017 versus 86 million at present. Instead of a sharp peak per Hubbert's model, an undulating, multi-decade long plateau production era sets in -- i.e., no sudden-death ending.
The world is not running out of oil anytime soon. A gradual transitioning on the global scale away from a fossil-based energy system may in fact happen during the 21st century. The root causes, however, will most likely have less to do with lack of supplies and far more with superior alternatives. The overused observation that "the Stone Age did not end due to a lack of stones" may in fact find its match.
The solutions to global energy needs require an intelligent integration of environmental, geopolitical and technical perspectives each with its own subsets of complexity. On one of these -- the oil supply component -- the news is positive. Sufficient liquid crude supplies do exist to sustain production rates at or near 100 million barrels per day almost to the end of this century.
Technology matters. The benefits of scientific advancement observable in the production of better mobile phones, TVs and life-extending pharmaceuticals will not, somehow, bypass the extraction of usable oil resources. To argue otherwise distracts from a focused debate on what the correct energy-policy priorities should be, both for the United States and the world community at large.

[Guest Close Marc1]

Peak oil, man made global warming, recessions and other calamities.

In the small republic I grew up in (where my parents made the unwise choice to emigrate to after the war), there was a president who, troubled by a long string of unwanted side effects of his stupid decisions had discovered the silver bullet of politics.

The Russian submarine !

Anytime the inflation figures appeared to hunt him, loss of jobs or delayed pensioners payments, a mysterious headline appeared on most papers. In the same fashion of a lock Ness photograph, a blurry silhouette of something resembling a turret or a periscope would be speculated to be a Russian submarine spy vessel determined to take with them all the bananas out of the republic.

As pathetic as this strategy may sound today, in the time of the cold war this was extremely effective and for month it ws the primary topic and forgotten was inflation job losses or power abuse.

Have things changed?
Not much. In days were the attempts at substituting the out of favour patriotism with traditional religions seems to have failed , new and more exiting religions have come to please the masses and serve the governing class.
The fire and brimstone speech of old is now the global warming warnings. Early attempts at convincing us that the world was coming to a freezing end and that we are heading towards a new glacier age, safely forgotten by the gold fish memory of the masses, we are now preached at that the world is hotting up and that it is all our fault.
Stop what you are doing and listen because I know better. The sky is falling on our heads.
The fanatical dedication and the little or no resistance presented by all the government in the world have embolden this new popes of climate change to a point that they now take on anything in their path. Rain patterns, ocean levels, seismic activity, recessions, pestilence, riots and revolts, all is your fault, yes, you.

Like the Russian Submarine of old, this has the desired effect of distraction from incompetent and corrupt governments yet has a remarkable added feature.
It actually stimulates a long string of fringe industries and markets unknown before.

So, is climate change real?
Russia has certainly always had submarines.
Climate has always changed, in fact one real feature of climate is that it changes. it MUST change.
Yet blaming human activity for it is farcical.
Yet it is good business and as such one should welcome it.

There is a side effect however that is little understood and that makes all this dooms day prediction a rather sad affair.

The economy be it macro or micro is a consequence of our state of mind.
If we are optimistic, we feel good about our business and ourselves, our business thrives, this flows to all aspects of the economy since we are gregarious animals our state of mind has a domino effect on others.

What happens when someone envisages a way to make as all feel bad?
We are new wave sinners, we have all sinned since we all have farted, driven a car and left a light on during the day.
And because of our collective sin we must now pay. Our kids are doomed we will be invaded by Islanders, there will be no food left because of the bio-diesel manufacturers and all human activity must cease and we will go back to carts and horses.

Merchants of doom have everything to gain from recessions, impoverished people are easier to mess with, and will relinquish their rights more easily for a bowl of beans. Yet to succeed they must convince you that it is all your fault.

Not all is lost though.
Not everyone has swallowed the hook of man made climate change, peak oil is over half a century away and by then it will no longer be the only source of energy.
By all means, drive your car on vegetable oil because it is fun to do so, because you save some money but please don't think you save the planet by doing so. There are churches to go to if salvation is your thing, all sorts and all flavors.

The sky is not falling nor will it ever fall.
Yet we can think it does and it will seem very real.

We can choose to be happy or we can choose to feel guilty and sad.
Our happiness will produce full employment and buoyant economy.
Our guilt and sadness will talk us all into recession.

It is still our choice.

[Guest Close Marc1]

Re: Peak oil - 4 Corners ABC TV Monday 10/7/06

Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news

On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.
The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.
Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."
Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?
"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.
Hansen has some explaining to do. The public deserves to know how he was converted from an apparent believer in a coming ice age who had no worries about greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming fear monger.
This is a man, as Lockwood noted in his message to the Times' John McCaslin, who has called those skeptical of his global warming theory "court jesters." We wonder: What choice words did he have for those who were skeptical of the ice age theory in 1971?
People can change their positions based on new information or by taking a closer or more open-minded look at what is already known. There's nothing wrong with a reversal or modification of views as long as it is arrived at honestly.
But what about political hypocrisy? It's clear that Hansen is as much a political animal as he is a scientist. Did he switch from one approaching cataclysm to another because he thought it would be easier to sell to the public? Was it a career advancement move or an honest change of heart on science, based on empirical evidence?
If Hansen wants to change positions again, the time is now. With NASA having recently revised historical temperature data that Hansen himself compiled, the door has been opened for him to embrace the ice age projections of the early 1970s.
Could be he's feeling a little chill in the air again.