http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=58fc9401-92d8-47b8-b1f2-bb320676825b

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Aleklett believes the peak could arrive as soon as 2008 -- and that the struggle to adjust to the new energy reality could take 20 years, posing enormous challenges for developed nations.

Some observers suggest that the decline will prompt an economic and social meltdown on a scale last experienced in the Great Depression -- or perhaps when the Black Death swept across Europe in 1347.

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Peak Oil Reader

Peak Oil Redux

Peak Oil the Third

Peak Oil Esquire the Fourth

Peak Oil Primer

[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

And let's face it, the problem is we're all kinda stupid....

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AutoNation Inc., the biggest United States publicly traded chain of auto dealerships, reports that audio systems and the number of cup holders still matter more to vehicle buyers than fuel efficiency.

"You have to look past what consumers say they're going to do and the moment where they write a cheque," AutoNation chief executive Mike Jackson told The Wall Street Journal.

"That's the moment of truth. They want size and speed."

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[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

It may happen one day in the future, but to call it a crisis is just hyperbole.

[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]

The biggest ones are...

It's harder and harder to fine, more discovery research needs to go into each find

It's in harder to extract places (oil sands, middle of the ocean, in some radical tyrants land, and that means it's costing more to extract and process because of those hard to reach places.

The environmental cost, alreaady staggering, is getting worse all the time.

Despite the 'reserve' increase, global consumption is FAR outpacing new discoveries.

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Originally posted by quelar:
Despite the 'reserve' increase, global consumption is FAR outpacing new discoveries.

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Well, reserves are at their highest levels ever (excel file), so that can't be right.

[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

There's a large buffer in there, as we readjust reserves we found and how much is in them, but at the rate of increase in usage, and the decrease in new reserve finds we will see the reserves 'peak' and then start dropping off dramatically.

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Originally posted by quelar:

There's a large buffer in there, as we readjust reserves we found and how much is in them, but at the rate of increase in usage, and the decrease in new reserve finds we will see the reserves 'peak' and then start dropping off dramatically.

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People keep saying that and it has not ever become true. It may happen sometime further in the future, say four or five generations from now, but for now Peak Oil is a myth.

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As they say, Chicken Little has to be right only once!

4-5 generations? If you buy the nonsense spouted by the cornucopians shills out there, like the guy above in the G&M, or the Pollyannas at CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), maybe.

Just consider those facts:
- production in 2006 was just barely above 2005;
- major producers like Norway, the UK, Kuwait and Mexico are all experiencing decline; UK actually will be a net importer this year, for the first time in 30 years;
- most of the new reserves are unconventional oil, hard and costly to extract;
- huge reserves don't mean large rate of production, witness the Tar Sands.

Peak Oil again deosn't mean running out. It means we can't produce more, and with increased demand, price goes up.

I'll be with you we'll see 100$ oil before 2010, and we'll never see 25$ oil again.

And I bet you'll be around when the Peak is here.

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Originally posted by quelar:
Despite the 'reserve' increase, global consumption is FAR outpacing new discoveries.
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Well, reserves are at their highest levels ever (excel file), so that can't be right.

[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

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Actually, consumption outpaces new discoveries by a factor of almost 3:1. Most of the additions to reserves are not new discoveries, but 'reserve growth', which is the result of new technologies allowing more oil to be pumped from existing oil fields.

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Most of the additions to reserves are not new discoveries, but 'reserve growth', which is the result of new technologies allowing more oil to be pumped from existing oil fields.

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These came from simple google searches on "peak oil" and "oil supply and demand".

Long-Term World Oil Supply Scenarios

The Peak Oil Theory

From the second paper, two quotations follow:

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One major reason for their propensity to bring forward the dreaded event seems to be an eschatological inclination. Consciously or sub-consciously they are inclined to predict the end of a world economy that was fuelled by cheap oil over several decades. They also want to catch the headlines. For these reasons they need to predict an early peak. To tell us, for example, that oil production will peak in 2030 and oil resources be fully exhausted by 2080 would have little impact. The prediction has to be about an imminent event. ...

Re-focusing the debate away from the peak oil paranoia and towards the need to invest in the production of liquid fuels at the right time will put us on the road to a solution

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I mean, if you put aside for a moment the question of whether we're running out of fossil fuels, there's still a huge number of serious environmental, human health, social, and geopolitical problems arising from the extraction, refinement, transport and use of those fuels. Air pollution, groundwater pollution, oil spills, greenhouse gas emissions, the concentration of ownership and military conflicts over oil reserves.

You'd think that there would be more than enough reasons to curb our dependence on fossil fuels. Yet environmentalists are frustrated by how slowly it's taking for governments and individuals to start taking action. So "peak oil" appears as a wonderfully simple way of persuading people -- sure, there's all these other problems, but even more importantly, fuel supplies won't be able to keep up with demand, will become increasingly scarce, and may even eventually RUN OUT!

The guy that predicted the time of peak oil in the USA , which he said would be in the early 1970s. Is he not the same guy that predicted world peak oil at around 2012????

I think at the time of his prediction of peak oil in the USA they said he was a quak???

[ 11 April 2007: Message edited by: trippie ]

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If we rely too heavily on the "peak oil" argument and it turns out to be false, people are going to be even more skeptical -- if not outright dismissive -- of the remaining arguments for curbing fossil fuel use.

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people will also find it profitable to develop alternate technologies...

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Most of which are made out of oil based plastics.

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It takes much less total oil to build a piece of plastic once than it does to produce energy over the long-term.

I'm personally hoping for a continual increase in oil prices, which can push us (all but Alberta) into alternatives without a major catastrophe. We have the knowledge and the skills to make the shift, what most of us need is a financial reason.

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Originally posted by GreenNeck:
Unless you can demonstrate the amount of oil is infinite, the Peak Oil argument cannot be false. We just argue about its timing. Even the most optimistic know it will happen, they just think it will be in 40 or 50 years.

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You can make a comparison with climate change. There's ample scientific evidence that human activity is causing climate change, that this will eventually have major adverse consequences for large numbers of people, and that some of these consequences are already apparent.

However, climate change is a gradual process. The great difficulty is in persuading people that it's a problem without resorting to hyperbole that either terrifies people into fatalism or, when it turns out to be premature, makes people say "Okay, you were wrong about this -- what else are you wrong about?"

But as it happens, Nature has a way of taking care of things. The oil will most certainly run out, far, far in advance of coal for example. One of the key points about peak oil is that there have been no significant finds in a long time - I don't have the numbers - and even the oil giants are spending less and less on the search for it because even they figure it's a waste of money. You can plot the rate and quantities of new discoveries on a graph and it's already peaked. As an earlier poster noted, much of the new 'finds' are actually new technology in old fields. The oil sands have only recently become affordable to develop BECAUSE the price has risen to reflect its scarcity.

The nice spreadsheet - handy, that - only demonstrates that in the last thirty years a great deal of effort has gone into the search for new sources. What's out there, has pretty much been found. Estimated global reserves will not be going much higher, if at all, I am confident.

Note that Canada's estimate suddenly spikes and I assume that is the oil sands suddenly being given legitimacy as a resource. Too bad about the Mackenzie river.

This is complicated by the rapidly rising presence on the international oil markets of China and India, both of whose newly industrializing economies will see their domestic demand ramping up dramatically - precisely at the time when the rest of the world is growing a little down in the mouth about this dwindling resource. This can only bring the peak that much closer to the present as global consumption continues to rise.

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As I said, the problem is with people relying on the more apocalyptic estimates of the timing.

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Which is how many people? Probably next to nobody.

Most folks here in North America don't have a clue about oil peaking. They only care about American Idol, NASCAR, Anna Nicole Smith, and similar stuff. For them oil is infinite and they can keep driving their SUVs forever.

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Originally posted by Merowe:
[qb]The intersection of peak oil and global warming is interesting. Even if oil was limitless, we can't keep consuming at present rates or the Earth will look like Mars.

But as it happens, Nature has a way of taking care of things. The oil will most certainly run out, far, far in advance of coal for example. One of the key points about peak oil is that there have been no significant finds in a long time - I don't have the numbers - and even the oil giants are spending less and less on the search for it because even they figure it's a waste of money. You can plot the rate and quantities of new discoveries on a graph and it's already peaked. As an earlier poster noted, much of the new 'finds' are actually new technology in old fields. The oil sands have only recently become affordable to develop BECAUSE the price has risen to reflect its scarcity." qb]

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Unfortunately, as oil peaks and as our nations' demands for energy grow, we'll probably begin relying far more heavily on coal, which is an even worse greenhouse gas emitter.

[ 12 April 2007: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]