Oil Production till 2030: Notice the rapid decline in conventional oil, The biggest gains are classified as "To be developed" or "Natural Gas Liquids" with the third biggest gain being "To be discovered". No one knows where this new oil is to be "discovered" be it must be twice as big as shale oil TO MEET EXPECTED DEMAND:


http://peakoil.com/forums/what-future-for-petroleum-t67813.html

What is "Unconventional oil" other then Shale oil?


Now, in the above report, they estimate the changes as follows (for example the above assumes a 3% in conventional oil production, but it has been at a steady 5% drop over the last couple of years):


http://peakoil.com/forums/what-future-for-petroleum-t67813.html

Russia has reported it has had its second year of 5.5 % drop in oil production:

http://peakoil.com/forums/fsu-crude-oil-exports-declined-by-5-5-in-last-2-years-t68370.html

Here is a chart showing the difference between DEMAND and SUPPLY:


http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/why-peak-oil-will-never-lead-500bbl-crude-oil/38937

Latest Energy Information Agency report on Shale Oil:

http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/

Peak Oil report on the above:
http://peakoil.com/forums/world-has-10-years-of-shale-oil-reports-us-t68330.html

Natural Gas:

Natural Gas is heading for a peak:
http://www.raisethehammer.org/article/460


http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/energy/the_challenges/peak_oil.html

Please note the following assumes no one is lying about how much oil, natural gas and coal they have (It is assume by most observers the various OPEC nations have been lying for decades and this the following is 10 years late. i.e. peak oil is NOT in 2015 as the following suggests, but in 2005:

http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S001623611200230X-fx1.sml
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001623611200230X


Peak coal appears to be in 2025:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-04-05/peak-coal-2025-say-researchers

Peak coal occurred in England in 1920, England's fall from the major world power to being a lap dog of the US, reflects this drop in coal production after 1920:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2013/03/peak-coal-in-britain.html

One report says coal production peaked in 2011:
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2011/05/peak-coal-this-year.html

In the US, in terms of energy content, Coal Peaked in 1998. We are mining more TONS of coal today, but each ton mined today has so much less energy that the ENERGY in the Coal mined then the energy in the much smaller number of tons of coal mined in 1998.

http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Report_Coal_10-07-2007ms.pdf

In simple terms, there is no way we can produce the energy that your chart says we will be using coming 2035. Something has to give.

He's a one-trick pony that likes to make phony graphs he hopes will scare people.
He has absolutely no interest in accuracy or actual analysis.

And that is the problem. Renewables (and Nuclear) will NOT supply the energy we will need in 2035, but that is also true of Oil, Natural Gas and Coal.

Worse, I suspect oil exporters of today (The top ten exporters are as follows:

Country Exports
1 Saudi Arabia 8,534 Thousand Barrels of oil per day
2 Russia 7,129 Thousand Barrels of oil per day
3 Iran 2,526 Thousand Barrels of oil per day
4 United Arab Emirates 2,458
5 Nigeria 2,314
6 Kuwait 2,282
7 Iraq 1,909
8 Norway 1,752
9 Angola 1,752
10 Venezuela 1,73

http://www.eia.gov/countries/index.cfm?topL=con

Russia is the # 5 Consumer of oil at 3,220 Thousand Barrels of oil per day, yet remains the #2 net exporter
Saudi Arabia is now the #7 consumer of oil, 2620 Thousand Barrels of oil per day
Iran is the #13 consumer of oil. 1700 Thousand Barrels of oil per day

In the case of those three countries, if production falls (and it is falling in Russia and Iran and some people suspect Saudi Arabia) given a choice of raising internal oil prices OR cutting exports, each will prefer to cut exports. Thus accelerating oil and energy crisis in the rest of the world.

Russia admits to a severe drop in oil production, how far will Putin leave it fall before he shuts off exports (Like he did two years ago in the case of wheat, there was a potential world wide wheat shortage, Putin refused to export wheat, so bread could stay cheap in Russia, that refusal to export forced wheat prices up in the rest of the world, and in area where low end wages are less the $2 a day, i.e. Egypt, you had a revolution).

Russia exports twice as much oil as it consumes (in 2011), what if Putin decides Cheap Gasoline in Russia is more import then dollars from the sale of oil and curtail oil exports in 2-5 years? 5.5 % drop each year over 5 years is less then a 50% drop in production but with the steady increase in gasoline usage in Russia, it may not take that long for production to equal internal consumption.

Saudi Arabia is NOT much better, less internal use, but the world is used to Saudi Arabia higher oil exports. Saudi Arabia has only maintain production by putting into production lower grade oil (that has to be exported to the US to be processed), That is a sign that production is having a hard time increasing and the first sign of peak oil production.

Side note: Do not count on US oil production from Shale oil. Shale Oil is expected to peak around 2017 and drop back to 2000 levels by 2020. Shale Oil and Gas are a bubble and a flash in the pan. It can be a patch, but no one is calling it that, instead people are calling it the wave of the Future. The problem is this wave is a very quick wave,

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301
, http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/dr-robert-hirsch/middle-east-peak-oil-conference

Now, given the price of oil since 2008, you have a lot of people who are saying peak oil will not occur. The problem is due to the economy doing so badly since 2008, demand for oil in the US has dropped. This has never occurred (During WWII domestic use of oil decline due to gas rationing, but that was more then offset by increase use by the Military during WWII). Thus we are using less oil, due to a bad economy, and for that reason demand for oil is lower then expected (and the price of oil still has NOT dropped to where it was when Bush II became President even with this drop in demand). The problem is oil production is barely holding its own world wide thus there is no excess supply over demand to lead to a drop in the price of oil.

We are looking for rough times in the future. The sooner we adjust to using less energy (i.e. driving less, using more items produced locally etc,) the easier will be out transition to a less energy intensive life style.

They have a record of the worst forecasting for future energy trends of almost anyone out there.

We have cost effective viable alternatives for most applications currently being served by fossil fuels. The central role of renewables is crystalizing and part of that system is a shift towards consumer consciousness about the quantity of energy consumed and system-wide enhancements that will dramatically improve the life cycle efficiencies for the way we employ energy across the board. Predicting future energy usage based on today's inefficient methods of energy production and consumption is a fools errand.


So no, he almost certainly does not have an accurate perception of future energy demand.

I wrote the article World Energy to 2050 in October 2007, based on the BP Review of 2007.

In it I forecast a possible trajectory for various energy sources out to 2050. I just went back and compared my numbers for 2012 with those from BP. The comparison shows some interesting things:

• I underestimated the growth of oil and coal by ~4% each: Peak Oil didn't bite as fast as I expected, and China's determination to industrialize or die trying caused a spike in world coal consumption that I didn't foresee.
  
• I overestimated the growth of gas by ~9%.
  
• I underestimated the growth of renewables by ~25%; and I overestimated the performance of nuclear power by about the same percentage - though a higher absolute amount.
  
• I underestimated the growth of hydro by ~10%.
  
• My estimate for total primary energy in 2012 was off by ~0.8%.
  
• My forecast split between fossil and low carbon energy sources was off by ~1% in each direction - 1% low for fossil fuels, 1.4% high for low carbon sources.

I also think we'll keep drilling and fracking and mining (and burning) our brains out until the EROI of the energy sources drops below 5:1.

The problem we have is that if the overall energy use doesn't rise at better than 1.5% a year (which is possible if we hit peaks in oil and gas), civilization may no longer be able to support its asset base (which is taking over 80% of our energy right now just to maintain). Humanity is so utterly, thermodynamically self-interested, though, that the pressure to keep the growth going as long as possible is going to be irresistible. As irresistible as it is today...

We will not stop searching for and consuming energy. We will not stop looking for ways around whatever limits may loom in front of us. We can't, because all life is built to search for and consume energy, and the human brain was evolved as a limit-removal mechanism to aid that process. We also should not expect individual choices (even those made by high-level endividuals) to change the global course of events.

This is from an email I wrote a few days ago:

The rate of change in the model's results is remarkable. The question is, of course, how predictive it is of future developments. I attribute the volatility of the modeling to game changing behavior from China and Germany. The rest of Far East Asia, India and Africa are still wild cards whose behavior isn't significant enough to strongly influence predictions on demand and the consequent buildup of manufacturing. I think the modeling 5 years from now is going to be radically different than what we see now - and it will be in a good way. YMMV

And he is citing NEW ENERGY SOURCES not ALL ENERGY SOURCES. 60% of 10 is only 6 and we need 100 (numbers are for demonstration only). As your first graph shows, Coal, natural Gas and oil are expected to increase by a smaller percentage then Hydro, Solar and wind, but by a much higher total level. i.e in my example about the 94 we need (again the numbers are for demonstration only, I would have to look at the actual number but it is time for me to go to bed).

As I said above, the vast majority of our energy appears to be going to support the structures of civilization that have already been built. We have maybe 15% leeway to the downside before we have to choose between ongoing growth or the maintenance of existing infrastructure. At that point the global economy is at enormous risk.

Rust never sleeps.

ETA: And kristopher's sweetly soothing graphs make absolutely no mention of transportation - the consumer of 40% of the world's oil (and virtually none of its renewable power).

Transport and heating have to be considered too. While both can be powered by electricity, at present, they mainly directly use fossil fuels. Do those graphs assume an increase in electricity use for transport and heating - if so, how much?

We'll continue to lose it until well after those lines begin to slope down - even after they go all the way to zero.