The Prophecy of Oil

(this is rough; final will come tomorrow)

===

On August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake’s oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania struck a gusher, making him the man credited with drilling the first commercially successful oil well in America. In the time between then and now, the world has burned through about 900 billion barrels of Drake’s discovery.

Global daily oil consumption today stands at around 82 million barrels, and many experts believe the emerging mega-industrialization of nations like China and India will cause that daily consumption to reach at least 120 million barrels a day by the year 2030. Not to fear, however; ExxonMobil believes there are some 14 trillion barrels still in the ground, including nonconventional resource fields like the tar sands of Canada and petroleum-rich shale in the western United States.

In the last several years, a theory known as ‘Peak Oil’ has been working its way into the mainstream. Chief proponent of this theory is Dr. Colin Campbell, a retired oil-industry geologist now living in Ireland. Dr. Campbell, who has been raising warnings about Peak Oil for some 15 years, believes that global consumption of oil is surpassing not only the amount of oil being pulled from the ground, is surpassing not only the amount of oil left to be found, but is also surpassing the ability of technology to compensate for what he sees as an inevitable and looming shortfall.

The ‘peak,’ believes Campbell, will come as early as next year, heralding a steady rise in prices and the end of cheap oil as we have known it, causing a seismic shock within the global economy. "The perception of this decline changes the entire world we know," said Dr. Campbell in a September 2004 report from the Wall Street Journal. "Up till now we've been living in a world with the assumption of growth driven by oil. Now we have to face the other side of the mountain."

The oil industry, predictably, considers Campbell to be a doomsaying loony, an espouser of flat-earth economics who totally discounts both the vast amounts of oil yet to be drilled, and the ability of technology to find more. Their argument is not without merit, as claims that the petroleum paradigm is on the edge of extinction are as old as the industry itself. Sixteen years after Drake’s well struck oil, for example, Pennsylvania’s chief geologist warned it would soon run out. Clearly, this was not the case. Campbell himself has not helped his credibility; the expected date of imminent catastrophe quoted by the doctor has been pushed back with regularity since 1990 as each non-disastrous year passes with the industry still intact.

More and more, however, noted energy analysts are coming to heed Campbell’s warnings. The respected Washington-based consulting firm PFC Energy published a report endorsing his theory, noting that the exact date of the catastrophe is less important than the fact that it is coming. PFC was hesitant at first to hang their hat on Dr. Campbell, but came to the conclusion that the decline in global oil discoveries has become so dramatic that it cannot be ignored, and that this decline calls into question whether technology can save the industry before the clock winds down to zero.

Ultimately, the debate over whether ‘Peak Oil’ is a looming reality or merely Chicken-Littlism is wide of the point the planet must come to address. Posit for the moment that ExxonMobil and the rest of the petroleum industry are correct in their belief that trillions of barrels of oil await discovery and drilling, and that the petroleum paradigm is safe and secure for centuries to come. Even if this assumption is true, the fact remains that the paradigm itself is a suicide ride leading ever downward to danger and, ultimately, disaster.

No one can question the benefits oil has brought to global society. Here in America, millions of homes are heated with oil. Millions of cars make it easier for millions of people to get to work and take care of their business. Millions of trucks and ships have delivered billions of tons of produce to all points on the compass; one could argue that the defining truth of the luxury inherent in Western society is the ability to stand in a snowbank in Maine and enjoy a fresh pineapple from Hawaii.

Millions of people can get from New York to Los Angeles in a day, thanks to airplanes. There is today an American flag on the moon, planted by men who traversed space by burning oil products. The incomes and livelihoods of millions – workers in industry and agriculture and transportation and food services to name a few – depend upon oil.

All of these benefits, all of these achievements, along with countless others, come from the drilling and processing of petroleum. Oil infuses virtually every aspect of civilization as we know it. It is the basis of the global economy. It is the inescapable ingredient that creates, supports and sustains the Western world as we know it.

Yet even as oil gives generously with one hand, it takes grievously with the other. Even if the petroleum industry is correct and there remains trillions of barrels to be plumbed, that oil is located for the most part in some of the most dangerous and unstable places on the planet. That danger and instability has been created, in no small part, by the fact that oil can be found there.

Oil revenues fund global terrorism. Oil resources motivate wars, and more wars, and more wars. This is the sharp other edge of the sword; if the petroleum industry is correct and oil can be found and drilled for generations to come, that means generations to come will be required to share the death and destruction we endure today in the grubbing for oil. There is no escaping this.

Oil is dirty, and its byproducts are doing demonstrable and ever-increasing damage to the environment which sustains life on Earth. Thanks to tanker spills, dumping and the inevitable leakage of petroleum byproducts from the global shipping industry, every centimeter of ocean on the planet is covered by a microscopically thin skim of oil.

All of the scooters, motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, space shuttles, tanks, troop transports, along with the innumerable smokestacks spewing the byproducts of industry into the air from one side of the globe to the other, are releasing dramatic levels of poison into the atmosphere every minute of every day, with no letup in sight. This is chewing inexorably into planetary stability, melting the ice caps and blowing vast holes in the ozone.

Finally, and most importantly, our planetary addiction to oil, combined with the incomprehensibly huge profits to be made from the development and sale of oil, have led to the establishment of political and economic power combines that are as dominant as petroleum itself. Governments all around the world, most notably here in America but also in places like Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, are either beholden to petroleum power combines or controlled outright by them.

When Vice President Dick Cheney, a creation of petroleum combines, memorably stated that it is the God-given right of every American to consume as much cheap gas as they can while driving the largest SUVs they can find, he was speaking the gospel of ascendant power. Neither reasonable argument nor empirical data can shake the faithful from this premise.

So long as there is oil and trillions of dollars to be made from it, this gospel will continue to be preached even as all the attendant problems that come with oil attack the basic underpinnings of life and liberty. The paradigm will be continued by any means necessary so long as the ones made powerful by it reign supreme. This begets a cycle of violence, pollution, corruption, greed and ever-increasing power for the few over the many that has nowhere to go but, inevitably, down.

Only the most ardent of eco-fascists hope for the immediate collapse of the petroleum paradigm and the social, economic and military chaos that would ensue. If all the oil in the world disappeared tomorrow morning, millions of people would be dead by sundown, and billions more would follow soon after into the grave. Only the purest of psychopath would look forward to a catastrophe of this magnitude.

Something, however, must be done. If the ‘Peak Oil’ theory is an accurate prediction of the imminent future, something must be done. If ‘Peak Oil’ is only a myth, something must still be done. One way or the other, this paradigm is going to destroy itself, and it will take a monstrous number of people with it.

If the powerful few who control the reins of our oil-dependant world are smart, they will invest a considerable chunk of their profits into a crash program to develop a new, sustainable source of energy. This program must dwarf the Manhattan Project in scope, funding and immediacy. Human ingenuity is boundless, and something like cold fusion merely awaits the desire and effort to find it and make it functional.

Those addicted to the power and profits given them by oil can patent this new energy source and slowly but surely use it to supplant petroleum as the dominant truth of the planet. The power and the profits will be there for them in this, and the overhead required to locate, process and distribute oil while killing anyone who might disrupt the flow will cease to exist. Along the way, the air and water we need will lose its gritty, metallic taste. In other words, nothing will change and everything will change.

If a metaphor is needed to cement this reality, consider again Edwin Drake, who got this ball rolling 146 years ago. Despite being the man to ‘discover’ petroleum, despite being the father of what grew into a fabulously rich industry, Drake himself went broke as a result of his overextended speculation. He died in 1880 a penniless old man. In Drake we find the prophecy of oil, a resource that gives much but takes more, a recourse that will leave us all sooner or later holding our empty hands up to an empty sky.

The Math

Consensus on conventional oil left to be harvested,

1 trillion barrels = 1,000,000,000,000 barrels

Current consumption rate,

80 million barrels per day = 80,000,000 barrels per day

Years of remaining consumption,

Oil remaining/Oil Consumed = 34 years

Hummers, too.

Usage will not remain at the "current rate".

The world will never run out of oil - but it's about to run out of cheap, easy to obtain oil.

Retrieving the next 500,000,000 barrels is going to be far more difficult and far more expensive than the previous 500,000,000.

And since we use about 10 calories of oil for every calorie of food we consume, there could be a lot of hungry people in the world - google dieoff to see more.

Hence the use of the steady state argument.

Most people can understand the steady state.

.

so that would be 14 X 34 years = 476 years, assuming 100% yield?

Yield now is rather low, but they want to increase it to about 80% ideally, which is still a big number.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for solving this with one stroke of the pen....CAFE standards....which has historically always been shown to be a win win scenario.

Hubbert was the American geophysicist who, in 1956, predicted that oil production in the lower-48 United States would peak around 1970- he was right.

North Sea Production reached peak in 2002.

Venezuela is reaching that point presently.

It isn't really true that people have been making false predictions about GLOBAL peak oil. 'Doomsayers' is a term used to belittle truthtellers like saying 'conspiracy theorist' and snickering.

The Truth about how much oil and what kind lies in various reserves has been manipulated by Big Oil.

What happens is that oil producers calculate how much cheap easy oil and how much of the harder to get at stuff they can recover from any particular well.

They only tell investors initially about the cheap easy stuff.

After that amount is taken... they then report "oh, we found MORE!" which is a lie. They knew how much oil they could get AFTER the peak but just didn't report it initially. It makes things more attractive to investors.

Also, countries have over-reported the total amount in their reserves cause the amount they're legally able to drill is set in proportion to that.

Peak Oil happening around 2015 has been a reported and accepted scientific concept for MANY years. Businessweek had a story about it quite a while ago.

I am referring to:

The oil industry, predictably, considers Campbell to be a doomsaying loony, an espouser of flat-earth economics who totally discounts both the vast amounts of oil yet to be drilled, and the ability of technology to find more. Their argument is not without merit, as claims that the petroleum paradigm is on the edge of extinction are as old as the industry itself.

There may have been some faulty prediction here and there about a few localities... but Global Peak Oil ala Hubbert is sound and accepted science. Suggesting otherwise is like questioning the established scientific FACT of Global Climate Change.

Colin Campbell has most recently moved his prediction of peak oil FORWARD a few years, not backward.

Back in the 70's, the above mentioned Hubbert predicted peak in the '90s. The decline in consumption in the 80's has pushed things back, but how far remains to be seen.

The US peaked in 70-71.. this despite Alaskan & deepwater finds, and price jumps in the 70's.. indicating that demand does not create more supply.

A few years back, peak oil skeptics claimed that peaking the the US was an abberation not seen elsewhere. Today, it is estimated that as many as 14 major oil producers have peaked, with another 6 or so with questionable capacity.

Probably one of the most interesting topics for people who follow this subject is the supply of oil in Saudi Arabia. Some Saudi officals claim massive amounts, while critics believe there numbers are highly questionable, and even SA is strained to maintain current production and will continue to be in the future.

major over sight, imho.

i hope you reconsider this, will.

and WATCH this video...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

peace

http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

psst... pass the word.

peace

Sorry if this is disjoint, it's International Womens Day and I need to run & cook dinner for the wife momentarily.

The "opposite" of a flat-earth economist is a cornucopian, who believes that stuff (products, services, energy, raw materials) come into being merely because of a market need. That's an unrealistic proposition, don't you think?

Speaking of markets, the free market is not always capable of solving certain problems due to initial investment/profitability or timeframe. The example I like to use is ubiquitous, quality early childhood thru highschool education. Could the "free market" provide that? If the return on investment is more that 10 years out, US corporate dynamics cannot be relied on. Alternative energy infrastructure is in this ballpark.

Peak oil will happen. It is merely a question of when. If you assume that the peak is many years off (at our sizable and increasing rate of use) how much sequestered carbon (dead plants & dinosaurs - as CO2) will be released into the air. Will that accelerate global climate change?

Oil not only runs the cars, trucks, airplanes and factories - it runs the US (OK, and everyone's) war machine. No solar hummers, tanks and cargo planes just yet.

Food: The most extreme estimate I have read is that it takes 10 calories worth of oil to put 1 calorie of food (American-style food) on the dinner plate. Our extensive use of petrochemicals for fertilizer and pesticides plus diesel machines make each acre of land 30 times moire productive than in pre-oil days. So we're not just talking about the Toyota going hungry.

Cheney's Energy Task force document continue to be repressed. I bet the oil industry guys have a very reliable estimate of the Peak Oil timetable.

Side note: Peak oil as an underlying cause for the war/ occupation/ building-of-14-massive-permanent-bases in Iraq (second largest conventional oil reserves in the world after SA!).

Great stuff.... good luck!

the word 'prophecy' usually sets them off.

There's even a government website.

I added the specs in my sig line.

Also, 900 billion barrels. What's the size of a barrel in cubic feet? And what's the size of Earth in cubic feet? Or the size of the known wells in which they slurp up the stuff from under the ground? And how do they know that eventually, by replacing oil with water that they're greating an underground imbalance that might lead to bigger problems?

thought. It's downhill from here. It will affect everything. Yesterday I was reading some UN AIDS info on Africa and what will happen under various scenarios over the next few decades. Then I thought about peak oil (and I think we have passed the peak re production and demand/use)and said what's the diff? SO many millions will be dead all over the world from starvation, freezing, etc., no one will be worrying about people dying of AIDS, especially when there may not be transport to get drugs there. I also thought of this in regard to the fight over Social Security (Bush "worrying" (HAHAHA)about it being solvent in 2040). What a joke on so many levels. Who will be left in 2040 after the wars, famines, riots, etc. I don't think there will be a well-planned "Powerdown" and I think there will be be only cutthroat scrambling for the last drops of oil.

As to the water/oil problem, shortly after the US entered Iraq, I read a bit on the quality of Iraq oil and it seems there is a lot of water down there; the US was expecting the oil fields to be in way better shape. Knock off sveral hundred million in reserves there too.

I am in a really nasty, foul mood. Sorry

PS I forgot to add that if that one article I read on Iraq's oil was correct, then I think we will be on our way to Iran sooner or later for better quality oil

This excludes virtually all the indigenous people on earth. Start with the U'Wa.

If you take an overlay and label it 'biodiversity' put it atop a map of the world the few pockets of biodiversity remaining correspond precisely and without exception to where the remaining pockets of indigenous people remain.

Oil has been a catastrophic discovery for every non-human creature on Earth. They too would more than question the "benefits". They count.

Using such "over the top" rhetoric to describe him is a disservice to him and his contribution to our understanding of Peak Oil.

"The oil industry, predictably, considers Campbell to be a doomsaying loony, an espouser of flat-earth economics who totally discounts both the vast amounts of oil yet to be drilled, and the ability of technology to find more."

I think there would be less corrosive ways to describe the fact that the oil industry would not agree with him without painting him in their terms.

When in fact, there IS some credibility to this theory.

WHY candy coat the dumb ass way the Oil industry views this Scientist?

Pitt also says this:

In the last several years, a theory known as ‘Peak Oil’ has been working its way into the mainstream. Chief proponent of this theory is Dr. Colin Campbell, a retired oil-industry geologist now living in Ireland. Dr. Campbell, who has been raising warnings about Peak Oil for some 15 years, believes that global consumption of oil is surpassing not only the amount of oil being pulled from the ground, is surpassing not only the amount of oil left to be found, but is also surpassing the ability of technology to compensate for what he sees as an inevitable and looming shortfall.

It's just that he was once an insider, and they don't want anyone airing their dirty little secret.

The 'cornucopians' seem to be the most vocal critics of anyone who notes that petroleum supply may be reaching a peak rate. These economists, lawyers and right-wing think tank dwellers who believe in infinite resources in a finite world.

Then there's Matthew Simmons, member of Cheney's energy task force, consultant to Halliburton when Uncle Dick was there, and coming out with the following book in May:

Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

The most critical question facing the world energy market is whether Saudi Arabia can substantially increase its oil production to meet rising world demand in the years ahead. Sparked by personal observations of Saudi oil wells which led him to suspect that some Saudi fields were in decline, Matt Simmons has created a compelling case that Saudi Arabia production will soon reach an apex, after which its production will decline and the world will be confronted with an immense and potentially catastrophic oil shortage. The factual basis of the book is over 200 technical papers published over the last 20 years which individually detail problems with particular wells or particular fields, but which collectively demonstrate that the entire Saudi oil system is “old and fraying.” Based on his analysis, Mr. Simmons asserts that sudden and sharp oil production declines could happen at any time. Even under the most optimistic scenario, Saudi Arabia may be able to maintain current rates of production for several years, but will not be able to increase production enough to meet the expected increase in world demand. Eventually, the reckoning day will come and the world economy will be confronted with a major shock that will stunt economic growth, increase inflation, and potentially destabilize the Middle East.

The book is written in a concise and engaging style, providing background on Saudi Arabia, the oil industry, world oil market, and the management of the Saudi oil resources. Mr. Simmons addresses technical issues about oil production in a clear, interesting style, providing documentation but not losing the reader in details The book is written with a strong focus and passion, and the overall sense is of a behind-the-scenes expose, akin to a 60 minutes investigative piece.

sounds like a code word rush and hs ilk like to use :shrug:

peace

peace

supporter.

because if he is referring to the green party i would consider it a reTHUG like cheap shot.

the times we live in does not benefit by giving credence to their carton world view by using their language and code words unless it is to EXPOSE them.

peace

also why leave out the father of the term PEAK OIL on an assay of peak oil and the evidence he presented which has borne fruit.

the oil industry laughed at him too when he coined the phrase and he turned out to be RIGHT why ignore that history and make it sound like it is the first time we've been down this road with the other guy?

will is a first rate reporter and this is an over-site, imho.

:hi:

peace

on the father of peak oil. It isn't Campbell?

Please forgive my ignorance.

Named after the late Dr. M. King Hubbert, Geophysicist, this website provides data, analysis and recommendations regarding the upcoming peak in the rate of global oil extraction.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com

...


The late Dr. M. King Hubbert, geophysicist, is well known as a world authority on the estimation of energy resources and on the prediction of their patterns of discovery and depletion.

He was probably the best known geophysicist in the world to the general public because of his startling prediction, first made public in 1949, that the fossil fuel era would be of very short duration. "Energy from Fossil Fuels, Science"

His prediction in 1956 that U.S.oil production would peak in about 1970 and decline thereafter was scoffed at then but his analysis has since proved to be remarkably accurate. See Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels by M. King Hubbert, Chief Consultant (General Geology), Exploration and Production Research Division, Shell Development Company, Publication Number 95, Houston, Texas, June 1956, Presented before the Spring Meeting of the Southern District, American Petroleum Institute, Plaza Hotel, San Antonio, Texas, March 7-8-9, 1956.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert



see also this excellent video that explains the MATH of PO in laymans terms...

http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

i hope this helps :toast:

peace

guess it would have been too much of a re-write...

well i hope you get him in the next one :hi:

peace

http://sf.indymedia.org/print.php?id=1659485

Biologist Worldview

In this context, eco-fascism means the spread of eugenic and racist positions through seemingly ecological arguments. A biologist worldview existing in all areas of society underlies eco-fascist positions. Biologism means transferring alleged laws from the animal- and plant worlds to human society. The person is not seen as a social being but as biologically and genetically determined. The assumption of the inequality of people, the impossibility of emancipation, the legitimation of rule and elites and the distinction of high-quality and inferior-quality life are already assumed in the subordination of persons and society under “eternal natural laws”.

In eco-fascist positions, biologism is joined with the notion that the person faces the environment as a hostile “parasite”. The supposed “over-population” in the Third World is made responsible for the destruction of nature, not capitalist exploitation. (2) A false analysis of the causes of environmental destruction underlies the thesis of the supposed “over-population” spread across the rightwing spectrum. This thesis appears in all its brutality in the ecologized form of racist ideologies combined with a biologist worldview… The leftwing within the Greens first prevailed in connecting ecology with the social question… At the beginning of the 1990s, racism was clearly reflected in the form of the over-population thesis and ethno-pluralism.

I would still like to hear will's thoughts on it and his over sight in excluding dr. hubbert.

peace

An eco-fascist believes, according to the ones I have known, that five billion people have to die before any global reform is possible.

Frankly, I'm tempted to tell you to go fuck yourself for comparing me to Rush. I won't because I know you a long time. You should therefore know me well enough to know better.

i'm glad you decided to change it in the published piece, though.

BTW: why did you leave out Dr. Hubbert, the father of peak oil? the oil industry laughed at him too when he predicated America's peak 20 years before hand... they weren't laughing though when it came to pass.

you should bone up on this important topic before you publish any more articles.

here's a good place to start...
http://www.hubbertpeak.com

psst... pass the word

peace

However, I just wish you would write in an "us" voice,...being impacted by them.

:shrug:

You are an excellent writer,...a talent I wish I possessed.

But,...I crave writing which is factual from the "impacted" point of view.

Wish I could better communicate myself.

Found myself drifting when I should have gone to the next point. Just an editorial comment that can be ignored. Good information. Thanks.

....we start using our brains.

Excellent insights, as usual, William R. Pitt.

Peace.

great scientific facts and arguments
'fossil' fuel does not mesh with laws of thermodynamics

enough of this BS

"reality is not only stranger than one can imagine, but stranger than one can suppose"

first why with all this popularity of P. oil, why would this author need to be anonymous, like he is releasing big secret?

Also forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>

From: http://www.energybulletin.net/4466.html

Published on 21 Feb 2005

A letter from oil exploration insider

by Anonymous



Stalin And Abiotic Oil
Davesweb.cnchost.com
3-5-5
http://www.rense.com/general63/staline.htm

believe me there is riveting reading on this topic, it literaLLy
had me spellbound
I have shared it with local authors, bookstores

From Richard Heinberg:

During the latter half of the 20th century, with advances in geophysics and geochemistry, the vast majority of scientists lined up on the side of the biotic theory. A small group of mostly Russian scientists - but including a tiny handful Western scientists, among them the late Cornell University physicist Thomas Gold - have held out for an abiotic (also called abiogenic or inorganic) theory. While some of the Russians appear to regard Gold as a plagiarist of their ideas, the latter's book The Deep Hot Biosphere (1998) stirred considerable controversy among the public on the questions of where oil comes from and how much of it there is. Gold argued that hydrocarbons existed at the time of the solar system's formation, and are known to be abundant on other planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and some of their moons) where no life is presumed to have flourished in the past.


Meanwhile, however, the oil companies have used the biotic theory as the practical basis for their successful exploration efforts over the past few decades. If there are in fact vast untapped deep pools of hydrocarbons refilling the reservoirs that oil producers drill into, it appears to make little difference to actual production, as tens of thousands of oil and gas fields around the world are observed to deplete, and refilling (which is indeed very rarely observed) is not occurring at a commercially significant scale or rate except in one minor and controversial instance discussed below.

The abiotic theorists also hold that conventional drillers, constrained by an incorrect theory, ignore many sites where deep, primordial pools of oil accumulate; if only they would drill in the right places, they would discover much more oil than they are finding now. However, the tests of this claim are so far inconclusive: the best-documented "abiotic" test well was a commercial failure.

<Snip>
Perhaps one day there will be general agreement that at least some oil is indeed abiotic. Maybe there are indeed deep methane belts twenty miles below the Earth's surface. But the important question to keep in mind is: What are the practical consequences of this discussion now for the problem of global oil depletion?

I have not personally inspected the oil wells in Saudi Arabia or even those in Texas. But nearly every credible report that I have seen - whether from the industry or from an independent scientist - describes essentially the same reality: discoveries are declining, and have been since the 1960s. Spare production capacity is practically gone. And the old, super-giant oil fields that the world depends upon for the majority of its production are nearing or past their all-time production peaks. Not even the Russian fields cited by the abiotic theorists as evidence for their views are immune: in June the head of Russia's Federal Energy Agency said that production for 2005 is likely to remain flat or even drop, while other officials in that country have said that growth in Russian production cannot be sustained for more than another few years. (15)

What if oil were in fact virtually inexhaustible - would this be good news? Not in my view. It is my opinion that the discovery of oil was the greatest tragedy (in terms of its long-term consequences) in human history. Finding a limitless supply of oil might forestall nasty price increases and catastrophic withdrawal symptoms, but it would only exacerbate all of the other problems that flow from oil dependency - our use of it to accelerate the extraction of all other resources, the venting of C02 into the atmosphere, and related problems such as loss of biodiversity. Oil depletion is bad news, but it is no worse than that of oil abundance.

Given the ongoing runup in global petroleum prices, the notion of peak oil hardly needs defending these days. We are seeing the phenomenon unfold before our eyes as one nation after another moves from the column of "oil exporter " to that of "oil importer" (Great Britain made the leap this year).

http://www.museletter.com/archive/150b.html

Recent items that might be worth including.

1. Pemex announced Thursday that Cantarell is rolling over in 2005 and will begin to decline. This matters because Cantarell alone produces more than 60% of Mexico's oil, and the company's debt has doubled in one year as they desperately try to pick up the slack with discoveries elsewhere.

2. OPEC announced yesterday that oil might hit $80 within the next two years.

3. The chairman of Chevron/Texaco stated in a Texas meeting that the age of cheap oil is over, and the same week Chevron advised the SEC that of the oil pumped in 2003, Chevron was able to compensate for only 18% of it in 2004 with new discoveries.

You definitely need to bring out M. King Hubbert as the first to look at the idea of peak oil production. He was doing this back in the 1950s when the very idea had never crossed anyone's mind, apparently.

Colin Campbell is just one dissident petroleum geologist, and you do rely almost exclusively on him in the course of the essay. Some other suggestions: Kenneth Deffeyes (John McPhee's geology advisor for his series on N. American geology) also ex. Shell and Princeton University; Jean Laherre (sp?) (more data on him available through ASPO - Association for the Study of Peak Oil); Matthew Simmons (as mentioned by other posters); also worth reading is Walter Youngquist, esp. "Myths and Realities of Mineral Resources" from his book "Geodestinies".

There are more than these few, but I'm writing off the top of my head. ODAC and ASPO are two good starting points for more information, particularly the ASPO proceedings from their last two world conferences in Berlin and (I think) Paris.

Also, I am sort of queasy at the rhetorical use of "cold fusion" as the goal for which an energy Manhattan Project should strive. This is for two reasons. First, years and years after the first breathless reports of cold fusion, where is the limitless energy the technology promises? Apparently it's marooned on countless lab benches where physicists vainly struggle to reproduce the purported success of its discoverers.

Second (and more importantly), this encourages the common American Happy-Thought concept that technology will save us, that "the scientists will come up with something." This is not necessarily the case. A crash energy program might come up with some amazing world-changing energy breakthrough like nuclear fusion, or even simply low-cost and highly efficient solar films or panels.

Unfortunately, it's far more likely that it will not, that it's "discoveries" will consist of rediscovering the obvious facts that energy efficiency matters, that mass transit is far more efficient than lots and lots of cars and that how you site a house relative to the sun can be critically important in saving heating and cooling costs.

What is NOT likely to emerge from any such program is something that violates the rules of thermodynamics, as cold fusion and the "hydrogen economy" promise to do, no matter how pleasing or politically essential the prospect of "limitless" energy. There's no such thing.

Other than that, this is a topic that needs to get out there, and I'm glad to see you taking it on.

"Oil Heritage Days" for a week every summer.
They have a great little park and museum at the drill site.

Here is Col. Drake with the unsung hero of the story, his drilling expert, "Uncle Billy"
AND
who we find around the wells today:

Think about it folks,

by very definition of 'finite' resource entails one would assume that it would peak, deplete!

what's the big secret that needs to hit the mainstream, and it has been aired?
LaTimes etc.
it follows obviously that 'non-renewable' means, implies by very definition FINITE , could peak.

why are researchers into a 'finite' resource called dissidents for saying finite resources have a limit?

i can't fall for this -that, it is some sort of scoop.

on the other hand, if specious arguments are bandied about

it leads credence to....

...www.davesweb.cnchost.com

www.gasbuddy.com

lowest prices near you

You stated that there is a flag on the moon "planted by men who traversed space by burning oil products." You may want to change that to "propelled in part by oil products." While it is true, the energy consumed to build every piece of the sysem was based upon the oil ecomony, the Apollo rockets used oil products only in the first stage which lasted only 2.5 minutes(kerosene combined with liquid oxygen.) The 2nd and 3rd stages used liquid hydrogen. Technically, by the time they reached space, the oil products were spent.

anyway, not to nit-pick, it's a wonderful piece.

http://www.apollosaturn.com/svfacts.htm

It's quite possible that OPEC may already be peaking. They don't come out and yell "PEAK OIL!" in this Al Jazeera article, but if you read between the lines, that's what they're talking about:

Oil prices confound experts
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France

snip

"World oil supply fell by 645,000 bpd in January to 83.6 million barrels per day, mainly on declines in Opec supply," said the Paris based organisation. "Non-Opec supply from Canada, Norway and the US Gulf of Mexico remained curtailed and Russian output fell for a fourth month."

Economy immune?

In other words Opec did not cut it's supply, but the supply simply "declined". (emphasis mine)

snip

As well as these 'declines' in output from Opec and non-Opec sources comes the stated falls in more mature fields. The IEA noted in August last year that Saudi Arabia has been losing "600,000 to 800,000 bpd" a year.

If one takes the mean figure of 700,000 bpd this year, Saudi fields have already declined by around 113,151 bpd to 1 March.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79F8C0DD-E583-4104-AC5F-A2B27E8E0782.htm


Of course Matthew Simmons, whom other posters here have mentioned, said 2 weeks ago he believes that we have passed the peak:

Expert: Saudi oil may have peaked
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France

Sunday 20 February 2005, 10:58 Makka Time, 7:58 GMT

As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1DE9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm


Finally, here is official acknowledgement from the US Department of Energy that they are looking into the feasability of a "crash program" to effectively deal with the reality of Peak Oil in section 504 of this paper:

Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management.

. . .

To explore how these technologies might contribute, three alternative mitigation scenarios were analyzed: One where action is initiated when peaking occurs, a second where action is assumed to start 10 years before peaking, and a third where action is assumed to start 20 years before peaking.

Analysis of the simultaneous implementation of all of the options showed that an impact of roughly 25 million barrels per day might be possible 15 years after initiation.

Because conventional oil production decline will start at the time of peaking, crash program mitigation inherently cannot avert massive shortages unless it is initiated well in advance of peaking.

Specifically,
* Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer.
* Initiating a crash program 10 years before world oil peaking would help considerably but would still result in a worldwide liquid fuels shortfall, starting roughly a decade after the time that oil would have otherwise peaked.
* Initiating crash program mitigation 20 years before peaking offers the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.

Without timely mitigation, world supply/demand balance will be achieved through massive demand destruction (shortages), accompanied by huge oil price increases, both of which would create a long period of significant economic hardship worldwide.

http://216.187.75.220/newsletter51.pdf

For more Peak Oil info here at DU, check out some of the threads at the Peak Oil Group:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=266

Can't wait to see your final draft!

:kick:

It is the United States which is the focal point of the problem. We are to blame for consuming 80% of the world's energy and not using all our profits to think of what is smart for the future. SHAME ON AMERICA...we have failed.

WE are inefficient...and cronically stupid. We have developed a culture of waste, fraud, and stupidity. Adam Smith's wonderous silent hand has jerked itself off.

TOMORROW...the CAFE standards could be doubled and the auto industry would solve the problem. THEY HAVE the solution right now.
But it won't happen. The public is dumb. They are overworked and have been mentally ripped off.

About 10 years ago in Scientific America a wonderful article was written by a panel of the world's leading energy experts. They outlined a very realistic plan for how the entire country could be powered from hydrogen. That was 10 years ago and that's even more doable today. It's not going to happen.

Here's another more realistic fact. CHINA will be in control of the world's economy in about 5 to 10 years. THEY will be the ones controlling what is going on with oil. We can plow ahead with Thomas Barnett's plan to take over the gap and use military influence to control oil, but in the end economic power is going to take the upper hand. The only reason we have cheap oil now is because we're top dog in the world.

Conclusions:

a. Because Bush has propelled us into sure bankruptcy, we'll have all we can do to survive economically over the next 5 to 10 years. China, meanwhile will take it's place as the world's number 1 economic power.
They will be the force to reckon with regarding energy in the future.

b. America consumption will go up in the near term but then possibly go down in the long term. Because of our slipping economy and the fact that we will have to pay about 40% of our taxes on interest payments on the debt, the average American having a lower paying job than before, etc etc, we will have a much lower tolerance for spending a lot on gas. Prices going up at the pump, plus the country falling into 3rd worldism will mean much less of American waste at the pump.
The car companies will respond with more fuel efficient cars. In short, our wonderful free enterprise system will make somewhat of an adjustment to prevailing conditions.

c. b. would sound nice if we had our country running like it used before Reaganism and decadence set in. With the switch in culture to greed, arrogance, and stupidity, we have lost our way. The screw you corporate attitude and the fact that we've promoted all the scum to the top means America will not be the innovator of the future. We will not lead the world in terms of renewable energy solutions, or anything which makes sense. It's a culture of greed and get any buck you can the easiest way possible.

We'll have to look to other countries to provide us with futuristic, smart solutions.

Whatever those turn out to be. Even in the midst of Peak Oil and all it's implications, the Chinese and Indians seem to be ascending on the world stage, while the United States careens ever closer to structural collapse and chaos.

Perhaps there is a bit of a confusion about what we mean by "solutions".

The "engineering solutions" are completely beyond what the average American can comprehend. Those engineering solutions which would give us a wonderful planet are here right now. Anyone who doubts that is an uneducated fool.

The solutions are not hard. It is the implementation of the solutions which is difficult.

What the Chinese bring to the table (and hopefully to the benefit of planet earth) is a "cultural will" to bring smart engineering to society. Here in America, the scum bag ditto heads will drive us to extinction with their belief in money making money. There is no real rhyme or reason to whatever form this takes, as long as it makes money.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus being developed in our country regarding what is "smart engineering". We are simply consumers...and becoming dumber and dumber consumers as time goes by. Witness the re-election of Bush and the wholesale market of snake oil salesmen.

Meanwhile, China has made incremental gains in terms of exerting political will for progress which makes long term engineering sense. This involves a PROCESS of evaluation, reflection, and incremental steps forward.

American arrogance and stupidity likens such incremental governmental inspired gains to either socialism and/or outright communistic ploys to rape ones individual freedom.