Robert Rapier wonders if he's wrong about peak oil.

Links to transcript and audio in the original article.

http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/2007/04/20/big-oil-on-peak-oil-ii/

April 20, 2007, 12:08 pm
Big Oil on Peak Oil II
Posted by WSJ.com Staff

Yesterday, Energy Roundup reported on a conference call in which energy bloggers got a chance to quiz American Petroleum Institute CEO Red Cavaney on a host of topics.

The most active participant in that call was Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer and blogger at The Oil Drum and his own R-Squared Energy Blog. He had solicited a bucketful of questions from readers of those blogs and filled the call’s awkward silences with them.

<snip>

Cavaney’s sanguine response about the question of peak oil got Rapier wondering about his own position on the question. Rapier believes there’s a 90% probability the peak will occur within the next 10 years. Cavaney, on the other hand, seems to be thinking more along the lines of 2044 at the earliest.

“So the question in my mind became, ‘Why is there such a divide, and how do we address it?‘” Rapier writes. “Because I don’t believe we can just afford to write off people who think peak is a long way off. We have to look at our position and their position and figure out what the problem is. If they believe they have credible information that we don’t have, they should share it. And where we have challenges to this data, or other criticisms (I meant to mention Cantarell, and the fact that the North Sea peaked prior to expectations) then they should be addressed and incorporated.”

<snip>

The core of it is this: "If they believe they have credible information that we don’t have, they should share it." The rest is diplomatic sugar coating.

As he describes in his blog:

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/04/energy-and-environment-with-api.html

<snip>

I also spent some time thinking "Is it possible that I could be so wrong on this issue?" This is probably something we all wonder from time to time. I personally question and challenge my own positions on a frequent basis. One thing that has influenced my thinking on this issue is Chris Skrebowski's mega-projects list. Skrebowski knows a great deal about world-wide projects that are planned and underway, and he thinks peak inside of 10 years is likely. But is the very nature of it such that peak will always be implied to be 3-5 years away, even if it is 20 years away? After all, there are probably many projects that will come online in more than 5 years that haven't been announced yet. But then I think 1). There aren't many truly big projects that are coming online; and 2). I still think demand is growing fast enough that we simply will not see any excess capacity in any case.

Like the rest of you, I want to know what the heck is going on. I try not to jump to conclusions, but I also don't want to be standing around in a house as it burns down. Peak still looks to me like it is 90% probable within 10 years. But it is deeply troublesome to me that such a great divide exists on this issue. I am trying to get my head around a way to close it.

<snip>

It's as simple as that.

Peak Oil is a concept, not a "thing."

It's a fairly useful concept, though. It's like knowing that you will be executed soon, but not knowing the exact time: it concentrates the mind wonderfully.

And my observation is that the error bars are getting tighter every month, for everyone except those with an agenda (API, CERA, EIA etc.)

It's most certainly possible to form estimates of how much oil there is, along with error bars. It's also possible to examine current events and interpret them. Current events suggest that the world oil producers cannot add any further production capacity. Production capacity appears, in fact, to be decreasing. And the point at which production begins to decrease is the very definition of Peak Oil. To wit: we appear to have hit Peak. Now (or, more accurately, circa 2005), not in 2044.

same thing as "peak oil." I'm also not convinced that the whole interest in peak oil as a "new" phenom isn't being manipulated by the oil producers to drive up prices.

I'd prefer to drive up prices by taxing oil so society can get some good out of our addiction to petroleum.

There is very little visibility into actual oil companies' hard data, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the "when" is Right Now, and the post-peak dropoff may be nearly worste-case: 2-3 % per year, starting this year, next. The consequences of that kind of drop-off would be, as GG put it, a global shit-storm. The kind of stuff that makes Kunstler toss and turn on sleepless nights.

I adhere to the school of thought that the oil industry is motivated to downplay the imminence and seriousness of the problem, and so I still rate the probability of what I described above as high. Others still adhere to the school of thought that the oil industry is motivated to exaggerate the problem in the name of high oil prices. I'm pretty sure that line of reasoning is incorrect.

The best single resource for understanding why I think the way I do might be this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=89503&mesg_id=89503

Oh well, a couple others as a sample:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=90980&mesg_id=90980
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=91055&mesg_id=91055

there is a hell of a lot of money to be made selling oil once we hit peak. Can't have the addicts 'making other arrangements' too soon.

Everything is fine. Don't worry. KSA has plenty of spare capacity. A lot of the current high prices are due to 'fear premium', not supply problems. If you invest in that EV company/zoning changes/(insert mitigation strategy here), you will be burned when all those new projects come on line, the mideast stabilizes, and the price drops in just a few years. We are turning the corner. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Someday, the America people are going to wake up to reality of how badly their leaders have sold them out, and they are going to be pissed.

... before you leave your wife, change your name, and move to Dubai. (Or Paraguay.)