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64 comments on The IHS Energy View of Peak Oil

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westexas on December 20, 2005 - 1:44am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
The depth of the denial in the anti-Peak Oil crowd is incredible. I submit two examples.  

First, a few months ago at an oil industry meeting, the Texas State Geologist, in response to a question from me, stated that with new and improved technology, Texas, while it may not be able to equal its peak production, could substantially increase its oil production.  One little problem.  Texas oil production has fallen for 33 straight years.  Our esteemed Texas State Geologist is pretending that three decades of declines don't matter.

In a recent interview, the Norwegian Oil Minister apparently asserted that Norwegian oil production would not peak until well after 2008.  Another little problem. Norway, as predicted by the Hubbert/Deffeyes Linearization method, has already peaked.

The common connection here is that when faced with years or even decades of production declines, the anti-Peak Oil crowd still refuses to recognize the hard, cold reality of depletion, so why should we expect them to acknoledge the reality of depletion before the worldwide decline has even set in?

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thaelom on December 20, 2005 - 12:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
or how about this in the latest issue of Geotimes, published by the American Geological Institute. There is a bit called Energy Outlook, written by the chair of the Geoscience Dept. at the University of Texas. "Peak oilers" are debunked in what to me is an extremely non-scientific, finger-pointing fashion more appropriate to our esteemed House of Representatives.

  1. We make "..narrow, and sometimes even unwarranted assumptions.."

  2. "They wrongly assume they know what that finite amount is" in regards to the total amount of oil

  3. They relegate "to mythology the recovery of new reserves from existing fields"

Of course the proof of the peak concept - the documented declines in Texas, North Sea and Kuwait etc. are not mentioned.

The following are held up as the sources to trust for future energy outlooks - the USGS, IHS Energy, and CERA.

He predicts a new methane economy, especially as the source of hydrogen for the hydrogen economy, which will start sometime after the middle of this century. But at the end he notes, almost parenthetically, that during the transition to this golden age, we will consume twice our historical consumption of oil and increase natural gas consumption 15-fold.

How much of AGI funding comes from AAPG I wonder - and when will Peak Oil get the serious scientific scrutiny it is screaming for from the mainstream academic geologic community?

BTW, this is my first post - I have learned an awful lot from TOD the past 6 months

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Agric on December 20, 2005 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Welcome Thaelom, what took you so long, heheh?

Perhaps he knows about the proposed genetic engineering of cows which will enable them to be 'milked' of their methane. Animal rights groups are outraged by suggestions that the me-cows will have to wear lead booties to prevent them floating away and becoming a hazard to airplanes.

Now where did I put those dashed di-lithium crystals? Scottie...

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Dave Cohen on December 20, 2005 - 5:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Welcome aboard. Perhaps Geotimes author Dan Fisher (Energy Outlook 2005) would care to explain this:

Thanks to OilCEO for the graph.

Do market fundamentals reflect reality now (end 2005) or were they actually out of whack in 1999 when oil dipped below $15/bbl? Fisher quotes "Pete" Stark of IHS and "Dan" Yergin of CERA (we're all buddy-buddy here) without mentioning that these two organizations are essentially the same. He also quotes his good buddy "Tom" Ahlbrandt over at USGS.

Finally, Jesse Ausubel's methane economy by 2050. My first reaction is "Beam me up, Scotty". On the other hand, I may post on this one.
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Oil CEO on December 22, 2005 - 2:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
westexas, can you post a link to that interview with the Norwegian, I'd like to see that, it could rank up there with some of al-Naimi's Best.
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64 comments on The IHS Energy View of Peak Oil

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