The psychology of Peak Oil awareness and other "deep" subjects like religion and politics is a fascinating study in itself. People often lash out at the messenger when confronted with data that conflicts with their internal worldview. Dont take any of that personally - you have hundreds of people like me that read yours posts with a lot of attention - we always learn something.

BTW - which mountain were you up on? :-)

Francois

Incidentally, I certainly don't want to imply that all of the disagreements were unmerited, nor that a majority of the disagreements were ugly. Most were not, and I got many encouraging responses. It is just that the ugly ones are the ones that stick with you.

I strongly support the challenging of arguments. By the same token, I strongly condemn attacking posters. I have no problem defending arguments. I should not be required to defend myself as a person though.

" I find posts like this frustrating because many people imply that I should know about "reserve growth" and how it relates to the topic of peak oil, as if I am an expert."

If I read this comment by an emailer it seems he is stating that others believe him to be an expert and yet he doesn't understand reserves . Further since you brought up the issue of reserves its makes him frustrated somehow. Because he was 'blindsided' perhaps? Is that your(RRs) fault. It appears you are being blamed for developing data and ideas that are causing him grief and he is blaming you for that.

The SOMEHOW is what I do not understand unless this emailer was posing as somewhat of an 'expert' and perhaps making flatout exclamatory statements that others were refuting due to his appearing to be an expert when he isn't.

Am I off base or not understanding his complaint?

It seems a bit convoluted to me.

I have noticed in business that its easy to be confrontational with someone you have never met. Once you meet them on a personal basis then you tend to not treat them in such a fashion. This is why I think tele-commuting is not all that it is reputed to be. The personal touch is missing and the mentoring is totally lost. The friendships never develop and we become more and more isolated, leading to confrontations that would have been worked out more amicably otherwise. I always liked training the new guys and helping them along. In fact it used to be part of our performance plan for staff programmers and team leaders,,way back. Back before it all went to hell in IT.

airdale

Robert, I think you did a fantastic job with the thread yesterday. Much of what you said I agree with and of course there were some things I disagree with. However only the data from the coming months and years will eventually settle this debate. As Simmons puts it, "Data trumps all theories."

Reserve Growth

The newcomer to the list you mentioned is not the only one who does not understand reserve growth. I find that many people, perhaps even most people even on this list misunderstand reserve growth. I just have a couple of things to say about that subject in hopes of clearing up some of the fog. And of course many will disagree with even this, the most simple of explanations.

First reserve growth has nothing to do with new discoveries. That is a completely different category. And I must note that much of the increase in US reserves that so shocked you, was not reserve growth at all but new discoveries, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.

Reserve growth is nothing more than the correcting of previous underestimates of the size of a reservoir. Sometimes this underestimate has been deliberate, as with most publicly held companies. Other times this underestimate were due to the true lack of knowledge about the true size of the reservoir. Surely no one truly believes that reserves actually grow!

And this last point brings up something that most cornucopians completely ignore or deny. Reserves can be, and often are, overestimated. That is, you can have reserve shrinkage just about as easy as you can have reserve growth. Shell, a couple of years ago, announced shrinkage in their reserves of about 20 percent. But no one called it reserve shrinkage. Most thought Shell was somehow negligent in their responsibility to their shareholders. Actually it was because their Oman reserves were originally overestimated instead of underestimated.

And last but not least, the reserves of the Middle East, estimated to be almost 700 billion barrels. These reserves, in my opinion, are vastly overestimated. What we will have, in the coming years, will be reserve shrinkage instead of reserve growth. Oh, there will still be reserve growth in some parts of the world. But the reserve shrinkage coming out of the Middle East will dwarf any reserve growth in other parts of the world.

Ron Patterson

I would like to say this, albeit somewhat belatedly: I thought your post was excellent, and I hope you will still have time to share such insights with us while you are on a steep learning curve in Scotland. Let's face it, most people wouldn't be able to do that, so let us all hope...

Really, this site has its giants, and you are one of them - especially so as you do not always preach to the choir. We all need to hear what you have to say. So please don't be put off by the negative stuff you get. There are plenty of people reading but not posting, thinking, 'Yeah...'.

Thanks, Robert.

Hey, Robert -- and all.

I too appreciate civility on TOD.  In fact, I insist upon it!

One way to make sure a response is civil is to respond to the whole group of readers as well as to the post or comment you are commenting about.  Pissing matches ought to be taken to private e-mail and dealt with there.

If a pissing match seems too full of technical info and that we all would be deprived of that if the pissing match were moved off of TOD, then maybe one or both participants could summarize the "valuable material" and bring it back later....much later, probably.

I appreciate the posts of RR and WT, and of many other folks as well. I like threads that center on topic and not on individual participants.

The occassional praise and thanks seems civil and proper, but criticisms of individuals might best be done in private email as well.  

Too often criticism of individuals on a thread just poisons the thread, especially for newbies.

Above all, we all need to remind ourselves to breathe deeply and to remember "Relax, you're soaking in it!" with regards to petroleum.

(Doesn't "relax, you're soaking in it come from an old dishwashing detergent ad?)

So thanks to RR and to all who take time to compose posts and to compose considered, thoughtful comments!

Robert, I hope that my responses to you were not amongst those that you felt were insulting. (Yes, I insulted Hothgor. I tired of the witless troll.) Because I respect you, I attempted to stick to the core of the matter, which is why many of us believe KSA has about 70 billion barrels of oil left. That was directly related to the HL predictions for the US and Russia having been so accurate thus fostering a high degree of confidence in the HL predictions for KSA, which you seem to consistently dismiss, both in your article and in your debate with Westexas. In fact, despite the convergence of the KSA HL prediction and the reserve numbers mentioned in Twilight In The Desert's appendices, you flatly stated that you would stick with the higher 160 billion number unless someone could demonstrate a reason to believe otherwise. And yet, when we give that demonstration (the HL plot for KSA), it is dismissed as insufficient evidence.

I find this behavior of yours baffling despite the model's high degree of accuracy for the US and Russia and given the clear failure of traditional measures of reserves to account for the actual production of the US since peak.

Let me reiterate:

1. The Hubbert Curve predicted the US peak accurately.
   
2. The HL approach predicted US production post-peak 1970-2006 to 99% accuracy using only pre-peak data.
   
3. The HL approach predicted Russian production post peak to present to within 95% accuracy using only pre-peak data.
   
4. The HL technique strongly disputed the reserve numbers for Kuwait and in the last year we have had public admissions from Kuwait that actual reserves are much closer to what the HL method predicts than the formerly inflated numbers.
   
5. The HL technique strongly suggests that KSA's remaining reserves are in the 70 billion barrel range.
   
6. The HL technique suggests that KSA is on the verge of irreversible declines.
   
7. KSA production is down precisely when the HL technique says it should start down. Yes there have been prior ups and downs but the HL technique did not predict those because they were political. This one appears to be geological.

The first 4 statements are facts that the model predicts and which have been verified. The next 2 statements are predictions of the model. The final statement is a fact also though the cause remains in dispute. Given the former accuracy of the model, I think it becomes incumbent on you to demonstrate why another approach is better than the HL model. Instead you have not done this at all, choosing to refer to proprietary information that you are unable to share, to methods whose results surprised even you (yet which were still consistent with the HL predictions for the US), and you keep asking for further proof. At this point I am unsure what else to give you. The numbers sit there staring you in the face but for some reason you keep reaching for other numbers.

Perhaps if you would explain why you reject the HL predictions for KSA, we might understand your position. But right now you appear to be rejecting it without cause. Based on your writings here and at your blog you usually have a cause for your conclusions, hence my request that you examine the HL method in detail and explain to us why you reject it (or perhaps why you might choose to accept it now).

Finally, I am not suggesting that the HL approach is the only or even the best approach. People like WHT are looking for approaches that make more sense (like the shock model) and I applaud that effort. Yet before we reject the Hubbert Curve and Hubbert Linearization, we all need to remember how accurate it has been thus far on major producing regions.

Robert--

I think you make a mistake in getting so upset with the nasty replies to your posts. You shoud try just ignoring the ad hominens and deal with the issues raised, if there are any.

It's true that there's no excuse for abuse, but the cure is worse than the disease -- i.e. moderating, etc. That's the kiss of death for a site like this. There will always be borderline cases, sharply worded comments which one editor might allow, another not, and so on. It's better just to cultivate a blog climate or etiquette of sticking to the issues and ignoring or reprimanding teachable offenders.

Visitors to a blog soon learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's my opinion in any case.

Robert, you are the kind of person I would want in a contributing editor on a site like this.  

First, you have a pair - by posting here you open yourself up to immediate criticism and rebuttal (unlike the print MSM or comavision like 60 minutes, 20/20 etc). Your message gets immediate feedback, pro and con, and because the feedback is usually posted immediately and in the heat of the moment it might not always be civil.

(Incidently, I think the motivations of the protesters should not be automatically questioned - e.g. most of the "yerginites" truly believe what they say and likely feel the same level of animosity towards those of us who are sane.  If their criticism is worthwhile it is dealt with.)

Second, all readers must remember we are a community with expertise in many different disciplines - just as the main authors of most of the books on the subject of Pealk Oil are from different disciplines.  We are all ignorant of some aspects of this subject - sometimes even about areas or data within our own discipline (and sometimes even of our own motivations - ancient critter-part of the brain stuff).  

All of the information in Robert's post and the responses was likely news to many people.  Or at least a damned entertaining review of it ;)

I would hope none of you regular 5-star contributers are ever intimidated by a mistake, or by some angry person's harsh words to the point of not posting.  

" I would call for a little more civility"

Please tell me that does not have to apply to CERA and Yergin etc. Please...