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123 comments on New Open thread

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TrueKaiser on March 16, 2006 - 6:14pm

i posted this in the last open thread but i got no responce.
has this been factored into the equations or is it just a bs claim?

Two geological basins in northern Afghanistan hold 18 times the oil and triple the natural gas resources previously thought, scientists said Tuesday as part of a U.S. assessment aimed at enticing energy development in the war-torn country.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Oil_Afghanistan.html

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Optimistic Kiwi on March 16, 2006 - 6:52pm

Even if the new revisions or estimates are correct, its not really going to make much impact in regard to PO.

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Dave Cohen on March 16, 2006 - 6:53pm

Scientists Find Big Afghan Oil Resources

Always consider the source and the hopeful language.

Nearly 1.6 billion barrels of oil, mostly in the Afghan-Tajik Basin, and about 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, mainly in the Amu Darya Basin, could be tapped, said the U.S. Geological Survey and Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines and Industry.

More work remains to assess petroleum reserves, conduct seismic exploration and rehabilitate wells, say government and industry officials.

Nowadays, that would be considered a pretty big find if any of this could be believed. Karzai is under big pressure to find some alternative to opium, which is Afghanistan's largest cash crop. Announcements like this should be taken with a big grain of salt.

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TrueKaiser on March 16, 2006 - 7:06pm

of course they should be taken with a grain of salt but they should not be discounted either.
just trying to help keep everyone on top of the information.

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K on March 16, 2006 - 7:20pm

It could be important to Afghanistan. Globally, however, 1.6 billion barrels is less than 20 days worth of production - a drop in the bucket.

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Dave Cohen on March 16, 2006 - 7:34pm

Well, you did ask "is it just a bs claim?"

I think it's probably a bullshit claim.

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LJR on March 16, 2006 - 9:10pm

Opium sounds like a very profitable line of business when oil's three times today's price. Karzai might just want to think about that. A very nice pipeful of dreams about all those trips we used to take could command a good price.

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KabulVan on March 17, 2006 - 9:52am

Don't believe this announcement contains a significant amount of BS. While Karzai is under pressure to fix the opium problem, turning opium farmers into oil workers is not the answer. Very little oil and gas exploration has been done in Afghanistan ( see http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan.html ) and I see the findings as credible. Have a geologist friend looking at the data and will check into it personally next time I'm in the area.

It's also important to know that this area has very little infrastructure and it will be many, many years before these resources can be developed - if ever. For example, Bamiyan Province has one of the largest iron ore deposits in Asia, but no one (to my knowledge) has ever proposed developing it. Why? No decent paved roads to Bamiyan and the area has never had electricity other than that supplied by generators. To illustrate the problem, it's about 100 miles from Kabul to Bamiyan - about 8 hours of dust and bone jarring bumps

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K on March 16, 2006 - 6:54pm

1.6 billion barrels isn't a whole hell of a lot.

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peakearl on March 16, 2006 - 7:48pm

We also need to look at oil in place vs recoverable reserves. Whenever announcements like this, they are giving optimistic scenarios of possible oil in place, between 25% and 65% of which might be recoverable.

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peakearl on March 16, 2006 - 7:51pm

I need a better editor - "Whenever announcements like this are made,"

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jokuhl on March 16, 2006 - 7:54pm

Speaking of 'Not a whole hell of a lot..' I haven't heard much about the EROEI and other issues affecting ANWR. I'll have to look up the senate's vote from today, if it happened yet, plus the Pipeline spill in AK last week. I don't know. It feels like we're watching the big ship sink, and not giving enough attention to prepping the lifeboats..

Even if it's little more than Symbolic, I planted my first 3watts of solar generating capacity in a window this week, charging 9.6v makita batteries and old 2.3ah Camcorder batts. Then again, Symbolism is the essence of important changes, isn't it?

What's in your tank?

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LevinK on March 16, 2006 - 10:47pm

I'd like to take a slightly different position than the people saying "it will not make a big difference".

Yes, by itself only it will hardly make any difference compared to our current appetite for oil. But first the accumulative result from several such finds will make a difference, and second - sooner or later we will have to get used to live with much less. When that time comes such discoveries will look to us almost like we look at Ghawar today.

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louGrinzo on March 16, 2006 - 11:52pm

Bingo. As I like to say, sh*t happens, things change, and variables vary.

The easiest and deadliest mistake to make when looking at something as complex as worldwide energy supply and demand is to assume things will continue the way they are now. I see this mistake countless times in energy issues (and economics in general), often when I'm sure the people doin' the assumin' are unaware of it.

This is why I keep stressing how uncertain the future is. All it will take is one breakthrough in the right place to completely change the rules of the game. I'm not suggesting that "technology will save us", but that technology will throw us more than a few curve balls in the next 20 years. We're definitely in for some very rough times and major challenges, but they and our responses to them will take shape in ways that are less than completely predictable.

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SaturnV on March 17, 2006 - 12:40am

Isn't this the problem though? Say we do pull off a techno-fix which delays peak by 20 years or so, won't that just result in a much steeper decline rate at the tail (assuming a URR of 2.2 TB's and 3% growth in extraction)? Surely an early peak in the 2005-2010 time bracket with a 2-3% decline rate is infinitely better than a peak around 2025-2030, with a 6-8% decline rate? What economy could survive that kind of punishment? Better to take one's lumps early...

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haggisbasher on March 17, 2006 - 2:49am

I'm not sure I agree with that. What we need, above all, is time, which at the moment IMHO is in very short supply. Time first of all for decision makers to understand the problem, and time for the populace to accept the hard choices which will be necessary. In that respect we do need an initial shortfall / price hike, but once the realisation has set in we need the time given by every possible new find, every technological advance both in EOR and in replacement power technology. Without that, the more dire prognostications seem inevitable.

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kgmqt on March 17, 2006 - 8:00am

What your saying is we need 20 to 30 years to get our house in order and maybe we can handle the problem.

But we have had 30 years to get our house in order, and we didn't do it. We kept looking for the next oil field. We continued to consume. If we have another 20 years we, as a society, will not make any changes. We will continue to consume.

I think there are too many people that make decisions based on what is best for them now, not what is best into the future. Politicians do not put together 20 year projects. They try to cut taxes now to make the voters happy for the next election cycle. The most forsight a politician has is about 3 years (maybe 5 for senators).

Even if PO was proven scientic fact that even the general populace could understand, and it was proven that it will happen in 2025, the general populace would make little to no changes in their lifestyle until then. It won't be until the effects of PO are being felt and can be directly linked by Joe Blow to PO before he will start to change his lifestyle.

I would much rather have PO now with a 2%-3% decline vs 20 more years of increasing damage to the environment, 20 more years of ramping up consumption, 20 more years of population growth, and then a sharper drop off.

Kevin

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SHiFTY on March 17, 2006 - 12:00pm

Even worse than that, countries and regions that did try to 'get their house in order' got financially ruined in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices tanked. In New Zealand a massive natural gas to petrol plant was built, providing 30-40% of the country's fuel. However by the time it was finished it was almost uneconomic, and then the nat gas started to get more expensive; and now when it would actually be useful the gas field has started to run out!

There is no reason this pattern of boom and bust in oil prices will not repeat to some extent, which would further bankrupt any risky government or private schemes.

I imagine this means that many technological fixes will be in the form of dual use technologies- like extra power plants that can charge electric cars OR houses OR trains, rather than coal-to-oil synfuels.

Hedge those bets...

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wkwillis on March 17, 2006 - 1:30pm

The Methanex plant paid for itself by allowing New Zealand to defund their armed forces. They no longer had to contribute to the US led alliance to stabilize the Middle East because of the crucial importance of maintaining low cost oil, like we did.
Now they are paying 60$ a barrel, until, and if, they get more natural gas to run the Methanex plant, or build a coal syngas/power plant right next to it to make power and gasoline.

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Calorie on March 17, 2006 - 10:52am

I don't think Lou is suggesting that all the techno-fixes will be in the area of extracting more fossil fuels, even though that was what kicked off his post. Say we had a breakthrough in efficient energy storage. That would make the attractiveness of intermittent sources such as wind and solar that much more viable. It may also allow more of the transportation sector to move onto the electrical grid.

Another way to look at these new oil finds is not that they will postpone peak production (although they might), but that they will reduce the rate of decline post-peak. This will buy time and lessen the economic dislocation while we are transitioning to a post-fossil fuel society.

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123 comments on New Open thread

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