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34 comments on Nature takes on peak oil (pun somewhat intended)

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b3NDZ3La on January 4, 2007 - 7:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Actually, sometimes one side is right, and the other wrong.

The Nature article is just so ironic to me, as my geology professor, Craig Bond Hatfield, published an article in Nature in 1997 (vol 387) called "Oil back on the global agenda," which was about peak oil before "peak oil" was even a term.

Here are excerpts:

Geological data indicate that, during the next ten years, oil production outside OPEC countries will remain incapable of significant, sustained growth and is likely to begin a permanent decline during the first decade of the twenty-first century...

The mid-point, at which half of the ultimate [global] production will have been consumed, would be the year 2011, IF PRODUCTION REMAINS AT ITS PRESENT LEVEL (my emphasis.)...

...The past century of unprecedented economic growth has been based largely on increasing availability of cheap but rapidly dwindling petroleum resources. It is unfashionable in energy policies and economic theory to recognize a time limit on growth in oil consumption rate. But the arithmetic on which my argument is based must be acknowledged. The coming era of permanent decline in oil-production rate and the economic and social implications of this phenomena demand serious planning by the world's governments.

I spoke with Professor Hatfield as his home last summer and asked him if he had written anything about peak oil lately. He said no, because "it's too late."

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andrew on January 4, 2007 - 7:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hatfield also co-authored another article in 1998 on peak oil:

Published on 28 Feb 1998 by Scientific American. Archived on 28 Feb 1998.
THE END OF CHEAP OIL

by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère

the full text of which can be found at http://www.energybulletin.net/88.html

Unfortunately i was unable to find a free full text link for either the article mentioned by the parent or the original article (not surprising considering everything in nature is behind a pay-wall)

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All up i think it is a chicken-and-egg situation. Most people won't respond to peak oil without some type of market signal, which will only come about by a) people suddenly realizing that peak oil is close and changing what they do (not likely to happen, because no market signal) b) peak oil causing legitimate supply concerns on a short term basis, but by then we are in a 'spot of bother'.

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Prof. Goose on January 4, 2007 - 8:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

wow, I didn't know there were EB articles numbered *that* low! :)

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Freddy Hutter on January 5, 2007 - 5:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

SciAmer exerpt:
"GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF OIL both conventional and unconventional (red), recovered after falling in 1973 and 1979. But a more permanent decline is less than 10 years away, according to the authors’ model, based in part on multiple Hubbert curves (lighter lines). U.S. and Canadian oil (brown) topped out in 1972; production in the former Soviet Union (yellow) has fallen 45 percent since 1987. A crest in the oil produced outside the Persian Gulf region (purple) now appears imminent."

The graph that went with this article is at our website comment on Peak Oil (see 1998): http://www.trendlines.ca/peakoilcomment.htm

A little known fact that i discovered in my research was that altho the graph shows a peak in 2003 for "all liquids" of 71-mbd (26-GB/yr), it was in fact the wrong graph. The published graph is for Regular Conventional Oil. The correct one is also at our website (labelled 1989) and shows the correct 93-mbd Peak in 2009.

This 93-mbd Peak is the highest that Colin Campbell ever published. He was heavily influenced by Jean Laherrere on this collaboration. By June 2004, Campbell had reduced his estimate to 80-mbd. That's when i had to publicly slap him on the side of the head with some reality checks. Within 24 months, he was back up to 90-mbd. Laherrere, with a better grasp of URR, did not join with ASPO on this roller coaster spectacle which bottomed (in more ways than one) with Campbell declaring an all liquids Peak for 2006 (in June 2004). He has since moved it to 2010.

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