DrumBeat: January 20, 2007
Posted by threadbot on January 20, 2007 - 10:05am
Topic: Miscellaneous
GAO: U.S. energy R&D, policy are inadequate
It is unlikely that DOE's current level of R&D funding or the nation's current energy policies will be sufficient to deploy alternative energy sources in the next 25 years that will reverse our growing dependence on imported oil or the adverse environmental effects of using conventional fossil energy.
South Africa - Power cuts: Now it’s the generator wars
TOWNSFOLK raced against each other as an earnest battle for generators got underway yesterday when small Eastern Cape towns found themselves hardest hit by the country’s “worst ever” power cuts.East London generator dealer Milton Thesen watched in amazement as a doctor from Butterworth competed with a Peddie businessman to pay R35000 for his last generator.
“After all the newspaper reports the guys were going berserk,” said Thesen yesterday.
Pakistan: Power crisis remains a nightmare
However, it is quite obvious now that people were wrong expecting good from the government, as the government failed at all fronts in trying to tackle the energy crisis. The industries located in the northern provinces of the country have been affected badly by the shortage of gas and resultant load shedding since the beginning of this winter season in early December.
New Warnings on Climate Change
The main international scientific body assessing causes of climate change is closing in on its strongest statement yet linking emissions from burning fossil fuels to rising global temperatures, according to scientists involved in the process.
The Great Thirst: Looking ahead to a post-global warming life in California, 60 years hence
The following extrapolation presents a worst-case scenario of California's water situation in the coming decades, but not necessarily an unlikely one. It is based on a variety of sources, including interviews and conversations over the past several years with scientists and government agency staffers, such as those associated with the University of California, the California Department of Water Resources and the Bay Institute.
Vattenfall: Curbing Climate Change Would Cost 0.6% of Global GDP
A new study released by European energy company Vattenfall concludes that curbing climate change through a sustainable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is technically and financially feasible if existing technical solutions are applied consistently—and globally.
Slumbering giant awakens on global warming
On global warming, the American public is slowly rising to attention. Congress and the White House cannot be far behind.
CTL Fuel Could Help America Wean Itself of Foreign Oil Imports
The United States has the world's largest coal reserves with an estimated 268 billion recoverable tons. Converting just 5 percent of the U.S. coal reserves to Fisher-Tropsch fuels would equate to the existing U.S. crude reserves of 29 billion barrels. The U.S. could virtually double our nation's domestic motor fuel supply without drilling a single a well or building a new refinery.
Cuba: Energy revolution guarantees supply but demands savings
Savings is the key word in the Energy Revolution that, after a year of major effort, is showing results in all sectors of the country’s economy. Stability in electricity and the elimination of power cuts was attained in Cuba in mid-2006.
US grain farming disaster: a prediction for China?
As with the Great Plains, northern China is dry and farmed intensely. Already, China's farmland is turning to desert at an alarming rate.
Statoil enjoys rapid growth of biofuel sales in Sweden
Sales of Statoil's E85 biofuel grew by 270% in Sweden last year compared with 2005, the Norwegian oil giant has revealed in a statement.
Turkey: Europe’s Emerging Energy Corridor for Central Eurasian, Caucasian and Caspian Oil and Gas
Canadian Leader Pledges $1.28 Billion for Alternative Energy
The money will go toward boosting electricity generation from renewable energy sources such as wind and "small hydro," Harper told reporters in British Columbia. The measure will create 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy, equivalent to removing a million cars from Canada's roads, he said.
Straw and wood chips in line as sources of clean energy
Biotech and energy companies are racing to glean ultra-clean fuel from untapped sources like straw and wood chips, betting policies to tackle climate change and rising food prices will make it competitive with oil.
It appears that Democrats in Congress are interfering once again with the energy market. On January 18, as the grand finale to their 100-hour rampage, Pelosi and her radical comrades in the House approved $15 billion in new taxes on the oil and gas industry. These levies include an insidious “conservation fee” on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, along with “after the fact” taxes on past oil production.
Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) today announced that declining wholesale electricity and natural gas prices will reduce the amount of a pending 2007 residential electric rate increase.
Correa Says Ecuador to Review All Oil Contracts
Ecuador President Rafael Correa said Friday in Rio de Janeiro that his country plans to review all contracts for oil exploration on its territory and may cancel some deals.
Cyprus Rejects Turkey's Objection to Exploration Deal with Lebanon
Turkey has no rights over potential oil and natural gas resources in Cyprus' coastal areas.
Japan: Powering Ahead on Nuclear Technology
Rapidly growing energy needs in the world coupled with a warm winter season, attributed to global warming, have boosted Japan's nuclear power sector especially the export of nuclear technology to other countries, say experts here.
What Happened to the Oil Boom?
It is amazing how short our memories can be. Just last summer, crude oil was trading at $77 a barrel. In five short months, the price has fallen more than 30%, and it now sits near two-year lows. Being heavily invested in the oil patch, I decided it was time to dig into the market fundamentals to find out if the oil boom is really over, or if the current weakness has created some blue-light specials in the oil patch.
Gas price fluctuations need some managing - a new use for the SPR?
We need a system in place to mitigate the wild changes in gas prices that have been seen in recent years. While most commodities are directly subject to the effects of the market, gasoline is too vital a commodity to allow it to ebb and flow based on market conditions.
Energy Crisis Threatens Investment: Investors in Iraqi Kurdistan say escalating fuel costs are trying their patience.
Like other parts of the country, foreign and Iraqi investors alike are plagued by power outages. State energy plants only provide electricity for a few hours per day - even in Kudistan’s capital, Erbil - and shortages force business to buy expensive fuel-powered generators.But the problems don’t end there because fuel is itself in short supply and rising demand means that it has become prohibitively expensive.
Energy crisis forces power cuts in Albania
The public is frustrated and businesses are losing money due to the problems Albania has had in keeping up with electricity demands.
Money, Not Geopolitics, Drives Russian Energy Policy
It is clear to the Russians that they can no longer afford to subsidize their neighbors with cheap natural gas while continuing to meet Russia’s export obligations to the rest of the world.
With the 30% fall in the price of oil to US$50 a barrel comes the inevitable global ideological free for all over the causes, impacts and general significance of the decline. The scale of the decline pretty much puts peak oil theorists out of commission, especially since the real price of oil in constant dollars is now lower than it was through much of the 1980s--hardly what you would expect in a world allegedly heading into an oil supply crisis.
Alaska to get British-style temperatures
Parts of the world could heat up by over 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) this century with big areas becoming uninhabitable, according to a climate prediction experiment.
Markey caught in wrangling on global warming
Pelosi's views on global warming are shared by most House Democrats and some Republicans. But the creation of the new committee, which was announced yesterday, is opposed by several senior Democratic House members, who argue that it would duplicate and even complicate ongoing efforts to explore the same subjects, and curtail the power of committee chairmen who have decades of expertise in their areas.
A convenient time for Saudi Arabia to be ambivalent
What is the main driver behind Opec power Saudi Arabia's oil policy? This question is sweeping trading floors and it could be unanswerable.
Portland city report recommends oil use reduction
The city of Portland's peak oil task force released a draft report Friday on ways to reduce dependence on oil and natural gas.
Energy policy at risk of going up in smoke
The news story was certainly an attention grabber: Chevrolet had introduced a plug-in hybrid car that could get 100 miles per gallon and go as far as 40 miles on batteries alone. At long last, you say to yourself, Detroit is seizing the initiative in pioneering cars to shake off our dependency on foreign oil.Then came the cold splash of reality. General Motors acknowledged to the New York Times that the batteries needed to make the Volt run don't exist yet. The Volt is a concept car.
The crystal ball outlook for 2007
• Peak Oil is a fact and it is just a matter of when it happens. Peak oil is the point at which we can’t increase production of oil, and production rates start to fall.The United States has been increasing their infrastructure and technology to increase oil productions over the years, however:
1945 – 5.0 million barrels per day
1945 to 1970 – 10 million barrels per day
Now – 5.1 million barrels per day
House to mull alternative energy tax
An alternative energy tax program to make use of municipal bonds to counter global warming through renewable and more efficient energy will be on the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means' agenda this session, the committee's chief tax counsel said on Friday.
Price of oil plunging, but cost of gas won’t
The headlines say oil prices have fallen 15 percent this year. Gas station receipts tell a different story — the cost of filling ’er up has slipped from about $35 to $33. Big deal.
Renewable energy gains still far off, reports show
California's utilities are falling behind schedule in meeting a deadline that 20% of their electricity must come from renewable resources by 2010, newly issued reports from two energy agencies show.
Kuwait to cut dependency on oil revenues for growth
Kuwait has begun implementing ambitious programmes to diversify its sources of income and minimize dependency on oil revenues, a top official said here Thursday.
The world survived 2006 without a major economic catastrophe, despite sky-high oil prices and a Middle East spiralling out of control. But the year produced abundant lessons for the global economy, as well as warning signs concerning its future performance. Unsurprisingly, 2006 brought another resounding rejection of fundamentalist neo-liberal policies, this time by voters in Nicaragua and Ecuador.
Some quick trivia questions. I asked this a few days ago during a discussion of Saudi, and I got no answer.
1. True or False: The Hubbert Linearization for Saudi Arabia predicts a peak in 2006.
2. Bonus question: If Texas and KSA peaked at exactly the same spot on the HL, in which year would KSA have peaked?
3. Final bonus: If the lower 48 and KSA peaked at the same spot on the HL, in which year would KSA have peaked?
The point here is to show that the HL actually predicts a peak across some range of years. Claiming that it picks a specific year is ascribing an improper degree of accuracy to the method. I don't intend to debate this today back and forth with Jeffrey, but I do want readers to be clear that past use of the HL has always allowed for a very wide range of years during which peak can occur. It is not a method that gives 1 or 2 years resolution. This is one reason that I think Deffeyes claim, for instance, of an exact month for peak is ridiculous. It's like claiming you can measure the size of a bacteria with a normal ruler.
(Crude oil production = crude + condensate, EIA Data)
Deffeyes put the world crude oil peak between 2004 and 2008, mostly likely in late 2005. Is 2006 world crude oil production lower than 2005? Yes.
I put the most likely peak for Saudi production in 2005 (in postings/articles in 1/06 and 5/06). This was based on comparing the current swing producer to the former swing producer. Is 2006 Saudi production lower than 2005? Yes.
As Robert pointed out, if Ghawar is in decline every oil field in the world that is, or was, producing one mbpd or more is in decline or crashing, and according to the Oil & Gas Journal, the only new one mbpd and larger field on the horizon won't even start producing, at best, until after 2010, and it won't exceed one mbpd, at best, until after 2020.
We have argued this to the point of producing widespread nausea among readers, but the bottom line is that the available production data are supporting Deffeyes' prediction and my prediction.
The only thing that will resolve the debate is to wait and see what the production data show.
As Robert pointed out, if Ghawar is in decline every oil field in the world that is, or was, producing one mbpd or more is in decline or crashing, and according to the Oil & Gas Journal, the only new one mbpd and larger field on the horizon won't even start producing, at best, until after 2010, and it won't exceed one mbpd, at best, until after 2020.
As I also pointed out, this was accompanied by a 20 million bpd worldwide capacity increase. Not exactly the example you want to use to bolster your argument.
We have argued this to the point of producing widespread nausea among readers, but the bottom line is that the available production data are supporting Deffeyes' prediction and my prediction.
That was a complete dodge of the issues I raised. I want to be sure the reader is clear. Which statement is accurate? A. The HL predicts a peak date; or B. The HL predicts a range of several years in which peak may occur? Isn't it true that if KSA production started going down in 2010, you could also say that it was consistent with the prediction? That is the point I want to make clear.
What you have done, in fact, is that say KSA will peak at some point between 50% and 60% of Qt, without making it clear that this can span 10 years or more. Then, when KSA production is down, claim that the HL predicted it. That is no different than me predicting that the AFC will win the Superbowl, and then as soon as they do I claim that I did predict it (even if it takes them 4 years to win it). The fact is, the HL does not give Deffeyes (or you) the resolution to make the sorts of claims that a country (or the world) will peak in a specific year.
Of course the HL method can't promise an exact day, month and year. But we can predict the most likely year.
Deffeyes predicted that 2006 was the the most likely year for a world crude production decline, and I predicted that 2006 was the most likely year for a Saudi crude oil production decline.
If you want to see what a crashing super giant field does to a region's production, take a look at Cantarell and Mexico, where David Shields is predicting about a 25% net decline rate for Mexico from 2007 to 2008.
Mexico and Saudi Arabia are two major oil exporting countries where one field, with a rapidly thinning oil column, accounts, or accounted, for more than half of each countries' production.
As I said yesterday, IMO, other than the production rates, the only real difference Pemex & Cantarell and Saudi Aramco and Ghawar is that Pemex has grudgingly admitted to the Cantarell decline/crash.
This is why I suspect that the initial Saudi decline/crash may be much more severe than what we saw in Texas.
I have previously--and repeatedly--described these two fields as two warning beacons burning brightly in the night sky, heralding the onset of Peak Oil.
I just want to mention again how instructive the exchanges between WT and RR have been for me.
Both men bring depth and breadth of understanding to the topic, terrific analytical abilities, and a great deal of civility.
My heart-felt thanks to both!
And now, back to the regularly scheduled discussions....!
Lets get some error bars once we know the confidence limits I think that a lot of the wrangling will dissipate.
In the short term accept my +/- 4mbd interval till we can narrow it.
I'm guessing but I suspect this gives a 10 year spread on world HL plots.
In any case I'd love to see someone with the numbers just show the variance in a world HL plot say using a 2% and 4% relative variance.
I'm guessing but I suspect this gives a 10 year spread on world HL plots.
And you nailed what I am getting at. I think one could scientifically defend something like an HL with a 10 year margin of error. Historically, you could show that this would have worked in the past. My criticism of Deffeyes specifically is that he has taken a tool with 10 year resolution and shouted to everyone that peak was in 2005. Such claims won't be taken seriously, and do much for fostering the "Peak Oilers are crackpots" reputation.
I understand that this doesn't matter to some. But I post here under my real name, and I have a career in the oil industry, so credibility probably has a higher priority to me than it does to the average anonymous poster.
Seems to me that this is basically saying that the precise peak of production doesn't matter but the 'precise' plateau (+- 5 yrs) matters. I believe this to be true as well. Then the question becomes, "Are we on the Peak Oil Plateau?" It looks like we are, so what if we have an upward blip in '07 or '08 that becomes the actual peak. Only thing that would matter would be a sustained increase over the next few years.
Then the question is, "When do we reach the end of the plateau?"
Bravo !
Correct and further more even the best data we have has errors far greater than the reported error ranges. The number of times its adjusted should indicate how poor we know our own oil production. My rule of thumb is we basically lose the entire production of Iran in the world totals. This sounds like a lot but its only a few percent plus or minus.
I'd love to see some of the number crunchers on the site extract a plausible error term for some of the numbers we rely on. Next I agree with Robert that these intrinsic errors cause the HL methods to themselves have a confidence range it would be nice to get a handle on what this is.
Overall it would be beneficial for everyone to understand what we know and don't know. Statistical error analysis is sorely needed.
Next looking at the size of the problem we face which was shown recently as a cube of oil measuring over a mile points out that the time of peak oil is not that important if its 30 years away all the better for us.
In hindsight we should have moved away from oil when production in the US peaked in the 70 and Europe should have done a far better job managing production from the North Sea.
Africa and the Middle East would have been far saner places if oil was viewed as a national resource to help create a real economy. The same for Russia. But as the saying goes don't cry over spilled milk. Recognize that we have had ample time to address this issue and valid and compelling reasons have existed for 30 years. Even now we can see that the failure of Jimmy Carters initiatives has resulted in a world thats not a happy place.
The possibility that we may have already peaked and the number of scenarios that point to a peak in the near future should only spur us to act on converting our economies from oil. The chance of a peak now or in the near future should not be required for us to act.
To compare to another overriding issue facing us. It looks like we may be too late on global warming lets not do the same for oil. We as a world are facing a increasing number of major worldwide problems if we continue to fail to act on some of them doomsday scenarios have a much higher probability of becoming reality. I'd be happy to see the world proactively do one thing right in my lifetime. Here is a list.
1.) Global Warming
2.) Population
3.) Water
4.) Food
5.) Other resources depletion ( oil water etc)
6.) Efficient cheap housing/transport
7.) Globalization and economic equality.
And more these are in order of relative importance notice that oil is not our biggest problem but they are not unrelated since all our other problems result in our inability to solve the Global Warming one.
WRT your comments on the degree of accuracy, i was shocked when i received some model data for the TrendLines Scenarios that was six decimal places. With their time range of 150 years, i usually round to the nearest mbd whether its Peak Rate or Exhaustion.
On RR's point on dates, some modelers are still using up to a ten year range. This commenced with Colin Campbell in 1991, but the practice is no longer the norm. Most nail a particular year.
Visitors to my site over the last know that since 2004 i have used the ASPO data to define a month and year for Peak Conventional Oil (April 2005) and Peak All Liquids (October 2012) for the half-way crossover of consumption (not supply). Each month, we analyse new data on past consumption and URR to refine these dates, but our experience has been that both dates move thru a 36-month range. Using season or Year would be more appropriate but is not as sexy.
URR Estimates are usually quoted as low as three decimal places (3.003-Tb or 1 billion barrels). This is somewhat reasonable as the scenario applications require accuracy to 25 billion barrels over the 150 year parameter.
Monthly and quarterly reporting revisions moves thru about a +/- range up to 1-mbd, hence the three decimal reporting seems ludicrous; and is more a reflection of reporting from small production nations.
Jean Laherrere has been a practioner of HL for two decades. Anyone following his work would have to agree that the above comments that it is accurate to only a +/- of five years is fair.
Form a practical standpoint any series of measurements is only as accurate as the least accurate individual measurements. That is if you have a measurement of a rectangle with one pair of sides at 10.05 and the other at 6, your answer can only be 60. If the first measurement is 6.0 your answer is 60.3, never 60.30. In the real world any thing that is being measured by inference, more than three significant figures is a opium dream.
The number of significant figures that are appropriate should depend on the margin of error of whatever the analysis is. With a very tight margin of error I could see four or five significant figures or even more. Obviously, not the situation in the crude oil production world. Might have relevance in the spectrographic analysis world or the electron microscopy world.
Trouble is, when looking up data, this information is almost never reported with the data, so we are left to guess, and guessing on the fuzzy side is usually the best policy.
Finally somebody said it. At times I hesitate to recommend TOD to family and friends because of the sophomoric jousting that occurs between intelligent people here at TOD. I don't care who picks the exact date, time, location. At this point, from what I've learned here, it's irrelevant. It's happening now, unfolding all around us. That said, keep up the good work - there are many of us who appreciate the time and effort you all are taking to inform and educate. Onward and Upward!
I'm inclined to agree. Either the reader was clear weeks ago, or they're skipping RR's and WT's posts anyway.
Right, boys...it's time to move on from this diatribe.
People will either prepare or they won't. We will keep on living, till we don't. We will keep on driving around in gas combustion vehicles until we don't. The internet will keep working until a Chinese rocket knocks our satellites out of the sky.
I disagree entirely. Dragonfly41, aren't you the one who spent months tracking aircraft carriers in the Persian gulf? ;) And Leannan has hijacked entire threads to try to debunk organized religion. I've posted a few things that don't make sense too. At least these guys are on topic, and I find that there discussion isn't just a re-run, it progresses day by day with the updated information we receive.
That's cool for you, SAT. Never said I wasn't wasting bandwidth on this site. As you may have noticed, I don't post as much as I had before. I have just grown tired of the pointless arguement of when PO occurs. As Robert has said, the ability to predict exactness on the scale we are looking at is outside the degrees of error. WT is merely saying based on what we are seeing, it COULD be happening now. Both are valid points. Both will be resolved in the future. Both won't matter in the future. So what is the point of it? Bragging rights?
As Robert has said, the ability to predict exactness on the scale we are looking at is outside the degrees of error.
Which is a point about the HL, that to my knowledge, has never been discussed in any detail at all. Therefore, it is a worthy subject for discussion, IMO.
WT is merely saying based on what we are seeing, it COULD be happening now.
I will leave WT out of this for now, and focus on Deffeyes. Did Deffeyes say it COULD be happening now? No, he said it has happened and we are on our way back to the Stone Age. Just what we need for improving credibility.
The point that many still fail to understand is 1). They want to warn the world about peak oil; 2). The world won't listen; 3). The world won't listen BECAUSE folks like Campbell and Deffeyes have applied less than scientific rigor to this process of predicting a peak. The quackery label will stick so long as we, within our own community, allow such claims to be made unchallenged.
He was joking, and he made it clear that he was joking once he realized people were taking him seriously.
He was joking, and he made it clear that he was joking once he realized people were taking him seriously.
So, was he joking about the date?
Yes, I think he was. Remember, he originally said it would be Thanksgiving Day. Obviously, he didn't actually mean we'd be hitting peak oil at the very moment Dallas kicked off in Texas Stadium, for sure absolutely guaranteed.
He knows there's a margin of error. He even said that peak oil might have actually happened before he published his book (which would have made it years off his projected date). Given that, do you really believe he thinks HL can nail down peak oil to the day?
He is clearly joking about the exact date. Now, I think he does believe that peak oil happened ca. December 2005, but he doesn't really believe it was exactly December 16, and he won't be shocked if C+C goes up instead of down this year.
Given that, do you really believe he thinks HL can nail down peak oil to the day?
Well, I would hope not. My point is that based on the historical data he can't even nail it down to the resolution of a year (maybe 10 years) yet he is confidently claiming that he can. It won't ultimately matter to the rest of the world if he is correct, because he won't convince too many people that he is able to predict an exact year given a resolution of 10 years.
Like I wrote earlier, I think you could build a very sound case for PO with a 10 year margin of error. Given that even 10 years puts us under tremendous pressure to search for solutions, we would have both a defensible case and a call to action that might be taken seriously.
Here lies your naivete, Robert.
There will be NO "call to action". That is what makes me think most of what we are doing here is pointless. DO YOU THINK, the nations of the world will band together when someone DEFINITELY says PO will be within 10 years? If the ENTIRE world does not work on this issue, then it will not be a pretty resolution for someone out there. I do not see any movement to suggest this (global cooperation) is going to happen soon.
Best thing you can hope for is to make yourself comfortable in your community and let the chips fall where they may.
Defeatist thinking?...perhaps. Realistic thinking?...I believe so.
There will be NO "call to action".
Yet Global Warming is getting a call to action. The call is not being heeded in most places, but I think most people have come to grips that we have a serious problem on our hands. Why? Because Global Warming has been demonstrated with a scientific rigor that PO has lacked. It has passed peer review and been published in Science, where other scientists read the data, conclude that we have a problem, and then pass that message on. Eventually it reaches critical mass.
None of this assures that we will do anything to prepare for PO. In fact, I am pretty certain that the U.S. will do next to nothing until it is too late. But that doesn't mean I will be content to watch that happen.
All indications are that the action will be too late and to little to mitigate GW. Their is increasing evidence that Mother Nature has taken control of the climate from us and we have initiated a now natural warming trend that will take thousands of years to play out. From here on out we are simply adding more fuel to the fire its way to late to put it out.
From a scientific standpoint proving global warming has been a success but it did not result in action in time to stop it. Scientist may be warm :) and happy with having won the argument but its not going to save our asses.
So in my opinion the handling of GW is a disastrous failure and peak oil/NG will be one more notch on the road to self destruction. At best as GW unfolds and people realized they waited too long to act we might have a chance to convince people to act before peak oil/NG turns into a crisis.
I doubt it.
Amen!
This excerpt from a comment by Dimitri Orlov to an article by Jan Lundberg says it all. It applies to all this arguing about the importance of puplic perception of the reality of Peak oil as well. Fiddling, fiddling. IMHO of course.
"My feeling is that climate change cannot be stopped. Even if extractive industries, manufacturing, transportation, and industrial agriculture were completely shut down tomorrow, climate change would continue for centuries. Most of the change we have seen so far has resulted from carbon emissions which occurred decades ago. The positive feedbacks that have been unleashed may overwhelm the effect of anthropogenic emissions. Scientific efforts to characterize these effects and political efforts express them in policy are the modern-day example of fiddling while Rome burns."
Robert,
I'm not too convinced that being absolutely accurate on peak oil is going to make one scrap of difference. The fact that the USA peaked 30 years ago and declines every year has not succeeded in causing any serious concern from TPTB despite the negative consequences the US peak caused for the USA.
I always get a little bit amused about the idea that peak oil is a theory. It's a very well demonstrated fact.
Why do you think all of the national peaks have had so little impact upon how the problem is viewed or addressed?
Lindsay
I'm not too convinced that being absolutely accurate on peak oil is going to make one scrap of difference.
I am not trying to be absolutely accurate. In fact, I am not even debating the timing of peak. I am debating the quality of the data used. I am saying that to be taken more seriously, we need to be more careful making unsubstantiated claims.
Why do you think all of the national peaks have had so little impact upon how the problem is viewed or addressed?
I think because governments trust Saudi's claims that they have this endless supply of oil that they will keep delivering as far as we can see into the future, and by the time they can't we will all be whizzing around in our hydrogen hovercars anyway. Remember, the USGS is a government agency concerned with this issue, and their message is "There's plenty of oil."
"Why? Because Global Warming has been demonstrated with a scientific rigor that PO has lacked."
No, it's because we've had some warm and freakish weather. Without that, it didn't matter one iota how the science worked out.
And when gas was US$3.00/gallon, there were some rumblings of interest in re: things petroleum. Now that we're headed back down towards $2.00, it's "see, no problem!". Hummer sales on the upswing.
When gas is $5.00 a gallon, and doesn't go down, that will be the call to action, as it were, and just as with GW, it will be too late for any kind of soft landing. Market signals are all anyone cares about, and they are incapable of enough advance warning.
My own feeling, having watched prices up to $3.40/gal here and traffic hardly slowing down a bit, is that it will take actual shortages to wake people up. It is one thing to wince at paying $5/gal for gas and quite another to have no gasoline available.
The world should have attacked global warming at least ten years ago. Now that it is too late they are waking up to the problem. They will do the same for peak oil. Given a ten year margin, they will do nothing.
He knows there's a margin of error.
Well, I just looked it up on his website:
http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html
His margin of error?
So, his margin of error is plus or minus a month. Brilliant. Of course before that he was 99% confident peak was in 2004. Of course there is also the book sales angle to deal with:
As you know, Hubbert predicted that the Lower 48 peak, inclusive of Texas, would be between 1966 and 1971, and it peaked in 1970.
Khebab showed that the post-1970 cumulative Lower 48 production was 99% of what the HL model predicted it would be, using only production data up through 1970 to construct the model.
Deffeyes has always stated that his mathematical model, using methods outlined by Hubbert, showed that the peak of world crude oil production would be between 2004 and 2008, most likely in 2005. If memory serves, he said that, in his opinion, it could not be later than 2008.
As Deffeyes predicted (picking 2006 as the most likely year for a world crude oil production decline), world crude oil production in 2006 is down.
Robert,
Why do you feel compelled to describe all of the above as "quackery?" IMO, you are coming periously close to the same level as Freddy, who described Deffeyes and Simmons as "scumbags." Why is this topic so threatening to you that you have now resorted to personal insults?
Why do you feel compelled to describe all of the above as "quackery?"
Why do you feel the need to misrepresent my statements? I said that's what the media and a lot of people think. Do you deny that? Do you deny that the PO viewpoint is often reported with derision, as if it's astrology or something?
IMO, you are coming periously close to the same level as Freddy...
I regret that you have decided that smears are now called for. That's the second or third time you have done that now. You have attempted to associate my point of view with those of Freddy and Hothgar. I think the implication is obvious. Do you think attempted character assassination bolsters your position?
Why is this topic so threatening to you that you have now resorted to personal insults?
Wow, a loaded question that is also a straw man. Impressive. Loaded, because you presume the topic is threatening. It is not. A straw man, because I am not accusing anyone of quackery. The media has done that. I am pointing out why, and what it will take to shake that label. The sensationalism of Deffeyes is not going to accomplish that.