<DrumBeat: June 24, 2007 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: June 25, 2007>

228 comments on In Defense of the Hubbert Linearization Method

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Joseph Palmer on June 24, 2007 - 3:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

First, thanks for pushing back. I think it's healthy and good for the discussion. It might even be helpful to put together a "Cornicopian rebuttal FAQ" -- with an emphasis on Factual data to rebut these kinds of "Faith-Based talking points.

For the "plenty of oil argument" I can think of a handful of replies for different occasions: (Some are just for fun)

1) Serious / Factual:

The Peak of oil discovery was in 1964. Even with all of the technology developed since then: computers, seismic mapping, 3D visualizations, ultra-deep water exploration, we have never found as much oil per year as we did two generations ago.

2) Serious / Business:

We have been using more oil every year than we have found through exploration since 1980. In 2004 more energy has been expended in exploration than was in the oil that was found.*

(*I need a technical reference for that, I believe I read it in a Roscoe Bartlett special orders speech, but the FAQ would need to have bulletproof, referenced facts.)

3) Flippant / disdainful / Political

So- I suppose these undiscovered fields are guarded by the undiscovered WMDs from Iraq, Right?

4) Flippant / disdainful

So - your point is we haven't found it, therefore it must be there! We've been searching for it for over hundred years, where it it hiding? How are you so very sure it's there?

5) Disdainful / Serious

So - you're betting the future of human civilization on undiscovered resources? What will you tell your children if you're wrong - "Sorry kids we spent your resource inheritance filling the Escalade. - it was all for your comfort and safty! Really!"

6) Disdainful / joking

Listen, if you know where these "undiscovered" oil resources are, you could be the richest person in human history. You could own the oil companies. I guess that's why you're not telling me where it is.

7) Disdainful / Jim Kunstler

Are you telling me the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil?

(Edited for spelling. Too much coffee)

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xeroid on June 24, 2007 - 4:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There are unbelievably large amounts of fossil fuels in the world ... peak oil is about flows of oil ... we can't get it to flow out of the ground at the rates required to meet our exponential expectations of increase in demand.

IMO anybody that responds to peak oil by talking about the amount of oil in the world, either undiscovered or discovered, doesn't understand the problem.

Xeroid.

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SailDog on June 24, 2007 - 8:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Good point. My response to that is "Reserves are not the issue. The issue is how fast you can get it out of the ground. There is an unstated assumption that if oil is "there" that there is no difficulty in getting out of the ground, processed at the well head for water and other impurities, transported halfway round the world, then refined and delivered to you. There are a lot of difficulties, lately with refining, but mostly in getting it out of the ground. We can discuss those difficulties if you want."

At this point the eyes have normally glazed over and they think I am a nutter (probably I am) and they walk away. Most people just do not care. Even educated, aware people, do not care. They do not have the entire matrix of information required to understand the information in their heads. Most people are not aware, they are more concerned with the personal habits of Brad Pitt and Paris Hilton, or football. These are the folks who also whine about "gougers" and being ripped off etc.

Humanity will trip over the edge wondering what dress x or y actress is wearing to the Oscars. Nobody cares.

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relocalizeNow on June 25, 2007 - 10:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Your comment reminds me of an excellent movie... starring Brad Pitt! Fight Club is described by a fan like this:

"the story is nothing short of incredible, a pure shock-value social commentary on the state of the world at the end of the century"

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gTrout on June 24, 2007 - 5:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Discovery rates are a good approach.

8) We can use past discovery to predict how much is left. As discovery each year drops, it points to a maximum:

In "Beyond Oil" Deffeyes models "hits" on new oil fields. His model projects that we have found 94% of all oil and that roughly 100 bbl remain unlocated (this was in 2005). (which is why a "big" field like 7 billion barrels is news and we don't find any 70 billion barrel fields).

9) We can play a "what if" game. What if there were 4 trillion barrels. Then we would expect to be finding X bbls of oil per year in new fields now. We are not.

Colin Campbell co-authored an analysis (which I cannot find right off hand) where he showed how much discovery we would have to be having to find the extra 1 trillion and 2 trillion barrels of oil predicted by the USGS. As you can imagine, to find another 2 trillion, we would need a second discovery peak as huge as the one in the 1960's. And to find another 1 trillion, the peak would have to be half the size. Nothing like that is happening.

10) Serious/Business

If there is so much more oil to discover, why are the oil companies trying to get into tiny slivers of protected Federal Land? Why not just drill the vast world wide reserves? (because the protected areas are the only undrilled areas remaining).

11) Serious/Business

If there is so much more oil to discover, why are the oil companies developing fields in countries that are undergoing civil war (Nigeria) instead of developing the 2 trillion barrels of oil elsewhere.

The next cornicopian response will be that we will just squeeze more oil from the current fields.

12) Serious/Business

If we could get more oil from the current fields with advancing technology, then why is the US lower 48 in decline? Why is the most technologically advanced country int he world, home the the most sophisticated oil companies, unable to halt the decline in oil production?

(Here we could use a few more items that explain how oil becomes locked in the rock once the water or gas flood replaces a percentage of the oil. And some references on how water and gas flooding have been used extensively since the 60's. "Twilight in the Desert" is one source.)

The next step is dealing with low EROI alternates. And then other energy sources substituting for oil.

Jon Freise

Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows

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wolverine on June 24, 2007 - 10:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the detailed reply, you certainly came up with a wide array of counters to the common talking points out there.

I feel like the (Western) world has lived through some great years and now we are entering a period of consequences.

Personally I am very frustrated that people at all points of the political spectrum are so completely in love with their cheap oil lifestyles to formulate a constructive response to the end of cheap, easy oil.

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228 comments on In Defense of the Hubbert Linearization Method

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