163 comments on Updated World Oil Forecasts, including Saudi Arabia
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163 comments on Updated World Oil Forecasts, including Saudi Arabia
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Excellent work.
IMO, if Russian crude oil production is now declining, I expect it to show an annual decline rate in the vicinity of 10% per year. If they do show a 10% decline rate in production, and if their domestic consumption continues to increase (in the short term at least) at about 5% per year, their net exports would probably fall by 50% in less than two years.
"Mr. 5%" did the following graph of net oil exports by the major net oil exporters (one mbpd or more, EIA + BP Total Liquids):
http://bp2.blogger.com/_kdcZbozWthI/RnbjgrSk5YI/AAAAAAAAAOU/NwFg57zOqd0/...
Note that it shows a 5% decline in net exports, from 9/05 to 3/07. The major net oil exporters account for close to 90% of total net oil exports worldwide.
It appears that for every 20 barrels of net exports from the top exporters in 9/05, we have already lost one barrel--in the space of 18 months. Also, the Export Land Model suggests that net export decline rates will accelerate with time.
Again, Alan Drake has shown us how the US and Switzerland respectively provided for transportation, before the oil age really kicked off and during an oil cutoff:
Streetcars 100 Years Ago
http://www.familyoldphotos.com/tx/2c/chadbourne_street_trolley_san_an.htm
Electrification of Transportation
http://www.energybulletin.net/14492.html
Given the time lags and capital for an effort like this, once oil production starts declining it's probably too late. People will be using all their resources trying to keep the old way going.
I think that it is important to get people to understand that oil exports are probably crashing, and at least Alan is offering a plan based on transportation that has been built in the past with little or no oil input.
Jeff Rubin on Peak Exports:
It's funny that nobody pays attention to WT's point that the Golden Age of Trains in the United States dates from pre-1925, when there was almost no petroleum use at all!
Strictly speaking, of course it's Alan's point, but I think that it is critically important. Many electric systems were built in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with little or no oil input. The car culture is so ingrained in the US that I think that people have trouble thinking of alternatives.
IMO, Alan will be giving the single most important presentation at the ASPO-USA meeting. How many times and in how many different ways do we need to hear that we are in trouble? What we need are plans to implement, in order to "make things not as bad as they would otherwise be."
"Many electric systems were built in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with little or no oil input. "
And yet, they did a lot of manufacturing, and construction. This is not unique to trains: personal transportation is manufactured with the same techniques as trains, which suggests that PHEV's and EV's are also a perfectly viable path.
yes, trains can mitigate
and will be useful for just
hand cars if nothing else.
But the "bottleneck" will prevent usefulness of trains
at the beginning.
People will camp on train lines for ex.
Trains use diesel for ex. Just retrofitting
will be an awesome endeavor and coal will be at peak as well.
Pre 1925 they weren't also tasked with using the same resource base to support a population of 300 million Americans and a car-based infrastructure that had been built up over the previous century.
Pre-1925 we dug coal out by hand and hauled it to the surface with ponies.
Pre-1925, we picked cotton by hand.
Pre-1925, most families used kerosene light.
Pre-1925, most families did not have a radio or a car.
Pre-1925, per capita oil production was almost an order of magnitude less than today (even though we exported oil then and import it now).
We did *NOT have the same resource base in 1925, we had (effectively) *FAR* fewer resources per capita then than now.
I do not think you have any real comprehension of pre-1925 America.
Alan
What this? Is Alan becoming a realist?
In the 1920's 40% of the US population lived in poverty. And I mean poverty. By today's standard those that live in poverty lived similar lifestyles of the 1920's era middle class. Few people has access to basics that we take for granted (ie clean water, fresh foods, health-care, etc).
In the 1920's the unemployement rate ranged from the 25% to 35%. Just imagine today if 25% to 30% of the workforce was unemployment. Most People also worked much longer days (about 10 hours day + 5 hours on Saturdays), and they were happy to have a job. The work was far more grueling and the working conditions where dangerous (no worker safety regulations).
Arkansawyer here,
I talked to you last, right after Katrina.
Your ELM model is working but it should be
combined with positive feedback loops. Like once
the collapse begins, we have to run faster to stay ahead of the curve.
And Alan is still not understanding that NO is already in
the Gulf.
People think we still have 20, 30, 40 years left to get this done. They're not even close," said St. Pe, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, which seeks to save one of the coast's most threatened and strategically vital zones. “Ten years is how much time we have left — if that."
http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/t-p/index.ssf?/speced/
lastchance/articles/day1.html
Great Work WT.
James
Arkansawyer here,
I talked to you last, right after Katrina.
Your ELM model is working but it should be
combined with positive feedback loops. Like once
the collapse begins, we have to run faster to stay ahead of the curve.
And Alan is still not understanding that NO is already in
the Gulf.
People think we still have 20, 30, 40 years left to get this done. They're not even close," said St. Pe, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, which seeks to save one of the coast's most threatened and strategically vital zones. “Ten years is how much time we have left — if that."
http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/t-p/index.ssf?/speced/
lastchance/articles/day1.html
Great Work WT.
James
ACE
Thanks for this excellent work.
WT
The Rubin article is worth reading in full.
http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/sjul07.pdf
Hi Westexas,
Little or no oil input for rail transport would mean that coal was used at that time.
Global CO2 is to my mind the really big problem and, even basing the electrical demand for rail on nuclear (solar and wind etc. are not IMO in the running presently) the use of oil would not be diminished. Any mitigation of the problem of petroleum meeting demand seems to merely add to the problem of increase in CO2 without reducing the world's use of oil.
I like Alan's rail ideas, but I can't seem to think my way around the above to see them resulting in an improvement in the situation at present. I also don't like what a 'no solution' using current and popular ideas of mitigation implies at least as far as a soft gradual solution. It is all one big bummer as far as I can see it.
I am quite sensitive to GW (Global Warming) and I am quite concerned about responses that make GW worse (arguably corn ethanol does).
CTL (Coal to Liquids) works, no doubt about it. See Sasol, Germany during WW II. The worst GW response to Peak Oil
The Hirsch, Bezdek, etc Report has the US building CTL plants as fast as humanly possible (as fast as WW II munitions plants, economics did not enter into the picture).
IMHO, a MASSIVE Urban Rail and Electrified Intercity Railroad program(s) will absorb large amounts of money and quite frankly hope (tangible results people can see generate hope).
I do not think we can mount the rail building program I envision AND the CTL program envisioned by Hirsch et al.
Electrification of Transportation is an alternative to CTL (we will get some of both, but better a little CTL & lots of EOT).
Trading 20 BTUs of diesel for 1 BTU of electricity cannot be that bad for GW. Build infrastructure that will last a half century to a century plus (recycled metal does not take that much energy BTW).
And wind has more potential and can be built faster than nuke IMO.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the response. Possibly I am unclear in what I have said. My feelings are that you are on the right track but precipitate in timing.
Putting as many factors together as I am able I do not see under present circumstances alternate energy sources nor energy saving forms of industrial technology as being a remedy to the problems faced. In our current social/political mold we are not able to solve the two major problems of population and its twin, overconsumption of resources. This will leave a solution if there is one to happenstance.
Under this social/political paradigm any new, alternative or retrograde (coal etc) energy sources will, IMO, merely be added to the current energy sources. These new sources may delay economic collapse for a period but in the end only make the final results even more disastrous and possibly final. Demand trumps mitigation I fear.
If you see any other outcome to this I would be more than happy to hear of it.
Best wishes in hope that we will find a brand new paradigm that will run on the rails.
Karl Marx was the author of the last new social & economic paradigm that was implemented on a wide scale.
Saying that "we need a new paradigm" has strong elements of truth, but the corollary that we must wait before starting any serious mitigation seems nonsensical to me.
As with Karl Marx's efforts, I am doubt that any whole cloth "new paradigm" will work as advertised in the real world.
Saying that we need to solve all problems (in theory at least) before starting to do serious work on any of them is recipe for the worst of all outcomes, endless debate and conflict while doing nothing !
I see several advantages in my proposals.
Elasticity in Supply (they can do more as things get worse).
A serious diversion from Coal to Liquids (CTL), the worst solution. Spending a trillion $ (2007 value) every few years on my proposals will probably prevent similar efforts with CTL. And the money would be better spent on rail !
Long lived infrastructure that still has value under virtually any scenario. See Cambodia & Liberia, where shattered societies found innovative uses for railroads (local Liberians prevented the tracks from being torn up). And the Anarchists ran the trams during the Spanish Civil War. Much modern rail infrastructure will survive the "bottleneck" if it comes to that.
A collective effort is required. Under a near worst case, the organization to run efficient rail may be a focal point to prevent social collapse. And under milder cases, this collective effort in problem solving can be a critical catalyst for a new paradigm.
I hope that seeing the VERY tangible results and benefits of a new rail line post-Peak Oil can create positive feedback, better morale, a new world POV. Heal by doing, rather than just talking & theorizing ! Roosevelt had somewhat the same goal with the WPA.
In the gales of a post-Peak Oil storm, with early Global Warming kicking in, building as much rail as possible seems a far more positive social goal than many other alternatives (building as much CTL & biofuels as possible, or conquering oil exporters or ..)
And a desperate society focusing on positive goals seems far more likely to evolve positively than the same society focusing on "deals with the devil" like CTL and invading other nations.
There are no perfect solutions, but there are better and worse solutions.
Best Hopes for Better Solutions,
Alan
Hi Alan,
I think I have been spending too much time in my garden these days as I find that on looking, here on TOD and even scarier on Google, about Coal to liquid fuel that it is not just some idle unfeasible daynightmare but a seriously intended business.
I hope you will be able to divert those funds for CTL to rail projects. I support you in that endeavor wholeheartedly.
Population will, I imagine either be dealt with by us or more likely natures wisdom, but CTL if it were to be implemented could trump even that specter and leave just a ball of stone.
Good luck in derailing CTL (and as a great side benefit, bringing back rail for the later post peak world)
BTW, Would have replied sooner but things like now,among other things a warm router and slow neural connections, get in the way.
There are two separate issues: ultimate and in-the-meantime. Ultimately there are no more hydrocarbon fuels, so that greatly contraints where we have to end up. In-the-meantime, we are going downslope of ever more expensive energy. So we have to figure out the best use of remaining hydrocarbons.
I believe that trains are part of the answer in-the-meantime. But even more is re-arranging things so we don't need to travel so far, at least regularly. Compact smaller cities that go up five stories, surrounded by agriculture and park lands and so on. Some of Kunstler's ideas are right on in this regard.
I often wonder how much of modern science and technology we will be able to rescue and carry forward into the post-hydrocarbon age. I'm not sure we'll be able to continue space exploration or high energy physics. Modern warfare won't be missed, however.
In any case, unfortunately, I believe our gov't will lead us into the valley of death before it leads us into green pastures.
Alan says above that:
"A collective effort is required. Under a near worst case, the organization to run efficient rail may be a focal point to prevent social collapse. And under milder cases, this collective effort in problem solving can be a critical catalyst for a new paradigm."
I know that it is hard to imagine "us", today's average citizens of the USA, pulling together for any collective purpose. We all know how divisive and polarized and contrary "we" can be.
*On average of course, you and I are not like that :o)
Something can give you some hope for the future is to look into how our society, our US culture, has changed its personality and its individual-vs-community focus many times during our history in pretty well defined and patterned cycles or waves. And another wave change is supposedly happening at this moment - towards a more community focused and collective action orientation. (Keep your fingers crossed Alan)
You can read about it in the books by:
William Strauss and Neil Howe,especially -
"The Fourth Turning" http://www.fourthturning.com/ and
Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation" http://www.johnreilly.info/miri.htm
and Jack Lessinger's "Schizomania" and "Your County - Boom or bust?: The Rise of Penturbia the & The Fall of Suburbia" http://www.predicting2020.com/
(check out the "Insights" section for a quick overview)
Remember that our societal personality keep changing as the young replace the old, and today's ideas replace yesterday's. Even though "we" of today can not imagine doing something together, that does not mean that "we" of tomorrow will not be able - maybe even enthusiastic - to do it.
Greg in MO
One concept that hasn't been worked on too much here is NET oil production, ie production net of the energy inputs of the oil industry itself. Ethanol, tar sands, heavy oil, deepwater, tertiary and enhanced recovery etc have significant energy inputs. The NET oil production curve would show a steeper dropoff. (A little like WT's Export Land Model.)
On Russian forecast production, I'm more optimistic.
As at June 2007, I am assuming remaining URR C&C of 91 Gb. (URR is proven plus probable plus yet to find.) Given Russia's new projects, the annual depletion rate of remaining URR is forecast to be below 4%/yr.
Russia's C&C production for Apr 07 was 9.37 mbd (EIA). My forecast is Apr 08, 8.91 mbd; Apr 09, 8.78 mbd; Apr 10, 8.47 mbd.
If Russia shows a decline rate of 10% pa then the decline in Fig 2 becomes even steeper.
If we assume a 5% production decline rate for Russia and a 5% rate of increase in consumption, their net exports would initially decline at about 13% per year.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/07/20/041.html
The Moscow Times: Pacific Pipeline Delayed Until 2015
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
tahoevalleylines.org ASPO article 374 "Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform"
With thanks to Alan Drake and his Parallel Bar Therapy Prescription: Please see http://nyc.theoildrum.com/node/2800 down the lines...
Railway rehab, expansion & extension is most assuredly doable, and will prove invaluable as a morale-builder!