And let's not be surprised to see not only December reported levels taken down a notch, but November again as well.

What we see here also are desperate attempts to add whatever can be added to hide the peak and confuse us. What next? Re-processed cooking oil? It's coming:

If re-processed cooking oil begins to be used in significant quantities then I hope it is included. This distinction between "crude oil" and other liquids is lost on me. If "other liquids" can be used in place of crude then by all means include them in the reporting. Forget the "energy cost to produce" disclaimers. Do we distinguish crude pumped from deep sea wells as compared to easily obtained land based crude? No. It's all crude that gets used for transportation, just as the "other liquids" are. It's all the same to me. But then I'm not invested in "being right" on some prediction I made. The Peak is coming. It might already be here or it might not. But it's coming. If we get more production of "other liquids" be it cooking oil or anything else, I see that as good news. More time to prepare for the post peak world and to pour money into eneregy services stocks at these low levels.

Brilliant. Of course, that will take a thoughtful and deep analysis of energy conversion and efficiency factors. Unfortunately, I think that is beyond the realm of JD's expertise, which largely resides in the sophistry field.

WebHubble Telescope asks,
"But WTF is a "late peaker"? I assume that someone has a model for that and that the depletion shows a more severe downslope after a "late peak".

That's actually a very good question, and an important one as it pertains to the Peak Oil debate and how it is portrayed in the public (ala MSM).

I am not speaking for JD here, but let me take a shot at this and why it is of great interest:

If we take a "peak now" or early peaker, we would now be talking about those who believe that crude oil plus NGL (i.e., strictly liquid crude, not counting all liquids which would include ethanol, or tar sand, which is not liquid) peaked in 2005.

Late peakers would be those who take the peak to or past what any useful projections can go, about 2030 or later, making it effectively a "non-issue" because the construction of the exploration/extraction and consumption paradigm cannot be estimated without major amounts of conjecture.

Mid-range would be about halfway between these two extremes, half twenty five years plus 2005, or around 2017, so say 2015 to 2020 as a rough guess.

Why is all this guesswork important?

In the course of a modern technical culture the size of the U.S., Europe, Japan and China coming on fast, it is not important. Any of the estimates save the post 2030 one would require emergency mitigation effort NOW. If the "peak now" crowd is right, mitigation would be pretty much pointless, we would just have to see where the broken glass lands and work from there. So in the big picture, peak now or peak anwhere before 2010 or 2012 does not amount to a grain of sand worth of difference.

If we take the mid range of 2017 however, we get a different picture. A great deal can change in 10 years. For an example, think of the difference between 1972 and 1982 during the last major energy crisis period. It is like two different worlds.

For the individual investor/consumer planning his daily investments and life, the difference between "peak now" and peak around 2017 is all the difference in the world.

If it is "peak now" (meaning anywhere between 2005 and 2012) we are pretty much in "hang on tight mode", the time for mitigation at even a personal level becomes very difficult. One sees this in the "scaler" pattern of thought put forth by those who accept "peak now" ranging from let's move to the farm and homestead...no, wait, the future is in dense packed cities close to public transit....let's go solar, no wait, it will take too long, let's lobby for nuclear, no wait, that will take as long and cost too much in concrete and money, no wait, let's switch to natural gas...no, that's no good, the demand will drive the price up and we can't trust the infrastrure, but we could go to LNG...but the market is going to be stressed....

If the peak is percieved as closer to 2017, one can plan in a "vector" and not a "scaler way, carefully planning investments and life choices to come out at the right place in 10 years.

Both of these scenarios are of course completely different than "late peak" i.e., post 2030. If that projection is accepted, for many of us here on TOD it would occur effectively at the end of our life on Earth, and woud be viewed as a "legacy" issue, that is, what kind of world we want to leave to our offspring.

As for the "downslope" after peak, whenever peak occurs, I tend to agree with Simmons and the Hirsch report. The timing of the peak does not seem to have much effect on how steep the downslope is. Due to the modern way in which we try to extract as much oil as possible on the "first sweep" and the methods of water injection now used, the downslope will probably be steep, no matter whether it's peak now or peak 2030. That is a real concern. There will be little or no advance warning.

The reason that many of us are so opposed to predicting the exact timing of peak is due to fear of the damage that false alarms will do to preperation and mitigation. It is for this reason that I have always said that mitigation, i.e., consumption reduction, must be sold on multiple fronts, not just fear of peak.
Carbon reduction, national security, economy security, appropriate and modern energy production for the region, all are great selling points that accomplish the same goal that is needed to face peak oil: Reduction of fossil fuel consumption, scaling of alternatives and efficient and elegant engineering. Peak fear is only one factor. If we put all of our eggs in the "peak now" basket, and turn out to be correct in principle but wrong in timing, it could undercut the efforts that must be made toward mitigation and taking our first steps toward leaving a carbon based energy system behind could be crippled. Then when peak comes (as it surely will) we would be far past the point of no return.

Some argue that we already are past the point of no return, that the first major false alarm occured in the 1970's and destroyed the idea of the possibility of real and ongoing oil shortages being accepted for a generation. People now believe that, like the 1970's, this is just another logistical and political crisis, and will resolve itself soon enough. It can be argued that we have never recovered the momentum we had toward a post carbon world we had in those crisis days of the 1970's.

We cannot risk another false alarm.

RC

The point pedrodelgado makes about the all liquids production adding a lot of low EROEI fuels that displace very little basic conventional oil is important. If you take out the volumes of the unconventional fuels that take about as much conventional oil to make as they replace, it directs much of the climbing global demand not on the total liquids curve but on the conventional crude curve. A true curve of global oil energy supply would have to deduct all unconventional with EROEI less than about 3 and calculate a net energy supply for all EROEI over this level. This curve would look similar to conventional plus NGL - much flatter than the all liquids curve.

Just a minor clarification - that is 1000 tonnes per day. That is a metric tonne - 1000 kg, 2200 lbs or ~7 barrels

And on the consumption side:

Russia to Be Europe's Biggest Car Market in 2 Years
2008-01-30 08:26 (New York)
By Lyubov Pronina

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Russia will surpass Germany to become
Europe's biggest car market within two years, Renault SA Chief
Officer Carlos Ghosn said.

The Russian market has more than doubled during the past five
years and can grow further, Ghosn said at a conference in Moscow
today organized by investment bank Troika Dialog. This growth has
attracted many global manufacturers to open plants, he said,
according to a Jan. 22 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. . .

. . . ``In the next two years, Russia will become the largest car
market in Europe,'' Ghosn said. ``Russians love cars and it shows
in statistics." . . .

JD, (peak oil denier),...

Jeez, Ron. The guy's blog has a prominent heading that reads something like 'Disclaimer for idiots: this site accepts that oil is finite and will peak one day.'

The bone (Boone? haha) he picks with you people concerns matters such as uncertainty of timing of the peak and a highly probable complete no-show in the 'end-of-civilization' stakes: that is, we're gonna get by.

That makes someone a 'peak oil denier'? A bit of critical thinking amongst the joyous whoopin' and hollerin'?

Given the state of the data and the possibility of explanations other than those that can be classified as geological, the only reasonable position to take on matters such as 'when Peak' (not 'if Peak') is agnosticism. I don't know. But neither do you. That, however, does not mean 'sit back and do nothing'. It is merely to accept that one may, indeed should, be prudent in the face of uncertainty.

You see, the problem is that it doesn't help to go running around shouting that 'the Peak' was yesterday or will be tomorrow, when other people - reasonable and knowledgeable people (and I don't refer to myself there) - don't need to agree with you. When they are not compelled to agree with you on the basis of the available evidence.

Oh, hang on, that must make me a 'troll' ...

Net energy ala EROEI is fallacious unless it compares apples and apples or includes price if it compares apples and oranges. There is little point to it if it is comparing apples and apples and apples have one price as oil does. If it compares apples and oranges as in the case of electricity and ethanol compared to oil, it is fallacious on it's face. Models that omit a critical factor are fallacious. They tell us nothing useful and are an pseudo exercise for the intellectually obese.

Yes indeed. The problem is that we have never experienced not having a "relief valve" before. When the USA peaked in the early 70's, a relief valve was provided by other parts of the globe and we never got to see an extended plateau in the USA production profile. Unfortunately, at this point, the world economy lacks a relief valve to suck from and we may see this plateau creep up in the next few years.

Unless of course should the dramatic happen:
"Mars, Bitches!"

Certainly the TOD people are definitely not "you folks". The key is to keep data open and fully exposed with public visibility. The problem with TBoone's Farm is that he has his own private stash of data (along with his cache of ripple) that you or I will never see. Therefore anything said by him is not to be trusted until it can be vetted by sleuths such as the TOD hordes.

Others have used models such as the Logistic, which I have severe heartburn with and discount for mathematical reasons.

Really, it is only in the past few years that some modicum of decent statistical analysis, models, and public data for the global view has become available.

Peak oil consumption is being experienced in some parts of the world TODAY - maybe not in your part of the world yet, if you are very lucky.

The real point of peak oil is that when it finally happens it will be the end of CHEAP oil - that oil has increased dramatically in price relative to most other things for 10 years now is irrefutable.

When peak crude oil occurs, as there are no adequate alternatives, we will need sources of synthetic oil - these (the difference between crude oil and total liquids) are increasing year by year also.

Weekly or monthly figures are very variable, wrong to some extent because of the way they are collected, and easy to manipulate - nobody takes much notice or loses their job if the figures are subsequently altered (lowered).

If you were a politician would you want people to suddenly correlate peak oil (indicated by the record price of oil) with the current financial mess, or would you put a few well placed figures into the statistical system to make it look like we are good to party on ... so spend, spend, spend. That is something a 'plunge protection team' (if it existed!) could do at almost no cost.

Franz - that was damn funny!

Seriously though, in my opinion 90% of the wrangling on this thread and other conversations around the planet on this topic are about 'being right'. My Dad is tougher than your Dad, etc.(edit -you are absolutely right about confirmation bias - I wrote about that here and in a comment here).

But in the grand scheme of things, the cheap energy era is either over, or close to it. If we continue to increase production up to 90 mbpd that only is a 'good thing' if a)it frees up more energy to society than the 86mbpd did, b)it does so at a lower cost c)it does so without 'borrowing' from the environment and most importantly, d)we find better ways to use the energy other than the current consumptive trajectory which externalizes costs, raises the GINI coefficient, and is not contributing to real progess (a la Genuine Progress Indicator or some measure other than GDP or DJIA)

From the report:

Approximately 87% of world liquids production in 2006 came from
conventional crude oil including lease condensates. The remaining
share of 13% was produced by other unconventional sources.
In absolute amounts unconventional production has increased
steadily, from 4 million b/d at the end of the 1970’s, to approximately
11 mb/d in 2006 excluding lease condensates.

I think T. Boone Pickens was right.

To fill the roughly 100-liter (26-gallon) tank of an SUV, an ethanol producer has to process about a quarter of a ton of wheat.

No wheat? ... no bread? ... no problem! ... the economists say we can use 'cake' ... whatever that is!

Wheat is a grass, we eat it's seed! We can use the rest of the plant for fuel. It's not either fuel or food, it's food and leftover waste as fuel. Increasing ethanol production would increase food production also.
Animal fats, non-eatable parts of corn and wheat plants, can all be used as fuel without reducing food production, and would otherwise be waste products.

There is a certain amount of perspective lacking on the part of those who said "Aha! production went up, another false prediction for peak oil". First of all, we have gone from a situation where there were millions of barrels a day of excess capacity to hundreds of thousands to an obvious supply deficit --even if production really increased, it is doubtful that it is meeting demand at this point. Secondly, insofar, as oil supply barely meets demand, it only does at a terrible cost --exporters such as Nigeria only do so because a large part of their people remain without electricity or running water. The moment any one of several west African oil exporters approaches, say, Mexican living standards, the world will be short several million barrels of oil a day. Our situation is so desperate that we can only fuel our cars by keeping millions of people (who should be consuming their own oil) in the dark. Lastly, everywhere from Pakistan to China, we are seeing how impossible trade-offs between food and fuel are leading to blackouts, unheated homes, transport bottlenecks and empty store shelves. I live in Asia where oil's increasing scarcity is already destroying fragile supply chains. Whether we are in an undulating peak or decline is irrelevant --the world has a very, very big problem on its hands.