 | World Oil Forecasts Including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE - Update Feb 2008 | The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: February 18, 2008 |  |
303 comments on Peak Oil, IHS Data and The Broken Clock
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Still others like Duncan and Youngquist performed analyses using 1999 data showing 2007 to be the peak year - whether that is ultimately right or not given the current circumstances its alot closer than the cornucopian camp was in 1998-9 when the IEA still used demand forecast for oil to create their supply estimates...
At that same website, we find that Duncan also performed analyses showing worldwide permanent electric blackouts in 2007:
Source
I think the readers of this site deserve something better than filtered one-sided information. You're cherry picking the successes, and conveniently dumping the failures down the memory hole. It's a form of polemics/deceit, not a basis for honest discussion.
The people at CERA predict oil production for a living, Kunstler and the like do it as a hobby.
Two men make a prediction about my health at different times, and each turns out to be wrong. One is a doctor, the other is a former boy scout who took lots of first aid classes. Which one should I have the most scorn for?
you're kiddin, right? Kunstler is a teacher and teaches his ideology to his students. If that is not "professional", then I wonder how incompetent he is, daring to teach such "hobbyistic" stupiddity and horror to the kids as some kind of an atheist form of apocalypse, an atheist version of coming hell.
Can we distinguish between the predictions of Petroleum Geologists themselves and those who have taken one set of predictions or another to then make judgements about future practices?
Kunstler is a journalist, and a number of other PO figures mentioned are also not geologists. They have made a choice to believe the analysis of one set of geological predictions, much, for example, as those who run the US government have chosen to believe another (manifestly). In fact, nearly everyone in the rich world has chosen to believe one set of predictions or another, whether cornucopian (most) or depletionist (a growing number). We prove those beliefs when we live our lives as though the party is going to end or continue.
But saying that Kunstler, or George W. Bush or JimBob down at the Diner have chosen to make larger societal predictions based on geological analysis was inaccurate in their predictions about petroleum geology is ridiculous - they don't make any. The predicate their assumptions on one set of scientists or another, and postulate from there. But that's not the same thing as comparing two sets of scientists of similar qualifications and comparing *their* analysis.
So anyone who attempts to bring popular writers into the mix and point to them as "inaccurate" is simply raising a distracting red herring, and not a very compelling one.
Sharon
That's false. If Kunstler is a journalist, he is an incompetent one. He doesn't "predicate [his] assumptions on one set of scientists or another, and postulate from there", he simply has dictated that the end is nigh, and only thereafter he goes on to chose his preferred method of how it gonna happen, nitpicking the worst of the worst from his own set of choices...
But then again, who cares?
Wrong, luisdias. Kunstler is a muckraker, not an oil analyst, stock market analyst, or even a teacher. There is a long tradition of muckraking in the U.S., and he is brilliant at it. He has probably done more than anyone else to get info out to the masses about peak oil, and he's definitely more right than wrong on this issue.
Not only that, but he's an incredibly entertaining writer.
Exactly. He's an incredibly perceptive intellectual in the best tradition of American writing. I like to read his rants out loud to the family.
With respect to the Olduvai Gorge thing, the daily blog I put together does seem to suggest that there are some major energy issues throughout the world: systemic problems related to economic growth (China, South Africa), political problems, and tactical issues (like today's Aleutian islands story). Regardless of the reason, they suggest a world balanced on an energy "knife edge" (and that's taken from a story today from New Zealand where a dry spell has seriously compromised hydro power).
I don't think Duncan is too far off and I would suggest that there are, right now, sustained blackouts in many areas of the world.
So he is not a teacher. Who fired him? You?
And there's the obvious question hanging: why is a "muckraker" really needed?
If he is nothing than entertainment, though, then you've just put the sad fellow under the same bag as his long time nemesis, nascar and superbowl. How ironic!
Are you serious? Given the endless stream of happy talk from the Iron Triangle (not to mention people like you), we have a desperate need for people to rake through the muck to try to get a glimpse of what is really going on.
But what Kunstler really is is a prophet, in the old Biblical sense of the word. And the thing about prophets is that they only have to be right once to be vindicated. And it is waaaay to early to say Kunstler has been wrong. Whereas the anti-phrophets need to be right continually for years.
That's just the nature of the of predicting discontinuities. It is nearly impossible to predict the extact time of a discontinuity, even though it is possible to predict that a discontinuity will occur. People who predict them are basically right if the discontinuity occurs, even if they miss the exact date.
TPTB, the happy talkers, the optimists are always caught with their pants down when the discontinuities hit. It is because they can't imagine anything but BAU, or they are so invested in the status quo that they'll defend it to their (perhaps literal) dying days.
Kunstler is a catalyst that got many of us thinking about peak oil, its consequences, and the appropriate response to it.
Kunstler generally takes the view that it is a mistake to believe that all the variously touted technologies like hydrogen cars, etc. are going to get us out of this mess. He may be wrong but that view certainly must be respected and dealt with. Yes, he is entertaining but a little entertainment goes a long way to gets people's attention and makes things a bit more interesting. Entertainment is often a necesssary ingredient to invoke discussion, thought, and even action.
Regardless of one's view of Kunstler, most people here would acknowledge that a rational society should be planning and acting now based upon the reasonable conclusion that we will not be able simply carry on before. What outrages Kunstler and me, for that matter, is that people and governments won't at least plan based upon a scenario that says we are going to have a lot less oil in the future than we have now, hardly an outrageous assumption. And, instead of simply assuming technology will save us, a rational planning exercise would include the assumption that technology might help and other energy sources might help but maybe we ought to consider a change in our lifestyles, our housing patterns, and the way we get around.
Perhaps we won't see the end of suburbia but that doesn't mean that suburbs and cities shouldn't be planning how they are going to survive and prosper based on very different circumstances.
There is a town near me that is almost completely dependent upon tourists and long distance commuters for its existence. Almost every decision is about how they get more money from more tourists who must come a long way by automobile to get here. Their vision of the future doesn't even acknowledge the possibility that happy motoring will either end or be cut way back. I am part of a group that is trying to raise consciousness and cause change. Boring discussions about the future of peak oil doesn't really cut it. We need people like Kunstler to get people's attention. For various reasons, the grass roots are starting to get it even if the town politicos and real estate developers are still making their plans based upon $2.00 gasoline.
I've no idea what Kunstler does for a living, I just know that it's not forecasting oil production. But if you read what he writes you'll see that it's generally hysterical. After September 11th he wanted to drive the populations out of and destroy the cities of Damascus, Baghdad, Kabul, Tripoli and so on. When Pol Pot drove people out of the cities into the countryside we called it a "crime against humanity" and in fact "genocide". Now, everyone gets upset and says crazy things from time to time - but Kunstler has never recanted his advocacy for genocide.
So if you take him seriously then you really need to widen your range of reading.
The key issue is that when someone does something for a living, they're held to higher standards than when someone does not. I'm a chef these days - you expect decent food from me. If I kept giving you burned beans on toast you'd be more annoyed than if your buddy Joe the mechanic did it.
Kunstler majored in Theater at college and has no formal training in the fields in which he prognosticates.
Sometimes I wonder if Kunstler's rants are just that- theater.
Did you read Nate's response?
This post was a response to CERA's statement that Peak Oilers don't have the data to support their claims.
I'm happy to hear the other side of the argument - but we never seem to get evidence from the Cornucopians, just trolling.
Ya know, I would really like for CERA to be correct this time, as the predictions here from Nate have given me some nights of poor sleep. If wishing was profitable I would continue doing that.
Unfortunately I see around me the raw facts that everything requires energy, and that the prices of everything that requires energy is going higher.
Let me know when I should expect the price of fertilizer to come down.
The Oil Drum has been pretty accurate in its predictions.
Well then, what's the current TOD prediction for supply and price over the next 5 years? We can't expect policy makers to make decisions based on the TOD forecast if TOD doesn't actually have an explicit forecast. You guys are bristling with confidence. Get off the pot, and post the TOD forecast on the sidebar, where policy makers can make use of it.
JD,
CERA is a mouthpiece for Oil companies. CERA will say whatever it takes to keep alternative sources from coming online. Peak oil is obviously here. We have had 3 years of record setting prices and conventional crude extraction has not increased. There have been plenty of forecasts published on this site but I am guessing you know that.
That has started to happen, according to Tom Whipple's Jan. 17 column in the Falls Church paper that goes out to Washington, D.C. bureaucrats:
The Peak Oil Crisis: We Are Starting To Dim
I would like to know if some satellites regularly measure the amount of artificial illumination generated on Earth, and if the measurements have started to show a net decline.
In one sense Duncan's prediction was right, he just got the flow of blackouts backward. Countries like Nepal, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, etc are experiencing blackouts due to unaffordability of fuel. Many TOD posts have consistently predicted the worst aspects of Peak Oil will strike the poor first and as prices rise more and more nations will go down. It is also needs to be kept in mind that Duncan was writing at a time when rolling blackouts due to Enron's criminality was at its height in California.
Ummm: I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think the blackouts in Zimbabwe are peak-oil related.
Well, they're related to unaffordability of fuel, and presumably on the downside of the oil production curve fuel will become less affordable, so...
Peak oil means the end of cheap oil for 'net importing' countries - some people won't be able to afford it - for whatever reason.
Zimbabwe, as an extreme current example, would be able to afford more oil if it were still $10 a barrel.
The effects of peak oil won't be evenly felt, some countries will do very well out of it for quite some time to come.
The people with the most to fear economically from peak oil are those who import a lot of it and import ~100% of their needs - most European states are in this vunerable category (or very soon will be).
Most countrys of the world now fall into the category of net-importing.
In Australia we pay world parity pricing even for our own oil so it doesn't really make muh difference whether we are net importers or not.
No, you pay what the local market will bear - which may or may not be the 'world' price, and also which may or may not make a profit in the short term for the people supplying whatever part of a barrel of crude consumers actually buy.
Also, it does matter if you are importing most of the oil that you consume since you must export (a lot of) something else to pay for it.
92 Regions and Territories now experiencing energy challenges.
See: http://energyshortage.blogspot.com/
talk about moving goalposts - are you kidding with the blackout thing? Nate is discussing CERA's terrible record of predicting OIL prices based on their "top secret, the rest-of-you-don't-have-it" data - not electricity generation.
your point is useless - it's like saying that Duncan predicted peak oil just fine, but he blew it on his Superbowl pick - who cares (in the context of THIS thread) about Duncan's prediction of electrical blackouts?
and since you bring it up - have you noticed the problems South Africa's mines are having with blackouts? - and the effects on the worldwide cost of platinum? So Duncan didn't identify the location correctly, but interestingly enough, Africa IS experiencing blackouts increasingly - as are other nations around the world - but this is just an aside - let's come back to the point -which is, despite a huge increase in the price of oil, the peak of crude production so far is May 2005 - so either the market has completely stopped working or something else is going on - and CERA tells us everything is fine and the price will drop any day now with lots and lots of cheap oil on the way?
Sorry to be tardy, and I've only skimmed the comments, but there's one highly relevant fact that doesn't seem to be recognized: Actually we, the Peak Oil concerned, do have the IHS data!
Before referring to details, it may be useful to set this fact into relief by means of the following quotes from the discussion:
"The only thing that's relevant is our data," Jerre Stead, chief executive officer at Englewood, Colorado-based IHS, said today in an interview in Houston. Believers in the so-called Peal Oil theory "don't have our data". (Bloomberg 2/13/2007)
"Well right off the bat I should point out, with a track record like the one above, I'm not sure we want the data that IHS refers to" (Nate Hagens)
"Nate is discussing CERA's terrible record of predicting OIL prices based on their "top secret, the rest-of-you-don't-have-it" data" (MacDuff)
“Are Yergin, Russia, OPEC, et al, ready to open their databases to all interested parties?” (Bob Shaw)
“I am still to see a comprehensive data report about the state of oil fields around the world…” (Luis Dias)
“I imagine I am being very naive but if Cera can make this statement, Believers in the so-called Peal Oil theory "don't have our data" then they should make that data available, otherwise they could well be using chicken entrails in their auguries much as a former, collapsed, civilization made it's forecasts.”
(ChrystalRadio)
The fact is that an evidently very knowledgeable industry professional has done a Daniel Ellsberg-like service by putting much of the IHS data into the public domain - over at the InvestorVillage, Clayton Williams Energy Inc., Message Board - along with his critical evaluations.
In "OPEC reserves and revised estimates IMO," (Msg. # 56151, 5/7/2007) the source refers by number to twelve previous country-by-country posts, giving IHS field-by-field data on the 144 oil fields which have accounted for 75.5 percent of OPEC's cumulative production. An additional post referred to reviews specifically the case of Shaybah and how its alleged reserves have escalated enormously over the years.
Messages 74013 and 74021 (9/20/2007) review the data for the 50 largest natural gas fields, as ranked by IHS:
Very big gas field part 1
Very big gas fields part 2
Message # 71577 introduces the gas field posts and mentions his previous posts on IHS OPEC and Russian oil fields data. I have not been able to locate the Russian posts, however, since I don't know the subject heading or message numbers. Anyone out there able to come by them?
Take that, Jerre Stead!
Duncan updated his prediction since 2001.
http://moralequivalentofwar.wordpress.com/2007/02/10/olduvai-theory-upda...
You are cherry picking the failures.