DrumBeat: December 18, 2006
Posted by threadbot on December 18, 2006 - 9:55am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Suburban sprawl may create heavier kids
Using data from a national health survey, researchers found that teenagers living in sprawling suburbs were more than twice as likely to be overweight as teens in more compact urban areas.The findings echo those of a 2003 study by the same researchers that focused on U.S. adults. The researchers believe the same factors may be driving the link between suburban living and teenagers' weight -- the major one being reliance on cars.
How do we cope with those 100 million more people?
A worldwide energy crisis could paralyze the economy of America's heavily oil-dependent metro regions. Hundreds of new coal-burning, greenhouse gas-emitting power plants are proposed in this country, as well as in India and China. Global warming threatens both our coastlines and the snow packs that provide the West's water. "Economically, environmentally, we have to figure out how to compete with but also collaborate with the world, in transformative ways," said one developer at the ULI conference.
Venezuela, Oil Producers Buy More Euros as Dollar, Oil Slump
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is directing a growing share of the country's oil profits into euros as the dollar and crude prices fall.The dollar, down 9.4 percent against the euro this year, may face more pressure in 2007 because Venezuela and oil producers from the United Arab Emirates to Indonesia plan to funnel more money into the single European currency.
The Shah Deniz development in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian becomes one of the world's largest producing gas fields on December 15th.
Fog lifts, lets oil ships into some US Gulf ports
There were several hours of clear sailing Saturday in Houston but fog was expected to return overnight and continue into Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Liquid coal: A cheaper, cleaner 21st century fuel?
Major coal mining companies in the United States, which has more coal reserves than Saudi Arabia has oil, are investing in ways to develop fuels derived from carbon.
Top BP exec said to slam company
Accuses the firm of squeezing profits and ignoring maintenance costs too long, as search for new CEO gets underway - report.
Oil crisis boon for sisal Industry
A sisal consultant in the Parastatal Sector Reform Commission (PSRC), Mr J. J. Ngelime, told the 'Daily News' in Dar es Salaam yesterday that world manufacturers using fibre for various reasons now prefer sisal to synthetic fibre, because of unreliable oil supplies in the world.
China unlikely to meet energy efficiency goal
China will fail to meet the target of reducing energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 4 percent this year, Xinhua said. Energy consumption per unit of GDP actually increased by 0.8 percent in the first half of the year and indexes for major pollutants have continued to rise, it said.
Labour slips up on length of oil reserves
LABOUR has been accused of misleading the public in the debate over independence after one of its own policy documents revealed North Sea oil reserves will not run out for “at least 30 years”.While the party has claimed publicly that an independent Scotland would face economic catastrophe because of dwindling oil reserves, the internal Labour document says the industry will continue to flourish for decades to come.
Fred Smith on Energy Independence: The FedEx founder and chairman is a dedicated advocate of free markets—except when it comes to energy, which he believes requires government intervention
Smith believes so strongly that more must be done to secure U.S. energy independence that he became co-chairman of the Washington-based Energy Security Leadership Council, along with General P.X. Kelley (Ret.), former Marine Corps commandant and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This month, the council put out a 64-page report detailing what it thinks should be done. Among the proposals: higher, though more flexible, standards for vehicle fuel efficiency; incentives to manufacture hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles in the U.S.; funding for research on alternative fuels; and government permission for energy companies to drill for oil in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf.
Iraq: 60 oil fields waiting to be developed
Iraq, holder of the world's third-largest oil reserves, will offer contracts to develop 60 oil fields, in several batches, starting next year, said Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Sharistani. Only 20 of Iraq's 80 discovered oilfields are in production, Mr. Sharistani said.
Colorado May Limit Oil and Gas Emissions
DENVER - Facing federal pressure over worsening air pollution, a state air quality commission on Sunday approved its first-ever statewide emissions controls on the booming oil and gas industry.
The big stakes-and bubbling tensions-over who will control Iraq's oil capital.
New type of battery pushed for hybrid cars
Tesco to run fleet on green fuel
Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain, has announced plans to run three quarters of its delivery fleet on biodiesel from January next year.
Airlines' profits set to soar with climate measures
Airlines stand to pocket up to £2.7 billion (€4bn) in windfall profits from inclusion in the EU emissions-trading scheme, according to a study published by the IPPR on 18 December 2006.
Competitors draining Gulf of deepwater rigs
After hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts in 2005, oil and gas drilling production was greatly disrupted despite just 113 of the more than 4,000 platforms being destroyed in the Gulf of Mexico.But the harshest long-term threat to oil and gas production in Gulf waters now is the dwindling drilling equipment supply.
Many jack-up and deepwater rigs, the massive mobile platforms and ships that drill for oil and gas in deepwater, are leaving the Gulf of Mexico for more lucrative jobs elsewhere, said David Dismukes, associate director of Louisiana State University Center for Entergy Studies.
The energy crisis has received just the usual knee-jerk response, with expensive thermal generation and almost endless utopian promises of dam construction at Bujagali and Karuma.
...Argentine oil production has been declining to September, “a logical” consequence of the “exhaustion of fields,” he said, adding that no major increase in production is foreseen in the near future. ...The General Manager quantifying the amount into gold production indicated that Newmont could not meet its target of 250,000 ounces, but only produced 2000 since it first poured its first gold in July this year. The value of 200,000 ounces was $120 million with the government taking 3% out the total amount.OSLO, Norway - Norwegian oil companies Statoil ASA and Norsk Hydro ASA announced plans Monday to merge their offshore oil and natural gas units in a deal they said would create the world's largest offshore oil operator.
OPEC sees weaker oil market next year
LONDON - OPEC on Monday said the fundamentals of the world oil market show signs of weakening in 2007 as economic growth slows and supply from non-OPEC countries rises faster than global demand.
100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil
Uganda: Why can’t we respond wisely to crisis?
UGANDA is one country that will make any critical mind spin in frustration. Parliament is proposing the purchase of Japanese monster cars at a cost of sh20b ‘because our roads are bad’ as Prof. Apolo Nsibambi justified sometime back.
Africans eye biofuels to cut Opec price burden
Even before world oil prices rose again after Opec members pledged a production cut last Thursday, poor countries were looking to the hardy Jatropha bush to counter the crippling impact of energy costs that some compare to the ravages of HIV/AIDS.
Indonesia: Oil Production to Continue Decreasing Until 2009
Jakarta: The energy crisis still threatens Indonesia because it is estimated that the decrease in national crude oil and natural gas production will continue until 2009.
Argentina facing severe energy shortage
López Anadón also said that the 2001-2002 crisis led to widespread breach of contracts in the energy sector, changes of regulations, new taxes on exports, a strong devaluation of the peso and a distortion of relative prices of different fuels.
Life is impossible without energy. The life of a contemporary person - even more so. To consume power, one should produce it. Traditional resources for that are unfortunately exhaustible, but in order to pass on to alternative energy, a lot of problems should be solved. Has the energy crisis begun? If so - what should be done about it, if not – how should we get ready for it?
Ghana: Newmont loses $30 million due to power crisis
NEWMONT GOLD Ghana Ltd (NGGL) in an interview with The Chronicle, has disclosed that the company has lost $30 million as a result of the energy crisis currently facing the nation.
Connecticut: Democrats’ promises on energy come late
Democratic state legislative leaders have been in a tizzy lately over impending electricity rate increases, demanding that state regulators delay action long enough for the General Assembly to find a solution.
Regarding 2, nobody is an expert on the entire oil industry. During my career I have worked in Research and Development and Downstream. Someone asked what Downstream means, and this is refining - taking the oil and turning it into gasoline. You can spend a career becoming an expert in 1 very small area of refining, such as how to run a catalytic cracker. Upstream, where they take oil and gas from the ground, is an entirely different area. I don't personally know anyone that is an expert in both Downstream and Upstream. I am sure they exist, but most people spend their career in one area or the other. I am crossing over from Downstream to Upstream with my move to Scotland, but I know that I will be on a steep learning curve. And despite the claim of one of my attackers, I have never presented myself as an Upstream expert. That will change over time, but right now I am trying to learn, which is what TOD is for.
Regarding 1 above, many of the responses were of the nature "Those numbers can't be right." Of course the numbers were right, but based on this sort of reaction, it was definitely worth sharing the information because a lot of people didn't know. Here is the part of the e-mail I want to share:
Remember, there are a lot of new people on this site. Reserves growth was news to this person, as it was news to others. (Despite what some of my other critics said, it wasn't the reserves growth that was surprising to me; it was the difference between how far we drew our reserves down versus how much we produced).
In conclusion, I would call for a little more civility. One of the editors expressed concern to me over some of the reactions to my post. I was also quite surprised at the rancor it unleashed within some. But such reactions will drive some viewers from here, and it will cause others not to post. So, think about that, and ask yourself if you would say such things to someone sitting across from you at a table.
Cheers, Robert
BTW - which mountain were you up on? :-)
Francois
I am in the mountains directly west of Colorado Springs, near Pike's Peak. On Saturday, we climbed Mt. Arthur, and I hope my pictures turn out well. I am flying back to Montana this evening, and I should have a pair of posts in the queue right after that. I think my conversations over the past few days with my host will spark some discussion here.
It might be instructive to take a look at the usenet newsgroup "sci.physics" some time. It once had a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio and was often informative. Over time, it attracted a great number of quirky posters and some real lunatics--to the point where it often seems to contain little more than bizarre theories and flame wars. And that's over such controversies as relativity and quantum mechanics. If (when?) people become widely and deeply concerned about peak oil--so that it really threatens their worldview--I'm afraid EVERYTHING we've seen so far on TOD will seem quaintly genteel and polite.
Mark Folsom
This may be an egaltarian view, but if/when Peak Oil becomes mainstream, the only real solution will be to cut off membership at somepoint, with new viewers only allowed a read only role at the site. Kitco had to do this with their old gold forum. Either that or admins will have to resort to heavy moderation.
Just my opinion - from 14+ years on the net.
Garth
I strongly support the challenging of arguments. By the same token, I strongly condemn attacking posters. I have no problem defending arguments. I should not be required to defend myself as a person though.
The real problem is that the information presented on TOD challenges people's world view. With a profound shortage of cheap, available energy "free market capitalism" founders by the roadside like a car thats out of gas. We're all going to be more impoverished by the standards of 20th Century materialism. Thats not the same as being made poor-we can change a lot by changing the Ugly American view of wealth. This view has been foisted on us by the media in the control of the corporations, and they cannot see how they can profit and remain in control if we follow the obvious plan of WT's to Economise, Localise, Produce.
When somebody challenges a person's worldview they commonly attack the person challenging the view even if they are correct. I'm 55 and remember the hatefulness of the establishment attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King, or anyone who advocated peace. Look at how they still trash-mouth Jane Fonda and others. So get ready, its going to get worse Somehow though Robert, I think you are obstinate enough to take it and even profit from the experience.
I noted in a comment yesterday that there are no credentialed experts on Peak Oil, its still in the realm of self-educated amateurs as almost all creative science is until many years have passed. Darwin didn't have a doctorate in evolutionary biology, Einstein in Physics, Pythagoris in Math, and Marx in Economics. Throwing up a lack of credentials is an ad hominem attack. Your work is your credential, and critics lack that credential.
I did find it interesting that someone I have never heard of launched a personal attack on so many people at once. Makes you wonder if it was calculated to make the targets conclude that posting is simply not worth the hassle.
The other possibility is that people like that don't need to be paid, they're just suckers and toadies. I was at an Iraq War-Social Security "reform" protest the summer before last at an UTMB Auditorium. They flew in Bush and Tom DeLay and hustled them in an entrance which was blocked off three blocks away from the protest, and bussed in a bunch of "counter-protesters from a school 100 miles away-Sam Houston State, who got equal time in spite of our outnumbering them ten to one. These fools were'nt paid, at least in any coin that I would consider valuable. I did tell the leader that if he was so important, how come he wasn't inside with Bush and DeLay. And I'm sure my photo is in some Commie Rat file in Washington right now, possibly matched up with my Viet Nam era files.
This is how I expect we will be treated. Vilified and Ignored until simple geological facts trump their theories. Even then we won't ever be trusted by the Establishment, any more than old SDS folks have been trusted by them 30 years after the end of Civil Rights and Viet Nam. Its just too radical.
I just sure hope I'm being needlessly paranoid.
My lawyer, through a FOIA request, has found my name in a DOD "watch list" database. I'm also on a California National Guard list, according to a friend in the Guard. Recently some government entity crudely attempted to infiltrate an peace organization of which I am a member.
Be aware, be careful, but don't be afraid.
Maybe they just like you alot. I would not be paranoid that your part of some watch list. As long as you don't plan to commit violent acts (ie terrorism, overthrow the gov't), you're in no danager. Personally, I do hope they read and learn from our discussions.
FWIW, a couple years ago, the W administration generated a database of US citizens "likely to be terrorist risks", and who were to be barred from boarding commercial airliners at the gate. Shortly after, the Minnesota StarTribune (the dominant paper in MN) carried a story or two about a spate of elderly people from northern MN barred from boarding airliners under this provision. The barred passengers were never informed how they got on the list. These elders were all US born locals, of Scandinavian (mostly Finnish) extraction. The journalistic spin was to treat it as some light comedy about beaurocratic stupidity.
But these people were young adults during the communist labor movement in nothern Minnesota in the 1930's-50's. I wonder if these elders were bona fide communist organizers in their heyday, and if that was why the W regime put their names in a terrosist data base.
Anybody know any more about this?
Isn't it ridiculous! 40 odd years after the fact the Powers that be still have the names and photographs of the beginning of the counter culture in Texas!
I concluded sometime about 1980 that I was suffering from pot and acid induced paranoia about those years. Then during the current round of protests against the war in Iraq I saw clones of the same spies going around snapping pictures again. Times had changed, the police were now helping the eccentric old folks across the street at protests insted of hitting us with night sticks. I love protests now not because they do much good, but because its old reunion time amoung us elderly hippies.
That same totalitarian mindset is stronger than ever. And these are the people who are what Jeffrey calls the Iron Triangle. And we can laugh about it all we want, but somewhere in Washington are 8 1/2" X 14" manilla files full of photographs with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of each one describing our good times in the Summer of Love and subversive involvement in Peak Oil.
We all now know there were no WMDs in Iraq and we know something of the process that imagined them there. It is exactly the same with domestic threats.
You have a file AMPOD. You might not recognize yourself in that file.
I have spent plenty of time dealing with electric utilities and a lot of bad numbers which are used start conversations. My whole point in pointing to Mr. Rapier's post and I've only commented on two of them, is the use of claiming energy expertise as being an oil company employee and I reject that totally, he make that knowledge known amply.
I've never taken a personal shot at Mr. Rapier, I have pointed out on several occasions I don't accept being an employee of an oil company as any conclusive evidence on any matter. I thought yesterday's post in serious bad form in bold.
I don't in anyway mean to be deliberately disruptive or argue to argue, but it'd be nice at some point if people are taken to point on issue they simply admit it, instead of claiming personal attack.
That's not true. In fact, you didn't actually address the facts of my post. You simply argued that this was common knowledge, borderline disinformation, and that you were shocked that the editors allowed it. You falsely claimed that I have claimed expertise in this area. Those ARE personal shots. You wrote this lie:
I've learned a lot of things on this site and its a very important issue, people deserve to be able get the best information possible and not "listen to me I'm oil company employee," and you do that all the time.
This one:
Well don't play an "expert" when you're not
This:
Putting your discovery about how reserves work using the US against the Saud's numbers is to say the least garbage, I'm surprised the editors allow this.
This:
But I think to explain to people how reserves numbers work or don't this post is somewhat irresponsible.
Those are personal attacks fellow. You didn't ever challenge anything in the post. Instead, you took the opportunity to take numerous personal shots at me.
My attack yesterday was definitely a bit personal. And although I regret my incivility, I don't regret the substance.
If you are not an expert on upstream issues, I can't see why you are allowed to publish articles on them. And I can't see why you allow yourself to do it.
Some of us in the cheap seats are going to heckle those who don't know their limits. Make'em pay for wasting our time.
Just go back to your day job, dude, til you get up to speed.
You know, you are smart kid. Someday you'll be worth listening to on world energy issues beyond your narrow areas of expertise. But not yet.
Perhaps you don't understand that with very few exceptions, there are no actual experts here. The posters write on topics of interest, and then discussion is generated. Most of the staff is not actually in the energy business.
Someday you'll be worth listening to on world energy issues beyond your narrow areas of expertise. But not yet.
Given the number of people who actually learned something from what I wrote, I will discount your opinion there.
Q.E.D. That is exactly the admission I was after all along. And now it comes directly from a senior contributor.
Many of the articles on this site hereby discounted.
From now on, I'm here mainly for Leanan's very helpful Drum Beat links (and those provided by others)
Funny thing is that CERA has made the point on more than one occasion that 'peakists' simply were not up to speed on the complexities of reserve growth or the industry in general.
Reluctantly, I am forced to concur that they got that right.
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Funny thing is that CERA has made the point on more than one occasion that 'peakists' simply were not up to speed on the complexities of reserve growth or the industry in general.
Reluctantly, I am forced to concur that they got that right.
Things now become a bit more clear to me.
Given that you were responsible for instigating the personal attacks (Brutus just followed your lead) let's talk about the problem here - one of which seems to be your expectations.
One problem with TOD that I often see is that posters are very tentative about posting - precisely because of the kind of reaction my essay prompted from you. I get e-mails all the time from people saying they don't feel like they have the knowledge to post. That's really tragic, in my opinion. But if we limited discussion to those who are bona fide experts - in that this is what they do for a living - maybe a dozen of us would be posting here. You wouldn't. Brutus wouldn't. Journalists certainly wouldn't have much they could write about.
If I want to learn about solar power, a good way to do this would be to research and post an essay on solar power. That would generate some good discussion, and help further knowledge on the issue. That is the purpose of TOD. The purpose is not for experts to spoon feed you your knowledge, which seems to be what you want.
Despite your comments, my areas of expertise are not narrow. I have a broad refining background, lots of biofuels experience, and I have run a GTL lab. In the energy business, that is pretty broad, and now I am transferring into upstream. I don't know what your expectations of expertise actually are, but there aren't many around here that have worked in so many different areas. I can guarantee you nobody at CERA has.
What you seem to be interested in doing is data mining. You are only looking for things that reinforce your POV. So, you look at my essay - which generated a lot of useful discussion and did in fact educate some people - and say "Aha, you guys are amateurs. I discount all of the articles here." But it seems that you don't in fact apply the same standards to CERA. The folks who work there mostly wouldn't meet the definition of "expert."
I guess the bottom line is that you and I seem to have different standards of what constitutes appropriate behavior. If someone posted something that I thought was common knowledge, or asked a "dumb" question, I certainly wouldn't respond to them in the way you responded to me. You were a jerk. I view the purpose here as one of sharing knowledge and learning. Chastising someone for posting something that you believe was common knowledge - especially given the fact that many people were surprised by the information - is not the way to foster open discussion.
Now just to show you this isn't personal, let's talk a little about reserves and how they do or don't work.
1)The actual process of reserve counting is controversial and there's been plenty of papers written about how it's done. Here's one for example: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/1997/intricate_puzzle_reserves_growth/ m07fa.pdf but let's not get into that.
2)Let's talk about the question of the discovery rates, because no matter how many reserves we supposedly have and how that is accounted, the bigger question is how those reserves are "replaced." Now if you know anything about the oil industry Robert, you know the reserves are constantly being depleted and they're being replaced by new discoveries. Gee! That's how the oil industry has worked, for what, 150 years?
Now here comes Robert Rapier, employee of Chevron(?) and he discovers this is how the oil industry works and he posts as it a major surprise and oh he gets offended that people take him to task for it and instead of owning up to it, he claims he's being attacked personally - boo-hoo.
And on top of it, you try and tie this to some understanding of Saudi Reserves, when a guy like Matt Simmons writes a whole book on the topic, and you want to throw this out as new. Great.
I have asked for examples several times now, but I haven't gotten them. You simply aren't telling the truth about that. There are some things I know as an oil company employee that I sometimes share. I have never, ever said "believe me because I am an oil company employee." That just not true. But I go out of my way to help people with information, and I never, EVER spread disinformation. I also often say "I don't know."
You write for a blog that purports to talk about peak oil and then you write a post that shows you're completely clueless(and that's not personal) about how the oil industry accounts reserves.
This is why your reponses are so incredibly dishonest. I know how reserves work. It was the magnitude of the difference that surprised me (and many others). So, when I bring this up in relation to Saudi, lots of posters say "Oh, but that's not the case with Saudi." So, does the oil industry account for reserve in this way, or was the U.S. a special exception? That's the whole freaking point. Your attacks were merely to suggest that I don't know how reserves are accounted for, when that was not the case (and I have pointed this out several times).
he gets offended that people take him to task for it and instead of owning up to it
Yet what you "took me to task for" were false pretenses. I understand how reserves work. But many people were surprised that we have pulled our reserves down by 6 billion barrels while producing 59 billion barrels. If we had produced 10 or 15 million barrels, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise. But I think you know that this was the issue. You are just using the other as the pretense for justifying your response.
And losing your anonymity should have to be part of the display of credentials such that they can be verified.
RR is not anonymous and states his credentials. So far as I know you have NOT.
If you elect to not do so then I don't see that you have any traction in regards to dissing his.
Since you are anomymous(I am as well for several reasons) its easy to flame someone but when it pivots on the technical expertise area or knowledge of the subject then if you need to shed that anonymity or lose all credibility.
What about it? Do you wish to play fairly or just whine.
This being a forum on the subect of oil I would like to see those credentials as they regards the subject..petrochemicals and the obtaining of such.
airdale-note airdale is anonymous but does not throw tech spears in an oil debate where he knows practically nothing
Can anybody summarize who attacked who over what? What/who are the competing factions?
But if its true, its fairly ironic that the person everyone calls the paid troll wasn't the one doing it, eh?
There is one point which I thought was obvious, but I don't think anyone made. Which is, that it costs money for oil companies to prove reserves. Even it only amounts to writing a report, someone has to write it. IOCs are not required to prove or otherwise all of their probable reserves, they only have to prove enough to demonstrate future growth potential and keep shareholders happy.
Therefore it makes sense that the IOCs maintain a "window" of proven reserves projecting a few decades forward, which gives rise to the anomaly of growing reserves.
The same point applies to NOCs, except that NOCs have less reason to spend money accounting for their reserves.
Company executives (Oil included) like slow and steady growth. That's how you maximize executive earning potential.
If I read this comment by an emailer it seems he is stating that others believe him to be an expert and yet he doesn't understand reserves . Further since you brought up the issue of reserves its makes him frustrated somehow. Because he was 'blindsided' perhaps? Is that your(RRs) fault. It appears you are being blamed for developing data and ideas that are causing him grief and he is blaming you for that.
The SOMEHOW is what I do not understand unless this emailer was posing as somewhat of an 'expert' and perhaps making flatout exclamatory statements that others were refuting due to his appearing to be an expert when he isn't.
Am I off base or not understanding his complaint?
It seems a bit convoluted to me.
I have noticed in business that its easy to be confrontational with someone you have never met. Once you meet them on a personal basis then you tend to not treat them in such a fashion. This is why I think tele-commuting is not all that it is reputed to be. The personal touch is missing and the mentoring is totally lost. The friendships never develop and we become more and more isolated, leading to confrontations that would have been worked out more amicably otherwise. I always liked training the new guys and helping them along. In fact it used to be part of our performance plan for staff programmers and team leaders,,way back. Back before it all went to hell in IT.
airdale
What that person was saying is that they are trying to learn about Peak Oil and energy issues, and they did not know about reserves growth. They learned something new. On the other hand, several posters in that thread went out of their way to suggest that "everyone" knows all about this and that this wasn't news (one even questioning why the editors would allow such a post). So, that is belittling to the newer poster who does not know it.
This is also what keeps a lot of new posters from posting. You often seen posts from people saying "I don't have much knowledge, but....." A person shouldn't have to make that qualification. This site is for learning. If someone asks me "What is Downstream?" and I reply with a belittling response, then that person may never post again.
Reserve Growth
The newcomer to the list you mentioned is not the only one who does not understand reserve growth. I find that many people, perhaps even most people even on this list misunderstand reserve growth. I just have a couple of things to say about that subject in hopes of clearing up some of the fog. And of course many will disagree with even this, the most simple of explanations.
First reserve growth has nothing to do with new discoveries. That is a completely different category. And I must note that much of the increase in US reserves that so shocked you, was not reserve growth at all but new discoveries, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reserve growth is nothing more than the correcting of previous underestimates of the size of a reservoir. Sometimes this underestimate has been deliberate, as with most publicly held companies. Other times this underestimate were due to the true lack of knowledge about the true size of the reservoir. Surely no one truly believes that reserves actually grow!
And this last point brings up something that most cornucopians completely ignore or deny. Reserves can be, and often are, overestimated. That is, you can have reserve shrinkage just about as easy as you can have reserve growth. Shell, a couple of years ago, announced shrinkage in their reserves of about 20 percent. But no one called it reserve shrinkage. Most thought Shell was somehow negligent in their responsibility to their shareholders. Actually it was because their Oman reserves were originally overestimated instead of underestimated.
And last but not least, the reserves of the Middle East, estimated to be almost 700 billion barrels. These reserves, in my opinion, are vastly overestimated. What we will have, in the coming years, will be reserve shrinkage instead of reserve growth. Oh, there will still be reserve growth in some parts of the world. But the reserve shrinkage coming out of the Middle East will dwarf any reserve growth in other parts of the world.
Ron Patterson
Are improvements in recovery technology incorporated into published reserve estimates?
Most of the new techology developed over the past decades was directed at improving extraction rates instead of maximizing recovery. In the cases of heavy water injection to maintain high extraction rates, the amount of economically recoverabl oil is reduced. Most of leading exporters targeted maximum extraction rate over maximumizing recovery. This is why many of us believe that decline rate will be much steeper than production increases during the first half of oil production.
Other than C02 injection, there is really no new recovery techniques that have been implemented in well over thirty years. And C02 injection is not practiced in enough places to really make any difference. Horizontal, Christmas tree wells are just a technique of putting many wells in one borehole. It simply increases the points from which oil can be drawn, much like Texas did with many vertical wells. And water and gas injection have been practiced for well over thirty years. In some places in Saudi Arabia, downhole electric pumps have been installed. But pumps over wellheads are obviously nothing new. It is just that slanted and horizontal wells must employ a different kind of pump. So what new techniques are you talking about?
And by the way, I posted a link a few days ago where Russia was complaining that Shell's over pumping of reservoirs there had lowered the recovery rate from 45 percent to 30 percent. That was probably an exaggeration but they are probably correct, over pumping does lower the percentage of oil that can be recovered. The point is, the percentage of oil recovered is not necessarily increasing, at least not everywhere.
Ron Patterson
Yes. At one time deepwater reserves could not be "booked" as the technology required to extract them had not yet been developed or proved.
In addition to such technical factors you can also have reserve growth due to economic considerations. We are presently seeing projects being greenlighted because they are economically justifiable at an assumed price of $30 a bbl when they were not justified at an assumed price of $20 a bbl.
Despite the above it is important to draw a distinction between "reserves" which are probability estimates of recoverable OOIP and production figures which reflect actual bbls recovered and available to the market. The oil on the market constrains price and your ability to afford your commute; the oil contained in a "reserve" constrains the ability of the reserve owner to justify a development decision.
Keep up the good work.
I think that the huge diference between 6gb and 57gb leaves many to wonder what or whom to trust. To me the numbers (6 vrs 57) are so out of whack it renders them meaningless. The message this implies at best is this is very muddy water or at worst ignore depleation rates completely. This may anger many who look to this site for answers. Also, if I were a anti PO conspirisy fan then your post would make a very good target because it could be viewed as being effective in creating "enough" doubt.
Obvious to anyone who cares to look and to any who lived during the 70's oil crisis this is very serious business.
I think it is very plausable that this site is being monitored as the economic implications are enourmous enough to pay someone to watch and also comment. IMO it is easy to look at content and question the senders motivations, I think you are going to suffer some base level of criticism because of this and the nature of your post accurate or not.
I just watched "Thank you for smoking" a very, very good movie. Points to the obvious motivation that money has whether we like it or not. You will get critics deservedly or no...
This is not a finger pointing post and I appologize in advance if it sounds that way. I find it interesting but not surprising that you have been getting so much flack.
Robert, in the big picture I come back to this - you can toss reserve growth and production above stated reserves out the window IMO. The US has been in decline and we are so very oil dependant on, and give our money to, people(countries) who may tolerate or worse hate us and act to harm us. I think the focus needs to be here and nowhere else, get us to move toward reducing our energy foot print in a big way. If we don't it will be that much worse later. So if you want to talk about reserve growth and production ammounts be my guest. If we are close to PO or nat gas or both then time is very very short for the task at hand.
IMO you need to go after the grossly, overly optimistic reports that are out there (plenty to choose from) and somehow get the time frame shorter and increase action. You seem to disagree with thier views as do many others and I think they need some anti-optimism thrust at them.
I wish you the best. I also hope for our collective future there emerges one stong clear voice that will rise above the noise and get the US moving.
Ron P.
"Surely no one truly believes that reserves actually grow!"
It is a bit of a misnomer "reserve growth". Sounds better than we really made an educated guess in the first place.
A Primer on Reserve Growth - part 1 of 3
This subject remains muddled, and I think at the core of the debate on Peak Oil.
I read your link above, and have tried to follow this, as I believe it is central. Simmons, until lately, had convinced me that the problem with reserves was inconsequential due to false data and deliberate manipulation of stated reserves.
In the thread above, the "discreptancy" is explained by implying it is not reserve growth (and any can understand that a finite quanity must remain finite) but that it is rather new discoveries we are viewing in the US, specifically the Gulf. This can be accepted, but the problem remains that, even accepting KSA exploration and discovery as complete, one has a hard time applying RR's look at the post 1980 US and the rest of the world. There's alot of room for doubt that worldwide discovery should remain inconsequential. XOM for starters keeps shouting this.
Rembrandt, who appears to include new discoveries within reserve growth, hones in on recovery factors. These, he feels, increase only rate of recovery, not actual quanity, and will be better illuminated with future, better, data. I don't quite see how it addresses RR's post, but then I could have missed something.
We are left then with WT's assertions to the primacy of the Texas-KSA relationship, and the facts that peaks have occured in the major oil fields and several world regions.
But the central question remains clouded by looking at the US long past peak and seeing over 20 years production with only 6 GB decline in reserves. It throws that peak's curve, or plateau, out to 2020 and beyond. I for one would really appreciate an in depth TOD look at the question of reserves, zeroing in on the apparent anamoly of the last 20 years of the US.
Thanks for your link above and any others you might provide.
well, it's pretty clear to me, RR looked at the US 1P reserves but they cannot be used to estimate reserve growth!
"It's because 1P reserves for the US were always grossely underestimated as you can see on the chart below. The red curve is what "true reserves" should look like. Reserve numbers in 1982 should have been around 135.42 Gb and not 28 Gb. In 2005, the logistic reserve is about 61.45 Gb which means that reserves have declined by 74 Gb and we have consumed nearly 72.77 Gb (CO+NGL) in the same time."
That was your post yesterday, which I missed, and coupled with the above, explains the position quite well. Thankyou.
Could you explain how the US has found enough oil over the past 24 years to offset all but 6 Gb of production, and from the GoM alone at that? Wasn't there supposed to only be 15 Gb there at most? I'm not attacking you directly, but I feel I must point out that if the US 'discover' this much oil in the most well explored country on the planet, what is stopping a similar ratio of discovery from happening in KSA?
Remember, our peak rate was very similar to KSA, and WT says that KSA must follow the same path that the US did...
Well, Hothgor and I agree on something.
To be precise, I think that KSA will follow the same path as Texas, which is now producing about 27% of its 1972 peak rate.
I think that the world will follow the same path as the Lower 48, which is now producing about 45% of its 1970 peak rate.
Interestingly enough, the average year over year decline for KSA crude + condensate has been about 4% so far.
And I must note that much of the increase in US reserves that so shocked you, was not reserve growth at all but new discoveries, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.
I said much! Do you understand what that term means? It has a totally different meaning than all!
Most ofhe offshore oil in Saudi Arabia is in very shallow water. From all the offshore platforms in the Safaniya field, you can actually see the bottom when the water is calm. I know because I have been there. And even their further offshore wells were all drilled with jackup rigs and the platforms all sit on the ocean floor. There are no tethered platforms in the Persian Gulf.
The vast majority of wells in the Gulf of Mexico are in much deeper water, though some do sit on the ocean floor. But platforms like Hungry Horse are floating platforms and are tethered to the ocean floor with giant anchors. Much of this oil has only recently been found and added to the US proven reserves.
There are no unexplored areas of the Persian Gulf. There are no areas on land, inside the Middle East oil triangle, in Saudi Arabia that are unexplored. All the giant fields in Saudi Arabia have already been found and tapped long ago. There are still some, very tiny, fields in Saudi that are untapped. Saudi is now in the proccess of tapping many of these fields. Most of them however, like Khurais, were tapped many years ago and closed down due to low production.
Khurais peaked in 1981 at 144,000 barrels per day. The following year production from Khurais began to drop dramatically. Then a gas injection program was inituated to try to improve the flow rate. It was a total failure, production continued to drop and the field was abandoned.
Now Saudi is about to inituate another injection program for Khurais, this time a seawater injection program. At first they said that as much as 800,000 barrels per day may be drawn from Khurais. Later someone upped that figure to 1,200,000 barrels per day. Yeah, right! Lotsa luck fella.
The point is these are the extremes that Saudi Arabia is going to in order to try to increase production. There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. They are relying instead on tapping old fields, most that were shutdown in the past due to low production.
Ron Patterson
Sorry, I meant Thunder Horse not Hungry Horse.
Ron Patterson
Are you on the record as stating this?
Myself, I think the data is too occluded, I'm withholding judgement.
But this really isn't a big game of "gotcha". I really pray that Jeffrey and Ron are wrong, but my gut says they're right
Oil Man Bob, Please point to the sentence or paragraph where I am guilty of rhetorical exaggeration.* What I said was: There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. That, dammit is not a rhetorical exaggeration, it is the absolute truth. Well it is the truth if Matt Simmons is to be believed. And he backs up every one of his statements with references.
But if that was not the sentence, or paragraph where I exaggerated thn please explain yourself. I am very careful not to do that and I find it deeply frustrating when people, like Hothgor, change my words to say something I never intended to say, and people like Oilmanbob, read those words and think I actually uttered them, then accuse me of exaggerating.
Again, I am not an exaggerator and I take great pains not to do so. But if I ever slipped and did so, then point out the case and I will apologize.
Ron Patterson
Hothgor, is English your native language. You seem to be having real problems understanding anything I write. I said no such thing as you wrote above. I cannot say that there is no oil left to be found in SA. What I did say was There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. Learn to read or please quit responding Hothgor!
But you obvioulsy are totally uninformed concerning Saudi Arabia. There are no aress, except a strip of land along the Iraqu border, that is unexplored in Saudi Arabia. That geology of that area, like the area over the Arabian Shield, is known not to be the kind that usually produces oil.
Other than that the entire nation has been explored. The last field was found in 1989, the Hawtha Trend Fields. These are the only oil fields found in SA outside the Eastern Province. The Hawtha Trend Fields are about a dozen very tiny fields that give virtually no promise on any significant oil ever to be pumped from them. And these were the only fields in Saudi Arabia found since 1969 when Shabah was discovered. Nothing else was found in that 20 year span and nothing else has been found since despite continious exploration efforts.
Let me repeat this Hothgor: "There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia." The last field of any size was found in 1969, nothing else since except those pipsqueak Hawtha Trend Fields, and they count for virtually nothing.
And as far as the US goes, though we have found about 15 billion barrels in the Gulf of Mexico, (perhaps a bit more), not the 50+ you indicate, production in the US has continued to decline.
Saudi Arabia has no deepwaters to explore. Of course you probably did not know that, still being wet behind the ears as you obviously are. Younguns are not expected to be overly smart these days. But no area on earth has been more throughly explored than Saudi Arabia.
Ron Patterson
I, like RR am amazed at the size of the discrepancy. Its a couple of Trillion dollars at today's prices, and I would welcome an explanation. Don't get you panties in a wad, were're on the same side. Peace, brother
I stated that there are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. And that was the statement that Hothgor twisted into something else. And apparently that was what you called a rhetorical exaggeration on my part. It was not. There have been no new major fields discovered in Saudi Arabia since 1969 and only one tiny group of very minor fields, discovered in 1989, deep in the interior of the nation, since then. That these tiny fields were discovered, half way between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Shield, testifies to the extensive search ARAMCO has gone to trying to discover new fields. They have found NONE!
You may question the 15 billion barrels found in the Gulf of Mexico but that is entirely beside the point. Those barrels are, and were, counted in the USGS estimate of US reserves. Whether they pan out or not doesn't matter. They were included in RRs "dramatic growth" in US reserves which so shocked him yesterday. But hell, Jack 2 is estimated to be over half that amount. I think 15 billion barrels is a very conservative.
But the point is Bob, I am not an exaggerator and it very much pisses me off to be accused of such.
So would you kindly point out my exaggeration or retract that statement.
Anxiously awaiting your reply.
Ron Patterson
In case you haven't noticed, I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong and trying to do better in the future. I'm a generalist, pretty good understanding and some expertise in areas like redevelopment of old oil fields, land law and title law. But I do keep up with discoveries and trends in the US. I suspect my case is the same as many others on this site-we each see a small piece clearly and try to share while learning from others. Its TOD's great strength, some real communal knowledge.
At any rate, it doesn't matter about Saudi, because even if you are wrong and they discover some fields, they can't offset their decline for very long. The KSA fields appear to be at peak or slightly past peak, and Ghawar isn't at all likely to be replaced in the mideast. Its a mature oil province.
Peace, Enough already, I'm on your side!
If my napkin figures are right, thats 600 million barrels of crude in the US GOM waters, a far cry from 15 billion barrels
The biggest onshore play has been the Giddings Austin Chalk, which has produced 450 million barrels since 1960, and may contain as much as 10 billion barrels, according to Ray Holifield, who is the best geophysicist operating in the field. I know Ray and he's always been optimistic, but he's a great oil finder. Now for my napkin and pencil...
at the most optimistic that leaves 26 billion barrels for "reserve growth" to be explained, but probably a whole lot more, because of that figure only the Giddings field 450 million barrels was produced. There are also some smaller fields like the Kurten Field and the Bryan Field in Texas.
So, Robert Rapier is in my opinion right. There is something fishy about the USGS reserve figures.
Production rates really do matter. We have lots of old fields in Texas which can be redrilled at prices above $50 a barrel, perhaps raising the total recovery here by 20%. But its not going to be easy or cheap.
Perhaps you are talking about newer oil? We need to define terms here.
Ron Patterson
Surely you jest!
By the end of 1995 there had already been produced 9.68 billion barrels of oil from the GOM, with an estimated 12.01 billion barrels remaining. And since 1996 we have produced over 5 billion barrels from the GOM. That puts current production at over 15 billion barrels.
By September 2001 that reserves figure had been increased to 14.265 billion barrels of proven reserves, with probable reserves reaching well over 15 billion barrels. Since that date, several new discoveries have been made. Jack 2 is estimated to have a minimum of 3 billion barrels of reserves. That would put current reserves in the GOM at over 17 billion barrels.
Once again Oilman, I do not exaggerate. I may speak off the cuff occasionally and only guess at my data. But even then it is always close. And the vast majority of time I can back up every figure I post with a URL or a reference.
Bob, I have absolutely no problem with there being 15 billion barrels of proven reserves in the GOM and I simply cannot imagine why you do. After all we are producing over 1.5 million barrels per day from the area. Good God man, what's the problem?
Ron Patterson
Ok, so as I said, there are two possibilities then.
- There is zero new oil to discover in all of KSA, and their 160.2 Gb reservers from 1982 is all they ever had, or ever will have.
- RR is right, and KSA will experience a similar 'reserve growth' phenomenon.
If the same ratio holds true, KSA will have roughly 120 Gb left to produce at this moment. Assuming no new fields will ever be found.However, you still did not address one of my points: Are we now saying that the KSA region is unique in all of the world in that the region ONLY includes King and Queen fields, with nothing smaller? Or are you just blowing smoke up our collective butts because the 'paid troll' has you caught red handed in a blatant misrepresentation of the facts ~_~
I seem to recall from Hubbert's Senate report from the 1960s - can't one plot discoveries or reserves for some region versus time, just like one plots production. One's estimate of what's left to pump will grow at first and then shrink - it ought to be a logistic curve much like the production curve, but leading it.
But I don't remember how Hubbert distinguished between change in total reserves due to reserve growth from existing fields versus new fields.
How many new fields were discovered in Texas or the lower 48 after 1980? Was all that reserve growth from existing fields?
The main point about KSA is that the Kings and Queens are fundamentally some of the largest and most productive fields ever discovered in the History of oil. So far they have not discovered other equally bountiful fields.
They may discover a knight or a few pawns, but the discrepency between the size of the King and Queens when compared with the pawns is such that making up a shortfall when the Kings and Queens show clear signs of depletion will be impossible.
Of course, the KSA may have found other hypergiants , buried the publication of these fields and have them ready to tap into. Any time they wish. However that would go against the grain of 100 years of oil exploitation.
And right now, if KSA was to announce further , huge, proven reserves, than all here could switch off and go back to sleep. And now would be the time to do it.
It is a misconception that just because the KSA found so much oil with so little exploration and appraisal drilling, more exp drilling will find more Ghawars.
KSA hit the jackpot because the jackpot was unmissable.
Oil occurs in discrete (relatively discrete) pockets. Look at where oil is found in the Middle East. It is in a relatively small area of the Middle East, a 'golden triangle' if you like.
A really good example is the geological structure of the North Sea: The oil fields of the north sea are highly concentrated in a rift structure called the Viking Graben.
Wander too far from this structure and you drill dry holes.
Geologists and Geophysicists have spent their lives and staked careers on what works. It is not likely that they have been looking at the wrong structures.
I admire your boundless optimism and your belief in hope over experience. Keep it up! (is that patronising enough?)
Hothgor. You are not so much a troll, more a devil's advocate. Keep on posting.
DAMN man! Did I say that. Hell no, dozens of much smaller fields have been found in Saudi, and they are currently producing oil from these small fields for all it's worth. But there are no new fields in Saudi Arabia, large or small.
You stupid ass, just tell me where I am misrepresenting the facts. Tell me one fact that I have misrepresented. I have not been caught red handed doing anything because everything I have stated can be documented.
I told Robert yesterday that I am sometimes rude myself and I always regret it later. But why does it make me feel so good by calling you a stupid ass. I may regret it later but now it just feels so damn good. You stupid ass.
Ron Patterson
"Hothgor, is English your native language. You seem to be having real problems understanding anything I write. I said no such thing as you wrote above. I cannot say that there is no oil left to be found in SA. What I did say was There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. Learn to read or please quit responding Hothgor!"
Let me repeat this:
"What I did say was There are no new fields in Saudi Arabia. "
So, if there are no new fields, then that means that KSA is a unique region in the entire world that contains only Kings and Queens and almost no pawns. Then what does that mean? Its production history will not follow other regions such as the Lower 48 or the North Sea, as the field distribution is fundamentally different then those regions. Thank you for shedding light on this issue, as we can now safely say that Westexas was wrong! <chortle>
I guess you should follow your own advise then:
"Learn to read or please quit responding"
Sorry, bud, I feel it needs to be said.
Good God, what type of logic are you using here. Why does no new fields mean only Kings and Queens and almost no pawns? Hell no, there are dozens of pawns and they were all discovered from the 1930s thru the 1960s. There are literally dozens of very old pawns. There are no new pawns.
And Westexas is exactly right, it is Hothgor who is wrong, as usual. And you could use a good course in logic because your current logic matches that of a three year old.
Ron Patterson
The two don't mesh if WT is right, and that the KSA will follow a similar production curve. If we are to believe your line of logic, we must then assume that WT is wrong, and things will either last a lot longer, or get a whole lot worse then they are now in very very short order.
You are confusing production with discoveries. The only major discoveries after 1970 were in the Gulf of Mexico. Alaska was developed after 1970 but discovered well before that. There were no major discoveries in the US after 1970 except in the GOM. And I really don't know what percentage of the oil in the GOM was discovered before 1970. At any rate Saudi Arabia does not have a GOM or an Alaska.
I cannot speak for WT but I suspect he means production in SA will continue on a downward trend. I would agree. I don't think for one minute that he really means that SA will develope an Alaska, then discover and develope a GOM. That just ain't gonna happen. And yes I do expect things to get very bad in Saudi Arabia in the next 10 years.
Ron Patterson
Methinx the basis of the hostilities in this thread has its foundation in nobody posting numbers. Let us review.
Saudi Aramco say they have 260-Gb of P1 remaining plus 99-Gb that have been extracted.
They claim that they can maintain the present 10-mbd MSC (max sustained capacity - not production) until 2042 w/o touching P2.
P2 is claimed to be 32-Gb
P3 is claimed to be 71-Gb
And they claim to have 238-Gb in contingent resource on top.
This totals 700-Gb
They claim on top of that they have 200-Gb in undiscovered.
The USGS estimated their undiscovered at 87-Gb in Y2k.
Going back to P1, they admit to having 131-Gb of it in development and 129-Gb is in field yet undeveloped.
Ok kids, go at it ...
Freddy, this number is totally absurd, simply beyond belief. Saudi has 700-Gb of reserves? Are you so naive as to actually believe this?
No, I do not really think you are so dumb as to believe such an absurd number Freddy. No one is that dumb.
But I am really curious as to know what you really do believe. Would you believe 300 Gb?
Just curious.
Ron Patterson
363-Gb of P1, P2 & P3 discovered reserves
238-Gb of discoverd subcommecial resource
99-Gb past extraction
Why would u attribute such crap towards me? What is your prob today?
They have stated that their URR is 700-Gb and these are their component figures.
They are basing their 2055 forecast on the existing P1 of 260-Gb + 35-Gb of existing P2. This would give them 12-mbd of capacity 'til 2055 and 9.5 to 10-mbd of supply from 2016 to 2055. And yes, i like their numbers. It's 295-Gb. And close to your "300".
While the 2004 forecast was to increase capacity by 0.5-mbd from 2011 to 2016 to attain the 12-mbd capacity (not production); they since said in May 2006 that they would be accelerating the capacity build to reach 12-mbd in 2010. Then last month they claimed to be already at 11.2-mbd capacity of which 2.6-mbd is spare capacity, leaving a present sustained production rate of 8.6-mbd and claim they are presently producing an avg 10-mbd (incl NGL's and proc gains. SA went on to say that they will attain 12.6-mbd capacity and 10-mbd of sustained production in August 2009.
Mark it in your calendar, Ronny!
It was u who said "I will go on record as saying Saudi will not push production to 10 million barrels per day in the next couple of years. Hell, I will go on record and say they will never push production to 10 million barrels per day average for one year."
I have put these figures out several times. So that bet was kinda lame when u knew 2007 & 2008 & most of 2009 were out of the target range. Eh, ronny?!!
That aside, since 2004 i have been scrutinizing all the Outlooks to see what they say about SA or ME production at the time intervals. That is why i discounted the EIA forecast on my Scenarios graphic & called it the EIA/Aramco projection.
Today we see IEA as the most optimistic Scenario long term with a 103-mbd peak. Unfortunately, it targets 14.6-mbd of that from Saudi Arabia. It ain't gonna happen. And that's why i'm shying away from my affair with IEA and prefer the newly suggested "AVERAGE" graph insertion of 95-mbd @ Peak.
Careful, Ron. You're turning blue in the face.
You can only school someone for so long. Let go.
Name one piece of data, other than your personal existence, that isn't based on any theory of measurement or observation.
Really, this site has its giants, and you are one of them - especially so as you do not always preach to the choir. We all need to hear what you have to say. So please don't be put off by the negative stuff you get. There are plenty of people reading but not posting, thinking, 'Yeah...'.
Thanks, Robert.
I too appreciate civility on TOD. In fact, I insist upon it!
One way to make sure a response is civil is to respond to the whole group of readers as well as to the post or comment you are commenting about. Pissing matches ought to be taken to private e-mail and dealt with there.
If a pissing match seems too full of technical info and that we all would be deprived of that if the pissing match were moved off of TOD, then maybe one or both participants could summarize the "valuable material" and bring it back later....much later, probably.
I appreciate the posts of RR and WT, and of many other folks as well. I like threads that center on topic and not on individual participants.
The occassional praise and thanks seems civil and proper, but criticisms of individuals might best be done in private email as well.
Too often criticism of individuals on a thread just poisons the thread, especially for newbies.
Above all, we all need to remind ourselves to breathe deeply and to remember "Relax, you're soaking in it!" with regards to petroleum.
(Doesn't "relax, you're soaking in it come from an old dishwashing detergent ad?)
So thanks to RR and to all who take time to compose posts and to compose considered, thoughtful comments!
I find this behavior of yours baffling despite the model's high degree of accuracy for the US and Russia and given the clear failure of traditional measures of reserves to account for the actual production of the US since peak.
Let me reiterate:
- The Hubbert Curve predicted the US peak accurately.
- The HL approach predicted US production post-peak 1970-2006 to 99% accuracy using only pre-peak data.
- The HL approach predicted Russian production post peak to present to within 95% accuracy using only pre-peak data.
- The HL technique strongly disputed the reserve numbers for Kuwait and in the last year we have had public admissions from Kuwait that actual reserves are much closer to what the HL method predicts than the formerly inflated numbers.
- The HL technique strongly suggests that KSA's remaining reserves are in the 70 billion barrel range.
- The HL technique suggests that KSA is on the verge of irreversible declines.
- KSA production is down precisely when the HL technique says it should start down. Yes there have been prior ups and downs but the HL technique did not predict those because they were political. This one appears to be geological.
The first 4 statements are facts that the model predicts and which have been verified. The next 2 statements are predictions of the model. The final statement is a fact also though the cause remains in dispute. Given the former accuracy of the model, I think it becomes incumbent on you to demonstrate why another approach is better than the HL model. Instead you have not done this at all, choosing to refer to proprietary information that you are unable to share, to methods whose results surprised even you (yet which were still consistent with the HL predictions for the US), and you keep asking for further proof. At this point I am unsure what else to give you. The numbers sit there staring you in the face but for some reason you keep reaching for other numbers.Perhaps if you would explain why you reject the HL predictions for KSA, we might understand your position. But right now you appear to be rejecting it without cause. Based on your writings here and at your blog you usually have a cause for your conclusions, hence my request that you examine the HL method in detail and explain to us why you reject it (or perhaps why you might choose to accept it now).
Finally, I am not suggesting that the HL approach is the only or even the best approach. People like WHT are looking for approaches that make more sense (like the shock model) and I applaud that effort. Yet before we reject the Hubbert Curve and Hubbert Linearization, we all need to remember how accurate it has been thus far on major producing regions.
OK, back in Montana now. No, your post was not one of the insulting ones. Yours was in disagreement, but I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is "I disagree, and you are an idiot", or simply "You are an idiot."
Perhaps if you would explain why you reject the HL predictions for KSA, we might understand your position.
I don't reject them. In fact, I was trying to confirm them, and that essay was the result of what I found.
We have to be cautious in our use of the HL method. Below, I propose a little counter-example. Look at the following HL result:
The HL result seems convincing and the URR is probably around 700 Gb and cumulative production is at 78.4% of the URR, terminal production decline seems inevitable. However, the production profile from my virtual country, which happens to have an infinite oil resource, is the following:
I'd find your counter-example more compelling if it had a finite amount of oil but infinite? That's an irrelevant argument from the start.
Sorry. Alzheimer's prevents one from recalling. :-)
I think you make a mistake in getting so upset with the nasty replies to your posts. You shoud try just ignoring the ad hominens and deal with the issues raised, if there are any.
It's true that there's no excuse for abuse, but the cure is worse than the disease -- i.e. moderating, etc. That's the kiss of death for a site like this. There will always be borderline cases, sharply worded comments which one editor might allow, another not, and so on. It's better just to cultivate a blog climate or etiquette of sticking to the issues and ignoring or reprimanding teachable offenders.
Visitors to a blog soon learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's my opinion in any case.
I agree. Maybe we'll have to go to more stringent moderation one day, but right now, the best thing to do is just ignore the ad hominems. Most of us have been subject to personal attack here at one time or another. It's part of the package, I'm afraid, and nothing to get worked up about.
How does that saying go? You shouldn't wrestle with pigs, because you get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
First, you have a pair - by posting here you open yourself up to immediate criticism and rebuttal (unlike the print MSM or comavision like 60 minutes, 20/20 etc). Your message gets immediate feedback, pro and con, and because the feedback is usually posted immediately and in the heat of the moment it might not always be civil.
(Incidently, I think the motivations of the protesters should not be automatically questioned - e.g. most of the "yerginites" truly believe what they say and likely feel the same level of animosity towards those of us who are sane. If their criticism is worthwhile it is dealt with.)
Second, all readers must remember we are a community with expertise in many different disciplines - just as the main authors of most of the books on the subject of Pealk Oil are from different disciplines. We are all ignorant of some aspects of this subject - sometimes even about areas or data within our own discipline (and sometimes even of our own motivations - ancient critter-part of the brain stuff).
All of the information in Robert's post and the responses was likely news to many people. Or at least a damned entertaining review of it ;)
I would hope none of you regular 5-star contributers are ever intimidated by a mistake, or by some angry person's harsh words to the point of not posting.
" I would call for a little more civility"
Please tell me that does not have to apply to CERA and Yergin etc. Please...
Oil at $70 a Barrel Is Possible Even Without More OPEC Cuts
By David Bird
December 18, 2006; Page C5
First-quarter 2007 crude-oil prices may challenge the $70-a-barrel level for the first time since August, even without a second production cut by OPEC, if historical patterns hold.
In each of the past five years, Nymex front-month crude oil futures prices have jumped an average of 11.6% in the first quarter from their December average, regardless of the action taken by OPEC in the month.
Halfway through December, prices are averaging more than $62 a barrel. January Nymex crude futures gained $1.14 Thursday, to $62.51, after OPEC decided to keep output steady but implement a 500,000 barrel-a-day cut in oil output Feb. 1. On Friday, crude futures continued to rise, ending at $63.43. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in October to take 1.2 million barrels a day of oil off the global market starting Nov. 1.
Applying the average rise in the first quarter of the past five years to current prices suggests crude could top $69.25 in the first three months of the year. Even if the 2005 gain of 6.8%, the smallest in the past five years, is applied, prices would top $66.25, higher than government forecasts.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently warned that even if OPEC kept oil output steady at near 29 million barrels, prices would climb from an average of about $60 a barrel in the current quarter to top $64 in the first quarter and rise above $66 a barrel in the second quarter.
In the past three years, first-quarter rises were followed by an additional 9% average gain in the second quarter. This pattern suggests prices could reach an average near $75 heading into the spring-to-summer driving season.
Whether historical patterns hold true depends on several factors, mainly the severity of winter temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere and the levels of inventory held by the major industrialized countries world-wide.
OPEC sought to portray high inventory levels as the main threat to market stability and took pains to de-emphasize oil prices at its meeting Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria. The cartel said it would cut output in February to attack the surplus and would practice "extreme vigilance in assessing the market during the coming months" ahead of its scheduled March 15 meeting.
OPEC expressed concerns over a potential slowdown in global economic growth in 2007 and the likelihood that rising non-OPEC supply would top by 500,000 barrels a day expected oil-demand growth of 1.3 million barrels a day, cutting into its market share.
Despite a huge drawdown in global stockpiles, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi, who is in effect the leader of OPEC, told The Wall Street Journal that a 50-million-barrel global overhang remains to be cleared by the end of the first quarter.
OPEC's view of consumer stockpiles is informed by the latest estimates from the Paris-based International Energy Agency. The data show a drop in October of almost 40 million barrels in the month from a September level that was the highest since 1998, when prices were collapsing. IEA said in a report Wednesday that stocks in the world's most developed countries are sufficient to cover 54 days of consumption, one day fewer than in September, but one day more than a year earlier.
But the latest data from the U.S., whose stockpiles make up about 40% of that total, show huge declines in inventories through November. EIA also projects that the fourth-quarter stock drop in the U.S. will be near 82 million barrels, more than 5.5 times the average decline in the fourth quarter in the past five years. EIA's projections are based on expectations that winter temperatures will be warmer than the long-term average, but colder than a year ago.
Before OPEC's next scheduled meeting, EIA's forecasts show, U.S. oil inventories will fall below year-ago levels, as declining crude stocks join dwindling gasoline and heating oil and diesel inventories.
The IEA warned that even current total OPEC output of about 29 million barrels a day would slice 200 million barrels from global stockpiles between the end of October and the end of March. Such a decline would put stocks near 2.52 billion barrels, the lowest level since the end of March 2004.
Based on IEA's projected demand, this stock level would translate to about 52 days of inventory, two days fewer than the 2006 level.
Let me say that this is one reason a number of people were forbearing - and the number that weren't also helped in the long run.
The problems being looked at here are truly immense - there are never enough hands to help.
But to give a partial answer - Angola joining OPEC (have they popped the corks yet?) skews some of the numbers around, which also helps show how arbitrary much of the discussion can be. Angola was considered to be one of the growing major non-OPEC producers, and a fair amount of oil is supposed to come from there in 2007 - though the sinking of the semisubmersible vessel Mighty Servant 3 may just throw a wrench into an offshore project or two. As often pointed out by our esteemed editor, projects generally slip, often very significantly (Thunderhorse is likely two hurricane seasons away from going on-line) and underproduce, but they rarely get finished in 50% of the scheduled time, and produce 50% more than planned.
However, it is a very reasonable assumption that a lot of people will be trying to pump as much as they can in the next period of time, as $60 is seemingly poised to become the new $20, or maybe the next $40. I am not sure that such a surge is a sign of anything but grasping at a higher profit margin, but it is reasonable to believe that various stars will align to allow a slight to noticeable rise in oil production in the next year or two - which just happens to be 2009, depending on how you look at your calendar years.
By then, the discussion about the 4 elephants will be over, and the discussion about them will only be centered on the decline rate and their production per day. There is only one project anticipated to come even close to the production level of only one of those depleted elephants - which should cause a certain pause to reflect on what that means.
Absolute numbers count in the real world, not percentages. This is why the reserve discussion is so difficult - reserves are a projection of what can be put in the pipeline when everything is totalled, but they don't actually indicate how much the pipeline is carrying at any one time.
Personally, one of my little enjoyments over the past few years has been comparing projections of future production (the British especially) to the actual numbers. At some point, only the actual numbers will matter - for example, when the British start importing fossil fuels, even as the official projections call for exports.
But please, keeping reading the press releases - anyone who has ever written a press release (yes, my hands are dirty) knows that the most important thing about one is to make sure the facts are correct, and that they provide as much objective information as possible to allow an informed reader to make up their own mind. Assuming you never want to write another one, that is.
http://trendlines.ca/economic.htm#Scenarios
The Scenarios Avg decline rate has been raised to 3.1%/yr.
The Scenarios AVG Peak is 95-mbd in 2020.
Please click the link to see the Legend.
At the next CSIS conference in Washington, SA summed their disgust with outside forecasters this way:
"Equally important, Saudi Arabia has no obligation to plan to meet idealized demand-driven economic requirements, and would be foolish to do so. it has simply been used as a virtually infinite pool of oil exports by EIA, IEA and OPEC modelers for their own bureaucratic convenience. ... It is clear then Saudi Arabia does not currently want to make a commitment to 15-mbd (capacity)."
EIA was 10-mbd too high. We inserted an anti-EIA Scenario (in 2004) to spite them. By Dec 2005, they had redrawn their Reference Scenario with their 2025 production rate marked down "exactly" 10-mbd. I smiled.
J, I do not know how many of the Outlooks assume SA has peaked; will hold at 10-mbd; or assume great things to come. I know IEA is still assuming too much. Their 2030 target for SA has only been reduced from 18-mbd production to 14.6-mbd production ... a full 4.6-mbd above present realities.
Personally i have confidence in SA's plans for supplying 10-mbd over the next 50 years with all information available to me.
in 2001 cera projected NA ng prices would drop significantly, and stay down for many years, on account of increased NA supplies. Since then (interestinly the peak year) NA production is down 7% even though the number of rigs drilling for ng has doubled on account of 3x higher prices.
IN sa case, their number of rigs is up 3x in 2 years, still rising at 1.5 new oil drilling rigs/month. Meanwhile, and through early aug with shariply rising prices (of which sa complained, a position consistent with their past efforts to prevent prices from rising too fast), sa production declined, down I think 7% by the time opec agreed cuts took them out of their misery. Do you think NA ng production has peaked, or do you think we will eventually see the higher produciton earlier predicted by cera? IMO the two cases are similar...
The only evidence anyone can present in support of sa's assertion that they will some day produce 10M/d+ is the assertion itself. Mind you, I do think they continue to produce flat out, using the cut period to reload their tank farms at say 250k/d, which may allow a short term surge at some point in the futurel.
But higher oil prices have sent LNG prices up (tho not in tandem) and we have a better outlook presently for domestic production. Further, the Feds and local Govt's are having a bitch of a time getting approvals and permits in place for the LNG terminals. Bodes well for domestic producers long term strategies.
In 2004, i foresaw a temp problem for NA nat'l gas in 2007. That was looking like the transiton year between domestic production stretched to the limit and prior to LNG imports coming on stream in large enuf numbers.
2007 looks excellent today but 2008 may be tight. In 2004 i saw sustained pricing below ten bucks while the idiots were forecasting $15 to $25 prices sustained and rising. They were drasticall wrong in 2004. 2005. and 2006. Sure we had spikes, but none of the sustained doom and gloom and pipleline running out of fricken pressure bullcrap. Most pundits know nothing of the industry. And yahoo energyresources was the biggest proponent of this apocalyptic scenario unfolding in 2005 and 2006. Total idiots and neophtyes. If u like forecasts of 400 to 600 Bcf Spring troughs, there have been lots of those forecasts out there in the past and present.
As far as SA is concerned, most "pundits" at TOD and elsewhere do not understand two things. SA's business plan and their vocabulary.
Firstly, for political reasons, they want to be a swing producer. Bodes well for usa and european comradship and all the perks that go with it (arms deals and alliances). They have a target of 2.5-mbd spare capacity to effect this practice.
Second, when they say "12-mbd", it means max sustained capacity (MSC) ... not production. Their present MSC is 11.2-mbd which provides for a 8.6-mbd sustained flow rate. Again, the idiots that ask where is the "10" or "11" or "12" or "15?" are totally in left field and dismissed by anyone in the industry or MSM. The plus 8.6-mbd rates are only meant to be temporary in very extreme situations. In the big picture, we have had none in the last five years except during the 21-day Iraq2 episode. And that was so miscalulated, that within weeks we had $26 oil. Only the navel gazers think there are untold crisis in every headline. In reality the world is unfolding as it should. And we won't see sustained SA 10-mbd supply 'til 2010.
I see short hydrocarbons of all types, short U too.
Persian gulf is going down. Stans, nigeria, angola will help but not enough. Russia flat at best. Gloom, doom. Prius coming to a garage near you, soon. Be the first on your block.
Bob Ebersole
At a certain point, consumers get priced out of the market. I don't think a sustained $100 per barrel is achivable. At Best I think it could temporary hold in the $90-$95 dollar range before dropping back to the $80-$85. I can't see consumers able to absorb $4+ Gallon fuel prices. Back in the 1980's during the tanker wars, the price of oil maxed out in the low $40's ($80's today adjusted for inflation).
"Seahorse" also points out that this is not really news. Remember this article from last year?
Sadad al Husseini sees peak in 2015
What are the odds here? Is there any chance this is all just blustering or these countries preparing to hold back their oil for their own country or for higher prices? I keep thinking these announcements of decreasing production sounds like a cover story for "hording" in a sense.
So, RR's Peak Lite is more of a production peak that might bottleneck along the way, but then recovers somewhat at some later time. Ewwww...that bumpy plateau is making me car sick...HA!
As a personal aside, locally we consisently have gas prices 30 to 50 cents above national, esp diesel, which averages 30 cents above our gas. And I detect no change of habits here. Sharp cries of dismay, but that's it, and not long lived. An attitude of gotta have it, I'll cut out something else.
I'm sure Europeans can quote much higher prices, but Canada has experienced the same SUV craze as the U.S. and I don't think it's going away. It is my feeling that most people will simply absorb fuel price increases, as it is a small fraction of their fixed costs of vehicle ownership.
Ask yourself this: do you see people desperate to unload large vehicles? Are automakers moving away from building heavy vehicles? (Hint: NO!)
I probably shouldn't tell you this, but if you had a futures trading account you could buy $100 December 07 options for 53 cents a barrel (with a minimum 1000 barrel contract that is $530 plus commisions). Then if oil hits say $105 your option will be worth at least $5 per barrel and you will make ten times your money. If it hit $110 you would make 20 times your money. In fact option prices imply the probability for the $100 option is only about 4%. So I am really stealing from you in accepting a bet offering even odds. I should have to offer about 20 to 1.
Anyway, I'm serious about the bet, if you are. My suggestion is that we'd both pay up in advance and let some trusted forum member hold our $200 until the end of the year or until prices break $100. The main issue is finding someone who is very likely to be around in a year - these forums have a highly volatile membership.
Been thinking about this myself. In fact, I am willing to put up $1,000 that oil won't hit $100 in 2007. Consider it confidence that I am correct about the reasons the Saudis dropped their exports. If I am wrong, then oil will probably hit $100 in 2007.
If we can find an agreeable arrangement, I will bet $100 per person for up to 10 people, or any combination up to $1,000. If there is enough interest, I may bump it up to $2,000. My suggestion would be that the money goes into a Paypal account from the beginning. The account could be administered by one or more of the editors here. TOD could keep the interest for administering the account.
Any interest?
Of note oil is greatly oversold at present and has been in a long irregular bull market correction/consolidation arguably for the last two plus years. Oil hit USD 55 in August 2004. Considering that the CPI alone, if calculated in the pre-Clinton manner, has been running circa 6% for the last two years.
http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs?
The oil price has been volatile but basically flat in real terms for the last 28 months. This is indicative of a pause in a bull market. Consider gold 1974 - 1976 as a classic example. Gold spiked to USD 200 after the first oil shock then corrected to USD 120. The consensus in the investment community in 1976 was that gold was a dead asset, a popped bubble. I was strongly advised NOT to but gold at USD 120 back then. Well we know what happened after that, gold climbed over USD 800 in 1980 and even after the speculative blowoff, spent most of the next decade above USD 400.
Someone who bought and held oil since August 2004 is barely breaking even. Almost ANY other commodity has done better, as have equities. If PO is basically here (which I believe), the next move upward will be explosive. The fact that almost no one believes this at present is a classic sign of an important market bottom.
In 1974 , Whitehall played down the likely size of the UKCS reserves in advance of the Scottish Referendum to avoid a Nationalist swing.
Now, the Labour party are saying reserves are dwindling to avoid another Nationalist Swing.
But an internal Labour memo suggest another 30 years...
This plot is almost Shakespearian: The Nats swing for indepedence on the basis of a spurious internal memo, when , in fact UKCS reserves are actually depleting.
Who is kidding who?
What is the highest level of government that can enact sweeping zoning law changes? Federal, State, County, Municipality?
I really think that the easiest and most low cost solution to many of our problems is to eliminate single use zoning for residential or commercial - all should be mixed except perhaps polluting industrial. I also think density increases would help a lot so getting rid of limits to density to a certain limit might help.
Can the the Federal government pass a law like this? (Leave aside whether it is politically popular for the moment)
Local governments use the zoning restrictions (actually approvals to change zoning restrictions) as a gatekeeper against "bad" development. If the project makes sense the zoning will likely get changed because county/city govt can see the benefits and usually ignore the few but vocal critics of almost any type of development.
If a "sweeping" change was somehow enacted for a large number of places, I would bet that you would see lots of projects go forward that few people would like.
There have been a variety of proposals for the federal government to get involved in local land use ever since Herbert Hoover. The 10th Amendment reserves control of land use to the states, but various proposals have been floated for model codes to be backed with federal grants as an incentive to adopt. Those proposals have generally gone nowhere.
However, the federal government has a large impact on local land use through its investments and siting decisions for transportation infrastructure, public works and civic structures.
I agree that a finer distribution and mix of uses would help reduce energy use. After all, the closer your home is to your job, daily shopping and services, friends and entertainment, the less you have to travel for all of that.
But just allowing more mixed use won't automatically create it. That's because of the roadway networks. The networks are set up to channel and concentrate traffic into just a few routes -- the arterials and freeways. And that's where the businesses want to locate, right at the freeway cloverleaf. If the businesses are going to be more distributed, then the traffic has to be more distributed too. That requires roadway networks with greater connectivity -- something more like a grid and less like a collection of isolated subdivision pods and cul-de-sacs.
From Overcoming Bias' Finding the Truth in Controversies
LOL, I've been accused here of willful ignorance but perhaps it is simply intentional ;-)
http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=oilRpt&storyID=2006-12-17T180921Z _01_N15374116_RTRIDST_0_COAL-FUEL-BUSINESS-FEATURE.XML
This article made my day. I'm off to look for a bridge to jump from.
You don't have to jump, just enjoy the view as you contemplate the environmental friendliness of Coal-To-Liquids.
All of them
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/061109_omsg_presentation1.pdf
I wonder if the average state of reserve depletion is weighted according to the reserve capacity of each field. Here is an admission that Abqaiq is 74% depleted and Ghawar just under 50% depleted. And I wonder if the current 2% decline of mature fields can continue to be mitigated by infield drilling.
Your link is worth looking at. It says at the end of the PDF that Nawaf Obaid, the author of the presentation, is Private Security and Energy Advisor to HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, the (now former) Saudi Ambassador to the US.
I was stoked on coffee last night and thinking about our postPeak future in regards to a certain manual labor-saving tool [see my postings at the bottom of yesterday's Drumbeat].
I was reading the news this morning about the power outages and all the downed trees in the Northwest. If in the future: we don't have gas-powered chainsaws or excess electricity for electric chainsaws--it won't be much fun for our arms and backs hand-sawing all this lumber.
Has anyone invented a portable, lightweight pedal or stepping mechanism that uses our legs to power a chainsaw? Our legs are much stronger than our arms, and a cutting chain is much like a bicycle chain.
I am picturing a person pedaling on a barstool contraption and holding a cutting bar with his hands--seems like it would be alot easier than bucking a handsaw. Or else a person marching-in-place with this up-and-down motion powering a jigsaw motion. Is this just more
wild & crazy ideas of mine, or is there an inventor out there that can make this work for the postPeak future?Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Thxs for responding. Yikes! I would hate to think of hours of work and pain to saw off that tree trunk!
My other idea for sawing fallen trees would be some kind of adjustable metal bicycle that would clamp onto the tree, then the person pedals a geared circular saw thru the wood. I sure wish I knew how to cad/cam so it would be easier for everyone to picture my ideas.
Another idea is a pedal powered drill--heck of alot easier than the old style handcrank corkscrew drills.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Do you have any carpentry experience, and have you ever felled a tree?
matt
Bob Fiske
You really don't want to bother. Humans are 100-200 watt engines. You would be farther ahead to get AC powered (or 24 VDC) tools, an inverter, some solat panels and some batteries.
One 150 watt solar panel == 1 humans labor when the sun shines on the panel So for $600 these days you have the energy equivalent of a slave laborer for 20 years, with the work of the slave slowly dopping off for 20 years, and then may keep working for many more years as less capacity.
Far cheaper than feeding a slave.
A PV panel in a 'mobile' solution as tree-removal VS a battery.
Either way, the power from a discharging battery is going to be less work than trying to pedal-saw your way thru a tree. You'll get enough work moving the wood about.
http://www.windstreampower.com/humanpower/hpgmk3.html
Lugging around the solar panels and the batteries, that's another factor determining the practicality. Saws can be reasonably light. There is probably some cross-over, where cutting trees close to home is best with solar-charged electric chain saw, but deep in the woods it makes better sense to use a saw.
2 car batteries, an electric saw and an inverter should keep you in the woods all day making the world unsafe for plant life. Thus far all my electic sawing has been done off the grid and de-limbing a tree. Or 3.
And when you get old, as long as you have trees to harvest, you should still be able to work your wood. Ya might have to replace some batteries along the way.
http://www.gorillavehicles.com/
And a 12 VDC winch is a fine way to get the wood up the hill, get that snag down, or whatever...so long as you have another tree or object to hook the winch to.
One view: Tools are a fine way to leverage human labor to make your life filled with less physical labor and one can hope to spend more time in contemplation of life.
Think of these factors:
Wood on slopes will be hard to cut with bike-thing
What heppens if the wood shifts while cutting?
Plenty of bike powered things you can build
Grain grinders
Generator (perm magnet is what I've done using a 100 vDC motor)
Hammer Mill
Leaf shredders (Dry leaves)
Scroll saw (but hard to keep you and the piece stable when sawing)
Metal cutter
power that old disk to sharpen blades
Air compressor
Rotating sifter (for dirt, whatever)
Retrofit a staber washing machine
Powering a boat-thing
The varing land conditions and various conditions of wood (standing timber, snagged timber, all that odd shaped timber that will be hard to move/mount a bike-thing to or would shift when cut) is why I'd go for the moble and lightweight saw powered by batteries. Bike powering wood back to the wood pile will be a big enought workout. Back at the wood pile you could always set up a table-saw like thing with a flywheel to trim down limbs and smaller hunks.
The arms, cutting chain, etc. would fold up vertically when transported. I definitely wouldn't convert to electricity as an intermediate step.
600 watts peak kinda power (I did 600 watts pedaling once and could taste blood/was 'sick' for 6 months. Tought me the value of not doing that again, let me tall ya.) is going to be hard to keep going to do any kind of cuts. And you are going to have to play with cutting methods and the wood introducing moments on your cutting rig VS a 2kW saw you can move the saw about with ease.
Grinding rocks or drywall up for adding to the soil was one gent's plan for his bike grider - you might find that is a better use for an execersize bike. Or, just as a power input into your battery bank/grid intertie.
I do agree about moving around the tree. This would be an unwieldy rig. I'll just stick with my handsaws, but I thought it might be interesting to flesh out Bob's idea. I would also need to give more thought to the idler wheel/drive wheel setup. They should be the same wheel (if for no other reason than all wheels have to be on the non-toothed side of the chain.) Maybe a worm gear? That might deal with the change of cutting plane as well.
Considering when I was on my bike based grinder for 9 months I had a resting heart rate of 58 (was at 80 or so when I started) you might be underestimating what people's hearts can take. (At the end I had trouble getting the blue jeans over my calves)
In whatever bike thing you make, add a flywheel. You leg joints will thank you.
Consumer power meters are now popular for geeky amateur bike riders. Little strain gauges in the cranks or in the rear hub plus some software, I won't spend for that stuff but ride next to ordinary guys in their 40's & 50's pumping 150 to 200 watts average for a 3 hour ride.
I think a chainsaw driven by bike would work better. Imagine your bike with a horizontal chainsaw chain between two gears. One of the gears is driven by the person on the bike. The hard part is choosing a rate and method of forward motion for the contraption.
And yes, two-person crosscut saws usually have a long enough stroke that it's a full-body motion. Your leg power is largely wasted fighting gravity, though.
I know chain saws are dirty, noisy, smelly, and require a certain level of technology to build and maintain. But you get an awful lot of work out of them for very little fuel burned.
I would say that chain saws are expensive, dangerous, very polluting (nasty little two-strokes), create greenhouse gases, are expensive to use, heavy, dirty, noisy, smelly, and require a good deal of technology to create and maintain. A crosscut saw is cheap, safe, pollution free, GHG free, easy to use, pretty light, clean, quiet, requires very little technology to make or use, and is good moderate exercise to use. You get an awful lot of work out of them for a little bit of needed exercise.
Not refering to you Tarzan, but it's funny how any human powered solution to any problem is impractical, no matter how many people used it in the past or how many use it today. It seems like fossil-fuel using machines are the only viable solution to every problem.
Nope, nope. Not at all. I never get out the tractor for a job that I can do with the wheelbarrow. I was merely suggesting that when you look at the cost/benefit ratio, the chain-saw rates pretty high on the scale of useful technologies. Far above, say, sports cars, electric toothbrushes or leaf-blowers.
SAWS - The old timers used 2 man crosscut saws. Differing types felling, bucking. Relatively light. My guess is that they would be more practical in the varried terrain of the NW woods as opposed to a bicycle type affair.
The US gov put out a manual on them a long time ago. Can be bought at auctions. Saw sharpening tools are a little harder to some by; jointer, raker gauge, saw set(avalable), spyder gauge, plus the ability to know how to use them.
Lots of muscle power...very healthy work.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/index.htm
about 1/2 way down the list, pdf and html versions.
Silent observer - thanks to RR, WT, HO, SS et al for the great info . . .
P
I wonder how well the chainsaw crowd are doing in comparison.
I am also a person who cuts his own firewood with a chainsaw. I'm in the market currently for a good medium-sized crosscut and a setter. It's all about sharpening/setting. And rhythm.
- sgage
But remember, even electric chainsaws require bar oil so stock up which, BTW, I just did today. I'm covered for years now.
Todd; a Realist
You know of any bigger electrics on the market? Electric motors are very powerful, and in a chainsaw, pretty lightweight. I've only used the little ones, though..
Bob Fiske
What I'm wondering about is whether this storm is just a rare occurance or something that will happen more due to global warming. Its interesting to hear about gas prices in some really affected areas. Cops had to be sent to some in Bellevue, WA so I heard. Many supermarkets are in still affected areas are empty. Glad this was just a storm and not an earthquake.
From TODer Yosemite Sam in an earlier thread:
--------------------------------------------
I just returned from Seattle. My son and daughter-in-law were telling me about some shortages in the Seattle area, which they credited to the power outages. It only took a day for outbreaks of violence in the lines waiting for gas.
Another source of violence were the people who would go to restaurants to warm up AND to charge a cell phone at a nearby electrical plug. There were fights over who got to be near a plug.
---------------------------------------------
As far as solutions are concerned: a small solar panel makes a really nice cell phone charger... a slightly larger one can operate the fridge and with an investment of $20,000, one can operate a reasonable size car on electricity from PV alone...
So what is the big deal?
Its seems people aren't thinking longterm, only about day to day things, typical ignorance is bliss.
A couple months ago I was thinking of purchasing a roll out solar panel and a battery that AC/DC devices could hook too. It would have been a nice device to recharge my cellphone and batteries.
Chris
That people in the US aren't thinking long term is an amazing phenomenon. To a European it seems almost like they are teaching in schools how to forget about anything further away than next week around here.
And as far as heating is concerned... zero energy homes have been demonstrated in Germany some 15-20 years ago. The research might not have lead to everyone building a true zero-energy home, but sure as hell the last time I saw a German builder working on his new home (this fall!), he was knee deep in glass wool. And he was bragging how little gas he would need to heat his home and how great the triple insulated windows he bought were. It is just a totally different mindset over there in Europe. People do not mind spending a few ten thousand dollars upfront to minimize their annual heating bill. And if they can afford it, they also put the solar panels on top. Of course, Germany is paying 45 Eurocents for every kWh that goes back into the grid...
So what is the big deal?
A large segment of the population
Lacks the space to put up solar panels (I've had to mount panels perpeduclar to the ground on the side of the building due to lack of space)
Lacks the cash to afford a $20,000 solar solution (VS the present pay as you go $3 a gallon gas solution)
So it is a 'big deal' for many people.
As far as solar is concerned there is plenty of industrial roof space. With proper government support and regulations most of it can be converted into solar collector area. States can regulate that ALL suitable new buildings require better insulation and solar heating and/or PV. It is only a matter of changing the building codes.
Let's see... $3/gallon in gas... that makes $1500 per year for an average car. Over the 15 years of that car that is $22,500... just as much as a solar power/electric car solution would have been. Now... the nice thing about solar power is that you don't have to install all of it at once. We can start with a roof here and a roof there and a parking lot here and a shopping mall there. We have 30-40 years time for the conversion (but next year it will be a year less!). And that brings investment costs down to approx. $500-$1000 a year. About the same as a new power plant would cost. The only difference is that people don't think much about their electricity bill and how much of it is used to pay off that utility loan for the new power plant. But just because it is not spelled out does not mean the power company does not have to invest in that hardware and does not collect the money from the user. Just like the cost of gas includes the cost of the drilling rigs.
Thank you for proving how cash flow has no value.
Or how such visions of the future ignore the taxes.
Reality is much more simple than that. Oil is going to become more expensive, renewables are going to get cheaper and more plentiful. At some point the price curves will cross and that is when the real phase transition will occur. If oil is getting really expensive really soon, it will push all energy prices higher as more and more people will convert from hydrocarbons to renewables and thus increase demand over supply. This will make transition to renewables easier because the renewables industry will have a lot of money to build.
If renewables can grow fast enough, they will stabilize oil some time after the peak. And some time after that, oil will become unimportant for surface transportation and renewables might subsidize oil production for a while for aviation (unless someone invents a jet engine that runs on water).
You have to understand that I am a physicist. I am perfectly happy with first order analysis. And to first order the case is easy. I can't predict for you when things will be happening in detail and I don't have to... it does not matter to me. The markets are short term speculation, anyway and will respond instantanously to change. The long term behaviour is pretty much a function of slowly changing demand and supply. I am sure there are hundreds of economist writing papers about all of that.
As far as taxes are concerned... those are a thing of the past for me. I come from Germany where we had a 60% or higher gas tax for decades. It is not a big deal for the consumer. They cry for a day, they ask God for forgiveness of their sins and they ask him to smite the politicians who voted for the tax and the next day at the gas station they forget that gas was ever cheaper than $6/gallon. Ask any German. Or French. Or anyone over there...
Yes, cash flows matter when you can't (or won't) obtain a loan to fund the buying of the 'new going to save us all' technology. All that 'new' stuff needs insurance (if you get a loan) so that adds to the expense.
So how do the poor/lower class/"marginal business models" have thier reality changed too much in the case of having to replace their transportation modes?
As far as taxes are concerned... those are a thing of the past for me.
And your 15 year/$1500 ignores them also.
On the other hand... if you prefer to pay $150/barrel to KSA, Iran etc., no problem. Just do nothing and it will happen all by itself.
:-)
Talking to people at work it seems they won't have power for at least 3 more days. They are working on getting commercial places power first.
You've taken our Midwest winter from us!! Last Saturday was in the 70's here in Kansas City. I'm sure we will get ours...
A problem of wintertime blackouts:
SEATTLE - The death toll from the Northwest's worst windstorm in more than a decade climbed to 10 Monday, while nearly a quarter million homes and businesses remained without power in hard-hit western Washington.
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At least 100 people have developed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning blamed on the use of portable generators and charcoal grills used for light and heat during the blackout. Two of them were among Washington's eight deaths.
"We're dealing with a carbon-monoxide epidemic in Western Washington," said Dr. Neil B. Hampson of Virginia Mason Medical Center.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061218/ap_on_re_us/northwest_storm
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1000&Item id=2
The fuel price protests in September 2000 revealed how everyday life could be affected by disruptions of fuel supplies.During that cut-off of fuel, some grocery store shelves went empty and some riots happened over a lack of food.
The minimum amount of energy needed to cut a piece of wood solely depends on the piece of wood and the area and width of the cut. So even with a perfect saw mechanism, a large amount of energy would be needed to seperate the chemical bonds inside the wood to convert it from a solid to sawdust.
The total energy required to drive the saw mechanism is simply the energy to cut the woord divided by the efficiency of the saw divided by the efficiency of the engine driving the saw.
The human body as an engine has a peak efficiency of approx. 15%. The fuel required to operate a human body as a "power generator" is grown under enormous energy input. Plants have an efficiency of approx. 1% and conversion to steak and pork chop (the main foods of the American worker) has an efficiency of less then 10%. So in total the human body has an efficiency between its power source, the sun and the final mechanical output of 15%*1%*10%=0.015%. Even if we include beans, this is not higher than 0.15%. On average the human body therefor performs as a machine with at best 0.1% efficiency. A well built ICE has 20-30% efficiency. An electric motor 80-90%.
In other words: any idea to undo the industrial revolution and revert to human labor is doomed to fail simply for reasons of energy conservation and conversion efficiencies. It was exactly the enormous thermodynamic efficiency of ICEs that made many of the advances of modern life possible and allowed to human race to grow beyond the 1 billion mark. There is no way to go back from there. The only way is forward by replacing the ICE with electrical motors driven by electricity generated from sunlight. In other words: the future is PV. Or nuclear... but something in me doubts that enormously.
Something about biomechanics tells me that a well trained team with a saw can achieve a similar state of exhaustion.
:-)
It seems like we have forgotten much about this. I would invite everyone who does not believe me to do a simple test: pick a quiet street and push your car for a mile. After completing that exercize you will be magically cured from any thought that human labor could possibly replace ANY machines.
And I think you're failing to include ALL the energy sources necessary to operate machines.
The car moves at 60mph for 225,000 miles, i.e. it runs for 3750 hours. Average engine output is 20kW. Average sustainable human power output is 100W (that is just shy of the 150W or so you could get with slave labor). So you need 20,000W/100W=200 people to replace the engine. In total that makes 3750*200=750,000 man-hours. If you divide $65,000 by 750,000 hours, you get a pay of 8.7cents/hour.
Sounds like fuel in the US is therefor subsidized by roughly $5/$0.087$=5700%.
You win. In dreamland... :-)
But I see that you are offering really fabulously detailed arguments to counter my reasoning that human labor and human efficiency simply does not cut it.
:-)
For the simple reason that I do not believe that. You are wrestling with a straw man.
So now we are looking at the 20 year horizon already... and on that scale we can build a lot of renewables. Of course we can't make infinite power... but if you look at the energy needs of a small electric commuter car, the most urgent "tool" for Mom and Dad, the energy it needs can be collected with PV on the top of the garage and the parking lot at the workplace.
I am not saying this will be cheap. Or even easy. But it won't kill us, either. It will change us, though and what I notice more than anything else is that many people are afraid of that change. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to it. Maybe that's because I hate walking home next to a congested road where cars produce tons of CO2 and even some CO... it makes breathing really hard.
a) the population keeps on growing and won't magically stop growing because of PO.
b) the world is expecting (and planning on) more oil, not less.
20 years goes by fast. Half of the oil that has ever been produced has been burned in the last twenty. Rumpelstiltskin will sleep for at least 25 more.
In the end, it is the same for everyone... people will have to learn to use half as much energy. And since the US has the largest savings potential, it can profit most from the crunch.
The US also has the most renewables... it should actually be glad.