Stories tagged with "m. king hubbert"

The Net Hubbert Curve: What Does It Mean?

Posted by David Murphy on June 22, 2009 - 10:30am in The Oil Drum: Net Energy
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: cutler cleveland, david murphy, eroi, gross energy, m. king hubbert, net energy, net hubbert, original, peak oil, positive feedback [list all tags]

Cutler Cleveland of Boston University has reported that the EROI of oil and gas extraction in the U.S. has decreased from 100:1 in the 1930’s to 30:1 in the 1970’s to roughly 11:1 as of 2000 (Figure 1). But beyond the fact that society receives currently around 11 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel that it spends getting that oil, What does this mean?





Figure 1. Plot of three estimations of EROI for U.S. oil and gas.

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The Spike and the Peak

Posted by Ugo Bardi on February 8, 2009 - 9:34am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, heinlein, m. king hubbert, peak oil, singularity, spike. [list all tags]


The figure above, from Robert Anson Heinlein's "Pandora's Box" (1952), is perhaps the first graphical representation of the concept that technology is not only progressing, but progressing at an exponentially growing rate. Today, this concept goes sometimes under the name of the "technological spike" or the "technological singularity". However, we see also increasing concerns about peak oil and, more in general, about "peak civilization". Will the future be a spike or a peak?

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Hubbert: King Of The Technocrats

Posted by Big Gav on December 13, 2008 - 10:35am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: history, m. king hubbert, politics, technocracy [list all tags]

In the wake of the recent interview with Jay Hanson posted at The Oil Drum, there was some discussion of Hubbert's role in the Technocracy movement.

I hadn't been aware that Hubbert was a Technocrat (or that the technocrats were an organised grouping, for that matter), so in this post I'll explore the Technocracy movement and Hubbert's role in it.

The knowledge essential to competent intellectual leadership in this situation is preeminently geological - a knowledge of the earth's mineral and energy resources. The importance of any science, socially, is its effect on what people think and what they do. It is time earth scientists again become a major force in how people think rather than how they live. - M King Hubbert

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A distant mirror: Ireland's great famine

Posted by Ugo Bardi on December 12, 2008 - 10:17am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: an gorta mor, deforestation, ireland famine, m. king hubbert, overshoot, peak oil [list all tags]




In the 18th century, Ireland lost much of its forested land. This graph of wooded land for sale has been generated from data reported by Eileen Mc Cracken in "The Irish Woods since Tudor Times" (1971). The data are fitted with a derivative logistic, as for a "Hubbert" curve. The good fit indicates the over-exploitation of a slowly renewable resource.

Deforestation was not the direct cause of the Great Irish famine of mid 19th century, but it was the start of a chain of events that led to it. In this article, I show the condition of "overshoot" that Ireland was in at the time of the famine has much in common with the "overshoot" condition our world is in today.

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Peak Oil Update - August 2008: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers

Posted by Sam Foucher on September 13, 2008 - 8:00pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: ali morteza samsam bakhtiari, bp, chris skrebowski, eia, logistic, loglets, m. king hubbert, oil, original, rembrandt koppelaar, robelius, update [list all tags]

An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts. 

World oil production (EIA Monthly) and various forecasts (2001-2027)
World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 14 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhtiari, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, GBM, ASPO-[70,58,45], Robelius Low/High, HSM). 95% of the predictions  sees a production peak between 2008 and 2010 at 77.5 - 85.0 mbpd (The 95% forecast variability area in yellow is computed using a bootstrap technique). Click to Enlarge. 

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Peak Caviar

Posted by Ugo Bardi on August 5, 2008 - 11:00am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: caviar, depletion, m. king hubbert, original, russia [list all tags]


Once, black caviar from the Caspian Sea was ubiquitous in Russia in its typical blue cans. Now, it has disappeared. "Peak Caviar" has taken place around 1980 in Russia

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The Derivation of "Logistic-shaped" Discovery

Posted by Nate Hagens on June 26, 2008 - 10:00am
Topic: Geology/Exploration
Tags: gaussian, logistic, m. king hubbert, original, verhulst, webhubbletelescope [list all tags]

This is a guest post from WebHubbleTelescope. The post addresses the origins and relevance (or lack thereof) of the logistic equation as it is commonly used in projecting/modeling oil production forecasts. As far as I can see, this is the first time anyone has succeeded in deriving the Logistic oil model from first principles. I will follow this with a post on the Maximum Power Principle next week, which in my opinion may shed light on the logistic curve from the perspective of oil 'demand' (as opposed to supply).

Many people believe that the Logistic equation adequately models the Hubbert peak. This comes about for a few reasons:

  1. We can (often/occasionally) get an adequate heuristic fit to the shape of the production data by matching it to a logistic sigmoid curve.
  2. The logistic-growth formula dU/dt = U(U0-U) carries some sort of physical significance.
  3. The logistic has hung around for a long time, in modern terms, therefore it must have some practical value.

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Why oil costs over $130 per barrel: the decline of North Sea Oil

Posted by Euan Mearns on June 9, 2008 - 10:00am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: $130 oil, brent, declines, decommissioning, economists, exports, m. king hubbert, north sea oil, norway, peak oil, united kingdom [list all tags]




Rising North Sea oil production was a significant factor in keeping oil prices under control in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Production peaked at 6.4 million barrels per day in 2000 and since then, declining North Sea Oil production is one significant reason that oil prices are now rising exponentially.

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Peak Oil Update - December 2007: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers

Posted by Sam Foucher on December 29, 2007 - 1:00pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: ali morteza samsam bakhtiari, bp, chris skrebowski, eia, logistic, loglets, m. king hubbert, oil, rembrandt koppelaar, robelius, update [list all tags]

An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts. This post is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari who passed away last October.

World oil production (EIA Monthly) and various forecasts (2001-2027)
World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 13 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhtiari, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, GBM, ASPO-[70,58,45], Robelius Low/High, HSM). 95% of the predictions  sees a production peak between 2008 and 2010 at 77.5 - 85.0 mbpd (The 95% confidence interval is computed using a bootstrap technique). Click to Enlarge. 

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Queensland Shale Oil Billions in The Balance ?

Posted by Big Gav on December 2, 2007 - 11:00am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: colorado, m. king hubbert, queensland, shale, shale oil, shell [list all tags]

Cross-posted from Peak Energy

The Australian Financial Review today has a report on a plan by the Ziff brothers to revive Queensland's defunct shale oil industry (subscription required) - "a mining project worth as much as $14 billion near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park". The report predicts the development would bring 16,000 new residents to the Whitsundays region and is already facing opposition from local groups like "Save Our Foreshore" concerned about damage to the environment and the tourism industry.

Bloomberg has a much smaller version of the story - "Ziff Seeks to Develop Australian Oil-Shale Project, Review Says".

Queensland Energy Resources Ltd., a closely held company backed by Ziff Brothers Investments, is seeking to develop an Australian oil-shale project valued at A$14 billion ($12 billion), the Australian Financial Review reported.

Consultants from New-York based Ziff recently met the Queensland government to discuss development of the project, which would require the relocation of a nearby airport, the paper said, citing government documents. The project, located in Queensland state near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, may contain as much as 9.7 billion barrels of oil resources, the Review said, citing a document lodged with the state's government.

Queensland Energy is scheduled to complete an initial study into possible development of the project within six months, the Review said, citing Simon Eldridge, the company's director of corporate affairs. The company acquired the project from Southern Pacific Minerals NL in 2004, the report said.

The original Stuart shale oil development in the area was done by Southern Pacific Petroleum.

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