Washington Capitulates: Peak Oil Is Real

Commodity News Center ^ | 8/28/09 | Doug Hornig

[h20skier66]

Each year, generally in May, the Energy Information Administration publishes a less-than-eagerly-anticipated tome called the International Energy Outlook, 250+ pages of mind-numbing text, charts, graphs, and tables.

No one reads it. The mainstream media ignore it.

It's the product of the best prognosticators in the Department of Energy. Okay, that may be what puts most people off. But if you're patient enough to dig into it, it will cough up some fascinating nuggets of information.

The present edition is no exception. The report refrains from spelling out the conclusion that seems most obvious from its data. However, confirming a trend begun just last year, the 2009 edition clearly reveals that the government has been forced to admit that Peak Oil is coming. Moreover, it's expected to arrive much faster than was believed as recently as two years ago.

This represents a remarkable turnaround in the agency's opinion. Up until 2008, they were predicting unbroken growth in world oil supplies for the next two decades. But in '08 and '09, the rosy picture turned decidedly unrosier.

Oil (as we generally think of it), upon which most of the world economy depends, is termed "conventional liquids," i.e., the stuff that comes gushing up from under Saudi sands. "Unconventional liquids" - extra-heavy oil, bitumen, coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids, and biofuels - are also covered in the report, as we'll see, but conventional is far and away the most important one at this moment in history.

[GeronL]

“peak” oil is real when its illegal to drill for more

[TexGuy]

Peak Oil! We are DOOMED ... again!

[the long march]

True that

[Freddd]

Peak oil is real, is a straight out lie. Barges sit full all over the world holding the glut, to keep prices up. Pelosi and T. Boone Pickens and their wall streeter family members ‘speculating’.! And our Congress IS THE PROBLEM.

[Pelham]

Hubbert peak theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

[dila813]

Guy is an idiot. Here is a theory for the guy to test, Supply follows Demand.

Oh Snap, thats right.

If you want to see if Peak Oil is real you have to look for disconnect of Supply and Demand. Supply is measured in Reserves vs Demand not liquid pumped vs demand.

This guy needs to stop smoking swiss cheese.

[Recon Dad]

This claim was first made in 1900 and about every other year since then.

[This_far]

Peak Oil is coming. Moreover, it's expected to arrive much faster than was believed as recently as two years ago.

But much later than was believed 5 years ago.

So the best thing to do is not drill for what is known to be available, so future generations can say... duh, that was stupid.

[downtownconservative]

From Wiki: “... [Peak Theory] is [from] geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who created a method of modeling the production curve given an assumed ultimate recovery volume.”

The production curve is based on models that are based on assumptions. Verrrrry interrrresting!!

[cpdiii]

Peak Oil is real but not a problem we are probably near peak oil but not their yet.

We have ample energy available in the form of Natural Gas, Shale oil, Coal, and nuclear. The problem is politcal. We are not allowed to exploit these sources of energy. The energy crisis is a function of politics it is not a function of energy supplies. This is a crisis created in Congress by the Democrats and a few Rinos.

[theBuckwheat]

“Peak Oil” is no more about the price of gasoline at the pump than “global warming” is about the continual changing climate.

We are awash in hydrocarbons that can be converted to usable fuels. The only issue is price. For this reason worrying about running out of gasoline is as silly and foolish as San Diego worrying about running out of drinking water.

[dila813]

Then it is a flawed theory from the get go. Production matches Demand, that is the case for everything.

If there isn't Demand, you don't produce. Otherwise your money is tied up in inventory and eventually you go out of business.

I might be the only one that noticed this, so pardon me. This is my observation and no one else, so if this sounds crazy it is because it comes from someone without a background in Environmental Conspiracy Theories. Demand appears to me to have tanked the last two years.

[theBuckwheat]

see:
The Myth of “Peak Oil”
Mises Daily by Charles Feathestone

at
http://mises.org/story/1717

[This_far]

I can’t argue with you due to your resume, nor have any reason to do so with your reply.

(well, I am a bit skeptical about peak oil since, I don’t believe that oil’s source has been defined)(and new fields, thought harder to reach, are being found)

[wbill]

Yep, in the 70s, I was taught that we'd have run out of oil by now.

We'd also be locked in a new ice age, but that was OK....since we'd all be dead or dying of starvation and/or pollution-caused cancer. That is, if we hadn't already perished in a nuclear holocaust and the ensuing nuclear winter.

I was taught this in grades 1 to 3. Good stuff. Makes the whole "The World is warming by 3/10ths of a degree seem pretty trivial in comparison.

Kids these days have it eeeeeeeeeasy. :-)

[Kevmo]

I thought this documentary was compelling

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/A_Crude_Awakening_The_Oil_Crash/70061528?lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1558207712_13_1&strackid=27318a624f37a99e_13_srl

[wolf78]

We are awash in hydrocarbons that can be converted to usable fuels. The only issue is price. For this reason worrying about running out of gasoline is as silly and foolish as San Diego worrying about running out of drinking water.

Finally someone who gets it. The stone age didn't end for lack of stones. Peak oil is real in the sense that demand is growing and conventional liquids are increasingly hard to come by. That doesn't mean the world is gonna end, there plenty of coal, algae etc. that can be turned into fuel, it just means that drilling ever more deeply for conventional oil becomes less and less competitive - over a period of time, that is.

The relevant issue in a market economy is always price. We could all drive cars that consume half the fuel, but right now it's cheaper to pay for the fuel than to pay for ultralight materials and hybrid drive.



BMW showcar: 63 mpg, 0-62 in 4.8 seconds