Peak oil a hoax? Prove it.

[Nordic]

Just as Iraqi oil production was finally returning to the "heights" it typically reaches before we foment military strife.

Who could have possibly seen this coming?

Cui bono?

That has absolutely ZERO to do with Peak Oil, or abiotic oil, or anything else.

It just means there are big lakes of oil under Iraq. We know that. It means that there is the technology available to pump a lot of the shit out very quickly. We know that.

So what?

It's a lake that can be pumped dry, just like every other lake.

[wordspeak2]

Some of you just want to fight. I wonder who's read the whole thread. We can go around in circles with information. The hard-line "Peak Oil" information happens to come from Nazis, but that doesn't mean anything to some folks.

For wintler2 I think his motive is fairly clear, as he's not a political radical anymore, as he made clear early in the thread. And what are you now, wintler2, a "Peak Oil"er, huh? Yes, I know them. They're former left-wing political activists- almost always white and middle class- who have become self-righteous individualists who reject political solutions, opt for personal ones, and talk constantly about "Peak Oil." They thumb their nose at socialism, and many even thumb their nose at a mass green energy movement. Indeed, they condescend to anything "mass," for there won't *be* any masses soon, they declare. For the end is near. It's "Peak Oil." King Hubbert told me so.

I'd like to converse with people who are on the same team, and sincerely trying to effect our way out of this fascist mess.

Some good info debunking "Peak Oil": http://www.gasresources.net/

[stickdog99]

Who could have possibly seen this coming?

Cui bono?

Sorry stickdog, not sure i get your point: US oil industry contractors have got involved in Iraq in preparation for US soldiers leaving/reducing#'s ? Wont that leave them vulnerable?

And why is Iraqs 2- 4 mbd especially significant in an 80+ mbd world? Sure its enough to make a war (that oil co's don't pay for) worthwhile, but its not pivotal in any way to global peak oil.

The current oil "shortage" has been manufactured, just as almost every oil shortage in the past has been. The history of the distribution of oil has been and continues to be a history of manufactured "shortages" and price fixing. The history of Iraq's oil production levels is exhibit A.

Despite having some of largest reserves of cheap, clean crude oil on the planet, every time Iraq starts to ramp up oil production over 2.5 million barrels a day, the Cheney Crew manufactures some political/military crisis in Iraq to knock back production. The Cheney Crew now has its grubby hands on the Iraq spigot and production will increase and decrease exactly as the Cheney Crew directs it to increase and decrease, with the convenient cover story being "if only the Iraqis had not kicked our helpful American soldiers out, their country would be swimming in oil profits by now."



I've got my money on black. Funny how history always repeats itself, ennit?

[wintler2]

.. The hard-line "Peak Oil" information happens to come from Nazis, but that doesn't mean anything to some folks. ..

Some nazi's do mention peak oil, and some were very keen on animal liberation and vegetarianism. Does that make them nazi plots too?

For wintler2 I think his motive is fairly clear, as he's not a political radical anymore, as he made clear early in the thread. And what are you now, wintler2, a "Peak Oil"er, huh? Yes, I know them. They're former left-wing political activists- almost always white and middle class- who have become self-righteous individualists who reject political solutions, opt for personal ones, and talk constantly about "Peak Oil." They thumb their nose at socialism, and many even thumb their nose at a mass green energy movement. Indeed, they condescend to anything "mass," for there won't *be* any masses soon, they declare. For the end is near. It's "Peak Oil." King Hubbert told me so.

Of course you don't quote me, and obviously haven't read even the first post in this thread.

Keep up the personal attacks, it only highlights how empty you are.

I'd like to converse with people who are on the same team, and sincerely trying to effect our way out of this fascist mess.

Some good info debunking "Peak Oil": http://www.gasresources.net/

J. F. Kenney & Russian abiotic oil again. B-o-r-i-n-g.
Again, where is it, why has Russian oil production fallen if they've found 'endless abiotic oil'?

[wintler2]

The current oil "shortage" has been manufactured, just as almost every oil shortage in the past has been.

Because the present is always exactly like the past. Not.

The history of the distribution of oil has been and continues to be a history of manufactured "shortages" and price fixing. The history of Iraq's oil production levels is exhibit A.
Despite having some of largest reserves of cheap, clean crude oil on the planet, every time Iraq starts to ramp up oil production over 2.5 million barrels a day, the Cheney Crew manufactures some political/military crisis in Iraq to knock back production. The Cheney Crew now has its grubby hands on the Iraq spigot and production will increase and decrease exactly as the Cheney Crew directs it to increase and decrease, with the convenient cover story being "if only the Iraqis had not kicked our helpful American soldiers out, their country would be swimming in oil profits by now."

Iraq, yawn, even granting your theory of an all-powerful Cheney Crew, again..

And why is Iraqs 2- 4 mbd especially significant in an 80+ mbd world? Sure its enough to make a war (that oil co's don't pay for) worthwhile, but its not pivotal in any way to global peak oil.

I've got my money on black. Funny how history always repeats itself, ennit?

Yes, many previous civilisations have depleted their resources and collapsed too.

[Nordic]

The current oil "shortage" has been manufactured, just as almost every oil shortage in the past has been.

What's this "shortage" you're talking about? Nobody says there's a shortage. Considering we're burning more oil per day than ever before, and the burning of oil continues to rise, there's no shortage.

I have nothing against you, but you obviously have a lot of baggage regarding people who think differently than you do. That I don't understand.

I try to resist magical thinking in my world view.

I find that a lot of people who don't like to acknowledge that "Peak Oil" is on its way don't want to admit that there are many billions of people on this planet whose very existence is due to abundant cheap oil. Kind of like Ireland and the potatoes. Take away the potatoes, lots of people die.

I also see a high level of paranoia in folks who would rather not look at obvious things like bell shaped curves, and would rather throw blame at the "bad guys" who are all conspiring to milk us dry of our money or perhaps cultivate a mass die-off of humanity.

Leave the paranoia at home, leave the emotional baggage at home, and just look at the exponentially ever-increasing use of the stuff, and the fact that the supply can't rise as fast as the use. The supply simply cannot rise exponentially for much longer. It's just some pretty basic math. Bacteria in a petri dish, that sort of thing.

[Saurian Tail]

We should be able to make basic observations about things in the world like how much oil is there that we can get at in an economically feasible manner. Who really cares if oil is abiotic or fossilized? You have to be able to get it out of the ground in a sustainable manner. The Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) for oil extraction has been dropping steadily due to moving from easy sources like Texas to difficult sources like the Tar Sands and deep water drilling.

Here is a rough historical estimate of EROEI for oil (combination of all sources):

1930 – About 100:1
1970 – About 30:1
2000 – About 11-18:1

Source: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5688

It is pretty clear that the decline in EROEI is a fundamentally related to increasingly difficult extraction procedures ... and this in spite of radical improvements in technology over the time span.

Yes, there is a tremendous amount of hydrocarbons in the ground. But we are not talking about 100:1 or even 30:1 EROEI sources. There is a lot of oil in the Tar Sands, but it is at best a 5:1 EROEI proposition.

Here is a graph of US Oil Production:



The US was the Saudia Arabia of oil production until the 1970's and we have been in decline ever since.

It stretches credulousness to chalk these macro trends up to engineered scarcity. On a micro level, prices can be manipulated for any number of reasons, but on the macro level there seems to be an abundance of evidence that oil is becoming increasingly difficult to extract ... requiring an increasing investment over time for additional barrels coming out of the ground.

The result is very similar to the debt problem. As the interest eats up an increasing percentage of available funds, the ability to maneuver is restricted and the available number of attractive options are reduced. This country was built on cheap and abundant oil from the Southwestern US. Those days are long gone.

-ST

[freemason9]

Thanks, Saurian Tail. Peak oil isn't about running out of supplies; it's about the economic feasibility of continued extraction. Once it requires a barrel of oil in energy costs to extract a barrel of oil, we are effectively "out of oil."

Radicals can be self-inflating posers, sometimes.

[stickdog99]

If you read the whole thread, I think my take on Peak Oil comes through loud and clear. I think leftist scare mongering about Peak Oil is overblown. And even if it is not overblown, it is unhelpful because it plays right into the hands of our controllers.

There is plenty of energy all around us. The sun is still shining, the wind is still blowing, the oceans are still churning and the earth is still cooling. What matters most is getting the distribution of energy out of the hands of the few and into the hands of the many. Peak Oil hand wringing does nothing to bring this about and in fact serves the longstanding agenda of Big Oil, which is to suck every possible dollar out of the masses through price rigging while keeping a complete stranglehold on the distribution of power.

Certainly we need to move to renewable energy sources yesterday, with or without Peak Oil. Certainly we need to stop wasting so much damn energy yesterday, with or without Peak Oil. But we should not embrace anything simply because said thing might marginally reduce oil and gas consumption. We should embrace only those solutions that address the fundamental problem, which is Big Oil's current monopoly on the distribution of power. It is more important to decentralize and democratize the distribution of energy than it is to conserve at any cost our precious oil without which our precious way of life can and will not exist.

But please, by all means, feel free to disagree. That is what discussion is about.

[stickdog99]

We should be able to make basic observations about things in the world like how much oil is there that we can get at in an economically feasible manner. Who really cares if oil is abiotic or fossilized? You have to be able to get it out of the ground in a sustainable manner. The Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) for oil extraction has been dropping steadily due to moving from easy sources like Texas to difficult sources like the Tar Sands and deep water drilling.

Here is a rough historical estimate of EROEI for oil (combination of all sources):

1930 – About 100:1
1970 – About 30:1
2000 – About 11-18:1

Source: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5688

From your link:

The formula I’ve given for EROEI of oil (other fossil fuels are similar) is:

EROEI of oil = (fraction of oil remaining^2)*100

This comes from an approximate fit for the data points given by Charles Hall, 2008 for oil in the USA:

1930 – About 100:1
1970 – About 30:1
2000 – About 11-18:1

An additional reason to go for this simple relationship is because it has the following property: it takes the same amount of energy to extract the first half of the oil as it takes to extract half of the remainder (a quarter), and so on. This fits well with the intuitive idea of declining EROEI.

Clearly, the data is too limited to tell if this formula holds true with any certainty, so an obvious possible set of scenarios to try is changing it to other possible curves and see what happens in that case.

How the hell does that equate to "a rough historical estimate of EROEI for oil (combination of all sources)"?

[wintler2]

If you read the whole thread, I think my take on Peak Oil comes through loud and clear. I think leftist scare mongering about Peak Oil is overblown. And even if it is not overblown, it is unhelpful because it plays right into the hands of our controllers.

Knowledge about fundamental realities of our situation is bad? Wrong.

There is plenty of energy all around us. The sun is still shining, the wind is still blowing, the oceans are still churning and the earth is still cooling.

Which of those were you think of as a replacement for oil?

What matters most is getting the distribution of energy out of the hands of the few and into the hands of the many. Peak Oil hand wringing does nothing to bring this about and in fact serves the longstanding agenda of Big Oil, which is to suck every possible dollar out of the masses through price rigging while keeping a complete stranglehold on the distribution of power.

Certainly we need to move to renewable energy sources yesterday, with or without Peak Oil. Certainly we need to stop wasting so much damn energy yesterday, with or without Peak Oil. But we should not embrace anything simply because said thing might marginally reduce oil and gas consumption. We should embrace only those solutions that address the fundamental problem, which is Big Oil's current monopoly on the distribution of power.

Who are you calling Big Oil, and whats this monopoly nonsense? If you look at top exporters, many are run by national/govt controlled oil companies and are hostile to the western oil corporations. There is no monopoly on oil production, & even if there was do they also control lpg, methane, ethanol and electricity production (all to some extent substitutable)?

It is more important to decentralize and democratize the distribution of energy than it is to conserve our precious oil without which our precious way of life can and will not exist at any cost.

Oil is already pretty decentralised, i think you're labouring under illusions about where/how many countries export oil (or at least used to!).

[stickdog99]

It stretches credulousness to chalk these macro trends up to engineered scarcity.

Look at the above chart and consider for yourself the pains Britain and the USA have taken (basically since the British drew up the map of Iraq) to ensure that Iraq's vast supply of untapped oil remain largely untapped for the last 100+ years.

Why is it so unbelievable that these same folks might cap off a couple of giant oil finds in, say, Alaska until it serves their purposes to tap them?

[stickdog99]

Knowledge about fundamental realities of our situation is bad? Wrong.

LOL

"fundamental realities" = "we are running out of our precious oil without which our precious way of life can and will not exist"

Right?

Every kilowatt generated by any source of power other than oil can serve as a "replacement" for a killowatt of power generated from oil. What about this is so hard for you to fathom?

Oh, I forgot. Only oil distributed by Big Oil can preserve our precious way of life. Decentralized renewable power is nothing but a pipe dream! Head for the hills, everybody, before the inevitably imminent oil shortages cause our society to collapse! Pray for $20 a gallon gas, if only to preserve our precious way of life for another decade or so! Right?

Who are you calling Big Oil, and whats this monopoly nonsense?

ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.

The monopoly is on distribution, not production, just as it has been since the days of Standard Oil.

[stickdog99]

Oil energy is required for modern warfare far more than oil energy Is required for modern society in general.

[eyeno]

wintler2 wrote:
Knowledge about fundamental realities of our situation is bad? Wrong.

When the world is viewed through a keen eye for occult symbolism and language many so called realities change instantly. There are shortcuts.