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Another commenter replied to your misunderstanding between peak supply and peak demand, but I’ll address the issue you actually mentioned too. Since 1980, we h

Another commenter replied to your misunderstanding between peak supply and peak demand, but I’ll address the issue you actually mentioned too. Since 1980, we have never had a year where we found more untapped oil reserves than were consumed[1]. Can you explain to me how oil production can continue keep up with demand when demand outstrips new discoveries — and has, for nearly forty years? [1]: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/peak-oil-perspective/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/peak-oil-perspective/

bryanlarsen 9y ago
That's actually a pretty good link. It's pretty easy to read that document and come to the complete opposite conclusion. All it takes is a little more confidence that we could weather a spike in oil prices while tar sands production ramps up to meet demand.
Theodores 9y ago
Control of oil is about who extracts it and what currency they sell it in. There is plenty of oil but we are always told that it is scarce. All of this was established in the Standard Oil days when there was a glut of oil meaning that nobody could make money at it. The trick was to manage the supply so the price was high. This is not to deny that we are burning the oil at a silly rate to therefore run out. However, the story of scarcity told along the way is not quite what the peak oil believers would have you believe.
adventured 9y ago
At the same time the Permian has been found to contain tens of billions of barrels of oil beyond what was anticipated could be extracted just ten years ago. Undercounting is almost universal throughout oil's industrial history, and tilts toward there being a lot more. Pioneer pegs Spraberry/Wolfcamp at 50 billion barrels (and Eagle Ford at 25 billion). The Permian will end up being comparable in size only to Ghawar, with ~100 billion barrels or more (Pioneer says 150+ billion, other studies say 70-80 billion, and so on). That's based on today's technology, tomorrow we'll be able to extract more. Cross the border into Mexico, you're going to find more massive shale deposits that we haven't even looked at yet (it doesn't just magically stop at the Texas border very obviously). That'll happen in the next ten years. There's $6 or $7 trillion worth of oil in Texas that was almost entirely off the table as a resource as recently as 2007.
kbutler 9y ago
Given that demand growth has outstripped discoveries, how is it that we've continued to grow production for these last 40 years? The answer lies in the metric "proven reserves" - oil that we have the technology to recover today - which has outpaced production increases over the last 40 years (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/RSTA20130179F6/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/...), leaving us with 50 years of production at today's rates, up from 30 years in 1980. Figure from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ The weakness of most peak oil supply discussions, including that "peak-oil-perspective" link, is that they only count "Conventional" oil. Ignoring "Unconventional oil" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil has caused these predictions to be invalidated every time. Hubbert's original "peak oil" prediction did not consider "unconventional" oil, because there was no "unconventional" oil production at that time (and the term still remains loosely defined - basically oil that costs more than other oil to produce). Increased prices provide incentives to create technologies to recover previously unusable sources and to bring previously uneconomic sources into production. Today's "unconventional" oil includes sources that most people just expect to be counted as part of the oil supply, like fracking and offshore drilling. Increased prices also motivate developing and shifting to other energy sources which were previously not economically viable, like wind and solar. This article http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-worry-about-peak-oil/ http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-wo... does better, but in his eagerness to declare peak oil supply, he ignores economics and his peak oil supply declaration failed immediately as world oil supply continued to grow: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php Turning your question around, "Can you explain to me how we can hit peak oil production, when growth in proven reserves outstrips production growth — and has, for nearly forty years?" (It's possible, but it seems likely we will hit peak demand and reduce oil demand well before we hit peak supply).

bryanlarsen 9y ago

That's actually a pretty good link. It's pretty easy to read that document and come to the complete opposite conclusion. All it takes is a little more confidence that we could weather a spike in oil prices while tar sands production ramps up to meet demand.

Theodores 9y ago

Control of oil is about who extracts it and what currency they sell it in. There is plenty of oil but we are always told that it is scarce. All of this was established in the Standard Oil days when there was a glut of oil meaning that nobody could make money at it. The trick was to manage the supply so the price was high. This is not to deny that we are burning the oil at a silly rate to therefore run out. However, the story of scarcity told along the way is not quite what the peak oil believers would have you believe.

adventured 9y ago

At the same time the Permian has been found to contain tens of billions of barrels of oil beyond what was anticipated could be extracted just ten years ago. Undercounting is almost universal throughout oil's industrial history, and tilts toward there being a lot more. Pioneer pegs Spraberry/Wolfcamp at 50 billion barrels (and Eagle Ford at 25 billion). The Permian will end up being comparable in size only to Ghawar, with ~100 billion barrels or more (Pioneer says 150+ billion, other studies say 70-80 billion, and so on). That's based on today's technology, tomorrow we'll be able to extract more. Cross the border into Mexico, you're going to find more massive shale deposits that we haven't even looked at yet (it doesn't just magically stop at the Texas border very obviously). That'll happen in the next ten years. There's $6 or $7 trillion worth of oil in Texas that was almost entirely off the table as a resource as recently as 2007.

kbutler 9y ago

Given that demand growth has outstripped discoveries, how is it that we've continued to grow production for these last 40 years? The answer lies in the metric "proven reserves" - oil that we have the technology to recover today - which has outpaced production increases over the last 40 years (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/RSTA20130179F6/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/...), leaving us with 50 years of production at today's rates, up from 30 years in 1980. Figure from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ The weakness of most peak oil supply discussions, including that "peak-oil-perspective" link, is that they only count "Conventional" oil. Ignoring "Unconventional oil" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil has caused these predictions to be invalidated every time. Hubbert's original "peak oil" prediction did not consider "unconventional" oil, because there was no "unconventional" oil production at that time (and the term still remains loosely defined - basically oil that costs more than other oil to produce). Increased prices provide incentives to create technologies to recover previously unusable sources and to bring previously uneconomic sources into production. Today's "unconventional" oil includes sources that most people just expect to be counted as part of the oil supply, like fracking and offshore drilling. Increased prices also motivate developing and shifting to other energy sources which were previously not economically viable, like wind and solar. This article http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-worry-about-peak-oil/ http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-wo... does better, but in his eagerness to declare peak oil supply, he ignores economics and his peak oil supply declaration failed immediately as world oil supply continued to grow: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php Turning your question around, "Can you explain to me how we can hit peak oil production, when growth in proven reserves outstrips production growth — and has, for nearly forty years?" (It's possible, but it seems likely we will hit peak demand and reduce oil demand well before we hit peak supply).