Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 08:28
trotsky (@oil peak) ID#377387:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
according to the work of Richard Duncan, not even adding 8 'Norway equivalents' ( Norway is the 4th largest exporter ) to world oil production would significantly delay the peak - interestingly , it is a non-linear function - i.e. while 5, 6, or 8 NE's wouldn't delay the peak a lot ( by only 3 years in fact in the 8 NE case ) , 8.8 NE's would ( a highly hypothetical scenario, since it would only apply if those additions were made as of January of '98, 8 years BEFORE Duncan's peak projection - later additions would NOT delay the peak at all, but would decelerate the decline after the peak somewhat ) .
of course this is totally illusory anyway - there are no '8 Norway equivalents' that could be added to production - they don't exist. however, the 'peak delay simulation' still serves a purpose, since it answers the question 'what would happen if we suddenly found 8 new Norways all at once' - and the answer is, it wouldn't really make a big difference.
Duncan:
dieoff.org
Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 08:02
trotsky (Maverick@peak oil) ID#377387:
Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved
the assertions in that 1980 WSJ article are plainly wrong. note that global per capita oil use has been in DECLINE since peaking in 1978 - which is basically the date which historians may well use one day as marking the 'beginning of the end of industrial civilization'.
meanwhile, the world's fossil fuel geology is by now very well known, and most researchers actually use quite generous assumptions of 1. the known recoverable reserves ( the most flawed data in this respect come from OPEC, where quotas have been linked to reserves, which has led to a vast overstatement of same ) and 2. the fossil fuels that they believe will still be found at some point in the future. even using these generous assumptions, the global Hubbert peak is now pegged to occur sometime between 2000 and 2010 - this can be deduced from the 'discovery peak' 4 to 5 decades ago ( yes, decades ) .
there is a good chance imo that we will belatedly realize that the peak year was actually the year 2000, i.e. the 'worst case', because something very unusual has happend: oil supply growth has been negative every single year since '00, IN SPITE of soaring oil prices - this has never happened before ( i.e., soaring prices have in the past always resulted in increases in supply ) .
why? has depletion already begun to outpace new production? it's definitely possible, in view of the fact that the world's 14 largest oil fields produce 20% of the world's oil ( there are almost 8,000 fields altogether ) - and those 14 fields are all between 50 and 70 years old, and all are in the Mid East ( i.e., reserves data are notoriously unreliable ) . one thing we DO know is that the grand-daddy of all oil fields, the giant Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia requires over 7m. b./d. of seawater to be pumped in to keep up its pressure - i.e. it's becoming progressively more difficult and expensive ( both in the monetary and energy equation sense ) to get the oil out.
most people find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that our modern industrialized civilization may turn out to be nothing but a flash in the pan - but it will be unless an adequate replacement for crude oil is found. to date, there is nothing even remotely adequate on the horizon, but the clock keeps ticking. |
