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Dr Deffeyes defines a date
Posted by Heading Out on Mon Feb 13 at 9:32 AM EST
Ken Deffeyes has come out with a new statement about standing on the summit. It has been suggested that it have its own thread. So here it is.
The relevant bits are
I predicted that world oil production would peak on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2005. In hindsight, that prediction was in error by three weeks. An update using the 2005 data shows that we passed the peak on December 16, 2005. . . . . . By 2025, we're going to be back in the Stone Age. . . . . . . Ethanol, fuel cells, and solar cells are not the only shimmering dreams. Methane hydrates, oil shale, and the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste depository would be better off forgotten. There are plenty of solid opportunities. Energy conservation is by far the most important. Initiatives that are already engineered and ready to go are biodiesel from palm oil, coal gasification (for both gaseous and liquid fuels), high-efficiency diesel automobiles, and revamping our food supply. Every little bit helps, but even if wind energy continues its success it will still be a little bit. . . . . . . That's it. I can now refer to the world oil peak in the past tense. My career as a prophet is over. I'm now an historian.
The floor is yours.
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A bit of optimism in the air today
Posted by Heading Out on Tue Feb 14 at 12:02 AM EST
In the post on Professor Deffeyes latest statement I quoted his comment that ""solar cells are not the only shimmering dreams." Which, when taken with the following statement that "Methane hydrates, oil shale and the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste depository would be better better off forgotten" suggests that he holds little hope for any of these technologies. This is, I believe a mistake. Not too long ago the Engineer suggested that I write away for the free copy of "The Power of the Sun", a one-hour free DVD on recent developments in solar energy, hosted by Nobel Laureates Walter Kohn and Alan Heeger, and produced by Professor Kohn (who is at UC Santa Barbara, which is why I heard of it). It is the one with the camel carrying a solar panel that powers the refrigeration for vaccines being carried across the African desert. I highly recommend it.
Not only does it show the considerable progress that solar power has made in the past decade, but also illustrates the commitment that both individuals and governments are making to this technology. No it is not going to solve all the problems that we have with the coming of depletion, but this was a very easy video to watch and gave me some confidence that solar is likely to make a larger contribution, and faster, than I had anticipated. (It also explains how they work, so that even I could understand it).
Today's BBC story shows the level that can now be reached, as a family in the outback of Australia now get virtually all their power from sun and wind.
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How carbon dioxide improves recovery
Posted by Heading Out on Sun Feb 12 at 8:51 PM EST
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Following Yankee's story about carbon dioxide injection, it appears that not everyone understands one of the ways in which carbon dioxide will help enhance oil recovery (EOR). I am therefore going to just list some of the previous posts that include carbon dioxide, which was discussed here, and here, not to mention here and here.
Below the fold, however, I am going to repeat, with a little update, the post where I described what carbon dioxide injection can do to an existing oil well, and that itself followed an earlier post. These were pre-cursors to what later became the weekend techie talks, and these really relate to those, and from now on I will include this post in that listing. Since the topic largely relates to oilwell production, the listing this week will be for those sites. For those new to the site, on most weekends (though not next week) I will post a simplified explanation of one aspect of fossil energy extraction. So far we have been covering coal this year, after covering aspects of oil and gas production last year.
Carbon dioxide injection is a current DOE program for enhancing oil recovery from an older oil reservoir that has already produced the bulk of the primary oil that it will yield. Just recently Glencoe have started injection in central Alberta, and though the OGJ article on this is behind their wall, a short quote:
Glencoe Resources Ltd., private Calgary independent, is using the gas to improve recovery of primarily light oil from multiple formations in several depleted oil fields about 100 miles north-northeast of Calgary.
The company hopes to boost the recovery factor to as high as 40% from 10-20%. All of the formations are deeper than 1,300 m.
Glencoe has long-term agreements to purchase CO2 from two industrial plants. It operates about 50 miles of CO2 pipelines and has begun injecting gas from the MEGlobal Canada Inc. plant at Prentiss. A second CO2 separation facility being built near the NOVA Chemicals Corp. petrochemical plant is to go into service in early 2006.
The original post related to cleaning up after elephants*, and was written during the time when I frequently compared Saudi Arabia to a sandwich shop (sorry but no-one every noticed the pun!)
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Public interest, peak oil and global warming
Posted by Heading Out on Sun Feb 12 at 3:43 PM EST
Further to Halfin's comment on the life of this site, I thought I would revisit blogpulse and see how popular the topic has been since Prof G looked, back in July.
It seems as though, while a little more prevalent in the MSM, discussion otherwise has tailed off, as the lack of an evident problem may have caused the reduced interest. Unfortunately the problem itself has not gone away. Perhaps it will be interesting to come back and see the trend in another six months - if we are still here (grin).
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