Talk:Peak oil

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AGGG. I'm, still drafting this! Didn't mean to save!--Bobbing up 03:39, 16 November 2007 (EST) Having missed the interesting "hydrogen economy" debate last night I thought I would contribute a peak oil stub.--Bobbing up 03:50, 16 November 2007 (EST)

Well, whatever you started, it's coming along quite nicely now! humanUser talk:Human 12:31, 16 November 2007 (EST)


[edit] Oil Price

Wow. When we wrote this in November oil was "only" 100 dollars - and we we were worried. Now it's 140.

Was it even a hundred when that was written? The tone suggests not - I think it was around 70ish back then, and even that was making people nervous! Nice catch, though. ħumanUser talk:Human 17:00, 28 June 2008 (EDT)
This graph isn't too clear but it looks like around 100 at the end of the year.--Bobbing up 17:48, 28 June 2008 (EDT)
And now it's 35. Secret Squirrel 20:23, 22 February 2009 (EST)
This article is way too generous toward the peak oil theory. Aren't we supposed to be, you know, debunking crank ideas? Secret Squirrel 20:24, 22 February 2009 (EST)
Peak oil debunks the cranks who think we'll never run out? ħumanUser talk:Human 21:19, 22 February 2009 (EST)
They're both cranks. The cranks who think we'll never run out tend toward discredited pseudoscience like abiogenic theory, and the peak oil cranks think that all the oil that will ever be known is already known, nothing new will be discovered, no new technologies will emerge to improve efficiency of oil production from sources like shale, and worst of all (in the sense of being a questionable and probably a pseudoscientific belief) insist that oil production inevitably peaks at exactly the point where 50% of the available oil has been used. Secret Squirrel 22:06, 22 February 2009 (EST)
That's great wording to put into the article. You should try to clean up the article if they let you without reverting. Teabag 22:09, 22 February 2009 (EST)
Where to begin though? Even the opening sentence doesn't really summarize the Hubbert's Peak theory (coined in 1956 by a Shell Oil geologist), which is what "peak oil" is really based on. Nothing in the article makes any allowance for new technologies nor for replacement energy sources to gradually replace oil if/when the peak does occur. The dismissal of renewable energy in particular seems derived from the extreme pessimism of James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency et al, and fosters a counterproductive "why bother" attitude toward, for example, global warming - if renewables are unfeasible and the only thing we have to fall back on when oil runs out is coal, why bother? Fact is, renewables are not unfeasible, especially as economies of scale push the costs of them way down (including such currently disparaged things as biodiesel and ethanol, not to mention solar) and then there is the likelihood of many new energy sources we don't even know about yet. Science has never failed in the past to discover replacement technologies, more efficient uses of energy, and more diverse sources of energy, and I don't expect any different in the future; indeed, replacement technologies have tended to be developed and implemented well before any natural obsolescence of then-existing technologies. The market bubble of 2005-2008 wasn't a sign of peak-anything, it was a speculative market bubble. Nobody knows when oil is going to run out, what new sources have yet to be discovered, or what new technologies will both augment oil and improve production efficiency from currently difficult sources. This is just what comes to mind right now. Secret Squirrel 22:46, 22 February 2009 (EST)
No. Peak oil is one of the "world is coming to an end" groups. The advocates like to stockpile canned tuna and ammo. The line in the article
But at some point it is obvious that we will have used half the available oil on the planet and global production will start to drop.
Is obviously false. There isn't one big pot of oil, rather a continuum of easy-to-get to hard-to-get oil. Teabag 21:28, 22 February 2009 (EST)
True, and the idea of "peak oil" can transition as technology and pricing affect productive capacity. But in the end... it will run out. The peak oil idea is to try to get a handle on when the "supplies", ie, actual pumped oil, will no longer increase from a given field, and of course, inevitably, the entire resource. Thing is, we have hundreds of years of coal in the ground, say. But the oil supply is running dry inside the span of human lifetimes. I go re-read article now though. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:11, 23 February 2009 (EST)
The continuum is "easy to get" to "hard to get" to "prohibitively expensive to get" to "none". We're starting to enter hard to get now. Once we are well into that we're starting down the reduced production side of the graph. And now there is another problem - when oil was really expensive a lot of new exploration was being undertaken but, with the fall in price, most of that has been shelved. When (or perhaps if) we get our of this recession and demand builds again, the investment in those potential new fields won't have been made which will exacerbate the "problem". I say "problem" becasue if there is no oil then we'll have to concentrate more on renewables, which would not be such a bad thing. Of course investment in them has dried up too at the moment.--Bobbing up 04:56, 23 February 2009 (EST)
Yes, but.... I want a windmill in my backyard! (I have a nice breeze, and am on a hill) ħumanUser talk:Human 05:55, 23 February 2009 (EST)
The problem with the above is it assumes a steady continuum from easy -> hard -> prohibitively expensive -> none, and assumes no further changes in technology nor allowing for "prohibitively expensive" becoming "not so expensive after all" once new technologies and economies of scale kick in. Nor am I particularly convinced we have entered the "hard" stage, nor that we ever will. The continuum may look more like this: easy and cheap -> easy and more expensive due to OPEC introducing a market distortion -> easy and cheap -> easy and more expensive due to Hugo Chavez, the Iraq War, and irrational fears of peak oil scaring investors into running oil prices up in a speculative bubble -> easy and cheap -> easy and even more cheap once ANWR is opened up (which it inevitably will, not a matter of if but when) -> (...and hundreds of years later...) -> almost out, but by then it won't matter since new technologies we couldn't have even imagined now will have long since come online. Secret Squirrel 08:17, 23 February 2009 (EST)
I'm confused SS. Are you suggesting that the supply of oil is in some way infinite? That it simply can't run out as long and people are prepared to spend money on it?--Bobbing up 12:31, 23 February 2009 (EST)
No, not infinite, but that the available supply will continue to go up and down and will only begin to drop sharply very late in the game, but by then it won't matter because petroleum will have already been replaced by multiple other energy sources, some already known and some yet to be discovered. Peak oil claims the available supply is in an inverted V, that we're already at or past the peak, and that nothing but doom and disaster lie ahead. I suspect it's more of a squiggly line, going up and down as new technologies improving and cheapening production, new discoveries, market distortions, political turmoil, and exhaustion of existing producing regions pull both ways. No one real "peak", a lot of mini-peaks and valleys, with the sharp drop only occurring well in the future as supplies approach exhaustion, which would be well beyond our lifetimes. And again, whatever transportation we have will by then be powered by so many diverse new sources (fuel cells, hydrogen, biodiesel, probably many yet undiscovered) that oil finally dwindling will be a big non-event when it finally does occur. What I find most unsettling about the current infatuation with "peak oil" is the underlying assumption that technology will remain frozen where it is now for the indefinite future, and that all renewables are vaporware and can never replace cheap oil. This is not consistent with most of human history, and it is an inherently pessimistic, anti-science view. Yeah, there was one period in human history where technology levels froze in place for hundreds of years. It's called the Dark Ages for a reason. I don't expect a repeat of that ever. Secret Squirrel 13:45, 23 February 2009 (EST)
You appear to know very little about the oil business and I haven't got time to put you right at the moment. Redchuck.gif ГенгисOur ignorance is God; what we know is science. 14:11, 23 February 2009 (EST)
Which is another way of saying you don't have anything substantial to add to this discussion. Secret Squirrel 16:04, 24 February 2009 (EST)
No. I have been in the oil exploration business for 36 years but right now have other things to attend to. I'm a married guy with a life and a dead mother-in-law, so can't afford the time just at the moment. Redchuck.gif ГенгисOur ignorance is God; what we know is science. 16:27, 24 February 2009 (EST)
Wishful thinking. --Beneficii (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Dead people aside, Squirrel is right why Peak Oil proponents ( as I've seen ) are full of it. They imply a catastrophe. There is plenty of coal that can be ( expensively ) converted to oil. I could go on, but I'm too busy/important to write a few more paragraph, although I'll come back and tell you you're stupid if you disagree. Teabag 02:03, 28 February 2009 (EST)

Converting coal to oil is a disaster unless you're an AGW denialist. --Beneficii (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Unemployment

  • Large numbers of unemployed people will be an inevitable consequence of a lack of and/or peak oil, as "dried up" oil wells will close down, leaving unemployed workers in their wake.

Whilst there are indeed a large number of people working in the petroleum industry, that number is small relative to all sectors of employment. So small in fact, that I think the number of people who will be out of work due to refineries etc shutting down (and not moving in to other energy sectors) is absoluetly insignificant, and as such should not be mentioned in the article. Thoughts? DeltaStarSenior SysopSpeciationspeed! 23:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

For comparison look at the UK coal industry. / 23:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC) SusanGContribsTalk
Do I have to? I grew up in the shadow of it, but no nothing of it other than that it was dirty, dangerous, and a tremendous "boon to industry". ħumanUser talk:Human 02:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
No, but it was much more labour intensive than the oil producing industry & thousands (whole villages and towns in some cases) were thrown out of work when the pits were closed. In the thirty or so years since the slack(!) as been taken up, though. I worked in an allied industry at the time of the miner's strike and saw first hand the turmoil, I drove home nightly past Orgreave pit. 03:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC) SusanGContribsTalk
Just be glad your cops never get issued M16s (largely defensive American weapons of automatic fire), or it might have been a massacre. By the way, that's a fairly shoddy WP article (style and flow etc.). ħumanUser talk:Human 04:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

[edit] "Peak oil per capita"

I remember hearing somewhere that the amount of oil used per capita peaked ca. 1980 and has since been declining. I'm sceptical about this, as I wasn't able to find a citation for this. Plus, China and India are currently industrialising. I couldn't find much with Google; could somebody confirm/refute this claim? Thanks. File:Planarian Latin.pngI like planaria, but I don't speak Latin 02:37, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

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