We’ve already burned through almost half the world’s supply of oil. How will we ride out the slide down the other side of Hubbert’s Curve? For more information, go to: http://www.energychallenge.tv/
FRANKIE
serves you right, piggy
Oh Oh, meh ill still drive my SUV we **** the world so much we bought an SUV with two Petrol Tanks, using oil at a less efficient rate than ever before….
Yep, don’t worry about it DaveJP1973, mayb880, keep driving your SUV”s and use plastic everything. Oil is infinite, or there is enough to last 200 years at twice our current rate of consumption (cough). It will always cost you less than the price of extracting and refining it, and producing nations will always be willing to give it away at a loss to their economies and environments. Relax, and enjoy the euphoria of the blue pill.
Speculators, no doubt about it - OPEC? Oil company cabals? Not so much.
The underlying reality was the plateau in supply versus rising demand over the past 3 years. Hedge funds selling off futures contracts took the air out of the bubble as our financial house of cards fell apart, and that disruption will probably mask the current peak. 100 years away? I don’t think so, but no one can precisely predict the future. Still, seems to me we might want to start making some other arrangements.
i believe in peak oil, but a lot of the 200%+ price increase in just a year was due to manipulation by OPEC, speculators on Wall Street, and oil companies that get together to hike up prices for greed. the real peak won’t be for another hundred years at least because the world does reproduce and we are advancing new ways to refine and use different types of hard oil in unconventional ways. We’ll adapt as long as we can.
Thanks, I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Though we continue to discover oil fields, they tend to be smaller and in harder to reach places than the giant fields on which much of our oil supply has historically depended. And the “more and more oil” to be extracted will not significantly impact the decline rate as those giants start to fade. Again, Peak Oil isn’t about running out of oil, or even really about the price of oil. It’s about the rate of flow relative to demand.
mayb880 wrote: “Morons have been screaming “peak oil” since 1947 yet we keep finding more and more and more.”
My reply: You’re overlooking “Peak Discovery.”
Human interaction with oil has THREE components: 1) DISCOVER IT in the ground, 2) EXTRACT IT from the ground, 3) USE IT above the ground.
1) We hit “Peak Discovery” in the 1960’s.
2) The likely date of “Peak Production” (or “Peak Extraction”) is between 2005 and 2012.
3) We’ll assuredly hit “Peak Usage” between 2018 and 2025.
I don’t intend to argue global warming here, dad. Though it’s part of the same problem, our reliance on fossil fuels, the cartoon only addresses peak oil.
If you check my profile, you’ll discover that I was also alive and aware during the 1970s. There was no scientific consensus that we were entering a new ice age then, and a completely different set of politicians was in office who, even had they believed there was such a consensus, failed to take any action. Pretty much the same as now.
no son, when i was a kid these same politicians said that scientists were sure that we were entering a new Ice Age. That was the 1970s (part of the “long term”).
Global Warming is just another politician created crisis so that the socialists can restrict everything and tax everything (control).
If humans caused “global warming” why did all the other planets in our solar system warm too up til 1998? There are no cars on Jupiter or Mars. Maybe it’s this little thing called the Sun causes it.
As for global warming, only morons choose to politicize an issue best understood by examining the scientific evidence, and the evidence is clear: long term, the planet continues to warm, and we continue to increase the rate at which we are dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. The rate of warming may rise or fall in any given year (this year is cooler - 14.3 degrees C - than any since 2000, but warmer relative to, say, the 1980s), but the overall trend is toward a considerably warmer planet.
Crude production hit an apparent high in 2006 and has been cruising along on a bumpy plateau since 2005. We won’t know for some time whether or not that was the actual peak, and it may very well be masked by the global deflationary recession we’re plunging into now. The price you’re seeing is a combination of a stronger dollar and world demand destruction. Don’t be fooled: price is where supply meets demand. Producers will adjust and the price will start to climb again in 2009 as supply falls.
peak oil right now? ROFL Gas just hit $1.57 where I live. Cheaper than milk. Morons have been screaming “peak oil” since 1947 yet we keep finding more and more and more.
peak oil is almost as dumb as this hippy theory of global warming (while the planet has actually been COOLING since 1998).
Maybe if Global Warming happens and temps get to 200-1000 degrees on Earth we can just use boiling water or skin to fuel our cars.
Science and Liberals don’t mix.
Some people just love this end of the world scenario. Oil is so hard to come by and oversubscribed it’s come down $100 a barrel in 4 months and there’s so little demand for it the OPEC giants are panicking about their bank balances. $45 a barrel and still falling. You all need to lighten up.
War. War never changes.
Global thermonuclear war will settle scores regarding access to dwindling resources.
A sort of mercy *******.
In general I’d agree with you, but do you really want to bet your future on it? Take a look at the decline of Cantarell (14-20%) or some of the North Sea fields (25-30%). The bell curve may not be a fit here.
We’re on that plateau now. At this point, it isn’t a given that oil from shale can make up the difference; we need to be thinking about making adjustments. According to Hirsch in the DOE report, we needed to start planning 25 years ago, and the recently released IEA report confirms it.
I doubt oil will peak in such a dramatic fashion. Generally speaking, production in oil fields follows a sort of plateau. Furthermore, there are untapped reserves of oil shale that could be developed in an economic fashion once the price of oil has made a comeback.
Great Cartoon
Be more sorry for your failed reasoning. The earth is not a creamy nougat of petroleum. There is plenty of evidence that the vast majority of oil comes from fossils.
There is overwhelming evidence that it comes from ancient sedimentary organic matter (algae and zooplankton, not dinosaurs.) Hydrocarbons such as methane have been detected elsewhere in the solar system, but if there is an abiotic process of oil genesis taking place somewhere deep within the planet (doubtful), it isn’t happening fast enough to compensate for our steady depletion of known reserves.
Don’t disagree with your living frugally theme, nowadays what choice does one have? You’ve been forcefed too much miserable propaganda though and believe it- the oilmen of this world want to convince you it’s running out to keep the price artificially high for as long as possible.Which at present they aren’t doing.. $100 a barrel down in 3 months - The oil industry is paranoid about being replaced & will do anything to scare people - There will be combustion engines in 100 years time believe me.
Is there any evidence the oil comes from fossils? And what is that Russian drilling in 13 km have found oil.
This deep is older than any dinosaur fossils.
Sorry for my bad english.
Fantastic animation! well done
No, I’m just trying to prepare in the ways available to me for what I view to be realistic difficulties for myself, my family, and my community. Even if I’m wrong in my assessment, I will simply have moved towards a more frugal lifestyle. These days, how is that a bad thing?
My cartoon doesn’t say: the end is near, prepare to meet your doom! It asks a question: given that the supply of oil will decline, how will you ride the slide? You’re apparently okay with being a pawn. I’m not.
I reply to it because I find the response intriguing. No, the “powerbrokers” won’t take care of things for ME - they will take care of things for just themselves - and you, me and everyone else will be their pawns that keep everything ticking. I bet you would just love something like the Cuba Missile Crisis to come along again to give you doomsters the ultimate apocalypse scenario to brood over.
Believe whatever you like - or, I guess in your case, whatever makes you happy. For someone who doesn’t regard this as an important issue and trusts that the “world’s powerbrokers” will take care of things for him, you’re certainly doing a lot of replying to this thread. I mean, really, I’m touched by your concern for my happiness, but why bother?