# Peak Oil



## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

A colleague sent this to me today... Not sure what the context was or where it originated but it was depressing enough for me to think of sharing it with you all! :icon_smile:

_Preparation for Peak Oil Notice 1, 2 and 6

But will all this awareness raising you must also look after yourself. It does not harm to begin preparing now by limiting the impact the oil decline can have on your life. The key things recommended are:

(1) Clear your debts.

(2) Make sure you are multi-skilled to have a chance of employment when the economy starts to buckle.

(3) Have emergency rations on hand in case of a sudden oil shock disrupting oil supplies (remember the fuel protests of 2000?) and also in case of things like Bird Flu - you do not know what could happen.

(4) Begin living as 'green' a life as you can as that is basically the low-carbon society we'll be moving towards. Change your electricity supplier to ecotricity, juice or another green electricity provider. Remember the 3 'Rs' - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. In that order.

(5) If necessary begin to change your expectations - we cannot expect a lifestyle as affluent in 2025 as in 2005.

(6) If you are in your 20s or maybe your 30s it might be worth considering cancelling your pension plan.

(7) Begin forming strong social bonds with friends and family. Oil has allowed us to become a very atomised society - reliance on friends and family will be increasingly important in the years ahead.

(8) If you can, hook your house up with electricity micro-generation, insulate your house and learn gardening!

(9) If you have not had children you will need to weigh up the gamble on whether it will be a benefit or a burden to you.

(10) ENJOY YOURSELF! The party is almost over but it isn't yet. We live in one of the most exciting times in human history, I suggest you enjoy it!_


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## PedanticTurkey (Jan 26, 2008)

That's good advice, there-- "buy a bunch of 'green' junk while it's very expensive, so you can save oil while it's cheap."


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## jbmcb (Sep 7, 2005)

We've been hitting peak oil for the last 20 years, it's getting tiresome.


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

Rossini said:


> A colleague sent this to me today... Not sure what the context was or where it originated but it was depressing enough for me to think of sharing it with you all! :icon_smile:
> 
> _Preparation for Peak Oil Notice 1, 2 and 6
> 
> ...


Its interesting that using technology available to us today, we have enough energy potential in wind (someone called it a windifer as opposed to a groundwater aquifer) in the great plains to provide electricity for all of our energy needs, enough solar energy in the Southwest to provide our electrical/energy needs, and enough geothermal to also provide a huge amount of energy. (I don't hae the references right off but the available energy has been calculated)

Woe be it the company that proposes wind towers in VT or many other other areas (including in the ocean off of Hyanis in Cape Cod that will affect the views from the Kennedy compound) as many wing-nuts (right and left) come out of the woodwork to say why we can't have it in our neighborhood. Instead they propose biofuels such as ethanol )that takes almost as much energy to make as you get from it and causes hunger and many environmental issues) and other much less environmentally sound methods to solve our gasoline crisis.

Maybe when oil goes up to $250 a barrel withing a couple of years (with the incredibly fast rising demand for oil/gas/autos in China and India this is not really far-fetched and it could easily go higher) we will start to seriously look at this issue.

It will take will and a decision to accept change for us to solve this problem. Hopefully we will start to really address this issue before it totally kills our economy (alternative energy is really a growth industry right now with a lot of potential for people to make a lot of money).


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

MichaelS said:


> Maybe when oil goes up to $250 a barrel withing a couple of years (with the incredibly fast rising demand for oil/gas/autos in China and India this is not really far-fetched and it could easily go higher) we will start to seriously look at this issue.


I totally agree with this analysis, it could really happen. No chance China and/or India is going to be bound by a green house gas treaty like Kyoto when their goal is to reach the level of a top tier first world country within a generation.

I remember the last big peak oil thread. A poster named Fogey (I know you are reading this!) gave us peak oil and started preaching to us the steps we should take. He became very frustrated when I kept asking him what skills he was developing, etc. He never did answer...but kept telling us we were doomed unless we took his advice. :icon_smile_big:


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## jamgood (Feb 8, 2006)




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## TheWardrobeGirl (Mar 24, 2008)

MichaelS said:


> Maybe when oil goes up to $250 a barrel withing a couple of years (with the incredibly fast rising demand for oil/gas/autos in China and India this is not really far-fetched and it could easily go higher) we will start to seriously look at this issue.
> .


I think the oil problem in many ways is our own fault...we have had the opportunity to drill off the coasts and all the "environmentalists" moaned and groaned about how bad it is for the environment, etc...well...international waters is international waters...so now other countries are drilling what was essentially OUR oil, and we can now buy it from them....BRILLIANT!


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Wayfarer said:


> I remember the last big peak oil thread. A poster named Fogey (I know you are reading this!) gave us peak oil and started preaching to us the steps we should take. He became very frustrated when I kept asking him what skills he was developing, etc. He never did answer...but kept telling us we were doomed unless we took his advice. :icon_smile_big:


Don't take the OP the wrong way. I don't like this sort of scaremongering and posted because I hoped some of it could be debunked or critiqued. I personally haven't seen the situation presented in this way and it makes me uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons. While I'm sure there is some truth to some of the points I just hate people using it to preach a "holier than thou" attitude when they feel they're a little greener than everyone else, for example. It's a bit like (for a not very good example when someone says "We've just installed Gas, it's fantastic... Do you still have electricity? Ooooo that's going to be really expensive for you, it's going up a lot.." just to rub it in, even though it's not entirely or even remotely true but they want to believe that it is. Of the recommendations, the Pension Plan advice in particular seems plain dumb and dangerous to me.


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## Justin (Feb 27, 2008)

Hearing stuff like this pisses me off to no end. We are NOT NOT NOT going to hit our "oil peak " ANYTIME soon.

Right now Saudi Arabia has a proven 260 billion barrel oil reserve. Not readily recoverable, total proven reserve which means readily recoverable is 180-200 billion barrels.

Guess what just got found in North Dakota a couple months ago? A SINGLE oil reserve with 300 BILLION barrels readily recoverable. 300 billion barrels. The estimate goes to almost 500 billion barrels when "alternative recovery methods" are considered. That's nearly twice the reserve of all of Saudi Aarabia in ONE oil field under the Dakotas. 

That's alot of oil, a whole hell of a lot of oil. 

Add to that that in abandoned conventional oil wells there is still a typical 25% "leave behind", that means 33% of all of the oil the world has ever used is still in the ground and IS recoverable with new technologies. It's just a matter of them waiting for teh price of oil to get high enough to justify the alternative recovery methods. 

Justin


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

Rossini said:


> Don't take the OP the wrong way. I don't like this sort of scaremongering and posted because I hoped some of it could be debunked or critiqued. I personally haven't seen the situation presented in this way and it makes me uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons. While I'm sure there is some truth to some of the points I just hate people using it to preach a "holier than thou" attitude when they feel they're a little greener than everyone else, for example. It's a bit like (for a not very good example when someone says "We've just installed Gas, it's fantastic... Do you still have electricity? Ooooo that's going to be really expensive for you, it's going up a lot.." just to rub it in, even though it's not entirely or even remotely true but they want to believe that it is. Of the recommendations, the Pension Plan advice in particular seems plain dumb and dangerous to me.


I hear you Rossini. Agree about the holier than thou types especially!


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## BertieW (Jan 17, 2006)

Justin said:


> Hearing stuff like this pisses me off to no end. We are NOT NOT NOT going to hit our "oil peak " ANYTIME soon.
> 
> Right now Saudi Arabia has a proven 260 billion barrel oil reserve. Not readily recoverable, total proven reserve which means readily recoverable is 180-200 billion barrels.
> 
> ...


Uh, 300 billion or a possible 3 to 4.5 billion barrels, as this story indicates?

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/us/11oil.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Sloppy math makes a difference and undermines the argument.


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## Lushington (Jul 12, 2006)

Justin said:


> Hearing stuff like this pisses me off to no end. We are NOT NOT NOT going to hit our "oil peak " ANYTIME soon.
> 
> Right now Saudi Arabia has a proven 260 billion barrel oil reserve. Not readily recoverable, total proven reserve which means readily recoverable is 180-200 billion barrels.
> 
> ...


Are you referring to the Bakken Formation which stretches across North Dakota and Montana? If so, your estimates are off by a couple orders of magnitude. The Bakken formation did not get "found" a couple of months ago; it has been estimated for decades that it may contain a significant amount of oil, and to date it has produced around 105 million barrels of petroleum. The USGS recently concluded a reassessment of the "technically recoverable" undiscovered reserves of the Bakken formation, which resulted in 25-fold increase in estimates, to a mean of 3.65 billion barrels:

https://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

However, because of sparse production data to date, the USGS states that "there is significant geologic uncertainty in these estimates," which is reflected in the spread of the estimated reserves. The quality of the crude produced so far has been quite good; however, even if the entire field is fully developed - unlikely - the total number of recoverable barrels of petroleum from the Bakken Formation would amount to only around six months of current U.S. oil usage - about 20.7 million barrels per day:
https://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm


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## Franko (Nov 11, 2007)

It's beyond holier than thee, though, (never resist an aliteration opportunity) there is active scaremongering by near nutters and then naked fiscal grasping by goverment/goverments, to whack up taxes on fuel or airline travel, this bolsters goverment revenues and enables them to demonstate their hip & green credentials to appease minority, but influential, lobbies.

There are actually people who believe travel should be restricted by pricing - out and thus kept from the average pleb in the develped world, just as literacy and the ability to read the bible was once held in check.

These are sometimes the same people who complain that China/Russia/any other non - friend, prevents it's citizens from travel outside their respective countries.

F.


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## brokencycle (Jan 11, 2008)

MichaelS said:


> Its interesting that using technology available to us today, we have enough energy potential in wind (someone called it a windifer as opposed to a groundwater aquifer) in the great plains to provide electricity for all of our energy needs, enough solar energy in the Southwest to provide our electrical/energy needs, and enough geothermal to also provide a huge amount of energy. (I don't hae the references right off but the available energy has been calculated)


There is no way wind, thermal, etc energy sources will ever or probably could ever power the entire country.

What are we suppose to do cover the entire great plains in wind turbines?

Why not use nuclear like France or other European nations who are moving towards even more nuclear power (and hopefully soon fusion power).


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## gnatty8 (Nov 7, 2006)

IMO, by the time peak oil becomes a reality, so few people will still be using the stuff it will go almost unnoticed.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Adding comment to these threads is like steppping into a trashed living room after a frat party. So, let me pick the bra out of the salt water aquarium ( big bad environmeddlers) and pull the tripping freshman pledge out of the closet ( the end of oil is nigh.) It doesn't matter WHAT we use; be it oil, 'salmon friendly hydro-electric dams' courtesy of Halliburton and Dicky or ancient school busses painted green and converted to run on recycled french fry oil. There are to many humans for the earth's carrying capacity; asian rice varietals, champagne, clean water and air or yet another Volkswagon ( remember?) aka People's car for the emerging monied class of communist China are all doomed to fall short of demand. Equally doomed, and utterly foolish are prescribed formulae to 'survive.' I am in the survival business, both on indivudual and mass levels. Great change is just that; unpredictable in impact or the winners and losers. This missive is just another Y2K placebo for action. Scattered across much of France and Spain are traces of an ancient tundra landscape and the paintings of those Caribou hunters. Their world is as lost as any future doomsday scenario for post oil society. But people still paint in France and Spain. We know some by Picasso or Manet.


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## ksinc (May 30, 2005)

Good Grief. There's plenty of oil. Peak oil is nonsense. 

It's Peak Diazepam that has me worried!


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## ksinc (May 30, 2005)

MichaelS said:


> Maybe when oil goes up to $250 a barrel withing a couple of years (with the incredibly fast rising demand for oil/gas/autos in China and India this is not really far-fetched and it could easily go higher) we will start to seriously look at this issue.
> 
> It will take will and a decision to accept change for us to solve this problem. Hopefully we will start to really address this issue before it totally kills our economy (alternative energy is really a growth industry right now with a lot of potential for people to make a lot of money).


That; or bombs. Depending on which is cheaper at the time. With the value of the dollar it's looking like bombs. I think Bernanke works for Algore.


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## Justin (Feb 27, 2008)

Bakken formation has been known of since the 50's, back then the reserve estimates were 3-5 billion barrels since so much of it falls under materials typically considered undrillable.

However, new surveys have increased the number to 300 billion barrels using sideways drilling techniques.

But I have noticed a marked difference in who reports what estimates.
Liberal media reports the original numbers from the 1950's, conservative media presents the 2000 esimate, and the USGS says the 1950's estimate is "readily recoverable" (Duh, that's what they said in the 50's), but that there is 200-400 billion barrels that could be accessible by alternative drilling methods.


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## jamgood (Feb 8, 2006)




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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

brokencycle said:


> There is no way wind, thermal, etc energy sources will ever or probably could ever power the entire country.
> 
> What are we suppose to do cover the entire great plains in wind turbines?
> 
> Why not use nuclear like France or other European nations who are moving towards even more nuclear power (and hopefully soon fusion power).


I'll try to find the references for this but the amount of available energy has been calculated and is huge (enough to supply our needs). One of the reference is a book by Joe Kennedy wich is interesting since his uncle is fighting the proposed wind farm off of Hyannis in Cape Cod.

As to covering the great plains with wind turbines? Why not? I do not think we would ned to have millions of turbines but if so, we could deal with it.

I did see a large wind farm in Ireland and it really was not too bad. Farming continued and the country-side was still really nice. There is a small wind farm in upstate NY that also does not look bad and produces an amazing amount of energy with no envronmental degradation.

I personally think we should have turbines on all of our mountain ridges in VT. It is interesting that there were two large wind turbines on top of Mt. Equinox in Manchester for years that are barely visible and produced a lot of energy.


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

Justin said:


> Bakken formation has been known of since the 50's, back then the reserve estimates were 3-5 billion barrels since so much of it falls under materials typically considered undrillable.
> 
> However, new surveys have increased the number to 300 billion barrels using sideways drilling techniques.
> 
> ...


Its not the drilling methods that are the problem. Although its been 25 years since I sat on an oil drilling rig, the industry has been doing directional drilling for years and horizontal wells are no big deal. (There are many wells drilled from each of the offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf which is why they are economically feasible).

What the USGS says (and they are hardly a "liberal" organization) is based on the ability of the rock to transmit oil. With such low permeability (the ability to transmit oil) and low porosity (the amount of open space in pores between grains of rock or fractures in the rock) there is a finite amount of oil that can be transmitted to the well and stored by the rock (the shales above and below are likely the source rock, not the dolomite reservoir). Horizontal wells allow more coverage of the reservoir (the oil producing formation) but do not increase the porosity or permeability. Oil companies do fracture the rocks they drill in to (nitro lowered into the drill hole in the old days, directional explosives and chemicals now) but there is only so much you can do to increase the ability of the formation to transmit oil. Without that, you are limited in what oil you can recover.

I would tend to believe the USGS over the other sources. There are actually a lot of pretty smart people in that organization and their research is usually very good and complete.


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## brokencycle (Jan 11, 2008)

MichaelS said:


> I'll try to find the references for this but the amount of available energy has been calculated and is huge (enough to supply our needs). One of the reference is a book by Joe Kennedy wich is interesting since his uncle is fighting the proposed wind farm off of Hyannis in Cape Cod.
> 
> As to covering the great plains with wind turbines? Why not? I do not think we would ned to have millions of turbines but if so, we could deal with it.
> 
> ...


They just had an article in the Wall Street Journal about the plan for 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. It was about impossible that is - it is estimated that colonial citizens produced far more greenhouse gas per capita than we would be allowed to get to that level. So indeed they spent time talking about power generation, and it is infeasible to thing these "green" forms of power generation can power the entire United States. In 1999 the United States consumed over 3 terrawatts of power. If you assume a power output of a turbine of 1.5 megawatts (generous) it would take nearly a million turbines. Also, what happens on a day that isn't windy?


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

MichaelS said:


> I'll try to find the references for this but the amount of available energy has been calculated and is huge (enough to supply our needs). One of the reference is a book by Joe Kennedy wich is interesting since *his uncle is fighting the proposed wind farm off of Hyannis in Cape Cod.*


And his uncle is better known as "Ted"?

There's the true enternal power source, if we could just tap it: Liberal NIMBY.


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## brokencycle (Jan 11, 2008)

Wayfarer said:


> And his uncle is better known as "Ted"?
> 
> There's the true enternal power source, if we could just tap it: Liberal NIMBY.


I think hot air falls under geothermal?


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