Peak Oil Perspective
physics.ucsd.edu
Peak Oil Perspective
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#2Note this is from 2011 (pre fracking) so it misses quite a bit. And it doesn't plot home prices post mortgage crisis. Generally the whole 'peak oil' thing is of interest perhaps to people trading oil driller stocks (or not) but I have yet to see any way to apply any of the insights into something remotely interesting or predictive.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#3The faster the oil/gas price increases, the more attractive electric cars become. Unfortunately, it could also mean US will never cut oil subsidies, unless they do it now, before the perceptible decline starts.
Hopefully, governments will at least resist the urge to increase oil subsidies to keep the prices the same. Instead they should be looking at building electric car infrastructure in their countries, faster, so when the gas prices start climbing, the population switches "smoothly" to electric cars, and doesn't feel much of a shock.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#4As a geologist in the oil industry, this is one of the few articles I've seen on peak oil that absolutely nails the salient points. (And even gets the geology correct.)
To quote: "Most simply, peak oil is about rates, not amounts."
Yes, there are a lot of unconventional resources. They're just a lot harder, more expensive, and most importantly in this context, slower to produce.
On the upshot for me, and the downshot for the rest of civilization, oil (and to a large degree, energy) prices are likely to stay high for the near future for exactly this reason.
However, we haven't developed a viable alternative to liquid fossil fuels in terms of energy-density fast enough. That very, very deeply scares me.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#5Peak oil depends on oil price, the world is awash in oil at $110. Even up to 2005 oil's peak price was $60.
Peak oil also depends on consumption, with cars like Tesla coming out we'll see a sharp decline in consumption over the next 20 to 30 years, at $300/bl a Tesla starts to make a lot of sense.
The world will never run out of oil, its price will simply continue to increase until other alternatives become economically viable, as those alternatives become viable economies of scale and capital investment will make alternatives that much better.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#6As a geologist in the oil industry, this is one of the few articles I've seen on peak oil that absolutely nails the salient points. (And even gets the geology correct.) To quote: "Most simply, peak oil is about rates, not amounts." Yes, there are a lot of unconventional resources. They're just a lot harder, more expensive, and most importantly in this context, slower to produce. On the upshot for me, and the downshot…
> However, we haven't developed a viable alternative to liquid fossil fuels in terms of energy-density fast enough. That very, very deeply scares me.
Electric cars are getting there, and there is always domestic natgas production in the US. It won't be fun, but that's what we get for dragging our feet. The US had this happen in the 70's (oil embargo). It's been 40+ years. Its our own damn fault.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#7The faster the oil/gas price increases, the more attractive electric cars become. Unfortunately, it could also mean US will never cut oil subsidies, unless they do it now, before the perceptible decline starts. Hopefully, governments will at least resist the urge to increase oil subsidies to keep the prices the same. Instead they should be looking at building electric car infrastructure in their countries, faster, so…
Most countries tax oil heavily. Europe and Canada come to mind.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#8Note this is from 2011 (pre fracking) so it misses quite a bit. And it doesn't plot home prices post mortgage crisis. Generally the whole 'peak oil' thing is of interest perhaps to people trading oil driller stocks (or not) but I have yet to see any way to apply any of the insights into something remotely interesting or predictive.
First off, 2011 was most definitely not "pre-fracking". The majors moved into unconventionals in a big way starting around 2006-2007, and the independents were doing it well before that.
However, unconventional gas resources don't particularly play into this calculation. Gas (as in methane) is a completely different resource in this context. The markets are different and the reserves are very different (there's a lot more methane). The "peak oil" debate focuses on liquid hydrocarbons.
There are several liquids-rich unconventional "fracking" plays (e.g. the Bakken in North Dakota), but they're not particularly common. Oil shale is a much bigger player in terms of volume, but again, you're looking at slow, expensive, environmentally costly production.
It's certainly more of a long-term problem, but it is something to be worried about. It's hard to replace liquid fossil fuels in terms of energy-density per unit volume. It's a problem that we as a society need to be working a _lot_ more on.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#9Note this is from 2011 (pre fracking) so it misses quite a bit. And it doesn't plot home prices post mortgage crisis. Generally the whole 'peak oil' thing is of interest perhaps to people trading oil driller stocks (or not) but I have yet to see any way to apply any of the insights into something remotely interesting or predictive.
You're kidding, I'm sure. The end of the Oil Interval is the most interesting, possibly the ONLY interesting historical event that will take place in our lifetimes.
Re: Peak Oil Perspective
#10Peak oil depends on oil price, the world is awash in oil at $110. Even up to 2005 oil's peak price was $60. Peak oil also depends on consumption, with cars like Tesla coming out we'll see a sharp decline in consumption over the next 20 to 30 years, at $300/bl a Tesla starts to make a lot of sense. The world will never run out of oil, its price will simply continue to increase until other alternatives become economica…
The world is "awash" in oil at $110, but that oil simply can't be produced fast enough to meet demand.
That's the fundamental problem.