Expect a Shortage of Petro-Fuels Sooner Rather than Later

I think we'll see shortages in the next few years, particularly as a middle class arises in China, India, and elsewhere and wants vehicles, and then needs gasoline to run them (I don't think full electrification is possible soon enough). I've been told, but haven't verified, that China sorely lacks oil deposits even remotely close to what it will need.

The possibility of shortages had as much effect on my decision to buy a Prius as did high mpg. I have two cars. I'll keep the Sebring as full as possible, and siphon fuel from its large gas tank into the Prius (bladder cooperating, of course), much like the oil crisis in the 1970's. Then, I was able to get my car filled up via a friend, and in then I siphoned the gas into my Honda 350-twin motorcycle ... and could run forever.

 

Sadly deadfish, you're post is a day late & a doller short. Besides, Don't be talking peak oil ... malorn's still hoping the glory days of land barges, with quick & easy profits will be making a comeback.

Other than that ... dwindling fossil fuels is old news. As it gets more & more serious ... well heck ... folks can only handle so much reality ... opting to wait for panic mode in stead ... after disasters are WELL under way.

"Petro-Fuels" ?? Cured via hydrogen? Now we're REALLY talking about a hoax. hydrogen IS created from petro fuels in the majority of instances. You don't CURE a shortage with the items in shortage! But Hey! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to break THIS out. 9 pages of reality check for folks who don't know better:

[Cut by Moderator
Please provide a link to copyrighted materials]

This is why our tax funds going to hydrogen gets my shorts in a bunch. Yet every 5 to 10 years since the 1970's ... the research mony grabbing industry continues to promise, "just 5 or 10 more years!" woo hoo! Are we tools or what?

.

 

The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in 1970's and 1980s.

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum"]petroleum[/ame] [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraction_of_petroleum"]extraction[/ame] is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells.....M. King Hubbert created and first used the models behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970.

Global warming is the increase in the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record"]average temperature[/ame] of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth"]Earth[/ame]'s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. The level of coverage that US mass media devoted to global warming "was minimal prior to 1988" but interest increased significantly after the drought of 1988, and related Senate testimony of James E. Hansen "attributing the abnormally hot weather plaguing our nation to global warming".

Call me cynical but I think I may see a pattern developing.........

 

So, I'm guessing the doubling of oil prices from 2007 to late 2009 with no increase in production (and you can't tell me there wasn't economic incentive to do so at those prices) and the subsequent economic crash don't enforce the fact that demand for oil has outstripped supply.

Oil production has been flat since 2004 despite current oil prices having doubled since then. The world wants oil - it just can't get it out of the ground fast enough and all the easy sources of oil are drying up.

 

Saudi Arabia Says Peak Demand for Oil Is an ?Alarm? (Update2) - BusinessWeek

this is why production has not increased.

 

Saudi Arabia is the only country with any significant elasticity in it's supply. Every other country is simply tapped out.

Saudi Arabia would like everyone else to believe that it's reduced demand that's reducing oil production (and certainly since 2008 that has been the case which is why oil prices plummeted after they peaked), they certainly know that even their supply of oil will not last forever and to hold all your eggs in one basket is not forward thinking or prudent.

That is why you see the middle east heavily investing into renewables such as solar.

 

Saudi Arabia the 'Saudi Arabia of sunshine?'

Bob Wilson

 

+1
Every mega field in Saudi Arabia is roughly 3/4 of a century old. They're kept in high production by injecting tons of high pressure into them (which in itself increasts produciton costs). NO mega fields have come into existence with such longevity for decades ... so what new fields we DO find around the world, are pale in size/comparison to the ancient Saudi fields, and these new/smaller fields won't even work to offset the loss of those mega fields, as they eventually go off line, forever. But . . . living in a fool's paradise as we do . . . we better all take malorn's approach. Just keep saying it'll be alright, it's not a problem ... buy GM, and don't worry about it.


BTW . . . Peak Oil? . . . just like Einstein's relativity . . . it's no longer just a theory.
.

 

A couple of points. Wasn't peak oil news before I was born? Why is it news today? A fixed resource, all fixed resources, have a peak in production. I don't think richard branson really knows about a sped up timetable.

Production not going up while prices go up, well prices are lower than the peak. Production is controlled by a monopoly. Are we at peak diamond production today?

Saudi is not the only country that has more resources than are being produced. The most pessimistic scholarly estimate for peak world wide oil production is 2020, which is quite soon. Others that include non crude sources like oil sands and oil shale extend hundreds of years. These non crude resources are more expensive to produce, and will polute less if burned in electric plants versus conversion to gasoline and diesel.

I do some consulting to oil companies. The estimates of peak oil have not decreased in the last 5 years, they have been growing.

Reduce travel, use more efficient means of transportation. These are all good things, but oil is not about to dry up in my lifetime.

 

This is all very interesting and not new to me but there is another side to this question which I wonder that is not discussed.


When oils becomes scarce, it will become clear that there are other important uses for it than fuel. Among these are plastics, fertilizers, medicines, asphalt (streets) and many, many other things which will not be easily replaced. Often the most convenient replacements will be either foods or space to grow foods. We already have a taste of this with the production of ethanol.

Some suggest that all of these other needs should be considered when allocating oil for fuel. Especially medicine and fertilizer which have been a major contributor to longer lives and better quality of life. But a sudden loss of cheap plastic would also be felt sharply.

Actually, we have enough problems without these. "Kick the can down the road" may be the more popular thought.

 

I don't quite believe the apocalyptic predictions of most peak-oilers, but what I do expect is to see more (and more frequent) spikes like 2007.

They will be driven by growth in areas like China and India, and they will be limited for the very same reason - $7/gallon gas will snuff demand in those areas pretty quickly. (whereas richer countries will thank their lucky stars to still be able to get it, at any price)

Another spike in the near future would actually be a good thing, because people would be reminded (again) that oil prices are UNSTABLE, rather than foolishly believing that the previous spike was just a one-time thing.

BTW: have you noticed these ads on TV about "the people of Exxon" (or whichever company it was)? Clearly political lobbying - "don't regulate us, or all these people will lose their jobs". (nevermind that the world might be a better place with fewer tobacco merchants or day traders and more doctors and teachers...)

 

Running out of fossil fuel is not the problem. OTHER sources (under the sea, under the ice) are not the problem. SAYING those ideas are part 'solutions' is the problem. Reason being is that you NEVER WILL run out of fossil fuel ... because it eventually becomes more costly to extract/refine it, than the benefit yielded. Energy in, versus energy out. It's like saying theres more gold in the ocean, than all the gold mined to date. Big deal !! You don't expend more energy to extract it than the value of the substance. Eventually, some amount 1/2 ... 1/4 ... (you pick the number) gets left behind because the return on the investment isn't worth it. ROI gets closer & closer every day, but unfortunately, status quo remains. "not in my life time" means, "eh". Poo Poo'ing it by phrasing the concept as "apocolyptic peak oil'ers" is the same thing. It says, 'I'll worry about the tidal wave only when I can see it hit the beach' ... rather than RUN when you see the tide being pulled out, and nothing but wet beach sand as far as the eye can see.


.

 

Get the facts straight, please. Hubbert predicted that US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. He predicted that in 1956. He was off -- by maybe four years -- due to Prudhoe. That's pretty damned impressive no matter how you spin it. (Alaska wasn't part of the US at that point.) If you believe the Wikipedia, at the same time, he predicted a global peak around 2000. Which is also looking fairly prescient.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory"]Hubbert peak theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

There was a DOE report from 2005 that pointed out the obvious: We have a lot of material from which we can make liquid fuels, starting from unconventional oil (e.g., tar sands) and working down to coal. We can, if required, gasify coal. We can liquify natural gas (of which we have lots.) Ignoring the environmental issues, the problem is the transition -- it'll take decades to ramp up enough production fully to offset any serious decline in conventional oil production.

And not that I would necessarily believe oil company executives, but an awful lot of them seem to be saying the same thing, that oil is peaking or has peaked:

The Oil Drum | World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO

Obviously, economics plays some role in this, on the margin. The issue is, running out of conventional oil at what price. But that cuts both ways: drillers have gotten so good at extracting oil with advanced techniques, oil field decline curves are steeper than expected based on historical data (because the historicals reflect older, less efficient extraction techniques.)

But all you have to say is "tar sands" if you start to feel panicky. We'll always have some oil around, for the foreseeable future. Just maybe not enough, at anything near current prices, to allow us to burn an average of 1800 gallons of gas per year for every family of four -- which is the current US average consumption divided by current population.

 

I apologize, what I meant to say was, it wasn't a state. Alaska became a state in 1959. As I understand it, he did a United States estimate, which believe would have been lower 48 at that time. At least, that's how I've seen it described. I think it was off at all for "the United States" only because Alaska became and state, and Prudhoe Bay.

(It would be like not counting the population in US territories when you talk about US population. Nobody expects you to include (e.g.) Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam or similar.)

He was actually smart enough to include the offshore reserves (estimated at that time by USGS). (That's p 15 of the .pdf below.) The whole thing is an extrapolation from known reserves -- it factors in an assumed rate of additional discoveries. Also tossed in a fudge factor for improvement in recovery rates. All told, it was a pretty smart guess.

Just re-read the 1956 piece, and it's still a pretty good read. Kind of eerie to see the world oil production peak at 2000 in a 50 year old paper. And not everything he said was spot-on. But there is a certain tone of reasoned discussion that just makes it a nice read. He runs through it all: coal, oil, tar sands and oil shale, nuclear.

He was, however, dead wrong on US natural gas (at least I think he was, I better look up the data.) So it's not like the guy was infallible. Just mostly right. He shows US natural gas production peaking with oil.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

Ah, actually, US natural gas production did peak in 1973, at 22.2 quadrillion BTU, and as of 2008 (last year shown) was slightly less than that. Probably exceeds the 1973 peak by now - plus there was no falloff. Yes, he was wrong on natural gas. Data are here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_7.pdf

 

I think this is key to the discussion of "enough oil" -- supply from traditional (or other affordable) sources will not rise to cover the incredible increase in demand the world is going to face. We have two factors here -- supply even if somehow kept stable won't be able to meet the increase in demand which is coming.

Oil / gasoline prices will increase steadily, yet rationing is not at all out of the picture.