wrxpilot
The proud, the few
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2004
- Posts
- 901
Ok, I'm getting more than a little annoyed w/ all the hype going on around here about this. I know a guy that has worked in the industry for a long time and deals a lot with the reserves. I dropped him an email a couple of weeks ago and this is his response:
Part 1 -
Oil and gas are naturally occurring, depletable resources. Like tin
during
the bronze age, iron ore up through the middle of the 20th century,
whale
oil and goal in Britain during the 19th century, and now oil and gas,
there
have been people predicting the disappearance of these items because of
how
fast they were being used, how little was known to be remaining, the
reasons
don't matter, just the idea that during the age in question and a
necessary
depletable resource, people were always screaming about how the world
was
going to end during the time period in question.
The current crop of "oil is disappearing" fanatics can be found
here....
http://www.peakoil.net/
You can spend weeks reading through all their stuff, feel free to make
yourself familiar with it, here is the short version. As a resource is
found
and developed, the easy and cheap stuff is found first, given enough
time
and consumption, half of all the item will have been produced, at which
point in time it is impossible to raise the production anymore because
its
being used faster than it can ever be found, and therefore supply
diminishes, regardless of demand. Thats it. The peak oilers vary from
"gee
when we reach peak its gonna be expensive" to "gee when we reach peak
the
world will instantaneously fail".
Several things you will not find among these articles, or which are
very
difficult to find because of course they aren't fans of dissenting
opinions,
or don't like to broadcast the weakness of their arguments.
Examples:
1) The original predictor of peak oil in the US, who hit the year dead
on,
and is the founding father of the philosophy behind the movement, also
predicted a bunch of other things, all of which have been wrong. He got
1
right out of however many, in part because he didn't take into account
lots
of neat things that happened during the 80's and 90's when prices
starting
moving upwards from the crash in 86. For example, he said oil peak for
the
world would occur in 95 ( oops ), natural gas would be gone in the 80's
(
big oops ) and various other little boo-boo's which the gang doesn't
want to
talk about.
2) The original peak oiler ( Colin Campbell, you'll see his name alot
among
the ASPO gang ) was predicting peak oil problems for various fields and
areas in the 80's....the problem was, they didn't peak then. His
original
peak date was mid-90's I believe, and year after year, he keeps moving
the
peak further down the road because, of course, he keeps getting proven
wrong
by the peak increasing yet again. Big oops.
3) The peak oilers love to talk about reserves, when in fact reserves
have
nothing to do with resource base beyond quantifying what oil and gas
production companies keep on their books. But peak oilers love
it...reserves
information shows there is only 7 years of production on the
books...which
means we all die from lack of oil in 7 years when it runs out, right?
Nope....when they produce some, they do the obvious, they go and find
and
produce more. Is it getting tougher to find? Sure. Has this affected
stuff?
Sure..the price has gone up, thereby guaranteeing that they will STILL
go
find more, even if its harder.
Part 1 -
Oil and gas are naturally occurring, depletable resources. Like tin
during
the bronze age, iron ore up through the middle of the 20th century,
whale
oil and goal in Britain during the 19th century, and now oil and gas,
there
have been people predicting the disappearance of these items because of
how
fast they were being used, how little was known to be remaining, the
reasons
don't matter, just the idea that during the age in question and a
necessary
depletable resource, people were always screaming about how the world
was
going to end during the time period in question.
The current crop of "oil is disappearing" fanatics can be found
here....
http://www.peakoil.net/
You can spend weeks reading through all their stuff, feel free to make
yourself familiar with it, here is the short version. As a resource is
found
and developed, the easy and cheap stuff is found first, given enough
time
and consumption, half of all the item will have been produced, at which
point in time it is impossible to raise the production anymore because
its
being used faster than it can ever be found, and therefore supply
diminishes, regardless of demand. Thats it. The peak oilers vary from
"gee
when we reach peak its gonna be expensive" to "gee when we reach peak
the
world will instantaneously fail".
Several things you will not find among these articles, or which are
very
difficult to find because of course they aren't fans of dissenting
opinions,
or don't like to broadcast the weakness of their arguments.
Examples:
1) The original predictor of peak oil in the US, who hit the year dead
on,
and is the founding father of the philosophy behind the movement, also
predicted a bunch of other things, all of which have been wrong. He got
1
right out of however many, in part because he didn't take into account
lots
of neat things that happened during the 80's and 90's when prices
starting
moving upwards from the crash in 86. For example, he said oil peak for
the
world would occur in 95 ( oops ), natural gas would be gone in the 80's
(
big oops ) and various other little boo-boo's which the gang doesn't
want to
talk about.
2) The original peak oiler ( Colin Campbell, you'll see his name alot
among
the ASPO gang ) was predicting peak oil problems for various fields and
areas in the 80's....the problem was, they didn't peak then. His
original
peak date was mid-90's I believe, and year after year, he keeps moving
the
peak further down the road because, of course, he keeps getting proven
wrong
by the peak increasing yet again. Big oops.
3) The peak oilers love to talk about reserves, when in fact reserves
have
nothing to do with resource base beyond quantifying what oil and gas
production companies keep on their books. But peak oilers love
it...reserves
information shows there is only 7 years of production on the
books...which
means we all die from lack of oil in 7 years when it runs out, right?
Nope....when they produce some, they do the obvious, they go and find
and
produce more. Is it getting tougher to find? Sure. Has this affected
stuff?
Sure..the price has gone up, thereby guaranteeing that they will STILL
go
find more, even if its harder.