Remember peak oil? Me two. It hasen't gone away, and the oil faeries didn't fix it.

dave b · 09-10-2009, 08:02 PM

Hirsch worries that nobody's worried. Dealing with this will make the Public Option(tm) controversy look like a monthly Elks' Club meeting.

...What we did was to look at a world-wide crash program of mitigation. We were interested in the very best that was humanly possible. That was the limiting case. There are lots of reasons why, under the best of conditions, things can’t and won’t go as fast as we assumed. We knew at the outset that the energy system was enormous and that the amount of oil-product-consuming end-use equipment was enormous. We knew it could not be changed quickly, and that in a number of cases, there was nothing to change it to – no alternative to liquid fuels. We also knew that energy efficiency could make a big difference, but we were surprised to learn that improving vehicle fuel economy would take much longer than we had imagined prior to doing our analysis. We found that because the decline rate in world oil production was going to be in multiple percents per year, it was going to take a very long time for mitigation to catch up to the decline in world oil production. Basically, the best we found was that starting a worldwide crash program 20 years before the problem hits avoid serious problems. If you started 10 years before-hand, you are in a lot of trouble; and if you wait to the last minute until the problem is obvious, then you’re in deep trouble for much longer than a decade. As it turns out, we no longer have the 10 or 20 years that were two of our scenarios...

From Interview with Bob Hirsch - The Stonewalling of Peak Oil :: ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

db

92blkSi · 09-11-2009, 08:51 AM

I go back and forth on the peak oil issue....

Scissors · 09-11-2009, 09:05 AM

You go both ways?

BigArn · 09-11-2009, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scissors

You go both ways?

A slippery AC/DC type

flylooper · 09-11-2009, 09:38 AM

Oil hit $73 bucks today. As the economy picks up so will prices for gasoline. Right now inventories of gasoline are slightly heavy. I think that'll change as they go into heating oil for the winter.

This is one problem that isn't going away. All my Iron Butt friends are going to have to shell out a little more cashola in order to demonstrate their lunacy.

BigArn · 09-11-2009, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flylooper

All my Iron Butt friends are going to have to shell out a little more cashola in order to demonstrate their lunacy.

Never done a SS1000 Fly? It's pretty neat doing one, you should give it a try.

kitkat · 09-11-2009, 10:02 AM

Read where the some of the majors have made major many billion barrel finds recently. Deep stuff but recoverable at about 70-80/bbl prices. That's BP and BG has another in brazil that is even larger. Seems improved tech and knowledge is allowing discoveries in areas once though barren when prospected with older tech methods. Still, all that just prolongs judgment day really.

dave b · 09-11-2009, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitkat

Read where the some of the majors have made major many billion barrel finds recently. Deep stuff but recoverable at about 70-80/bbl prices. That's BP and BG has another in brazil that is even larger. Seems improved tech and knowledge is allowing discoveries in areas once though barren when prospected with older tech methods. Still, all that just prolongs judgment day really.

At some point, it will become obvious to even the most obtuse that oil is way too valuable to burn.

db

kitkat · 09-11-2009, 10:33 AM

"Imagine a world without Plastic!"

dave b · 09-11-2009, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitkat

"Imagine a world without Plastic!"

I've got one word for you. Plastics.

db

ty454 · 09-11-2009, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitkat

Read where the some of the majors have made major many billion barrel finds recently. Deep stuff but recoverable at about 70-80/bbl prices. That's BP and BG has another in brazil that is even larger. Seems improved tech and knowledge is allowing discoveries in areas once though barren when prospected with older tech methods. Still, all that just prolongs judgment day really.

By "many billion" I presume you mean about 3-4bn? And that's OOIP, not proven extractable reserves. In 10 years, once it's online, maybe flow will exceed 250k/bbls per day?

Unfortunately Tiber doesn't prolong anything. The sensationalist coverage is dangerously misleading and a false sense of security. Why don't articles speak in terms of recoverable reserves and flowrates instead of OOIP (of which maybe 30-40% is even recoverable in the first place). I wonder what the headlines would be nowadays if another Ghawar was found? They'd probably make it a national holiday.

92blkSi · 09-11-2009, 10:42 AM

that is why I go back and forth...

Peak Oil doomsday scenarios dont seem to factor that some of the demand will drop off when prices jump over X amount. I understand how much of our world economy is based on oil and oil based products (chemicals, pharma, construction, gas, natural gas, ect....), but the peak oil nuts dont seem to think that some of the demand will drop off as prices move too high.

Also, they dont take into account that new technology will increase supply. The issue has not been that there is not enough oil left, but there is not enough "cheap oil" to meet demand. Advances in extraction/discovery techniques are now making previously "non practical" oil deposits accessible in an economical manner. The peak oil doomsday folks don't seem to allow for advances in tech to include the amount of "non traditional" oil (tar shale, deep water, coal liquefaction, sub permafrost deposits, ect...) into the supply side of things...

just my .02... there is a problem, and we do need to move away from oil, but I don't think it is as bad as some would lead me to believe...

flylooper · 09-11-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigArn

Never done a SS1000 Fly? It's pretty neat doing one, you should give it a try.

.

I did a "SS 2783.4" three years ago. I rode from one coast to the other in 2 days. Not as an IBA ride but because I was fucking sick with bronchitis and wanted to get home and in my own bed. (I wish I had a picture of myself sleeping at a pullover while sitting on my bike at 4 in the morning, helmet and gloves on.) I almost got a chance to shake hands with Jimbo on that trip!

IBA is the silliest, stupidest, total flip-off the whole notion that we're running out of energy that I've ever heard of. It's an anachronism. The idea that someone would ride 1000, 2000, whatever number of miles, in a race against the clock is absolutely ludicrous. For what? A license plate ring and some dubious bragging rights?

1. It's incredibly wasteful
2. It's stressful on the body (read: sleep deprivation)
3. The penalty for failure can be lethal to the rider and...
4. ...an oncoming motorist or cyclist.
5. It wears the bike out.
6. The reward isn't nearly commensurate to the risk.

I can see traveling for virtually any other purpose other than just to burn gasoline and rack up mileage. It's like post whoring here.

I have tons more respect to some fellow who rides a bicycle a hundred miles than some fat-ass like myself who can sit on a droning motorcycle for 24 hours. (And I've done "century rides" back in my salad days. Much more difficult, I assure you.)

That get it for ya'?

Here's the caveat: I'm speaking of the IBA as I knew it when I first discovered it about 8 years ago which went something like "punch in, ride, and punch out." I've been told the current IBA rules require a certain number of rest hours. I don't know. If that's the case, I think that's a good thing.

But it doesn't change my opinion about the whole point of IBA. Just doesn't make much sense to me. I have no interest in it. Never have had any interest in it. But I do have an opinion of it, of course.

AND....I also know it's here to stay. There's some solace in the knowledge that when we get back to 5 buck gasoline a lot of folks are going to think twice about it.

ty454 · 09-11-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 92blkSi

that is why I go back and forth...

Peak Oil doomsday scenarios dont seem to factor that some of the demand will drop off when prices jump over X amount. I understand how much of our world economy is based on oil and oil based products (chemicals, pharma, construction, gas, natural gas, ect....), but the peak oil nuts dont seem to think that some of the demand will drop off as prices move too high.

They absolutely understand this. The problem(?) is that reduced oil consumption comes as as result of reduced economic activity as customers are priced out of the market. So then there's recession...useage drops...prices drop again...usage picks up...repeat.

flylooper · 09-11-2009, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitkat

Read where the some of the majors have made major many billion barrel finds recently. Deep stuff but recoverable at about 70-80/bbl prices. That's BP and BG has another in brazil that is even larger. Seems improved tech and knowledge is allowing discoveries in areas once though barren when prospected with older tech methods. Still, all that just prolongs judgment day really.

+1. The piper will be paid.