Comprehensive Projection of World Oil Exports 490
Prof. Goose writes, "This article is a comprehensive assessment of world oil exports, defined has the total amount of liquid hydrocarbons that are surpluses in producing countries. This assessment is made by projecting into the future fixed change rates that reflect current trends in liquids production and consumption in all countries where presently the difference between the two factors is positive. The outcome of this assessment is rather worrisome." Here is the money graph through 2020.
News? (Score:3, Interesting)
What could possibly be more credible than that?
I have a story from the Sony web site saying the PS3 "rules". I guess I should have submitted it.
Silver (Score:5, Interesting)
If anyone cares, the world is destined to run out of raw silver reserves long, long before it runs out of oil. Dozens of analysts are expecting a COMEX default on silver futures within the next couple years. It might not seem like a big deal, but just watch what happens to the price of silver when it does...
(Silver is used in tons of medical equipment. There's a lot of nanotechnology research being done to develop a good substitute, but its still years off)
Peaking.. now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does that strike anyone else as somewhat.. skeptical?
They basically project that what we're getting *RIGHT NOW* is the most we'll ever get. Considering that oil production has basically been increasing for the past 20 years (graph [picodopetroleo.net]), that's some leap to make.
"Money Graph" messed up... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Brutal Graph (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying that the Alberta fields won't become extremely important in the long run -- but we've a long way to go before they produce anything close to the current oil production from traditional sources.
Oil FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
As Sowell [wikipedia.org] would say [amazon.com], there is not a shortage of oil - there is only a shortage of oil at today's prices.
Re:Silver (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Question (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:5, Interesting)
First off, all of the predictions that we see in the article are from Colin Campbell. He's a geologist who represents the fringe of the "peak oil" movement, and founded the association for the study of peak oil and gas. The guy has trouble being right. In addition to being continually proven wrong about the discovery of large new oil fields (which keep turning up -- not to mention old fields unexpectedly finding new life) and the rates at which existing fields will produce, every few years he pushes back his predicted peak. First it was 1995. It's all the way back to 2007 now. Aaany day now, Colin!
Secondly, the logic that this article is based on is faulty. It fails to acknowledge the most critical factor in oil production and pricing: the price of oil influences both the demand and the rate of production of fuels (inc. alternatives). The more expensive oil gets, the slower world economic growth occurs, which drastically reduces demand. At the same time, the more expensive oil gets, vast new reserves come online. At current oil prices, Saudi Arabia doesn't have the world's largest reserves: Venezuela does. Venezuela's reserves were once dwarfed by Saudi Arabia's because they're more expensive to produce from. With high prices, a vast amount of Venezuelan oil comes online.
But it doesn't stop there. Current prices are high enough to make Canadian tar sands profitable. Shell is leading the way here, and is majorly scaling up their operations. If you count the tar sands, Canada goes up into the world leader position. But hey, why stop there? Coal liquifaction is borderline profitable at current prices. The US has hundreds of years of coal to mine; even if we start converting it to oil, it's a massive energy influx. And do we really even need to get into oil shale, methane hydrates, ethanol (esp. from cellulose), biodiesel, waste polymerization, and vehicles driven by electricity or hydrogen (which, effectively, can be powered by the grid, which means that any potential power source will work).
Yes, prices will rise. So? We've gotten a free ride on ubercheap oil for too long. At current prices, however, countless technologies are either freshly viable or near-viable for energy production -- both for producing petroleum, and for producing petroleum alternatives. If prices rise further, it makes them all the prettier for investors. This peak oil fearmongering is just silly.
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:3, Interesting)
so investors are going to put a lot of effort into making sure the government chooses things that make their investments pay off even up to the point of creating false data to support their investments.
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait a minute! Let me see if I can boil this down...
When a something is in high demand and becomes scarce it becomes more expensive. Because it is more expensive, people will seek out and develop alternative sources for the product, as well as alternative products.
Is this just crazy talk? Are you saying that we didn't go back to candles when we ran out of whale oil? But instead we developed an alternative - petroleum? Or that when since cane sugar is expensive we sweeten lots of food products with corn syrup?
Holy freshman year economics, Batman!
Someone better tell these simple proven facts to the prophets of doom. I'm sure that they'd rather have a hand in informing the public of all this, rather than exploit the public with their gloomy predictions for personal gain.
Re:Peaking.. now? - Other skepticisms (Score:3, Interesting)
The study, though academically interesting was pragmatically dead before it was even published. It doesn't even begin to look at the entire global market; just a subset of it. And based on this subset that leaves out some of the world's largest consumers, they make projections on the future world oil market.
The basics of simulation dictate that you can't make predictions if your model inputs with the most significant gains (ratio of input move size to output response size) are left out of the model. Otherwise disturbances in the variables with larger gain are going to overwhelm the smaller gain variables. Right now I would say that China and India are large gain inputs to any projection of world oil markets. And this guy left them out.
Re:Worrisome? (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting away from a petroleum economy is a process that will take years, not a few weeks. In order to use non-petroleum fuels, you need 1) production, 2) delivery infrastructure and 3) consumption structure (i.e. ethanol cars, hydrogen home water-heaters).
Because each of those three factors depend on the other two factors in order to be profitable, this change will only come about as a slow spiral of support, starting out small and slowly growing.
We are still totally dependent on petroleum. The petro companies will continue to make money on short-term volatility. We will only start to change to a non-petroleum economy when the general public percieves that it is *certain* that petroluem will only get more scarce in the future. Then, they might consider buying a flex fuel vehicle next year, provided they have seen enough E85 pumps at the gas station on their way hom from work.
Re:Brutal Graph (Score:3, Interesting)
Take your complaints about the environment to Exxon-Mobil. There's a company to go after. They're still funding astroturf campaigns denying that global warming is real. Of course, at the same time, a high ranking member of NCAR tells me, their people privately acknowledge it when meeting with NCAR. Exxon-Mobil is also the company that was involved in the Aceh torture coverup, among numerous other things. I'm actually proud of Shell's record. It's not perfect (for example, Nigeria, and to a lesser degree, Sakhalin), but they're pretty good as far as oil companies go. They're even progressive domestically, such as offering domestic partner benefits.
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, none of the alternatives you named are really all that desirable. Coal to gas conversion is very environmentally destructive-- and, of course, it contributes even more to global warming. All of the heavy oil products require even more energy to refine than light oil, which translates into massive inefficiency. Unfortunately, that is the future.
Ethanol-powered vehicles don't really reduce US oil consumption because US agriculture is massively dependent on petroleum-based fertizilers and other chemicals. Brazil, on the other hand, has a different climate which allows it to grow a lot of sugar cane, and there ethanol does help.
So basically, the environment is screwed, but the economy is not. Yay.
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:3, Interesting)
You'll notice that peak oil theorists almost always point to Hubbard. Point to a peak-oil prediction *apart* from Hubbard's that has worked out. Since Hubbard, peak oil theory has been one missed prediction after another.
Oh, I almost forgot yet another oil source in my parent post: the arctic, which every year (sadly) becomes easier to drill in. Also, another thing: A quick search shows that 1995 wasn't Campbell's first missed peak. Apparently he also predicted a peak in '89.
Re:You've got an unstated assumption, there... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Including "innovation" is dangerous. (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed, and there are now more players involved, some of them with billions to spend. There is some promise of improvement, but there are questions as to how efficient the overall processes will be, especially with cellulosic conversion. Many pin their hopes on that process, but so far it's extremely inefficient.
Second, that 19% is the amount of land actually under active cultivation, not the amount that could be brought under cultivation.
This is true, and a more useful number would be the amount of land that cannot be cultivated. Much of the Rocky Mountains, for example, are useless for growing ethanol feedstock. So are most of Alaska and large parts of Florida. I would venture that most of New Jersey is also not ideal, given the commercial density there. When defining "arable" as "that which can be farmed" instead of "that which is farmed," the number grows. By how much it grows is the crucial point.
Third, you assume that the same land - even the same crop - can't generate both foodstuff and fuel. Think about using cornstalks as a driver for fuel.
As above, this is a cellulosic conversion concern. Perhaps thermal depolymerization will assist here, but for now, it's still a research concern. Once it can be overcome, there is no shortage of energy sources, and there may actually be a need to restrain some people.
Fourth, you make the assumption that the yield will remain constant. In only the last few years the yield from corn has gone from 400 g/acre to over 500 g/acre.
I did say that they were back-of-the-envelope. At the same time, you can't count completely on future increases. It may be possible to reach 2000g/acre, but is there a certainty? Not really. You have to work with what you have and what is realistic, or else you oversell, and that can be worse than not selling at all.
Last, you make the assumption that the inputs will only be crops. Non-agricultural inputs can also be applied. For instance, suburban lawn clippings and leaves.
See cellulosic concerns.