This graph of total world oil production displays an obvious flattening-out from 2005-2008. That is what ‘peak oil’ would look like all right. But is that the correct way to interpret it, or is there some other meaning behind the leveling-off of global oil production?
I doubt I will participate further in this one. I intend to simply follow along.
Stats are a funny thing. Here’s a graph from 1960 to 2008 showing world oil production continuing to rise:
Maybe, maybe not, it is too soon to tell IMHO. The flattening could very likely be due to the great recession and not peak oil. That said, most analysis I have seen indicate that peak oil will occur sometime 2000-2020, so maybe…
That one shows crude leveling of from 2005-2008.
Consumption went down during the recession.
But production seems to have leveled off back in 2005 before the collapse of 2008. So I don’t know how much is due to the economic situation and how much is lack of supply.
The chart I posted also showed production declining rather sharply from 1979 to 1984. What do you make of that? If flattening out from 2005 to 2008 indicates we may be at peak oil, what about the decline?
You do realise that oil production is controlled by cartels and other non-market forces, don’t you?
Really? Cite? If you look at peak cod, for instance, the resource suddenly collapsed.
Prices crashed, and production followed - just as one would expect. Prices from 2005-8 were at historic highs.
So, are we there or not? I need to know how stupid people wanting to shut down the Alberta oil sands are.
The flattening of the graph is probably more-or-less equal proportions of both: the increasing difficulty in finding cheaply-extractable petroleum contributes (at least in part) to the 2008 recession, and the 2008 recession decreases worldwide demand for petroleum, with a corresponding slowing of production.
The only way we’ll be able to tell if we’ve reached the Hubbert peak for petroleum is in hindsight, and it’s way too soon to tell.
Peak oil itself is a difficult concept. If oil becomes scarcer prices will go up, however if oil reaches 200 bucks a barrel many places like tar sands and old wells would become profitable again, also searching for oil if “harder” places could become economically intelligent
Thre articles I like on he subject
One
Two
Three
(It’s not my site or anything realted to me)
Peak oil might never be reached. As we start extracting the harder to reach oil, the production costs start to rise and previously uneconomic oil reserves become economic or we start to develop alternative energy. The drive for oil independence isn’t because we will run out of oil, the market will make sure that there is SOMETHING that will power our cars and cool our homes during the summer. The drive for oil independence is because we are so dependent on oil that our economy would be crippled if we suddenly lost our access to oil overnight; about half our trade deficit is accounted for by our oil imports; oil based energy creates greenhouse gasses; we end up too invested in our relationships in the middle east.
You know, there are reasons not to mine the Alberta tar sands that have nothing to do with how badly the oil is or isn’t needed.
That just plain looks like noisy data to me. Noisy data can often look like it’s at a meaningful peak when it’s not. Of course, it can also look like it’s at a peak when it really is. In other words, that’s not enough to be able to tell yet whether it’s peak oil or not.
Peak oil will inevitably come, eventually. Even if you include the harder-to-reach oil and the as-yet-undiscovered oil, there’s still a finite amount of the stuff, so we can’t postpone it indefinitely that way. And a practical alternative fuel would not only not prevent peak oil, it would actually trigger it regardless of the state of reserves, admittedly in a non-catastrophic way.
We will reach peak oil unless humanity lives forever and continues to use oil at an ever increasing rate. I find that unlikely. Either we will pump most of it out of the ground, find alternatives and stop using it all together, or a meteor will fall on our heads tomorrow and we’ll all die. Either way, peak oil.
They’re all kind of moot at this point.
Put it this way: There are reasons why it would be a very bad idea for every accessible barrel of petroleum in the Earth’s crust to be extracted, and burned, and the combustion products added to the atmosphere.
Oh, I agree. The reality is that until quite a few very important things change, we ARE going to extract and burn every barrel of oil, and protesting in downtown Calgary/Toronto/Ottawa/Vancouver to quit working in the oil patch with no good alternatives in place is foolishly naive.
We will never go to the last 10 or 15% of the oil. It will be so expensive then that we will not use it and already have done something better (hydrogen will kick oil’s ass and then oil’s mum’s ass). 3k a barrel oil will never run out
Hydrogen is not a resource. If it becomes the backbone of transportation, we’ll have to supply it with coal, nuclear, or renewables. Peak coal is still a century or more away, right? Peak uranium?
