Category: Peak Oil

Oil: Shocking how vital it still is thumbnail The idea is a pretty simple one. Every now and again – amid all the swirling reports and breaking news – it is worth taking a pause and bringing together what we know about the most important resource in the world. As part of the Big Oil Drop project , I was asked a straightforward question. “Why is oil so important? And could you write about it.” It was so straightforward a question that it sounded faintly ridiculous. Well, of course oil is important, I blustered, erm, we need it to drive in our millions of cars, jobs depend on it, the supply of energy is at the heart of much of global politics (just look at Russia now), wars are fought over it, without oil the lights would go out… I tailed off, realising that yes, of course, I knew […]

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The United Steelworkers union (USW) has launched additional work stoppages at the largest refinery in the US and three other facilities as part of USW’s unfair labor practice (ULP) strike.  Twenty-four-hour strike Continue Reading

Summary: In a world overrun with humans, what fate awaits wildlife, fisheries, and forests when the fuels run short? Several years ago I was working as a biological consultant to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, helping this federal agency prepare a long-term management plan for Innoko National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Alaska. This Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) would provide overall management guidance for the refuge’s wildlife, habitat, and public use. The huge, sprawling 3.8-million acre (5,940-square mile) Innoko NWR is one of the remotest national wildlife refuges in the United States. It is so wild that it contains not a single human inhabitant in all that vastness; its headquarters are located in the village of McGrath, on the Kuskokwim River, some 50 miles as the raven flies from the refuge itself. In 1980, the U.S. Congress officially designated 1,240,000 acres of Innoko NWR (1/3 of it) as part […]

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The world peak of conventional oil production took place in 2005-2006, but the supply of combustible liquids did not decline, mainly because of the contribution of the newly developed “shale oil” (or “tight” oil) fields. With the impending worldwide peak of “all liquids” it is likely that the industry will try a new, all out effort to squeeze out the last drops of liquid oil from whatever sources are available, no matter how dirty and expensive. It is not certain that the attempt will be successful, but it is likely that some new monstrosity will be created in Sauron’s satanic mills.  Peak oil is something referred to as a “theory,” intended in a derogatory sense. But the concept is not just a theory; production peaks are historically observed facts, occurring not just for oil, but for any natural resource which is exploited beyond its capability to reform (e.g. for […]

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What happens if we run out of oil? thumbnail It took hundreds of millions of years to create the world’s oil reserves. It took less than a century before oil became the commodity on which world power turned. And it was little more than a century before fears were raised that we would run out of oil. Fifty years further on, it’s less clear than ever how much is left. That’s because technological advance has confounded those who feared there were tight constraints on what could be drilled. The rich rewards from oil have fuelled initiative and invention. As Professor Iain Stewart explains in his BBC series Planet Oil , this wasn’t just a passion for scientific and engineering endeavour. It was economic, political and strategic military calculation that drove the UK and the US to find ways of becoming less dependent on supplies from the Middle East. Having […]

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Peak What? thumbnail I’ve been maintaining “radio silence” for a while—mostly on account of an overflowing plate and several new new hats I wear. All the while, I have received a steady stream of e-mail thanking me for Do the Math, asking if I’m still alive, and if so: what do I make of the changing oil situation? Do I still think peak oil is a thing? Let’s start with the big picture view. I was wrong about everything. Oil is not a finite resource: never was and never will be. We will employ new technologies and innovate our way into essentially perpetual fossil energy. We’ve only scratched the surface in exploration: there are giant deposits (countless new Saudi-Arabia-scale fields) yet to be discovered). The shale oil tells us so—and it won’t stop there. Shale first, then slate, marble, granite: just squeeze the frack out of rocks and we’ll […]

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The world peak of conventional oil production took place in 2005-2006, but the supply of combustible liquids did not decline, mainly because of the contribution of the newly developed “shale oil” (or “tight” oil) fields. With the impending worldwide peak of “all liquids” it is likely that the industry will try a new, all out effort to squeeze out the last drops of liquid oil from whatever sources are available, no matter how dirty and expensive. It is not certain that the attempt will be successful, but it is likely that some new monstrosity will be created in Sauron’s satanic mills.  Peak oil is something referred to as a “theory,” intended in a derogatory sense. But the concept is not just a theory; production peaks are historically observed facts, occurring not just for oil, but for any natural resource which is exploited beyond its capability to reform (e.g. for […]

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Weak oil market impacting operations in the onshore and offshore sectors of the United States. Photo courtesy: Apache Corp. A steady increase in U.S. oil production has pushed crude oil markets toward the supply side, pushing crude oil prices to less than 50 percent of their June highs above $100 per barrel. That’s forced companies from BP to those in the oil services industry like Halliburton to cut spending and staff. Rig company Hercules Offshore said revenue generated from work in the U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico declined 33 percent year-on-year to $90.2 million. For full-year 2014, the company reported a $216 million loss from continuing operations. President and Chief Executive Officer John Rynd said the weak market was reflected in the fourth quarter and the downturn should continue in 2015 until commodity prices improve. "The significant decline in crude oil prices during the fourth quarter exacerbated […]

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We still haven’t reached peak oil . But peak milk happened in 2004, peak soybeans in 2009, and peak chicken in 2006. Rice peaked in 1988. A new study published in Ecology and Society explains that 21 key resources that humans rely on—mostly food —have already passed their peak rate of production. “Peak,” in this case, doesn’t mean that we’re actually producing fewer chickens or less milk yet. Instead, the researchers looked at the fact that the rate of production has plateaued, at the same time that population is increasing. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany , who worked on the study with colleagues from Yale University and Michigan State University . “We approached the whole thing with an open mind,” he says. “We didn’t want it to be apocalyptic. We tried to seek patterns that give reliable information about how we really harvest the Earth, knowing that […]

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As we’ve written about often here at PeakProsperity.com, much of what’s been ‘sold’ to us about the US shale oil revolution is massively over-hyped. The amount of commercially-recoverable shale oil is much less than touted, returns much less net energy than the petroleum our economy was built around, and is extremely unprofitable to extract for most drillers at today’s lower oil price. To separate the hype from reality, our podcast guest is Arthur Berman, a geological consultant with 34 years of experience in petroleum exploration and production.  Berman sees the recent US oil production boost from shale drilling as and short-lived and somewhat desperate; a kind of last hurrah before the lights get turned out: The EIA looks at the US tight oil plays and they see maybe five years before things start to fall off. I think it is less, but I am not going to split hairs. The […]

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