Below is a slide presentation given by David Archibald in Melbourne on February 5th. He’s asked me to repeat it here for the benefit of all. I’m happy to do so. He covers climate issues, oil and coal, plus Thorium reactors in this presentation of 110 slides.
He also touches on his upcoming book, which we’ll have more on later. In the meantime, his current book is still available here
Slides below, be patient while they load. There is a wealth of information here. A PDF is also available. – Anthony
Archibald NCC 5th February 2010 (PDF file 6.2 MB)
Khwarizmi, how come there are no oil or coal source rocks in any precambrian deposits? How come chemical trace elements can point to the source rock, biological sedementary beds?
Are you claiming that peak oil production has already occurred?
Horizontal drilling technology has changed quite a bit in the last 5 years. In the past, oil companies would sometimes justify the need to drill a horizontal well instead of a vertical well. Now, oil companies sometimes justify drilling a vertical well instead of a horizontal well.
This has nothing to do with peaking oil production, and you know it. An equal number of drilling rigs are now capable of pulling hydrocarbon out of the ground faster which can ramp production levels. The fact that these drilling rigs need to stay on-line in order to maintain production doesn’t mean that oil production can’t exceed historical levels.
So you’re not claiming that we’ve already hit peak production. In other words, you agree that we might be able to boost our daily production and set new historical records.
And this is exactly what everyone has been hearing for the past 40 years.
In the mean time US Government has become our worst enemy.
Massive coal plant closures announced despite rolling black outs.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Energy_Secretary_Promises_Massive_Coal_Plant_Closures.htm
In the mean time US Government has become our worst enemy.
Always has been, always will be. All governments that is.
So you’re not claiming that we’ve already hit peak production. In other words, you agree that we might be able to boost our daily production and set new historical records.
If the ability to increase production was there, they would have done it by now to take advantage of the high price. It’s percent probability. According to the numbers it does not look good for increased production, ever.
wobble says:
February 14, 2011 at 1:37 pm
“So you’re not claiming that we’ve already hit peak production.”
I am.
Based on the last five years showing no significant change in production.
As others have pointed out ‘peak oil’ is not about the amount in the ground or how much we COULD extract per day; its about how much is actually produced.
That is a product of what it is economically viable. For the last ~5 years the best economic choice was to limit oil production and allow the price to rise.
The only reason that LNG, shale and oil sands have been a factor in liquid fossil fuel production is because the price of oil with demand increasing rose to the point where substitutes were viable.
If it had been possible to increase production at less than the present oil price then it would have been done.
Unless you subscribe to some Illuminati-style conspiracy to fix the commodity price of oil.
“….you agree that we might be able to boost our daily production and set new historical records. ”
We COULD boost our daily production and set new historical records. It wouldn’t even need new technology. The point to consider is that for the last 5 years nobody has. Instead it has been better economically to develop subsitutes because of the high price a fixed supply and growing demand has created.
Increasing oil supply/production significantly above present levels is expensive. It would take much bigger investments than all past oil extraction for lower returns. That is why the alternatives become viable.
To make increased oil production viable would require new technology with some rather exceptional features. It would have to enable oil extraction from present reserves that was far faster than any past extraction rates, at much better energy efficiencies and for a smaller (or at least equal) financial cost than older extraction methods.
Most engineering technology suffers from the –
‘Faster, better, cheaper; pick two’ – problem, you dont get all three.
The only exception I can think of it microelectronics…
“In the mean time US Government has become our worst enemy.”
jrwakefield replies:
“Always has been, always will be. All governments that is.”
On that, jr, we are in complete agreement.
Because government is inherently anti-free market, the incentive to explore for new oil resources is not permitted. The Obama Administration has gone further than any previous administration and put the red areas of this map off-limits – not only to drilling, but even to any exploration. We don’t even know how much oil is there. But in the small green area between Texas and Louisiana there are close to 4,000 producing wells.
If the government simply got out of the way and let oil companies explore and drill for oil, I have no doubt that the production would be immense. It is true that we would have to drill deeper and go farther off shore, and at greater expense. But the free market would provide; always has, always will.
Wow. So you think peak production has probably already occurred, but you’re not sure.
I agree we need to extract every drop we need, we will need every drop to attempt at changing to the new version of civilization. It is GROSSLY irrisponsible at this point to hold back extraction. Holding back extraction causes oil depletion to rise even faster, hence make food and other essentials more expensive, causing unwanted social consequences. (Then again there are those on the left, and radical environmenalists who WANT a human cull).
That said, we do have a pretty good idea what’s around the US. It’s small. Small as in relative to current consumption in the US (7bb/year). So for any field, or collections of untapped fields, divide the potential total extraction by that number. When you do you will see it is just a few years worth. That means the deposits are so small that extraction rates will be low. Understand that one of the biggest mistakes in the US in the 1960’s in places like Texas was extraction was too fast. The faster you attempt to get oil out of the ground the LESS you get in total, leaving behind a larger portion that is physically impossible to extract. So those fields once tapped, will have a very small flow rate, less tha 10% of total consumption in the US.
The big wild card in all this oil consumption is China, now the world’s #2 economy. At this rate will surpass the current #1 ecomony by 2030. By then the US may very well be on the down slope of GDP.
Wow. So you think peak production has probably already occurred, but you’re not sure.
House odds are in favour of being at peak.
jrwakefield, take note. This is how you strap on a pair and make a clear statement.
izen, you might be right, but I’m not completely convinced.
So it wasn’t done at lower oil prices. It probably won’t be done at these higher oil prices, but it might.
Nope, but I certainly know all about the inefficiency, corruption, and incompetence at the NOCs (government run oil companies – think about than the post office on steroids). It’s hurt their production output. They probably aren’t capable of fixing their internal problems to boost production, but they might.
Ha ha ha. “you don’t get all three” – except when you do. There are some incredible new exploration, drilling, and extraction technologies out there. You might know that this industry has been notoriously slow in adapting “new fangled” technology. Well, that’s changing very quickly. It probably won’t change fast enough, but it might.
jrwakefield says: how come there are no oil or coal source rocks in any precambrian deposits?
When you can explain the “other pathways” alluded to in the paper you referenced, I will consider responding to your latest question.
I know how to recommend books and deflect from questions too.
Fixating on ERoEI (energy returned on energy input) is not a good approach. I have never seen an energy prospectus where money is not the goal. An investor places his money, perhaps $1 million, into the limited partnership, and is paid money as the partnership creates cash flow from oil discoveries and production. Nobody cares about ERoEI, but they do care about making money.
As to increasing world oil production, that is simply not done on a whim. Gross overproduction depresses prices. Lower oil prices stimulate demand, which requires more production. OPEC plays a grand game in this, striving to maximize their revenues while keeping competing technologies off the market. There is a good reason (see my earlier comments) why oil is at $80 per barrel, and not $800 per barrel.
One can look at any world production chart and see the rapid decreases in demand that happened after the price spikes of 1973 and 1979. Technology in the demand sector decreased demand, with more fuel-efficient automobiles, fuel switching from heavy fuel oil to natural gas, improved fired furnace efficiency, and overall lower specific energy consumed (greater efficiency) in industry. (There was also a federal law that decreased maximum speed limits to 55 miles per hour in the US.) I wrote on this on my blog, stating that the technology geeks are always striving to decrease demand.
Another point that seems to not be taken into account by the Peak Oil alarmists is that overproduction requires increased oil storage. Yet, worldwide, oil storage is very high by historic standards. There have been times recently when OPEC could not ship all the oil they produced, and had to store the excess oil in tanker ships. One could ask why hasn’t demand increased to absorb all this over-supply.
As to reaching Peak Oil, no, we are not there. However, the Saudis a year ago were quoted as saying they believe we have recently reached Peak Oil Demand. I wrote on this here:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/saudis-worry-about-peak-oil-demand.html
For those who want the source document, see this link:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-15/saudi-arabia-says-peak-demand-for-oil-is-an-alarm-update1-.html
One issue I recall about all the CTL technologies was the need for LOTS of water – of what quality is another question. Point being, if it’s fresh water that’s needed, this becomes a major obstacle, as you would need to spend energy to make it. One major resource problem is not so much oil as fresh water. “Resource Wars” talks about this at some length and with some clarity.
While I don’t believe in some Illuminati-style conspiracy that fixes the price of oil, I do believe that oil prices are higher than they need to be. No conspiracy required – look at housing prices from 1998 to 2007. No conspiracy required – simply speculation. Many of the speculators are driven by Peak Oil theories.
The past several years have proven that the price/supply-demand relationship for oil is much more inelastic in the near term than previously believed. That being said, the high prices over the past several years have eventually dampened demand. This has reduced refinery capacity in the world. Tankers often must sit and wait to sell their crude even though they’re willing to lower their price by a few dollars per barrel. At this point, it doesn’t really matter if some speculator in New York is willing to buy next month’s shipment for a few dollars more. After all, the New Yorker has read all the books about Peak Oil and knows he’s going to make money or something.
Nobody cares about ERoEI, but they do care about making money.
The Laws of Thermodynamics doesn’t care how much money someone wants to make.
the Saudis a year ago were quoted as saying they believe we have recently reached Peak Oil Demand.
Hard to image how that will be with China’s ecomony in double digit growth, and India not far behind. The only drop in demand will be that from demand destuction due to lack of supply.
Khwarizmi, there is no oil in precambrian rocks, save that which has seeped in from conventional sources. Abiotic oil defies chemistry because the mantle is too hot, too destructive to long carbon chains. As noted, the chemical trace elements in oil point to the biological source rocks, that does not include the biological tracers, like certain compounds in oil having the same chemical structure as lipids. Not one oil deposit can be shown to be of abiotic origin. That ends the premise there.
Why the fixation on abiotic oil? Even IF if were true it would in no way allow us to have unlimited oil deposits.
jrwakefield –
(1) Why the repeated misrepresentation of Titan’s geological hydrocarbon species?
(2) Why the fixation on circumventing the second law of thermodynamics?
Why the fixation on circumventing the second law of thermodynamics?
Fixation has nothing to do with it. They are called “laws” for a reason.
Thanks to Leif Svalgaard for pointing out the many misleading aspects of David Archibald’s presentation. When you realise that someone has set out to deceive, it is very hard to take them seriously afterwards. Or maybe more charitably, not to deceive, but to put their case in the very best possible light 😉
As for limits of growth and all that – its basically true. If our population doesn’t stop growing on a voluntary basis, there has to come a time when things go very wrong and the population declines involuntarily. Think of it as a market bubble. They burst, but predicting just when they’ll burst is very hard. Or look at it like locusts. You can imagine a locust in a year when there is lots of food and locust numbers are small scoffing at the Jeremiahs who predict future doom. But a couple of breeding cycles later, when locusts are in plague proportions and there isn’t enough food or all. I’m rather lucky to have been in a generation that won’t see the worst.
Personally, I’m hoping that predictions of a peak population of 9billion and then a decline are correct, and that we manage to survive through that peak.