From American University via Eurekalert, professor Matthew Nisbet demonstrates that the impact of peak petroleum on public health may be a way to unite conservatives and liberals in an effort to move away from fossil fuels and towards alternative forms of energy.
Peak Oil & Public Health: Political Common Ground?
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 8, 2011)—Peak petroleum—the point at which the maximum rate of global oil extraction is reached, after which the rate of production begins to decline—is a hot topic in scientific and energy circles. When will it occur? What will the impact be? While geologists and economists debate the specifics, American University School of Communication professor Matthew Nisbet believes peak petroleum and the associated risks to public health may provide an opportunity to bring conservatives and liberals together in the move toward alternative forms of energy.
“Somewhat surprisingly, conservatives are more likely to associate a major spike in oil prices with a strong threat to public health,” said Nisbet—an expert in the field of climate and energy communication. “This could present a gateway to engagement with conservatives on energy policy.”
In a forthcoming peer-reviewed study at the American Journal of Public Health, Nisbet and his co-authors find that 76% of people in a recent survey believe oil prices are either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to triple in the next five years. A dramatic spike in oil prices is a commonly recognized outcome of peak petroleum.
Even more telling is that 69% of respondents believe a sharp rise in oil prices would be either “very harmful” (44%) or “somewhat harmful” (25%) to the health of Americans. According to the survey, strong conservatives were the most sensitive to these possible risks, with 53% believing that a spike in oil prices would be “very harmful” to human health. Similarly, in a separate analysis of the data, those who were strongly “dismissive” of climate change (52%) were the most likely of any subgroup to associate a sharp spike in oil prices with a negative impact on public health.
According to Nisbet and his co-authors, this creates a challenge and an opportunity for the environmental and public health communities. Peak oil and energy prices are often talked about in terms of economic and environmental impact, but rarely as a public health concern. Nisbet argues that his findings show reason to reframe the debate.
“These findings suggest that a broad cross-section of Americans may be ready to engage in dialogue about ways to manage the health risks that experts associate with peak petroleum,” said Nisbet. “Peak petroleum may not currently be a part of the public health portfolio, but we need to start the planning process.”
The study was co-authored with Edward Maibach of George Mason University and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 11th Hour, and Surdna Foundation.
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Richard: your
Price of oil adjusted for inflation since 1946. http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/inflation_rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Chart.asp
You do realize that your reference CONFIRMS what Jim said, right? in fact, 1979 prices in 2011 dollars was $111.43. Prices in 1979 were slightly higher than current prices.
Do you EVER read your own references?
RE: David Middleton says: (August 11, 2011 at 12:02 pm)
“The Earth doesn’t have to generate “petroleum at least as fast as we are using it” for Peak Oil to be nonsense… At least nonsense in the context of the next few centuries.”
I am looking at this from a viewpoint that does not assume human extinction or an ‘end of days’ event in the next few centuries–perhaps I am being over optimistic.
I also believe that we are not guaranteed to find a better (cheaper) alternative to petroleum before it fails to satisfy its demand.
‘Peak Oil’ may not be a good term, as oil production can peak-out for multiple causes. Perhaps ‘Diminishing Oil’ would be a better designation–signaling the time when petroleum production becomes subject to a law of diminishing returns as natural petroleum becomes ever more difficult to find and extract. I believe it has been established that we are now in a Diminishing Gold period.
Richard Wakefield:
At August 11, 2011 at 2:35 am I had explained why oil reserves are always ~40 years and I asked:
” Despite this, the myth of Peak Oil continues. So, I want an understanding of how and why people can strongly believe in such nonsense”
At August 11, 2011 at 1:21 pm you have made a reply that ignores my request for an explanation (which it seems reasonable to suppose you know) and post this:
“You think that because you are making the same mistake as all the others. Peak oil is not about what’s in the ground, It’s not about running out like your gas tank does. It’s about how fast it can be extracted. Peak oil is when we have reached peak production, peak flow rate.”
Mistake? About this? Me? Are you mad?
You admit that the oil reserves exist.
You say Peak Oil is about “peak production, peak flow rate”.
So, to pretend that Peak il exists you pretend that two wells do not produce more than one well.
In light of this, I repeat my question,
Please tell me why some people believe the nonsense you present here.
Richard
Richard Courtney: your
So, to pretend that Peak il exists you pretend that two wells do not produce more than one well.
Some oil companies don’t understand this either. I tried to convince a client to drill two smaller ID wells, instead of one larger well, to complete two zones. They would have had lower drilling costs, and higher total production, but they preferred the old method; one well, two completions.
Spector;
Your ‘conservatism’ re energy and oil and resources is risibly short-sighted. To take your “Diminishing Gold” example, I suggest watching what happens if its price stabilizes near $2000. And, one step further out, the first 1 mi. diameter nickel-iron asteroid nudged into Near Earth Orbit will yield mostly pre-separated ores of precious metals equivalent to the total mined in all of Earth’s history. Value at even 5 year-ago prices about $1,000,000 for every human on the planet, or about $7 quadrillion. And there are hundreds or thousands of such asteroids, perhaps as many as one million in the ‘Main Belt’ counting all types (chondritic, carbonaceous, stony, etc.)
The point is that resource shortages are projected and theoretical, and will always remain so unless technological civilization collapses from some other cause. Such as the success of the Strong-Stern-Ehrlich-Greenista agenda.
Les Johnson:
Thankyou for your anecdote at August 12, 2011 at 4:01 am. It is interesting and informative.
Such closed minds among such obviously informed people do go some way to show why people – regardless of their knowledge – can ‘swllow’ the Peak Oil myth. Thankyou.
However, it does not explain why people WANT to believe such scares. That is what I want to know, and I explained why I want to know in my above post at August 11, 2011 at 2:35 am. I explicitly stated my purpose in wanting to know in the final paragraph of that post.
Richard
RE: Richard S Courtney: (August 12, 2011 at 1:53 am)
“Please tell me why some people believe the nonsense you present here.”
The term Peak Oil, in my view, only indicates that world production of natural petroleum for one particular year eventually proves to be greater than or equal to that produced on every other year. This event will never happen only if amount of petroleum is produced each year will always be surpassed by that produced on some later year.
The sky does not fall. The price of gasoline does not necessarily skyrocket. Just one or more years have an unsurpassed world production of natural petroleum.
There’s a lot of truth to that. Dual completions all too often become nightmares. If the project economics can’t stand the cost of two wells, a single-selective completion is usually smarter.
Easiest way to turn a $10 million well into a $30 million well: Try to do too any things with one well-bore.
Roger Sowell says:
August 11, 2011 at 9:03 pm
@ur momisugly Richard Wakefield, the world crude oil production peaked in 1979 at 65,000 BPD then declined for several years steadily, bottoming out at about 57,000 BPD. Why wasn’t that a PEAK OIL moment?
Hint: demand went down, it had nothing to do with the amount of oil in the ground.
Extrapolation: world demand since 2005 has also been flat. There has been no PEAK OIL event, ever. And there never will be, for the reasons I gave earlier.
——-
The US didn’t peak in flow rate in the 1970’s? Individual fields, like North Sea and Cantarell didn’t peak in flow rate?
Richard S Courtney, please read Twighlight in the Desert. Your question is answered about the number of wells. People “believe” the “nonsense” because of reports like these: Please read them, then come back and we can talk.
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/GOF_decline_Article.pdf
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
https://www.msu.edu/~ralsto11/PeakOil.pdf
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Global+Oil+Depletion
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
Les johnson says:
August 12, 2011 at 12:19 am
Richard Wakefield: This is 4th time I have posted this.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=50&pid=53&aid=1&cid=ww,&syid=2005&eyid=2011&freq=Q&unit=TBPD
World crude production is 3 million bbls/day higher in 2011, than it was in 2005. OPEC has 2 million bbls/day MORE shut in production now, than they did in 2005. That means the total current production RATE is 5 million bbls per day HIGHER than in 2005.
Please explain how a plateau exists, when the RATE is rising.
——
That’s ALL liquids, regardless of source. Crude oil production, from the ground, is flat. http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?product=oil&graph=production
Richard wakefield wrote: “Abiotic has been dealt with, every oil field on the planet has chemical markers that shows the source rock, all of which are biological zones (one time shallow seas rich in life).”
So-called “source rock” is not the source of crude oil. Rather, it is the heavy hydrocarbon precipitate, also known as “kerogen”, which comes from the longer hydrocarbon chain portion of the Fischer-Tropsch distribution of hydrocarbons, that either sinks to the bottom of aqueous environments, thus becoming part of the sedimentary rock structure over time or lodges in the rock conduits as hydrocarbons rise from below.
The Fischer-Tropsch distribution of hydrocarbons matches crude oil fround in geological strata.
Carbon isotope effects in the open-system Fischer–Tropsch synthesis, 2007
Yuri A. Taran a,*, George A. Kliger b, Vyacheslav S. Sevastianov c
a Institute of Geophysics, UNAM, 04510 Mexico DF, Mexico
b Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, RAS, Moscow, Russia
c Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry, RAS, Moscow, Russia
Taran, et. al. wrote:1. Introduction
The Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS), which generally can be defined as the heterogeneous catalytic reduction of oxidized carbon compounds by molecular hydrogen, is widely accepted as a process potentially responsible for the presence of organic compounds in meteorites, submarine hydrothermal systems and igneous rocks (e.g. Lancet and Anders, 1970; Shock, 1990; Salvi and Williams-Jones, 1997; Yuen et al., 1984; Foustoukos and Seyfried, 2004; Horita, 2005). This ‘‘inorganic’’, ‘‘abiotic’’ synthesis has also been considered to be important in global geologic processes including production of methane and petroleum and finally, as a source of prebiotic compounds on the early Earth (Szatmari, 1989; Charlou et al., 2002; Sherwood Lollar et al., 2002; Horita, 2005, among others).
Aqueous high-temperature and high-pressure organic geochemistry of hydrothermal vent systems, by BR Simoneit (1993), Petroleum Research Group, Oregon State University.
“Continental hydrothermal systems may also be of interest, as, for example, in failed or dormant rifts and regions around piercement volcanoes [and grabens?]… The products are rapidly moved as bulk phase or in fluids from the regions at higher temperatures to areas at lower temperatures, where the high molecular weight material separates from the bulk.”
If the above scenario has validity, then that would explain why the so-called “biomarkers” of the petroleum and condensate gas match the organic “source” rocks: The heavy hydrocarbons, “kerogen”, within the “source” rocks, and the lighter petroleum originate and are formed from the same true source of hydrocarbons deeper in the crust and shallow mantle as the result of geo-chemical Fischer-Tropsch type synthesis. This is likely the actual process all so-called “source” rock is formed by (heavy hydrocarbons may seperate from the light hydrocarbons before the hydrocarbons are expelled into the aqueous basin or dry land).
Amen, David, amen.
Spector says:
August 12, 2011 at 1:40 am
“I believe it has been established that we are now in a Diminishing Gold period.”
If you’re tired of producing an ounce for about 500USD – which is what miners do – you could start harvesting it from seawater. As a byproduct of Lithium and Uranium harvesting:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
Richard Wakefield,
Your assertion that home owners defaulted on their mortgages because rising energy costs meant they were unable to meet their repayments, is completely wrong. You are trying to create a picture of hard working Americans facing energy costs that are spiralling out of control until the costs eat up their entire budget. The main reason why this is wrong is that energy costs are still a relatively small portion of disposable income, and that faced with a choice between cutting back on driving/heating or loosing their home, most families would choose the former action. The fact is that the real estate market collapsed because it was a bubble that finally burst.
Peter Schiff has given a good analysis of the breakdown, and in fact predicted it in a 2005 debate with the institute of mortgage lenders. What happened was that a speculative bubble had developed in which people were making big bets on real estate and were allowed to do so because of the fundamental consensus that prices would continue to rise. This is a crucial point – the banks were culpable in supporting this fallacy. Evidence: in the debate, the other side argued that were are not in a bubble because “I have in my hand a report by the institute of mortgage lenders which shows a supply side problem that will lead to price increases into 2030.” He read those words with the kind of gravity one would expect had the words been handed down by God Himself.
So, banks, rating agencies and individuals conspired to drive up prices to such a level that rental incomes could not cover mortgage repayments. But that didn’t matter either, because the speculators were betting that capital appreciation would offset the losses made on mortgage repayments. All these mortgages were packaged up, given triple A ratings and sold as securities around the world. The real estate market had become a de facto Ponzi scheme, in which income losses in the present were discounted with imagined capital appreciation in the future. Like all Ponzi schemes, it eventually reached its limit and collapsed.
You are trying too hard, I think, to find evidence – where none exists – to support your conjecture of rising oil prices causing recessions.
Richard: ypur
That’s ALL liquids, regardless of source. Crude oil production, from the ground, is flat.
Again, you don’t read your own source. Indexmundi shows an INCREASE in production in 2010 vs 2005, of nearly 1/2 million bbls/day (72423 in 2010 vs 72022 in 2005). Of course, they also reference my source, which shows a LARGER increase, because it has 2011 data.
But, even here, you are wrong. Again (or is it still?). Oil only, from the ground, has increased by about a million bbls per day, over 2005, over the last 3 quarters.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=50&pid=57&aid=1&cid=ww,&syid=2005&eyid=2011&freq=Q&unit=TBPD
Again, As I said in other posts, oil is oil. It does not matter if we get it from the ground, from coal, or from unicorn flatulence. It does not matter where it comes from; new sources, old sources or conservation. And that is the reason there will not be peak oil. We will find a way to substitute or conserve, or replace with something else entirely.
Just a few observations:
Increasing reserves – In the USA reserves are defined as 90% probability – as fields are developed reserves increase until they pass the initial 50% probability. It’s arithmetic.
In OPEC reserves have remained flat for about 30 years in spite of little new discovery and steady production. About 5 years ago Canada redefined ATS as reserves, equivalent to conventional oil, in spite of their low recovery rates. Discovery has been less than production for decades. Real reserves cannot be increasing. Its arithmetic.
In the 10 years since the USGS issued their 2000 report giving a 30 year projection of world oil from 1996-2025, real discoveries have been 30% of their projection. Not too promising.
Existing producing oil fields production declines at >4%/yr. For conventional oil thats about 3mb/d/y. That much new production has to be brought on line every year just to offset declines. Check the Megaprojects WIKI and see how much will be brought on line in the next few years. The first 5 years or so are baked in the cake given development times. Oops.
The 1988 peak often mentioned is all liquids, not conventional oil. It includes biofuels which is double counting since it takes oil to produce them, and it reflects steadily decreasing EROEI. If you consider net energy, we have been in decline for some years already.
Total exports from oil exporting countries have been in decline since 2005, and only the world economic crisis has prevented that from becoming a major problem. The decline reflects increased domestic use, not offset by increased production.
Enhanced recovery techniques increases production temporarily, at the expense of earlier exhaustion. They do not increase recovery, as has been illustrated for several fields.
Tertiary recovery can keep old field producing for a very long time, and increase EUR a bit, but at very low production rates, as evidenced by thousands of producing wells in the USA.
The referenced report on oil shales recovery above is dated 2005, and is based on 2004 and earlier data. Shell testified before Congress in 2008 or 9 and the inferred EROEI is less than 3, without accounting for the embedded energy, and their pilot is in the richest concentration area they could find. Shell stated that they would reach a decision in 2012 on whether or not to continue. Recoverable concentrations are only 15% of the often quoted reserves. Australia oil shale production was shut down several years ago.
I love guys that quote a one year y-o-y increase in production, at a rate about 15% of peak to claim that peak has not been passed.
Actually about 30% of USA potential “unknown” reserve areas, mostly OCS is available for development. You don’t notice any oil companies rushing to develop it. They seem to prefer ultra deep water or the Baaken. What does that tell us? Oh well, let’s blame it on the government.
Many thanks to Richard Wakefield for trying valiantly to paint a true picture. Unfortunately, a holistic approach to trying to look at all of the data will never overcome confirmation bias.
For some real numbers on the Bakken, see http://www.foslnrg.blogspot.com/. When I first posted this on another blog I was castigated by a couple of oil professionals for being too optimistic.
PS – a couple of folks mention that they have been hearing about peak oil for 40 years or so. Serious mention of peak oil was Hubbert about 1958, it was for the USA and it proved to be right. Othe late projections for the world targeted the late 1990s to the mid oughts for peak, and dealt with conventional oil. They weren’t too far off. Both the USA and German militaries believe firmly that we are at or very near peak, but of course they probably didn’t research the subject thoroughly, and we have lots of bloggers that know better
PPS – light sweet crude peaked somewhere between 1998 and 2004, depending on who’s numbers you use. KSA’s oft quoted excess capacity is heavy sour crude, and the main reason it is not in production is a world shortage of refineries that can handle it.
murrayv: personally, I love data. Like the fact that oil production is now higher than it ever has been. Or that the EIA has projected increasing oil production out till at least 2035.
I also love the guys that claim there has been a peak, when there has been increasing production since the year quoted.
Oil production is still increasing. Oil reserves are still increasing. Alternate oils from NG or coal are easily made.
We are not at peak oil….
“Both the USA and German militaries believe firmly that we are at or very near peak,”
The US military also believes in the paranormal, and employs (or used to employ) people with ‘remote viewing’ skills to spy on foreign assets. They both also believe in catastrophic global warming. Leave the army to fight wars and not get involved in this kind of embarassing nonsense.
RE: Brian H: (August 12, 2011 at 4:17 am)
“Spector;
“Your ‘conservatism’ re energy and oil and resources is risibly short-sighted. To take your “Diminishing Gold” example, I suggest watching what happens if its price stabilizes near $2000. And, one step further out, the first 1 mi. diameter nickel-iron asteroid nudged into Near Earth Orbit will yield mostly pre-separated ores of precious metals equivalent to the total mined in all of Earth’s history. Value at even 5 year-ago prices about $1,000,000 for every human on the planet, or about $7 quadrillion. And there are hundreds or thousands of such asteroids, perhaps as many as one million in the ‘Main Belt’ counting all types (chondritic, carbonaceous, stony, etc.)…”
There may be less expensive, secondary methods of obtaining gold and other resources when we cannot meet their required demand from traditional sources and methods. I suspect that it is far less energy intensive to obtain gold from seawater than from outer space.
Here is the ‘Diminishing Gold’ reference:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5960
For more on oil shale see
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/OilShaleReview200509.pdf and
http://www.ceri-mines.org/documents/R13a-Udall-Andrews.pdf
Plus the following excerpt from a letter I wrote in 2004. In the 7 years since nothing has improved.
First we need to put Estonia in perspective. They use the bulk of their oil
shale for electricity generation, burning it like you would coal, at an
energy yield from the primary energy contained by the shale in the ground to
electricity delivered to the customer of 11%. For the small share they use
to produce oil, the energetic yield from ground to tank is 9%. World oil
shale yields from .14 b(barrels) shale oil/ton of shale for “lean shale” to
1.2 b/ton for “rich shale”. Average world shale oil that is considered
recoverable is estimated to yield 0.3 b (barrels) /ton of shale. The small
portion that Estonia uses for oil yields 0.9 b/ton, ie only their rich
fraction. They also estimate that they are competitive with oil at $25.00/b
for light crude. They generate 3000 MW of electricity from oil shale, much
less than 1% of USA generation. Estonia is not a model for the USA need of
replacing declining petroleum.
From World Energy Council 2001 (www.worldenergy.com), using USGS numbers, we
have USA proven reserves of 3.34x10e12 tons of shale that could yield 242
Gt kerogen or 1936 Gb at an average of .58 b/ton. Of this 560 Gb of shale
oil is considered “proven recoverable”. Estimated unproven is another 500
Gb. Total is about equal to world conventional oil reserves. Sounds great.
However the top grade (.5 to 1.2 b/ton) is about 30%, so at $40./b for light
crude, maybe 200 Gb of the proven are economically useful to replace light
crude and the rest is speculation. At our present consumption rate of >7
Gb/yr, the economically proven is 30 years. Not so great. Note Suncor gave
up on the Stuart development in Australia in 2002, and it was yielding
.5b/ton, with light crude at about $25.00/b. We can suggest that technology
will make things better, but from 1973 to 2002 several billion dollars were
spent on shale oil, so I doubt that much technology has been overlooked.
Shell suggests an energetic recovery of 6:1, but all other references I can
find say that 40% of the energy in the shale is used to generate the usable
shale oil. I.e. for 10b of shale oil in the shale you must consume the
equivalent of 4b to leave 6b useable. How do Shell get their 6:1? I will bet
all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that the 6:1 is
the result of measurement in the lab of joules of heat in to a sample of
shale vs joules of primary energy contained in the shale oil produced. From
that point you have to take the electricity to heat efficiency, which will
be high in the lab, but not high in the rock being mined, and the efficiency
from the primary energy in the fuel used to the generation of electricity.
There will be a lot of heat dissipated in the rock mass that does not
generate shale oil, but lets optimistically assume 70% efficiency. If we use
coal to generate the electricity, we know the typical efficiency is about
35%, giving us a net of 25%, which reduces our 6:1 to 1.5:1, or about the
same as conventional processing. Shell is almost certainly using the well
developed disinformation trick of using a true statement without context, to
hide a less favorable real truth.
Worse, in situ, Shell admits that the heavy fracrions do not get recovered,
only the light fractions, while in the lab recovery might be close to 100%.
From other sources I find that the light fractions seem to be about 65% of
the total kerogen which would reduce our 200 Gb/30 yr to 130 Gb/20 yr.
Then we have to upgrade the shale oil to light oil equivalent (adding
hydrogen that has to come from somewhere) and then convert to gasoline
(unless we want to convert the entire car fleet to deisel) which requires
more energy, potentially bringing the net energy yield to 1.2:1. In
calculating the whole system energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) we
also have to include the portion of the energy embedded in all of the plant
and equipment that should be assigned to the final gasoline as well. If we
do that for everything from the coal mine through the refinery we probably
have energetic recovery less than 1, even for the Shell process.
Estonia has had to extract 25 cu. m. of ground water for every cu. m. of
shale mined, and the water has been high in sulfates, contaminating run off
area soil and streams. They are charged 1% of the cost of the shale by the
government for environmental remediation of old mines, which is less than
the cost of the remediation, and they internalize none of the pollution cost
to society. What is the real competirive price of their shale oil? We won’t
have the grounwater issue to any large degree in the Green River Basin, but
there are still real environmental costs that add to both the economic and
energetic burden. If we use the Shell in situ method for recovery, water may
not be a problem in the Green River Basin. If we use conventional mining and
pyrolitic processing, water will be the limiting factor on production rates,
because it is an area of very low water resource.
We could consider using the Eastern Black shales first, where water is not
so much of a problem, and have the additional benefit that these shales are
relatively high in Uranium, which could spread the economic cost. However
due to an unfavorable H:C ratio the light oil yield is low, or a large
fraction of hydrogen has to be added. Also the recoverable resource is much
less than the Green River.
Finally there is the issue of recovery rate. It doesn’t matter how big the
resource is, what matters is how fast it can be produced. Late 2004
production of light crude equivalent from Athabasca tar sands is just
getting to 1 Mb/day and is projected to be no more than 3 Mb/day by 2020. It
is unlikely to ever exceed 6 or 7 Mb/day, of which Canada will need 1/2 when
their oil declines sufficiently. Availability for the USA is unlikely to
ever exceed 3 Mb/day. Given the relative ease with which tar sand bitumen
can be made to flow, how fast can we ever produce shale oil? Maybe 2 or 3
Mb/day some time in the distant future, at least 20 or 30 years from now?
Shell doesn’t even intend to make a decision on going to production before
2010. Then if they do go ahead, they have to build a source of electricity,
as well as the rest of the recovery plant and then ramp up. Let’s assume
they build a 1000 MW nuclear plant as their electricity source. That plant
can produce 8 billion Kwh/yr of energy/yr, which is .033 quads. Even at the
claimed 6:1 energy yield that would give 0.2 quads of shale oil or about .16
quads of light crude equivalent per year. We use 40 quads of oil per year,
so that 1000 MW nuke plant would support production of 0.4% of our annual
oil consumption at the most optimistic energy assumption, equivalent to 80
thousand barrels/day. We would need 25 such nuke plants to support
production of the 2 MB/day I have suggested above as a max output. If the
Shell 6:1 ratio proves to be a still optimistic 3:1, we will need 50 nuke
plants. How many can we build by 2020? 2030?
Let’s assume petroleum production worldwide goes into decline in 2008 (which
is highly probable), and declines at an average rate of 3%/yr during the
first 20 years (starting at 1%/yr and growing to 5%/yr). UK North sea oil
went into decline in 1999 and is already at 5%/yr. With demand rising in all
other parts of the world the decline rate for USA availability is likely to
be higher than the world average, but let’s work with 3%/yr to be
optimistic. BY 2020 our petroleum availability has dropped to 67% of the
peak. If we assume a peak at 8 Gb/yr in 2008, (22 Mb/day), we will have lost
over 7 Mb/day by 2020, and tar sands plus shale oil will not have offset
more than 3Mb/day of that. By 2030 petroleum will be down by 11 Mb/day, and
the offset for tarsands plus shale oil might be up to 5 Mb/day. Our net
supply is still down 30% from the peak, using very optimistic assumptions.
Shale oil might provide a very, very small offset for a portion of oil
decline, but will never be a solution, or even a significant contributor to
a solution. It makes sense to develop to have for strategic military
reasons, but it cannot be something to pin a responsible National Energy
Policy on.
I encourage you to assign someone to check out my numbers and my reasoning.
I found all of the information on Estonia and oil shale resources by
Googling, in much less time than it took to write this letter.
Les you are looking at all liquids production. Since you love data, try converting that to net energy.
Now go back and retrieve all EIA projections during the last 10 years, and compare them to actual.
On increasing reserves – do the simple arithmetic. Not increasing.
Dream on.
murrayv: your
Les you are looking at all liquids production. Since you love data, try converting that to net energy.
Nope. I was looking at crude oil only. If you had followed my reference, you would have seen that.
your
On increasing reserves – do the simple arithmetic. Not increasing.
Yep, according to the IEA, reserves are increasing as well, even more than production.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=57&aid=6&cid=ww,&syid=1980&eyid=2011&unit=BB
1980 – 641 billion bbls reserves
2005 – 1277 billion
2009 – 1341 billion. Or, 43 years of production at current rates without finding one more drop.
Perhaps you should actually look at the data this time. You won’t look as foolish.