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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As for the USGS report that you found unfavorable?
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-062-03/FS-062-03.pdf
Its probably low, as the 2000 report states that an additional 649 billion bbls would be found. Reserves in 2000 were 1017, so that makes a total of 1666 billion bbls. Reserves, right now, are 1341, so that means that reserves only need to up 24% to meet their estimate. Put another way, that means that if the USGS is right, there is very little oil left to find. I assume you were not arguing against that.
James F. Evans says:
August 12, 2011 at 11:03 pm
James, the Canadian Shield is over 3.0 billion years old and covers much of Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec. In many places it is “capped” by more recent clay units. One would expect that if abiotic oil exists in crystalline rock that somewhere within this enormous expanse, there would be at least one producing oil well. It seems unlikely that given abiotic oil is true, this entire area of the earth’s surface failed to trap any abiotic oil whatsoever and that in other areas where there are older rocks (pre-organic) there are no oil deposits. It is rather too convenient that where abiotic oil is said to exist there are nearby sedimentary basins full of oil and also containing abundant organic material. Of all the hundreds of thousands of drillholes that have gone into the older rocks (older than 2,000 million years), none have accidentally found abiotic oil deposits. Only in the area of major sedimentary basins.
Your second example, the Dnieper-Donets Basin, is a Paleozoic (550-250 my) sedimentary basin, exactly what a fossil to oil guy would pick as prime hunting ground. In Australia there is oil in the organic-rich 1.64 billion (Proterozoic) Barney Creek Formation. Could it be that the so-called abiotic oil is just fossil-Proterozoic oil showing up in much younger Paleozoic formations? Evidence of this is abundant. See here for example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/030192689190065I
murrayv: you crack me up.
Look at global oil consumption vs reserves: Global reserves in 1980 were 641 billion bbls. Since then , the world has used 812 billion bbls. Global reserves today are at 1341 billion bbls. That means, that since 1980, 1612 billion bbls have been added to global reserves.
This is nearly three times the 1980 estimate. Too funny.
Murray: I can see why the USGS put your report in the round file. EIA reserve estimates were for 1017 billion bbls in 2000. In 2009, it was 1341 reserves. Since 2000, 330 billion bbls have been used. The USGS estimated that there was 649 billion bbls left to find, in 2000.
1341 reserves+330 consumed -1017 reserves in 2000 = 654 billion bbls. So, if the USGS was right, we are out of oil right now.
USGS is proven to be low in the estimates, and at the same time, your 2002 “paper” is proven false.
Steve from Rockwood wrote: “What we need (to prove abioitc oil) is to see oil contained in organic-devoid porous rock units so that there is no other explanation.”
Steve, I already provided that evidence, but you choose to ignore it.
Please comment on the evidence I already provided:
“One such example is discussed by Krayushkin et al (1994), involving an exploration project on the flanks of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. An initial geological study of the sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks in the “Northern Monoclinal Flank” of the Dnieper-Donents Basin concluded that there was no potential for hydrocarbon production. The conclusion was made because of the absence of any source rock and the presence of active, strongly circulating artesian waters.”
“However, the exploration and drilling programme which followed the initial study resulted in the discovery and development of12 fields with oil reserves equal to 219 million metric tons of oil equivalent, the major part of which is produced from the Precambrian crystalline basement (Krayushkin et al, op cit) ”
Steve, “absence of any source rock”, as stated in the above quoted passage, means there isn’t organic material available that can explain the presence of oil deposits. Also, this oil comes from the crystalline basement.
As to the Caspian Sea, sedimentary structures do act as trapping structures, everybody agrees on that point. Please provide a chemical process for hydrocarbons, particularly heavy hydrocarbons, aka kerogens, that is derived from organic detritus.
But let’s go back to a relevant previously quoted passage: “For example, the Caspian district has a total of eighty fields producing from crystalline basements.”
Obviously, just because the Caspian Sea has sedimentary structures does not preclude oil wells reaching down to the crystalline basement as stated in the above passage.
Steve, you are requested to re-read the passage previously quoted from the materials I provided: ““One such example is discussed by Krayushkin et al (1994), involving an exploration project on the flanks of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. An initial geological study of the sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks in the “Northern Monoclinal Flank” of the Dnieper-Donents Basin concluded that there was no potential for hydrocarbon production. The conclusion was made because of the absence of any source rock and the presence of active, strongly circulating artesian waters.
“However, the exploration and drilling programme which followed the initial study resulted in the discovery and development of12 fields with oil reserves equal to 219 million metric tons of oil equivalent, the major part of which is produced from the Precambrian crystalline basement (Krayushkin et al, op cit) ”
Are you disputing the Russian petroleum geologists in their description of where the oil was located.
Steve from Rockwood, it seems you have a tendency to avoid “grasping the nettle” of the evidence you are provided.
Please, take the time and look through the thread I already provided:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2150&start=0
I see that the ‘Abiogenic petroleum origin’ (Abiotic Oil) Wikipedia page seems to have many alerts that suggest someone is not sure that it is accurate or well written, but here is the short opening summary:
“Abiogenic petroleum origin is a largely abandoned hypothesis that was proposed as an alternative to theory of biological petroleum origin. It was relatively popular in the past, but it went largely forgotten at the end of the 20th century after it failed to predict the location of new wells.”
The average reader may stop at this point and decide he knows all he needs to know about the abiogenic petroleum theory and the rest of the article is not worth reading.
James, I will attempt to grasp the nettle a little more firmly. Thanks for the links.
Petroleum reserves
Claimed reserves increased from 1994 at 1020 Gb to end 2010 at 1382 GB for an increase of 362 Gb.
During these 19 years, oil produced was about 480 Gb.
Therefore discoveries plus reserve growth had to be at least 840 Gb.
Total discoveries are not recorded and hard to estimate, but were not less than 200 Gb nor more than 380 Gb. Assuming 340 Gb (to make the arithmetic easy), reserve growth had to be at least 500 Gb or 50%, a claim that even the USGS would not support.
If reserve growth was 20% (highly unlikely) and discoveries were even 380 GB, then reserves could have grown by 100 Gb. There is no way they grew by 360 Gb.
Note: OPEC claimed reserves grew by 288 Gb 1994-2010, with reserve growth plus new discoveries certainly less than 200 Gb, and production of at least 200 Gb. Oops!
It is generally accepted that in each decade since 1980, discoveries have been less than production. During the decade from 1980 to 1990, OPEC declared major reserve increases, which were either declaration after nationalization of reserves that the private oil companies had kept in their pocket, or were imaginary reserves declared to get the best production quotas under the OPEC agreement. For the sake of argument let’s assume they were real reserves. Reserve growth of old fields would then have been nearly entirely included in those estimates.
Technology since 1990 has been such that new discoveries are estimated very accurately. Outside of the USA, initial reserves are estimated as probable plus possible, or 50% probability, or most likely case. In the symmetrical case, the probability of actual OIP being greater than estimate equals the probability it is less, so no reserve growth should be expected.
Conclusion – The entire OPEC claimed increase in reserves since 1994 is fictitious.
Venezuela claimed reserve growth of 146 Gb during the period 1994-2010 is not supported by discoveries, so is probably reclassification of bitumen. Canada’s claimed reserve increase was also reclassification of (oilsands) bitumen.
Removing OPEC, Venezuela and Canada from claimed reserve increases leaves a net reserve decline, consistent with discoveries less than production and little to no real reserve growth.
From my point of view, it appears that Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) are the most likely to be the cure for the ‘Peak Oil’ threat, real or imagined. From recent material I have come across, it appears that China is now on track to build the first production units. These reactors appear to be inherently safe and eat most of their own waste. According to proponents, they have been dismissed in the past largely because they are incompatible with nuclear weapons technology.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/13/hey-how-much-thorium-you-got-under-the-hood/#comment-719291
murrayv: your
Removing OPEC, Venezuela and Canada from claimed reserve increases leaves a net reserve decline, consistent with discoveries less than production and little to no real reserve growth.
To begin with, Venezuela is part of OPEC.
And you would be correct, removing Canada and OPEC would probably have an effect on reserves, as Canada and OPEC have 1239 billion bbls in reserves, out of 1341 billion bbls in 2009.
But you are also wrong. If you subtract OPEC and Canada reserves from the global, reserves have been climbing since 2000, from 207 billion to 223 in 2009. This of course, does not include oil produced, which needs to be added to those reserves.
World reserves, with or without OPEC, are growing.
murrayv: now, you need to address the questions I raised about your sourcing yourself….
also, that its been shown, that the USGS numbers were LOW balled in 2000.
Donald J. Johnston, OECD Secretary-General from June 1996 to June 2006
http://tinyurl.com/69zq6u
List of departments and special bodies
Office of the Secretary-General
Special Bodies
International Energy Agency
http://tinyurl.com/3uulxbe
http://www.iea.org/
Nuclear energy and sustainable development
NEA News, Spring 2001, Volume 19, No. 1 (2001)
This issue of NEA News was prepared in conjunction with the OECD Forum 2001 on “Sustainable development and the new economy”. It includes a range of individual contributions on the subject of nuclear energy and sustainable development, covering its economic, social and environmental aspects. They outline the role that nuclear energy may be able to play in helping to promote sustainable development in OECD member countries and beyond. This role arises from two of nuclear energy’s most important assets: namely, that it produces negligible amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and provides a stable supply of baseload electricity which is not vulnerable to volatility in fuel prices.
Articles available on this site:
Sustainable energy for future generations by Donald Johnston, OECD Secretary-General [pdf 105kb]
Sustainable Energy For Future Generations
http://www.oecd-nea.org/sd/
Don Johnston 2001
In the mid-1950s, at the time of President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative, nuclear energy was seen as a godsend for both the developed and the developing world. Fossil fuels were understood to have a finite life, which of course they still do, although it has been modestly extended beyond estimates of that day.
http://www.oecd-nea.org/pub/newsletter/2001/sustainable-energy19-1.pdf
In the link below, Don Johnston touts nuclear as the workhorse replacement energy source. IMO this has been the long term political plan all along
2003
Energy crisis looms, experts warn
Worldwide oil, gas production expected to peak in 2020
Only solution to impending shortage will be higher price
Rees and other experts took issue with the more benign energy outlook presented by Don Johnston, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Johnston, a cabinet minister in the Pierre Trudeau era, argued that a huge expansion of nuclear power would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and slow the rate of climate change. Most questions about nuclear power could be solved by technology once countries were past the political and economic hurdles, he said.
But many people simply don’t trust assurances from the nuclear industry, Johnston acknowledged, including his own wife.
“Whenever I tell her all the good things about nuclear, she says: `They lied.'”
Snip
The Royal Society session also heard warnings that the looming challenge from declining oil and gas production is being obscured because governments in Canada are preoccupied with the Kyoto response to climate change.
“Kyoto is a distraction,” Gilbert said of the multinational agreement for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/45393
At Last, A Date
Posted December 15, 2008
For the first time, the International Energy Agency has produced a date for peak oil. And it’s not reassuring.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/
Colin Campbell’s Response to the Guardian IEA Reporting
In effect, the Unidentified Unconventional was a coded message for shortage. I explained this to a journalist who contacted the element within the IEA which was pleased that this important hidden message should get out. But when it was published (Fleming D., 1999, The next oil shock? Prospect April), the IEA evidently got into serious trouble with its masters in the OECD governments, and in the next issue of the World Energy Outlook, the Unidentified Unconventional became Conventional Non-OPEC, without comment or explanation.
http://aspoireland.org/2009/11/20/ieawhistleblowerresponse/
NPC Hard Truths Ch2
http://interactive.connectlive.com/events/npc071807/pdf-downloads/NPC-Hard_Truths-Ch2-Supply.pdf
National Petroleum Council report comes up a dry hole
The decline of existing production from about 75 million barrels in 2005 to about 15 million in 2030 illustrates the sobering depletion rates of older fields. Looking ahead, the NPC suggests that bringing known reserves into production, enhancing recovery from older fields and exploiting “unconventional” oil, will result in a bumpy plateau of approximately 90 to 95 million barrels per day. The International Energy Agency (IEA) concurs with this judgment.
Beyond 2015 or so, the continued expansion of world oil supply depends entirely on fields not yet discovered. The NPC does not acknowledge the “growing gap” between discovered oil and production (see Figure 1). Discoveries have been falling for 20 years, and thus the notion that “exploration potential” will grow dramatically over the next 25 years is suspect. Land-based oil production is already declining. Many experts predict offshore production is likely to decline by 2020-2025.
Figure 1.
The Growing Gap
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/32147
http://www.npchardtruthsreport.org/
http://www.npchardtruthsreport.org/download.php
http://www.npchardtruthsreport.org/topic_papers.php
TOPIC PAPER #15
SUMMARY DISCUSSIONS ON PEAK OIL
http://downloadcenter.connectlive.com/events/npc071807/pdf-downloads/Study_Topic_Papers/15-STG-Peak-Oil-Discussions.pdf
2008 Update to the National Petroleum Council Report
Hard Truths: A Comprehensive View to 2030 of Global Oil
and Natural Gas
http://www.npchardtruthsreport.org/supply_topic_paper.pdf
In conducting the Hard Truths study, the DOE was right under the covers with the NPC.
Politically, this should give considerable pause to most thinking people, when an industry group (any industry group ) is allowed such access to a government agency, in formulating input which can in effect become official government policy.
I say this despite the fact I’m an old/former petroleum downstreamer
At about the same time the the DOE was under the covers with the NPC, what else were they doing?
Why muzzling other info via NETL
The Stonewalling of Peak Oil
Robert Hirsch on the deliberate avoidance by the U.S. government to talk about peak oil.
http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1751
murrayv: your
In the symmetrical case, the probability of actual OIP being greater than estimate equals the probability it is less, so no reserve growth should be expected.
This is a crock, on the legal and statistical level.
On the legal side, all reserves booked are at the 90% level. Securities Commissions in most countries will not allow booking of reserves until the 90% level is reached.
On on the statistical side, the vast majority of reserves GROW over time, from a low of 30% to a high of 360%. It does not matter whether its in the North Sea, Middle East or North America, final pumped volumes are almost always greater than initial reserves.
Some more numbers that disprove your assertions, Murray:
In 1990, the world, outside of OPEC and Canada, produced 14.8 billion bbls of oil in 1990. This rose to 17.6 in 2010, for a total of 334 billion bbls produced. This means the rest if the worlds reserves grew by 350 billion bbls, counting the volumes produced. That means the rest of the worlds reserves more than DOUBLED in 20 years.
Which puts the lie to your argument, again. World production, outside OPEC and Canada, has increased since 1990, and so has the current reserves, and the consumed reserves.
Is the “Oildrum” the peak oilers’ “Realclimate”?
They seem to have very similar agendas to this jaundiced eye 😉
Brent:
Politically, this should give considerable pause to most thinking people, when an industry group (any industry group ) is allowed such access to a government agency,
Its not an industry group. It’s an advisory group picked by the Secretary of Energy. In this case, by Chu, who of course is a well known industry stooge and anti-environmentalist. /sarc
Members also include government officials, native groups, other business groups etc.
As for the NPC projections? They predict a range of production levels out to 2030. At one end, is growth to 140 million/bbls day. Not likely, in my opinion. Growth in production has been linear since 1980, at just over 1 million bbls/day per year increase, and the r2 of this trend is 0.9856. So its statistically valid. This would put production in 2030 at about 95 million/bbls day. This is the IEA projection.
At the low end, is 80 million bbls/day, with production starting to decline in 2015. In other words, peak oil in 2015.
Look at Fig 6.
http://www.npchardtruthsreport.org/supply_topic_paper.pdf
Do you guys even read your references?
LJ,
The NPC is an industry group set up to advise the government, just as Ciccerone would pompously tell you that the NAS is the same for the scientific establishment.
I’ve wondered all along if the NAS would have done a more complete whitewash wrt the Hockeystick studies, if they hadn’t known that they had Wegman looking over their shoulder. McIntyre characterized the NAS report as schizophrenic. I fully agree
Even though I’m an old downstreamer, I would no more blindly accept a report from the NPC , than I would from the NAS or from the IPCC.
As noted , the DOE was in bed with the NPC in creating the report at the same time that they were squelching dissent via NETL. I’ll reiterate, most clear thinking people should had issue with such a process from the standpoint of accountability
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the the NPC should do a report. However the DOE should not have been in bed with them in doing so IMO. A more appropriate process would be to have the GAO immediately audit the NPC report, Similarly, one would have been better off to have the GAO audit the NAS report, and the GAO audit the EPA when they try to regulate CO2 based on blindly accepting IPCC findings. Same principle in each case.
In the runup to the NPC process certain ASPO people (and BTW I do not support the organization ) seemed to me unduly optimistic that they would get a realistic hearing. I guess hope springs eternal. : )
It’s a old bureaucratic trick to give lipservice to consultation with others who might differ on the primary agenda, then bury their stuff in a voluminous report. Does the IPCC come to mind? : ) It should because it’s essentially the same pseudo-process of consultation : )
cheers
brent
Brent: I have no idea what you are trying to say here. The NPC is a political group (albeit across a broad swath of society and industry), appointed by a political appointee.
Only the naive would think it was totally objective.
That said, the NPC report in 2008, was in broad agreement with BP’s report, the IEA and World Oil.
That said, all the above groups overestimated how much demand there would be in 2011, by several million bbls per day.
RE: Henry Galt: (August 15, 2011 at 1:34 am)
“Is the “Oildrum” the peak oilers’ “Realclimate”?”
For whatever it might be worth, here is what the Wikipedia has to say:
“The Oil Drum is a web-based, interactive energy, peak oil and sustainability think tank and community devoted to the discussion of energy issues and their impact on society. The Oil Drum is facilitated by the Institute for the ‘Study of Energy and Our Future,’ a Colorado non-profit corporation.[1] The site is a resource for information on many energy and sustainability topics, including peak oil, and related concepts such as oil megaprojects, Hubbert Linearization, and the Export Land Model. The Oil Drum has over 25 online contributors from all around the globe.”
I just encountered their website in a link about ‘Peak Gold’ [est. 1998] that I found last week.
I am not quite ready to say the sky is falling unless I see real evidence of the same, but I assume, if we keep on using petroleum, eventually it will start to run out and there will be an irreversibly declining production. Conversion to Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) as our primary cheap power source may mitigate this problem as ‘Peak Thorium’ is reputedly several million years down the road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oil_Drum
Here is a little Peak Oil toy provided by a University of Chicago website; try:
Fit Data = World Oil Production
Peak Year = 2020
Peak Width = 35
Total Reservoir Size, Gton = 300
Hubbert’s Peak Calculator
http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/Projects/hubbert.html