Volatility has not been this high since Lehmann Bros in 2008. Two epic plunges in the DOW. Ben Bernanke will likely call for QE3 today which might slow the pain, but seeing as QE1 and QE2 did nothing, the market might finally catch on that this is a massive ponzi scheme.

Incidentally, Michael Ruppert predicted in April that the final blow was going to happen in July or early August.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaNz3qS5WAo

At the very least watch the first 6 minutes, establishes the situation pretty clearly, having the head of IEA say in no uncertain terms that peak oil has happened. It is not a conspiracy if the highest international authority on the matter is conceding it (after decades of denial).

The spike in oil prices are not due to speculation… just last month Saudi Arabia boasted it was going to ramp up production to make up for loss of oil from Japan and Libya AND THEY FAILED.

They can say this because of the smokescreen that there is nothing to worry about, the tar sands and natural gas will somehow fuel all our vehicles, and the oil companies and the lobbyists in the governments will gracefully back out and let green revolution take over. uh huh. It is basic mathematics, the most basic of logic, it is incredible the lengths people will go to deny the obvious.

or the

The U.S. Military predicting a global shortage of potentially 10mbpd by 2016
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf

There is a parallel between Peak Oil and Oil Spill: estimates of how much oil there is follow a pattern of slow admission, the powers that be trying against blunt reality to deny anything is wrong. With the Oil Spill the estimates advance upwards (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/16/a-history-of-incorrect-oil-spill-estimates.html) with the IEA and the EIA on oil supply (as seen in the graph to the first link) the estimates are perpetually downgraded, year after year, to get closer with reality. The closer you are to the brink the less convincing the lie is, we even see a terminology change to the most staunch Cornucopians like CERA, no longer fighting against Peak Oil, but accepting Peak Demand, the end result being the same.

You can gussy it up all you want but Peak Oil is as real as the gusher in the Gulf.

here is the transcript. http://www.eia.doe.gov/conference/2009/session3/session3.pdf

will read tonight.

If Glen Sweetnum does indeed head the publication of DoEs annual International Energy Outlook, and he is using the graph and saying what he is saying in Le Monde, this is a very significant story, breaking last month.

1. Do you agree with the conclusions of the EIA graph, and that with the exception of a significant unidentified investment/discovery increase, there will be a peak liquid fuel supply by 2011? You seem to want to accept some of what they say, increases in particular locations, but not accept the world data.

2. Can alternative energy sources feasibly (according to known economic and time constraints) fill this gap in a manner such that our economic paradigm, the globalization of food production, the outsourcing of industries, will sustain itself through the transition?

I am saying unequivocally, the end of global food production is the beginning of a die-off like we have never seen before. Population growth has spiked because of the yields oil has allowed us, if you have even a year gap where industrial agriculture is at a standstill due to fuel shortage, it will not matter how many wind farms you create or want to create. If you have a counterargument for this, evidence that the population we have, and the political edifice we have, can survive a transition to low EROI, conserved energy paradigm, and not fall into starvation and anarchy, I would love very much to hear it. I mean that, I am looking for that kind of intelligible, sourced optimism.

what exactly is your point, are you saying that the graph misrepresents the Worlds Liquid Fuel Supply by 2030? Reading through the report I find that it is hitting these same numbers just in expanded form, that actual quantitative numbers are the same. As certain areas increase, others decrease and the result is an overall depletion. also you are linking to a different source (the IEO not the AEO), this is where I see the numbers sourced for the graph as indicated in the ppt: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/issues.pdf

“but one could imagine if Nazi Germany was able to ramp up production to where synthetic oil was 25% of it war time oil needs I think it is laughable that the US could not do the same or better today”

You don’t see any distinction between wartime some 70 years less population growth/energy needs and GLOBAL needs now and projected to perpetually grow in the future? That is a sad anecdote, I am sorry. I would rather stick with the numbers, and I like that you provide EROI for the unconventional fuel types, can you source them for me? Also this statement: ” There is no question that future sources will have lower EROEIs initially (efficiency increases EROEI over time), but the ratio are not prohibitive to growth.”

On the Oil Drum, David Murphy tried to calculate what the minimum EROI that a sustainable society must have, and he pegs it at 3:1. http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/6356
Also here, someone else at Oil Drum compiles some of the held markers of EROI for energy resources by type (maybe you have an opinion on them):
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:NuhMZV90n5QJ:www.theoildrum.com/node/3810+eroi+of+oil&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=safari

“The proof is that we seeing a massive deployment/re-deployment of offshore rigs in the gulf Mexico, a renewed interest in exploration, and the increase of actual production. There is no economic incentive for these companies to be spending billions developing and exploring these areas if they where perpetuating lies/exaggerations.”

The adjustments by the IEA and EIA, and acknowledgements by the DOE and DOD are very recent, when did these massive deployments of rigs occur? They chose to do so with such price volatility? There could be short term gain to be made, and in that particular area… it wouldn’t be the first time that corporations have ignored the bigger picture in their want of short term gain (just look at Wall Street 2008).

“Again try reading the entire report http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/liquid_fuels.pdf The power point slides have no context to them, there is a trans-script to the sideshow but it does not directly talk about the sideshow.”

Again, wrong report. The actual report (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/issues.pdf ) appears to expand upon the numbers that are sourced in the graph (apologies if I don’t read the entire report top to bottom, this is a hobby, not my full-time job. That it is sourced in Le Monde, by Glen Sweetnam of EIA, made me foolish enough to think it was a legitimate compression of the expanded data; when there is reason for me to be skeptical I will finely comb over it, how about you first read the right report.)

“Population growth slow with increase in GDP and energy use. Economic growth can occur with decrease in energy usage, efficiency improvement provide growth will decreasing consumption as does a move away from primary industries.”

This I absolutely need a source for. The exponential function of a 2% decline a year of liquid fuels is significant enough to disrupt the economic paradigm we have right now, I have never heard it put otherwise, so this does intrigue me. Improvements in efficiency have traditionally led to greater energy usage, i.e. larger homes, but illustrate a world where less energy is used, or less hydrocarbon energy is used, 2% depletion per year exponentially, and there will be business as usual.

“It is a big difference since the US has much greater solar (2-3 time the solar isolation) and wind resources”

Yes but that energy would be used closer to where it is generated, the EROI would get worse the farther you had to transport it. So coasts and the deserts may benefit, and of course you have to build all of these things using oil, and that is pretty big feat to be started immediately, how does that factor with the numbers of the EIA graph? Wind and solar are great but hardly going to compensate for hydrocarbon which has an incredible EROI (including transportation cost).

well there seems to be two camps (outside of the cornucopians) Peak Oil and Peak Demand… Colin Campbell, as you may know has gone over to the side of demand which, by the way, does not recant anything held prior, its just of the two impending crises, Demand will probably outpace Supply, but not by much. Not even CERA was anticipating Peak Demand until late last year, its no fault of the Peak Oil movement that they didn’t call it, and again, it doesn’t negate the actual numbers and growing consensus about the actual supply issue, its sort of two sides of the same coin. If there is too much demand WHILE world supply is stagnating the two raise the price to a point in which it no longer becomes feasible to buy it. Without a viable alternative to hydrocarbon fuel our economic paradigm will collapse.

You mentioned coal, which aside from the environmental concerns (which would be catastrophic if ramped up to magically maintain our energy needs as they are now) serves for trains but not planes or cars. It could be transfered into electricity and we could have electric cars but that infrastructure to implement would take at least a decade according to the DoE Hirsch Report, and this is where actual supply concerns are important, because the numbers show we very likely do not have ten years, nor the political will now to do anything so costly.

The Dept of Energy, The Dept of Defense are both using these same numbers, they are political entities that have no visible interest in disrupting the economic status quo with paranoid delusions, they have for a long time denied any problem, with the EIA and the IEA and all of them have gradually adjusted their predictions to the same narrow span, 2011-15, I think the IEA said 2020. Look at the time frame these significant authoritative bodies on the issue are giving and ask yourself can we change over in time without collapsing our economic paradigm? How long does it take to make nuclear reactors? How long does it take to create an entire infrastructure for coal to oil conversion, and also what are the EROI numbers for biofuel, from the conversion process to refining to distribution? Something tells me it is not even close to conventional oil or even unconventional oil. They are being used for US air force at present, they will serve these smaller scale purposes, but as a replacement for Saudi Arabia, I highly doubt it.

But I am entirely willing to hear the other side, but like I said, you need to talk about flow rates and EROI to be convincing.

Right so about his name and school so I can see his Msc thesis or publications…

“70% of geologists at the Petroleum Geology Conference last year consider Peak Oil a concern… quite a fringe.”

You forgot to mention that the question is poorly framed, they asked is ‘Peak Oil a concern’, they did not ask if ‘is Peak Oil of concern in the next xx years’. One also has to ask are these research geologist or even geologists, because to be a member of the London Geological Society one does not need a Phd or Msc or even a Bsc in Geology (hint the people speaking during that conference where research geologists and they were saying that peak oil is of no concern in the next 50 years…). How about coming back when you have vote with the USGS or DOE (or similar society/research group with actual Phds/Msc in the fields of geology or oil production) if peak oil is of concern in the next xx years.

“Any Peak Oil skeptic that talks only of oil in the ground and nowhere addresses flow rates, decline curves and EROEI (Energy return on Energy Invested) is not to be trusted.”

EROEI of the Oil Sands is on average 9 (varies project to project depends on the method of extraction SAGD vs strip mining). Coal to fuel via Fisher Trope has an EROEI of 5, with such massive reserves of coal in world this method could easily supply oil demand albeit with increasing carbon emissions. As for flow rates oil sands is predicted by the IEA to be above 6Mbpd (5.4Mbpd by DOE) by 2030, these are using linear growth models (they do not take into account increased efficiency of extraction, SAGD has changed the oil sands incredibly in the last 10 years). Coal to Fuel, no one has predicted the flow rates, but one could image if Nazi Germany was able to ramp up production to where synthetic oil was 25% of it war time oil needs I think it is laughable that the US could not do the same or better today (especially considering all the research done in the 70s on coal to fuels). There is no question that future sources will have lower EROEIs initially (efficiency increases EROEI over time), but the ratio are not prohibitive to growth.

“in the meantime how about the EIA graph, pg 8 of this
http://www.eia.doe.gov/conference/2009/session3/Sweetnam.pdf (graph shows that the DoE is expecting a decline of the total of all known sources of liquid fuels supplies after 2011).”

How about try reading the actual report and not some power point presentation http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/liquid_fuels.pdf Note in the report OPEC nations are expected to increase conventional production by 2030 as is Brazil, Russia, North Africa, and Asia Minor.

“Do you mind giving me some sources and numbers. There are elephant fields declared by overly optimistic oil companies and business columns all the time because there is a vested interest in perpetuating this belief. Seeing as I have wrote a lot already in this thread, I am just going to repost so you can challenge directly what I said:”

Unfortunately raw data about the size of fields is not release since such is proprietary data costing 10-100s millions of dollar to acquire. Generally the best the public can do is look at actual production and extrapolate from there. Gulf of Mexico production is about 400 Kbpd right now and is expected in less than a few years to jump to 650 Kbpd. The proof is that we seeing a massive deployment/re-deployment of offshore rigs in the gulf Mexico, a renewed interest in exploration, and the increase of actual production. There is no economic incentive for these companies to be spending billions developing and exploring these areas if they where perpetuating lies/exaggerations.

“to quote directly from the Le Monde article (http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/03/25/washington-considers-a-decline-of-world-oil-production-as-of-2011/) ”

Again try reading the entire report http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/liquid_fuels.pdf The power point slides have no context to them, there is a trans-script to the sideshow but it does not directly talk about the sideshow.

“Outside of cornucopian theorists (including the fringe abiotic oil sect), virtually none of the established authorities on world oil supply give us that much time before depletion. also unless I am missing something these sustainable energy stop-gaps do not provide for the economic model we have at present of perpetual growth to accommodate the growth of population. ”

Population growth slow with increase in GDP and energy use. Economic growth can occur with decrease in energy usage, efficiency improvement provide growth will decreasing consumption as does a move away from primary industries.

“And of course, more importantly he is talking only of UK, NOT the Unted States, big difference.”

It is a big difference since the US has much greater solar (2-3 time the solar isolation) and wind resources. Meaning that wind and solar can take larger roles in the energy mix. Also the US has much greater opportunities at energy efficiency gains than the UK (Joules conserved per dollar).

“technically feasible for the UK by 2050″

He means that energy production would be in a steady state by then aka sustainable (he defines sustainable as 1000+yrs of fuel + low carbon emissions). Intermediate years in his plan would see a decrease in consumption of hydro carbons as nuclear, alternatives, and conservation/efficiency gains come online.

@ Rob, you have to see the new documentary, GASLAND, and the effects of fracture drilling in America. Ouch, that is scary stuff!

to quote directly from the Le Monde article (http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/03/25/washington-considers-a-decline-of-world-oil-production-as-of-2011/)

“The graph labels as “unidentified” the additional supply projects needed to fill in a gap that is expected to grow after 2011 between rising demand and decline of known sources of supply that the DoE supposes will start that year. The declining production foreseen by the DoE concerns the total of existing sources of liquid fuels plus the new production projects that are supposed to come on-stream before 2012.
The DoE predicts that the decline of identified sources of supply will be steady and sharp : – 2 percent a year, from 87 million barrels per day (Mbpd) in 2011 to just 80 Mbpd in 2015. At that time, the world demand for oil and other liquid fuels should have climbed up to 90 Mbpd, according to the presentation document.
“Unidentified” additional liquid fuels projects would therefore have to fill in a 10 Mbpd gap between supplies and demand within less than 5 years. 10 Mbpd is almost the equivalent of the oil production of Saudi Arabia, world top producer with 10.8 Mbpd.”

Gamedog:
“Considering a 5 year lead time on new projects, there’s no leap of imagination required to realise there’s no new supply coming on line to fill said gap, otherwise it would not be “unidentified”.”

70% of geologists at the Petroleum Geology Conference last year consider Peak Oil a concern… quite a fringe.
http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/peak-oil-is-still-a-cause-for-concern-say-70-of-geologists-at-summit1110/

On MacKay, here is exactly what I said, show me exactly where
I said anything but a ‘short fall of energy’:

“I highly recommend reading David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, he actually has it online for free here: http://www.withouthotair.com/. He is an oxford physicist and he crunches the numbers as most optimistically as possible, focusing on Great Britain (but the same format can be applied to anywhere) and disregarding the real-world costs of implementations, and even in a fantasy world of having all the will time and money to do a transfer off of hydrocarbon energy, there is still a shortage to maintain present day usage (no growth, no economy). There is a comparison graph here to hammer the point home: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c18/page_103.shtml”

As for my Physicist friend, found out a month ago that his group made an error in judgment late in the game and what they hoped would happen didn’t happen… them’s the breaks of theoretical science.

“While it maybe true that current conventional fields may be peaking, new discoveries are on the rise over the last 3 years because of the massive increases in oil prices are driving geophysical exploration (Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Angola, India, Egypt, Libya, Philippines).”

Do you mind giving me some sources and numbers. There are elephant fields declared by overly optimistic oil companies and business columns all the time because there is a vested interest in perpetuating this belief. Seeing as I have wrote a lot already in this thread, I am just going to repost so you can challenge directly what I said:

” When the IEA is saying unless something miraculous and undiscovered occurs we will most likely be arriving at Peak Oil in ten years, you got to kind of acknowledge how much of a non-controversial statement it is to say, for example, Saudi Arabia is near peak and offshore drilling, a more expensive enterprise, is indicative of them trying to compensate for depletion.

There are endless announcements of ‘elephant fields’ and very little amounts of them. Investors like to hear this good news, and that is why there is a whole lexicon of terms that boosts the impression of what is there (Ruppert mentions it in the film, with types of reserves). Things to remember: its not a matter of how much oil is in the ground, it is how much retrievable oil there is, how expensive it is to get, and how high the cost of oil has to be in order to get it. The price of oil has to go up to make these ventures profitable, for the price of oil to go up, the economy needs to be able to sustain it, but what happen last time oil hit triple digits?

Any Peak Oil skeptic that talks only of oil in the ground and nowhere addresses flow rates, decline curves and EROEI (Energy return on Energy Invested) is not to be trusted.

when they say ‘potential’ oil reserves its virtually meaningless. I can give you a long list of ‘potential elephant fields’ that ended up being nothing, hell in Saudi Arabia alone there are several such hyped potentials that came to nothing.”

Clearly with your mention of unconventional oil like the Alberta Oil sands you are completely ignoring the geological reality of flow rates, that no matter how much you ‘ramp up’ these they count for a fraction of a fraction of what would be needed were Saudi Arabia to go from the next step of horizontal drilling to the further desperate means of keeping Ghawar flow rates sufficient.

will get to the rest latter today

Maybe I am wasting my time giving you rational arguments, if you are spewing bull shit such as this… If your friend is a Phd student please post his name and university so I can pull up his Msc thesis or search for some of his publications in physics journals.

Its also the 3 highest documentary download on iTunes, and KinoSmith will be issuing a Canadian DVD end of June to look out for.

I also have a couple of very important documents to add to this thread that happened within the last month, to hammer home how much this is NOT just a fringe theory.

US Dept of Energy admits that ‘a chance exists that we may experience a decline’ of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 ‘if the investment is not there’… and goes on to make a semantic argument that an undulating plateau could occur (which is part of Peak Oil theory, not distinct) http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/85699-quacks-like-a-duck

and just yesterday I heard of a 2010 US Dept of Defense study http://bit.ly/cDzGkv that corroborates this same concern: “”By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD” (pg.29)

…10 million barrels per day is the equivalent of losing Saudi Arabia, in 5 years.

I cannot stress enough how big a fucking deal that is. The DoE Hirsch report says it takes a minimum of a decade to change over an energy infrastructure, and thats not accounting for the economic and political limitations involved (assuming a miraculous Manhattan Project-like will to do so). Even if we had the miraculous technology today (which we don’t), the implementation will not be fast enough IF these conditions pan out.

-US Dept of Defense
-US Dept of Energy
-UK Peak Oil Task Force (w/ Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson)
-UN International Energy Agency (IEA)
-The vast number of scientists involved in the Peak Oil movement
-CEO of Petrobas, company with 4th largest oil reserves in the world

The most any of these groups give us is ten years before repercussions are felt, but the consensus view is more accurately within the next five years. This means the end of globalization, the end of nations, the end of plentiful and cheap food. Its not just a question of transportation fuel, its a vast array of products, fertilizers, tires, plastics, equipment and fuel to build alternative energies, irreversibly gone.