Peak Oil Coming-2025
Every accurate report says the peak will come before 2025.
Alfred J. Cavallo, Energy Consultant, December, ‘4
(Hubbert’s Petroleum Production Model, Natural Resources Research, Volume 13, Number 4) [Bozman]
Some forecasters (Campbell and Laherrere, 1998; Deffeyes, 2001; Ivanhoe, 1995) have used proprietary reserve data in conjuction with Hubbert’s model or derivatives of this model to estimate future world oil production trends. It now is possible to use publicly available resource estimates based on the best available science and technology (Ahlbrandt, 2000) and different modeling approaches to estimate a peak year for world oil production (Cavallo, 2002; Green, Hopson, and Li, 2003); all of these approaches indicate that one should expect a peak in conventional world oil production as a result of resource constraints alone by 2025 or earlier.
Oil production will plateau soon.
John Bellamy Foster, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, August, ‘8
(http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/economy/2008/07peakoil.htm) [Bozman]
Explaining that a plateau is the most likely initial outcome at the world level, Richard Heinberg, a leading peak oil proponent, writes: Why the plateau? Oil production is constrained by economic conditions (in an economic downturn, demand for oil falls off), as well as by political events such as war and revolutions. In addition, the shape of the production curve is modified by the increasing availability of unconventional petroleum sources (including heavy oil, natural gas plant liquids, and tar sands), as well as new extraction technologies. The combined effect of all of these factors is to cushion the peak and lengthen the decline curve.[21] The notion that a partly geological-technical, partly political-economic, plateau is emerging has now become the dominant view in the industry. In November 2007 the Wall Street Journal reported: a growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day....The near adherents [to the peak oil view]—who range from senior Western oil-company executives to current and former officials of the major world exporting countries—don’t believe that the global oil tank is at the half-empty point. But they share the belief that a global production ceiling is coming for other reasons: restricted access to oil fields, spiraling costs and increasingly complex oil-field geology. This will create a production plateau, not a peak, they contend, with oil output remaining relatively constant rather than rising or falling.
***AT: Neg Shit***
AT: Cambell/Hubbert Indicts
Statistical models show that both Cambell’s calculations and the Hubbert curve can accurately predict peak oil.
R.W. Bentley, Department of Cybernetics of the University of Reading, February, ‘2
(Energy Policy, Volume 30, Issue 3, p. 189-205) [Bozman]
In 1995, a group at the University of Reading came across one such publication, (Campbell, 1994/1995), and, recognising the importance of the topic, set about checking both the data and the calculations. The group (which includes the present author) contained petroleum geologists, engineers and physicists. The research centred on checking: • the adequacy of the Petroconsultants (later, IHS Energy) database for this type of analysis. The evaluation involved asking questions on what data were in the database; how these data are generated; what data might be missing, what happens when field data change; and so on. • the suitability of modelling the yet-to-find on, largely, statistical indicators driven by past exploration performance. • the validity of the Hubbert ‘decline from the mid point’ model. This was checked by looking at regions and countries (such as Alaska, and the US as a whole) that had already passed their conventional oil resource-limited peak; and also from theoretical considerations of a basin's likely production profile. • analysis of some of the issues that bedevil hydrocarbon forecasting, including terminology (what is ‘conventional’ oil?); ‘reserves growth’ (is technology accessing substantially more oil in existing fields?), and the apparent fallibility of past forecasts. The research included detailed discussions with oil analysts (including those holding strongly opposing views), Petroconsultants, oil companies, several energy ‘think tanks’, the UK government, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the European Union (EU), and the US Geological Survey (USGS). 1.3. Findings and uncertainties The key findings were (Bentley et al., 2000): • The Petroconsultants/IHS Energy database is adequate for the task, and in any event is the most comprehensive, and representative of the industry's own knowledge. For the present analysis in our view, informed adjustment is required to some of the reserves data. This is not surprising, as the latter are drawn from a range of rather different sources. • The ‘Hubbert’ model (i.e., the standard resource logistic curve) is a robust method for modelling future oil production, see Appendix A; in some cases, applying multiple curves where more than one discovery cycle has occurred. Note that the recent work by Laherrère (2001) on time-shifting the discovery curve to match production is also robust, as it recognises that production largely has to mirror discovery. • Calculations of production peak based on statistical methods to estimate oil yet-to-find seem correct. This is because the oil assumed in high estimates of ultimate is likely to be found at dates well past the point that it can affect the peak. (A good example is the US, where the largest single field, Prudhoe Bay, was found just before peak, but where this large, late find did not alter the date of peak.)
AT: Cambridge Energy Research Report
The Cambridge Energy Report numbers show that oil will peak at 2017-the new production they cite is impossible.
Baylor Business Review, Spring, ‘08
(Vol. 26, Iss. 2, p. Proquest) [CERA=Cambridge Energy Research Associates] [Bozman]
According to an article by Wall Street Journal oil reporter, Neil King Jr., CERA's study may not depict such a promising future for the oil industry. In his article, "New Fields May Offset Oil Drop," King takes a second look at CERA's findings. King writes, "Output from the world's existing oil fields is declining at a rate of about 4.5 percent annually, a new study concludes, depriving the world of the same amount of oil that No. 4 producer Iran supplies in a year. Yet the study's authors, Boston-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates, argue that their assessment supports a generally rosy view of the industry's future, given that new projects in the works will make up for the decline." Although CERA reports the lesser 4.5 percent decline in production, this equals a loss of nearly four million barrels a day throughout this year. King states one of the major issues of oil depletion rates is the data collection of verifiable numbers. "Oil-field depletion rates are a key barometer of the health of the world's oil market, and thus are hotly debated among factions feuding over the relative stability of future supply," King writes. "That debate is made all the more intense because analysts have limited access to reliable data on field-by-field production rates from key suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Russia." King asserts CERA data is bolstered by promises of restoration in oil production through projects being conducted in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, West Africa, the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. King quotes CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin as saying, "This is a daily, hourly and minute-by-minute challenge for the world's oil industry. But for every Iran you are losing, you are gaining almost two lrans in return." CERA, who King says "has drawn fire among skeptics for being one of the most optimistic forecasters in the industry" predicted in June that world oil production could multiply to 112 million barrels a day by 2017. King examines the quantifiable logistics of new oil production using CERA's predictions, which may not offer an industry vote of confidence to an increasingly questioning public. "According to CERA's own rate of decline, the world's existing fields by 2017 will be producing about 33 million fewer barrels a day than they are now," he writes. "So hitting a production level of 112 million barrels a day within a decade would require adding 59 million barrels a day in new capacity - or more than six times today's daily output from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter."
AT: Coal Fills In
Coal’s net energy yield is declining rapidly-it won’t last much longer.
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, ‘5
(The Party's Over : Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, p. 146) [Bozman]
Abundant coal, used to generate electricity, will enable us to keep the lights burning for a few more years; but, taking into account its other limitations ? and especially its rapidly declining net energy yield ? we cannot expect it to do much more for us in the future than it is already doing.
AT: Efficiency Solves Oil Shortages
Efficiency is expensive and wont replace oil.
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, ‘5
(The Party's Over : Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, p. 180) [Bozman]
However, there are limits to the benefits from efficiency, since increasing investments in energy efficiency typically yield diminishing returns. Initial improvements tend to be easy and cheap; later ones are more costly. Also, the energy costs of retooling or replacing equipment and infrastructure can sometimes wipe out gains. A simple example: Suppose you are currently driving a two-year-old car that travels 25 miles on a gallon of gasoline. You see a similar new car advertised that gets 30 mpg It would appear that, by trading cars, you would be conserving energy. However, the situation is not that simple, since a little over ten percent of all the energy consumption attributable to each vehicle on the road occurs in the manufacturing process ? before that vehicle has traveled its first mile. Thus, by putting off trading cars you might be conserving more net energy than you would be by buying the new, more fuelefficient replacement.
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