Oil discovered it an old oil field, and its a gusher, a bitter pill for peak oil theorist. I know the argument the fools will give, this discovery will only last the USA for 20 days, yet Kern oil fields have been some of the most production in the USA since the last century, this oil field continues to surprise us with production and now a gusher. I posted this in another thread but the significance is Peak Oil shattering Al Gores family once owned Oxy. Gore gave strategic oil reserves to Oxy during the Clinton administration. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0329/outfront-oxxy-irani-oil-exxon-energy-oil-oil-everywhere.html
Could someone please explain "Peak Oil" to me, and just the facts, please. And the short version please. I've gotta say, I don't know much about it.
Proven Reserves: an estimated quantity of all hydrocarbons statistically defined as crude oil or natural gas, which geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. Reservoirs are considered proven if economic producibility is supported by either actual production or conclusive formation testing. The area of an oil reservoir considered proven includes those portions delineated by drilling and defined by gas-oil or oil-water contacts, if any, and the immediately adjoining portions not yet drilled, but which can be reasonably judged as economically productive on the basis of available geological and engineering data. In the absence of information on fluid contacts, the lowest known structural occurrence of hydrocarbons controls the lower proven limit of the reservoir. Proven reserves It's a figure used mainly for balance sheets and IRS reporting, in cases where depletion allowances are calculated. I don't know why you're so fixated on the term, Jiggs.
Peak oil refers to the maximum global extraction and production rate of light crude oil, which we have reached (2005-2008). All oil extraction from any field follows a relative bell curve, with terminal decline following the apex. Peak production comes 40 years after peak discovery. It is axiomatic that the sum of those fields also follows the same bell curve, as global discoveries peaked 40-45 years ago, and new discoveries are not coming close to keeping up with existing dying capacity. No "alternative" is remotely ready to replace what light crude does for complex societies, and won't be for decades, if ever. The IEA has (finally) joined the Joint Chiefs, the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Oxford Univ., the German, British and Australian governments, Lloyds of London, ASPO, Total Oil, Dick Cheney, and countless petroleum geologists in admitting peak is here, and terminal decline will begin by 2015, and likely much sooner. Oil will never "run dry," as the rising cost will effectively crush demand. The ramifications of that crushed demand, however, is major dislocation of the global food conveyor belt, and ever-increasing civil disruption (perpetual recession all the way to great depression... and, if things get too desperate - war). Dick Cheney admitted the coming oil depletion crisis in London in 1999, and his actions in office supported that policy from the moment he was sworn in and created the very secretive NEPDG using tax-payer funding. So desperate was he to hide the details of Bush League energy policy, an unprecedented move, he fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, and won. Peak oil explains almost everything happening in global conflict zones, and western geopolitics today - from 9/11 to the housing/lending bubble to Iraq to Deepwater Horizon to the desperate horizontal fracking and strip mining of the U.S. and Canada. If it wasn't happening, our leaders wouldn't be doing the incredibly dangerous and violent things they do. But to admit this geological certainty openly in the mass media would lead to the collapse of global markets for a ponzi scheme which is utterly dependent on the illusion of confidence.
Incorrect. It is "estimated" and 'technically recoverable" reserve total figures that are used for balance sheets and share-holder buoyancy. All that matters is what you can get to. You should be more fixated on the term, yourself, and not relying on guesswork and hope-based totals. I can tell you I've found 5 trillion barrels of crude 500 miles below the north pole. That doesn't mean jack squat if no one can ever get to it.
