Here's Warren Buffett admitting peak oil

[JiggsCasey]

starting at 1:00 mark...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhkWjy9D-Q&NR=1]Warren Buffet - talk about oil depletion on CNBC. - YouTube[/ame]

"most fields are depleting at a pretty good rate ... who knows what the equilibrium price will be."

Add Buffett to countless economists, geologists and consultants who have admitted the condition so many here continue to deny is happening.

 

[RGR]

And David White, United States Geological Survey (in other words, someone who knows more about oil than Warren ever has) announcing the peak of world oil production...back in 1919..... was different how?

People have been playing this card for so long now that even the religion based on it has forgotten it is doing nothing but parroting its betters nearly a century ago.

You must fit right in with this gang of Keystone Cop Resource Experts parrots, eh Jiggsy?

 

[Mr. H.]

"most fields are depleting at a pretty good rate ... who knows what the equilibrium price will be."

That's it? I'm underimpressed to say the least. I'd expect better from an undergrad geology student.

 

[sparky]

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[editec]

Peak oil effects pricing on a day to day schedule?

Not as much as pique oil pricing of the speculators does.

 

[sparky]

 

[RGR]

"most fields are depleting at a pretty good rate ... who knows what the equilibrium price will be."

That's it? I'm underimpressed to say the least. I'd expect better from an undergrad geology student.

I'd expect better from the village parrot.

 

[RGR]

Peak oil effects pricing on a day to day schedule?

Not as much as pique oil pricing of the speculators does.

It didn't the last couple of times it happened, don't know why it would now.

 

[Dragon]

Or, we could go with M. King Hubbert, who actually developed the idea of peak oil long after David White's career was over (which means any attribution of such a claim to White is at best misleading and at worst a flat lie, rather like attributing Newton's gravitational model to Aristotle).

Peak oil has to be understood in terms of its mechanics for the idea to be evaluated. Failure to do this, regardless of one's take on the idea, is a proclamation from ignorance. The mechanics are that production of oil (or any other nonrenewable resource) peaks from any one source when half the resource has been extracted from that source. By "source" I mean any single oil field, for example. Spot-source peaks like this are an old, well-established fact. Regional and global peaks are an extrapolation from this old, well-established fact: when half the oil has been extracted from a region, that region's overall production will peak and then decline.

On this basis, Hubbert projected the peak of oil production in the U.S. from the lower 48 states to peak in the early 1970s. He was slightly off; the actual peak was in 1970. Oil production in the U.S. has trended down ever since, and that was what allowed the OPEC oil embargo to be effective in 1973. Prior to reaching our peak, the U.S. was a net oil exporter, not importer, and immune to any embargo (in fact, we imposed one on Japan ourselves in 1941, leading to Pearl Harbor).

What can happen regionally can also happen globally, again by extrapolation. It's hard to fix exactly when the peak will be reached, as this depends on a number of unpredictable factors including the behavior of the global economy (which impacts demand for oil) and oil politics. However, the general understanding among geologists is that we are there or slightly past it.

What's the effect of peak oil? There again it's important to understand the mechanics. Some doomsayers paint pictures of sudden global economic collapse, inability to grow food, etc. etc. and that's unrealistic (which means arguments against "peak oil doomsaying" from the right are straw-man arguments since only a few nut jobs are doom-sayers). The real effects are less drastic, although still dire: upward trending of oil prices that can never be significantly reduced, and shortages, mild to begin with but growing more severe over time.

Is that not precisely what we see happening?

 

[RGR]

Or, we could go with M. King Hubbert, who actually developed the idea of peak oil long after David White's career was over (which means any attribution of such a claim to White is at best misleading and at worst a flat lie, rather like attributing Newton's gravitational model to Aristotle).

The timing of the claims is not in dispute. You take offense that others were declaring that the US would peak in oil production (some even that we would run out!) long before Hubbert did?

Peak oil has to be understood in terms of its mechanics for the idea to be evaluated. Failure to do this, regardless of one's take on the idea, is a proclamation from ignorance.

To understand the mechanics, you must define the concept. Peakers define the symbol of their religion in many ways, some confuse it with EROEI, others pretend that plateaus are the expected result rather than an actual peak, some take oil and pretend it is not oil, that they can skip counting it for fear of being embarassed by past claims. Certainly much of that is from ignorance, so I would agree with you that most peakers don't understand what is going on very well.

The mechanics are that production of oil (or any other nonrenewable resource) peaks from any one source when half the resource has been extracted from that source.

You are incorrect. This is nothing more than standard peaker propaganda. Please try and not imitate our village idiot, one is enough.

By "source" I mean any single oil field, for example.

You would be wrong about this as well. Hook, himself a peaker, published within just the past two years or so, the point at which oil production peaked ranged from perhaps 20% of utilized resources to 80%. You perhaps have an error bar on your statement as large as his?

The real effects are less drastic, although still dire: upward trending of oil prices that can never be significantly reduced, and shortages, mild to begin with but growing more severe over time.

Is that not precisely what we see happening?

You are a revisionist. Contemporarnous to global oil peaking in 2005, this is what was expected.

BLUE: Feature Archive - Special: Here comes the nutcracker - Peak oil in a nutshell, by Jan Lundberg

Walmart trucks were supposed to stop running within days. Got any Walmarts in your neck of the woods? Seen any of their trucks parked alongside the road?

Please try and check your religious beliefs at the door, we've got one missionary to the gullible stopping in occasionally and trying to round up anyone brain dead enough to fall for his garbage, your better grammar and even worse recital of dogma is no more convincing.

 

[Old Rocks]

RGR, you are full of shit. I read the original article in the Houston Journal of Oil and Gas. Hubbert claimed nothing of the sort.

 

[whitehall]

Democrats have prevented the US from becoming independent of foreign oil for decades and now they have their chance to crush the US economy by claiming "there ain't no more oil in the ground". What's the point? The Bill Ayers revolution finally succeeds? The end of capitalism? What the hell do democrats really want? The end of America as we know it?

 

[Old Rocks]

Democrats have prevented the US from becoming independent of foreign oil for decades and now they have their chance to crush the US economy by claiming "there ain't no more oil in the ground". What's the point? The Bill Ayers revolution finally succeeds? The end of capitalism? What the hell do democrats really want? The end of America as we know it?

Ah yes, with reserves equalling less than 3% of the world's oil, and using 24% of that oil, we will drill our way to independence. Anything else idiotic to state there, boy?

And if we were to go on a binge of drilling for oil, all that does is run us out of domestic supplies even faster.

 

[whitehall]

We had to watch the liberal media's promotion of T. Boone Pickett during Barry's campaign because Pickett seemed like an old fashioned Texas energy promoter. What the media failed to note was that Pickett was a democrat operative and his radio and TV ads to place windmills across the US were nothing but an expensive democrat party sponsored dirty trick.

 

[RGR]

RGR, you are full of shit. I read the original article in the Houston Journal of Oil and Gas. Hubbert claimed nothing of the sort.

You will have to be more specific about what Hubbert did, or did not, claim. And when, because his claims, and predictions, changed with respect to time. I am familiar with many of them (including his methods and estimates of reserve growth of course) but am not sure which comment of mine, on what he said, you are objecting to.

 

[Dragon]

The timing of the claims is not in dispute. You take offense that others were declaring that the US would peak in oil production (some even that we would run out!) long before Hubbert did?

I take offense only that some posters are lying about the significance of that. The theory of peak oil did not exist before Hubbert developed it; therefore, any statements of any kind made by anyone before that (unless they can be shown to have developed a similar theory) are off-the-cuff statements and nothing can be concluded from any dates they gave, which were of necessity pulled out of their hats.

That we are going to run out of oil someday is obvious and a no-brainer; what Hubbert did was to quantify the concept and show that oil production will peak and drop long BEFORE we run out of oil.

To understand the mechanics, you must define the concept.

That's already been done, by Hubbert in presenting his theory. That you confuse this, deliberately, with other vaguely-related ideas somehow connected with the notion that oil is a nonrenewable resource in order to create the deceptive illusion that any confusion exists about the definition only proves that you, personally, are not being honest here.

You are incorrect. This is nothing more than standard peaker propaganda.

No, I'm not incorrect, no, it isn't any sort of propaganda, and you are being disingenuous again. Here:

Peak Oil definition - An encyclopedia of environmental terms and topics from ecomii ecopedia

And here:

Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And here:

Peak Oil Definition

The definition of peak oil is not in dispute. It is the point at which oil production peaks (reaches its maximum) and begins to decline. The theory is that this occurs when half of all available oil has been extracted.

You would be wrong about this as well. Hook, himself a peaker

Full name, please, so I can meaningfully validate your claim about him.

You are a revisionist. Contemporarnous to global oil peaking in 2005, this is what was expected.

I am not a revisionist, they are. As I said, there is confusion about the concept among others besides denialists such as yourself who pretend that a finite resource can last forever. The doomsayers such as these guys are equally wrong. That, however, does nothing to validate your argument, and presenting overly-alarmist sloppy-thinkers such as this as if they were somehow authoritative on the subject of peak oil for purposes of creating a false impression about the idea in general is, once again, deceptive and dishonest.

 

[RGR]

The timing of the claims is not in dispute. You take offense that others were declaring that the US would peak in oil production (some even that we would run out!) long before Hubbert did?

I take offense only that some posters are lying about the significance of that.

You might consider it lying, the people who made those prior predictions were seasoned professionals, worried about a world with no fuel. They did not consider their worries a "lie", and certainly I see no reason to downplay their concerns. They were as serious about running out (in 1919) as peakers are today.

That we are going to run out of oil someday is obvious and a no-brainer; what Hubbert did was to quantify the concept and show that oil production will peak and drop long BEFORE we run out of oil.

It is a no brainer that of COURSE oil production will drop before we run out, prior to the invention of petroleum engineers they were discussing this, prior to your birth, prior to Hubbert's birth. You think all Hubbert did of value was slap bell shaped curve on some production data and declare "EUREKA!"?

Field production increases, peaks, and decreases, were being published on, discussed, worried over, and quantified before women were allowed to vote in the US. I recommend history books on the oil industry, less religious mythology.

That's already been done, by Hubbert in presenting his theory. That you confuse this, deliberately, with other vaguely-related ideas somehow connected with the notion that oil is a nonrenewable resource in order to create the deceptive illusion that any confusion exists about the definition only proves that you, personally, are not being honest here.

And you can't read any better than our village idiot. There is TREMENDOUS confusion about the definition of peak oil, because peak oilers can't decide what oil is, create deceptive graphs, edit information, forget the history of the industry, design systems to conceal where and how much new oil is being found, don't understand the basics of how the oil industry determines which projects are funded, and which aren't, and a myriad of other things which imply either ignorance on their part, confusion, or outright deception.

And here:

Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And here:

Peak Oil Definition

The definition of peak oil is not in dispute.

Sure it is. Take the first paragraph of the wiki for example. How many misrepresentations of actual oil production in that single paragraph exist? (Hint: The answer is a number greater than zero )

It is the point at which oil production peaks (reaches its maximum) and begins to decline. The theory is that this occurs when half of all available oil has been extracted.

So when global peak oil happened in 1979, and then began declining, it was just a ruse?And since then we have had what, 2 or 3 more peak oils? This begs both a better definition than you one you have provided, and begs the obvious followup question...if we can have more than one claimed peak oil, how can we even tell which one we should worry about?

I recommend you find a better definition.

You are a revisionist. Contemporarnous to global oil peaking in 2005, this is what was expected.

I am not a revisionist, they are. As I said, there is confusion about the concept among others besides denialists such as yourself who pretend that a finite resource can last forever.

So you really don't read do you? I certainly have never said that oil is anything other than a finite resource. I am aware of better measurements of how much oil there is on this planet, is all. And I will offer a hint, that number is less than infinity. More reading, less pretending I have claimed something I haven't. Ever.

 

[Bill Angel]

The definition of peak oil is not in dispute. It is the point at which oil production peaks (reaches its maximum) and begins to decline. The theory is that this occurs when half of all available oil has been extracted.

The stickler is the evaluation of the concept of "all available oil".

In the article on Oil Sands the author states:
"The Alberta government estimates that there are 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil trapped in the oil sands, but some industry groups and organizations dispute this claim. The end product from oil sand is very similar to, if not better than, that of conventional oil extraction (using oil rigs). But the intensive mining, extraction and upgrading process means that oil from oil sands typically costs several times more money to produce than conventional methods."

As the price of oil goes up, the point could be reached where it is economically sensible to go after the oil contained in this "oil sand". According to the article Oil sands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Oil sands reserves have only recently been considered to be part of the world's oil reserves, as higher oil prices and new technology enable them to be profitably extracted and upgraded to usable products. They are often referred to as unconventional oil or crude bitumen, in order to distinguish the bitumen extracted from oil sands from the free-flowing hydrocarbon mixtures known as crude oil traditionally produced from oil wells."

 

[Dragon]

You might consider it lying, the people who made those prior predictions were seasoned professionals, worried about a world with no fuel. They did not consider their worries a "lie"

Their worries weren't lies. The lies are on this board.

You think all Hubbert did of value was slap bell shaped curve on some production data and declare "EUREKA!"?

I think what he did was to quantify the concept allowing for broad prediction of when regional peaks would be achieved. It's still not perfect, because there are unpredictable factors at work both in oil technology and (more importantly) in the fluctuations of the oil market, but it represents a considerable advance over anything that preceded it.

There is TREMENDOUS confusion about the definition of peak oil, because peak oilers

Stop there. Those two words, "peak oilers," are the core of your dishonesty here. You are lumping together environmental shock-jockeys without credentials and more serious geologists who know what the subject is, and that is the only basis on which you can claim that there is any confusion about the definition of peak oil.

I prefer to dismiss the environmental shock-jockeys. You do not, and it's obvious that the reason you don't is because they are useful to make the serious geologists look bad. An extremely dishonest and distasteful tactic.

Among geologists, there is no disagreement about the definition of peak oil. Among "peak oilers" -- well, that is a category invented by you. In reality, there is no coherently-designated group of people who can be called "peak oilers."

Take the first paragraph of the wiki for example. How many misrepresentations of actual oil production in that single paragraph exist? (Hint: The answer is a number greater than zero )

No, if you're referring to the Wikipedia article on peak oil, the number of misrepresentations of oil production in the first paragraph is in fact zero.

I've snipped everything else in your post because it consisted of nothing but empty rhetoric. If you feel a need for some reason to include that sort of thing in the future, feel free, but don't expect a response to it.

 

[RGR]

The definition of peak oil is not in dispute. It is the point at which oil production peaks (reaches its maximum) and begins to decline. The theory is that this occurs when half of all available oil has been extracted.

The stickler is the evaluation of the concept of "all available oil".

Quite true. I call this the "lets only count red women's shoes size 9 in Walmart inventory and pretend the factories are not going to ship any more to be can declare the end of shoes" angle. The peak religion only allows the counting of oil they decide to count, not all actual oil. Worse yet, there are plenty of things we can make synthetic oil from, which we don't even need to discuss in this context, but peakers certainly aren't happy with building oil either, apparently not being aware that they are already using this oil in their cars already.

As the price of oil goes up, the point could be reached where it is economically sensible to go after the oil contained in this "oil sand".

Yup. But "economically sensible" doesn't factor well into the peak oil religion.