Why New Oil Discoveries won’t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

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Why New Oil Discoveries won’t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

Why New Oil Discoveries won?t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

With the media awash in stories telling us how much oil is being discovered around the world, there is one word which the optimists quoted in these stories refuse to utter: Depletion.

The simple fact is that depletion never sleeps. It starts as soon as an oil well begins production and goes on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Furthermore, it is not exactly news that oil is being discovered all around the world. The industry has been spending record amounts to find it.

What’s critical is the difference between the annual additions to oil production capacity and the annual decline in the rate of production from existing wells, a decline which is running anywhere from 4 to 9 percent depending on whom you talk to.

Even at the low end of decline rate estimates, the world must find and put into production the equivalent of what is currently coming out of the entire North Sea, one the world’s largest finds, and we must do so EVERY SINGLE YEAR before worldwide production can rise. So difficult has this task become, that we’ve only just been able to keep global production on a bumpy plateau since 2005. For now, the oil industry is on a treadmill which requires ever more drilling just to keep production even.

(Many regular readers will wonder why I continually emphasize the flat trajectory of world oil production since 2005. It’s so new readers will be introduced to this central fact about oil supplies—an indisputable trend which the industry simply refuses to talk about and even tries to obscure by changing the definition of oil to include things which are not oil. This trend has ominous implications for our society if it continues or, even worse, turns downward.)

To the untrained observer the quantities of oil recently discovered sound large. But, when put into the context of how much we consume, they won’t extend the oil age by much. Norway, which produces oil from the North Sea, recently announced its largest find since 2000, a field with nearly 1.8 billion barrels. How long would the oil in that field last the world at the current rate of consumption? About 24 days.

The math looks like this. The world currently consumes about 27.4 billion barrels a year of crude oil including lease condensate—which is the definition of oil. So, just divide 1.8 billion by 27.4 billion and multiply the fractional result by 365 days in a year, and you’ll get the number of days such a discovery could supply the world if we could pump it out at any rate we want to (which we can’t).

Well, there are larger discoveries in Brazil, you may say. If we accept the government’s figures on their face (and we really ought to be a little skeptical), then the Tupi field has 5 to 8 billion barrels and the Sugarloaf field has 33 billion. (The truth is no one really knows because there hasn’t been enough drilling.)

Let’s take the top end of the estimates and call it 41 billion barrels. If we do the above calculation for just one billion barrels, we find that it will last about 13 days. And so, a little multiplication tells us that two of the most massive finds ever (if they actually pan out) will give us 41 X 13 days of oil or 533 days, which is about a year and a half. It’s nothing to sneeze at; but it doesn’t exactly change the overall picture that much.
 
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growing_gap.png


http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/growing_gap.png

We burn 27.4 billion barrels a year. This is increasing as nations like China, india, and much of Africa raise. You better hope we find a few trillion barrels under that shale...

This would give us time to slowly transition. If it was up to me I'd keep on doing what we're currently doing...1. Remaining the number one oil and natural gas producing nation. Good job Obama ;) and 2. put up more wind and solar.

This is how we do it.
 
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Funny thing is President Obama has made the United states the oil producing hyper-power of the fucking world. Production dropped under Bush....

Obama just wants a mixture of energy sources. WTF does he have to do? Go out on a oil platform and produce it himself?

Even with all this only a few ten thousands more barells worldwide higher...
 
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Why New Oil Discoveries won’t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

An article from Kurt Cobb. Otherwise known as just another chicken little peak oiler. Do you expect his inexperience, naivete, and ignorance of the oil and gas business to be relevant to any but those dumb enough to fall for what any blogger might write down in mommys basement?

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? It applies in this case. In spades.

Do you have any independent thoughts on this topic Matthew, or is just cutting and pasting from bloggers who know nothing on the topic your specialty?

sky-is-falling.jpg
 
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growing_gap.png


This chart is the run of the mill "hide the information" peak oiler stuff.

I'm betting Matthew doesn't even know why.

Matthew said:
We burn 27.4 billion barrels a year. This is increasing as nations like China, india, and much of Africa raise. You better hope we find a few trillion barrels under that shale...

Currently, the world inventory of feedstocks to manufacture liquid fuels stands at about 5-6 trillion barrels. In the entire history of the human race, we have used slightly more than 1.

Are you scared that we won't be able to make it through the next century or two with what we have ALREADY discovered? Certainly don't need to discover more until you at least are dead and gone Matthew, and then your children, or grand children, can reenact nonsense scarcity claims when it comes to carbon/hydrogen molecules.

Matthew said:
This would give us time to slowly transition.

We've already got a century or two. Not long enough? Fine...then we can use the hydrates. Better to use them to generate power than just SIT there. CH4 molecules are terribly handy.

Matthew said:
If it was up to me I'd keep on doing what we're currently doing...1. Remaining the number one oil and natural gas producing nation. Good job Obama ;) and 2. put up more wind and solar.

This is how we do it.

The US is the number one gas producing country (close to Russia, but I think we are ahead) we are #3 when it comes to oil production rates. And it wasn't done on Obama Federal land, all he does is refuse to let folks drill or adds regulations to make it much more difficult than everyone else, the increase in American oil and gas production has almost exclusively been on private or Indian land.

Learn something before pretending you know something, you aren't talking about dumbass minor fractions of power generation here, but the big boys in terms of power generation in the United States and we aren't stupid like the eco-folks and their dreams of unicorn farts powering the country. Unlike their HOPES of powering the country, oil and gas ALREADY DOES.
 
Why New Oil Discoveries won’t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

Why New Oil Discoveries won?t Make a Difference to our Energy Future

With the media awash in stories telling us how much oil is being discovered around the world, there is one word which the optimists quoted in these stories refuse to utter: Depletion.

The simple fact is that depletion never sleeps. It starts as soon as an oil well begins production and goes on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Furthermore, it is not exactly news that oil is being discovered all around the world. The industry has been spending record amounts to find it.

What’s critical is the difference between the annual additions to oil production capacity and the annual decline in the rate of production from existing wells, a decline which is running anywhere from 4 to 9 percent depending on whom you talk to.

Even at the low end of decline rate estimates, the world must find and put into production the equivalent of what is currently coming out of the entire North Sea, one the world’s largest finds, and we must do so EVERY SINGLE YEAR before worldwide production can rise. So difficult has this task become, that we’ve only just been able to keep global production on a bumpy plateau since 2005. For now, the oil industry is on a treadmill which requires ever more drilling just to keep production even.

(Many regular readers will wonder why I continually emphasize the flat trajectory of world oil production since 2005. It’s so new readers will be introduced to this central fact about oil supplies—an indisputable trend which the industry simply refuses to talk about and even tries to obscure by changing the definition of oil to include things which are not oil. This trend has ominous implications for our society if it continues or, even worse, turns downward.)

To the untrained observer the quantities of oil recently discovered sound large. But, when put into the context of how much we consume, they won’t extend the oil age by much. Norway, which produces oil from the North Sea, recently announced its largest find since 2000, a field with nearly 1.8 billion barrels. How long would the oil in that field last the world at the current rate of consumption? About 24 days.

The math looks like this. The world currently consumes about 27.4 billion barrels a year of crude oil including lease condensate—which is the definition of oil. So, just divide 1.8 billion by 27.4 billion and multiply the fractional result by 365 days in a year, and you’ll get the number of days such a discovery could supply the world if we could pump it out at any rate we want to (which we can’t).

Well, there are larger discoveries in Brazil, you may say. If we accept the government’s figures on their face (and we really ought to be a little skeptical), then the Tupi field has 5 to 8 billion barrels and the Sugarloaf field has 33 billion. (The truth is no one really knows because there hasn’t been enough drilling.)

Let’s take the top end of the estimates and call it 41 billion barrels. If we do the above calculation for just one billion barrels, we find that it will last about 13 days. And so, a little multiplication tells us that two of the most massive finds ever (if they actually pan out) will give us 41 X 13 days of oil or 533 days, which is about a year and a half. It’s nothing to sneeze at; but it doesn’t exactly change the overall picture that much.

Who cares? Using only what we've found so far there's enough fuel to last hundreds of years.
 
Very nicely researched thread Matthew. Well deniers? :eusa_whistle:

Deniers? Sure. I deny that Matthew has a functioning brain. Or knows anything of value about the discovery of oil and gas domestically or globally. Or knows anything about oil and gas in general.

I will not deny that he can cut and paste whatever some blogger has made easy to find. I will not deny that he is easily fooled because he doesn't know anything about the topic.

(in my best Starship Troopers voice)...."would you like to know more?"

:eusa_whistle::eusa_whistle:
 
Ironically, your post has no links to back it up like Matthew's does :eusa_whistle: :eusa_hand:

Very nicely researched thread Matthew. Well deniers? :eusa_whistle:

Deniers? Sure. I deny that Matthew has a functioning brain. Or knows anything of value about the discovery of oil and gas domestically or globally. Or knows anything about oil and gas in general.

I will not deny that he can cut and paste whatever some blogger has made easy to find. I will not deny that he is easily fooled because he doesn't know anything about the topic.

(in my best Starship Troopers voice)...."would you like to know more?"

:eusa_whistle::eusa_whistle:
 
Ironically, your post has no links to back it up like Matthew's does :eusa_whistle: :eusa_hand:

That is because a link to a steaming pile of dog doo has the same value as Matthews, and really, just because the average forum reader would fall for it, it would be beneath me. I know this topic too well to ever do it badly, certainly because my audience is as ignorant as Matthew is not reason enough.

And as a point of order, you do realize that the proof isn't in providing a link, but providing the information to make the point correctly, right? And providing disinformation, edited or censored information, information already discredited by reality or science, invalidates any value of the link itself?
 
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We may be at "peak oil" all right.. But it's not supply that's peaked. It's demand.. All evidence points to demand flattening as more of the 3rd world reaches development. That and smaller growth in markets and manufacturing in general..
 
Ironically, your post has no links to back it up like Matthew's does :eusa_whistle: :eusa_hand:

That is because a link to a steaming pile of dog doo has the same value as Matthews, and really, just because the average forum reader would fall for it, it would be beneath me. I know this topic too well to ever do it badly, certainly because my audience is as ignorant as Matthew is not reason enough.

And as a point of order, you do realize that the proof isn't in providing a link, but providing the information to make the point correctly, right? And providing disinformation, edited or censored information, information already discredited by reality or science, invalidates any value of the link itself?

ummm..... thats how forums work, link or STFU. :eusa_eh: No one is going to "take your word for it" fossil fuel boi. :eusa_hand:
 
People who demand links are simply liberals who are accustomed to government expecting others to labor to hand them free stuff. They want links? They need to learn how to use a browser.
 
Very nicely researched thread Matthew. Well deniers? :eusa_whistle:

Deniers? Sure. I deny that Matthew has a functioning brain. Or knows anything of value about the discovery of oil and gas domestically or globally. Or knows anything about oil and gas in general.

I will not deny that he can cut and paste whatever some blogger has made easy to find. I will not deny that he is easily fooled because he doesn't know anything about the topic.

(in my best Starship Troopers voice)...."would you like to know more?"

:eusa_whistle::eusa_whistle:

Matthew is a sock account for Jake Starkey
 
And as a point of order, you do realize that the proof isn't in providing a link, but providing the information to make the point correctly, right? And providing disinformation, edited or censored information, information already discredited by reality or science, invalidates any value of the link itself?

ummm..... thats how forums work, link or STFU. :eusa_eh: No one is going to "take your word for it" fossil fuel boi. :eusa_hand:

I see. Well. Fine. Let me know when you are familiar enough with some of the science on the topic to discuss the implications of it. We can start here.

http://www.colorado.edu/Economics/vjcourses/resource/cornucopia.pdf
 
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