WhiteKnight
_____ P85 #549 _____ Sig Red / Sig White
Why would BP be hostile to Peak Oil? The idea of Peak Oil (true or not) adds a premium to the price of oil which is free money for BP.
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Peak Oil
- Thread starter tonybelding
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Why would BP be hostile to Peak Oil? The idea of Peak Oil (true or not) adds a premium to the price of oil which is free money for BP.
Because the idea of peak oil makes even conservative governments invest in non-oil based transport and energy. So a short term gain will be offset in a few years by lower demand.
If you're an oil company, you don't want the public to believe that the supply is constrained. If enough oil consumers start to believe in Peak Oil that will damage demand because consumers will plan for and make decisions to move away from oil dependency.
So internally to oil companies, the idea of Peak Oil is well known. They need to sell the world that there will always be enough oil even if the price goes up. The trick is to keep the price affordable even while they have to work harder to get the oil, i.e. tight oil vs conventional oil Visit The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future.
SByer
'08 #383
I'm no longer sure we're past peak oil. With fracking, and with the way our government subsidizes oil and the environmental destruction new techniques can bring, enough oil is probably now extractable that we're at peak oil only if we have the guts to cut off the corporate welfare.
(On the other hand, it's still more expensive to get oil that way, and the cost of renewables will cross that at a sooner point).
It's really sad that we now have the technological ability to terraform the planet until it fries us to a crisp in retaliation, and that as long as corporations are people and big oil owns government, that outcome seems almost inevitable.
(On the other hand, it's still more expensive to get oil that way, and the cost of renewables will cross that at a sooner point).
It's really sad that we now have the technological ability to terraform the planet until it fries us to a crisp in retaliation, and that as long as corporations are people and big oil owns government, that outcome seems almost inevitable.
YoungStranger
Member
Oil glut?
I came across this from a right wing UK newspaper yesterday, which is currently running a campaign against wind power. Dont know how true or not the predictions are. Maybe its partly political cynicism and partly wishful thinking.
We face a worldwide glut of oil, with profound economic and geopolitical implications, most of them good Telegraph Blogs
I came across this from a right wing UK newspaper yesterday, which is currently running a campaign against wind power. Dont know how true or not the predictions are. Maybe its partly political cynicism and partly wishful thinking.
We face a worldwide glut of oil, with profound economic and geopolitical implications, most of them good Telegraph Blogs
The report quoted includes around 20% of expensive unconventional oil that needs high prices (above about 100$/bbl) to come forward. So even if the volume predictions should not be too optimistic in the first place, the marginal oil - 20% is an awful lot - would dictate price levels. Keep in mind that most oil is produced by government controlled or owned companies. "Big Oil" is a concept of the past. Many of those state companies have been underinvesting and that will inevitably come home to roost. The conclusions the press seems to extract from the report are a bit one sided. Large uncertainties remain and were apparently not hidden in the study.
Any of these "peak oil" or "running out of oil" (or any other commodity) are flawed for a simple reason: there is almost always more oil (or whatever) at a higher cost of extraction. One can imagine an unknown supply curve of oil available in 1700. The E&P (exploration and production) side of oil companies first reveal a part of that hidden supply curve, and then remove it (if it's cheap enough to do so) or add it to reserves (if it's not). Over time, more and more of the supply curve is revealed. Because today we generally know what to look for, and where to look for it, there's a fairly high degree of confidence of what the "unknown supply curve" now looks like below, say, $70/barrel. As prices continue to stay above $70, companies continue to look for more oil at these higher price points, and almost surely they'll find more.
Long story short: we won't run out of oil before we run out of money to pay for it.
Long story short: we won't run out of oil before we run out of money to pay for it.
I wouldn't bunch "peak oil" in with "running out of oil". We won't run out of oil, but oil production will certainly peak at some point. As the price of oil goes up, it becomes harder and harder to afford it, thus reducing consumption/production.
Peak Oil doesn't mean we are running out, or will use it up completely. Peak Oil describes a characteristic of production that the rate of oil extraction will rise to a peak rate (90M barrels per day?) followed by a steady decline in the production rate. See M. King Hubbert's classic paper on the subject.
GSP
See note #6 from this wiki page for a copy of the paper.
M. King Hubbert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GSP
See note #6 from this wiki page for a copy of the paper.
M. King Hubbert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I want to add a point to Roberts post which I think is critical. There is a time delay between rising prices and reserves being brought into production.
Example: Some $70/b reserves start being explored when oil prices stay above $80/b for some 3 months. Exploration takes 9 months (just an example, remember?). So oil is above $80/b for 12 months before production rates are added.
I would expect that oil prices rise in that year. If they pass a certain level, demand will collapse due to economic turmoil that they cause. Prices will follow to decline. Shai Agassi calls the result a "whiplash curve", taking out the economy. See his TED talk at 10:35.
No, I really don't want to be in the shoes of those that have to decide when to start explore new reserves and at what price.
Example: Some $70/b reserves start being explored when oil prices stay above $80/b for some 3 months. Exploration takes 9 months (just an example, remember?). So oil is above $80/b for 12 months before production rates are added.
I would expect that oil prices rise in that year. If they pass a certain level, demand will collapse due to economic turmoil that they cause. Prices will follow to decline. Shai Agassi calls the result a "whiplash curve", taking out the economy. See his TED talk at 10:35.
No, I really don't want to be in the shoes of those that have to decide when to start explore new reserves and at what price.
Probably because they want us to ignore the threat, so they can make a killing when the oil prices spike to the moon. Oh, and drive the world economy into recession.
Vger
Active Member
Yes, the point is that after the peak, demand exceeds supply (assuming a continuous increase in demand), and the price rises inexorably. However, because of the delays mentioned above, there tends to be wild swings in price on its way up. We have already seen this. The price becomes very volatile, but each new peak price is higher. The only way out of that trap is to decrease demand, by turning elsewhere for energy. The only way to not run out of oil, is to make it obsolete and leave the dregs in the ground, forgotten.
That's the same link that I posted up thread which restarted the discussion. It's a biased analysis of a biased analysis by a peak oil denier (how can you be one of those anyway, the planet isn't infinite?) paid for by an oil company. The Telegraph is the mouthpiece of the more undesirable parts of the Tory party and has been ramping up the rhetoric as that part - which seems to include the Chancellor - have been progressively scuppering anything related to renewables. I think they all need to declare interests and affiliatons.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I suggest a reading of Jeff Rubin's "Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization" to get a better understanding of the peak of rate of production of oil and its implications.
Jeff Rubin | Author | Economist | Speaker
They don't want to cause a recession. The parasite will die if it kills the host. They want us as healthy as possible so they can keep sucking blood.
The big question is - if we have a path available to shed the parasite - how much injury will they inflict to stop us.
Well that didn't take long.
Osborne accused over gas lobbyist father-in-law - UK Politics - UK - The Independent
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