There's only so much of the stuff...
Here's some informative reading that can be found on page 49 of James Kunstler's The Long Emergency:
"By the 1980s, the world had been geologically mapped to the extent that elephant oil fields on the scale of East Texas or the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia were unlikely to have evaded discovery. The Russians, unhampered by conventional business constraints, had been especially avid in exploring their vast Siberian territories. World oil reserves were pretty much all accounted for. Hubbert lived a long time, and by the 1980s, the "rearview mirror effect" showed that world discovery had indeed peaked in the 1960s. Most importantly, the decreasing rate of discoveries comprised only small fields of minor consequence, which played out quickly. Hubbert's previous estimate about America's peak had been based on his theory, proved correct, that peak discovery preceded peak production by roughly thirty years. Hubbert initially estimated that the world peak would occur between 1990 and 2000. He was a little off, but not by much. Some experts think that the world had, in fact, entered the "bumpy plateau" of the global production peak in the early 2000s, but it was a little too early to get a clear view via the rearview mirror effect."
I was talking with someone who claimed that OPEC nations charge enough for a barrel of oil in order to get rich, but that they try to keep the price low enough so that there isn't as much motivation to discover new oil reserves. I told him that worldwide oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s anyway.
Many don't seem to understand that there's only so much oil that can be discovered. Yet some hold on to the belief that we can keep discovering new oil reserves forever, and that if it weren't for those darn environmentalists, OPEC, or [fill in the blank with whatever group you think is bad], we could be discovering and drilling in new oil fields and thus solve our energy problems.
If only it were that simple.
It's worth repeating that oil production does in fact peak. Domestic oil production peaked in 1970 and has been in decline ever since, even with some new offshore drilling operations and the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. Some contend that maybe peak oil only applies to fields and nations, and not to the world as a whole. But, keep in mind that oil production in the non-OPEC, non-FSU(former Soviet Union) portion of the world already peaked in the late 1990s (you can see an illustration here).
Why would oil production peak in North America, but keep going up indefinitely in the Middle East and Russia? That doesn't make any sense. Even if the oil fields in the Middle East are much larger, surely the same geologic realities apply.
"By the 1980s, the world had been geologically mapped to the extent that elephant oil fields on the scale of East Texas or the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia were unlikely to have evaded discovery. The Russians, unhampered by conventional business constraints, had been especially avid in exploring their vast Siberian territories. World oil reserves were pretty much all accounted for. Hubbert lived a long time, and by the 1980s, the "rearview mirror effect" showed that world discovery had indeed peaked in the 1960s. Most importantly, the decreasing rate of discoveries comprised only small fields of minor consequence, which played out quickly. Hubbert's previous estimate about America's peak had been based on his theory, proved correct, that peak discovery preceded peak production by roughly thirty years. Hubbert initially estimated that the world peak would occur between 1990 and 2000. He was a little off, but not by much. Some experts think that the world had, in fact, entered the "bumpy plateau" of the global production peak in the early 2000s, but it was a little too early to get a clear view via the rearview mirror effect."
I was talking with someone who claimed that OPEC nations charge enough for a barrel of oil in order to get rich, but that they try to keep the price low enough so that there isn't as much motivation to discover new oil reserves. I told him that worldwide oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s anyway.
Many don't seem to understand that there's only so much oil that can be discovered. Yet some hold on to the belief that we can keep discovering new oil reserves forever, and that if it weren't for those darn environmentalists, OPEC, or [fill in the blank with whatever group you think is bad], we could be discovering and drilling in new oil fields and thus solve our energy problems.
If only it were that simple.
It's worth repeating that oil production does in fact peak. Domestic oil production peaked in 1970 and has been in decline ever since, even with some new offshore drilling operations and the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. Some contend that maybe peak oil only applies to fields and nations, and not to the world as a whole. But, keep in mind that oil production in the non-OPEC, non-FSU(former Soviet Union) portion of the world already peaked in the late 1990s (you can see an illustration here).
Why would oil production peak in North America, but keep going up indefinitely in the Middle East and Russia? That doesn't make any sense. Even if the oil fields in the Middle East are much larger, surely the same geologic realities apply.
posted by Utah Peaknik at 4:17 PM
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