Political Crossfire Forums

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

mathurin wrote: how much power that comes from it i dont know, but it powers las vegas and alot of canada, no small thing, and they are still making lakes in my area, mostly for water storage, why not slap a small turbine on the overflow tube or some such thing

Water storage isn't always compatible with producing electricity. I do agree, though, that all dams should have turbines to produce at least some electricity.

mathurin · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 12:22 pm Post subject:

well, i wouldnt go so far to say all, depending on the application and the area, im sure they can do some calculations and find out

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

how did we get into a discussion about hydro?
I thought we were talking about oil.
Hydro is not really expandable to the scale we would need it if we were to use it to power hydrogen cars. We would likely use solar instead.

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

ieatfood wrote: how did we get into a discussion about hydro?
I thought we were talking about oil.
Hydro is not really expandable to the scale we would need it if we were to use it to power hydrogen cars. We would likely use solar instead.

Solar probably isn't either. From what I've read, the best solution for hydrogen will be to raise hydrogen producing microorganisms that break apart water into hydrogen and oxygen. They have done this on a microscale. They just need to figure out how to scale this up to an industrial level. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030521092358.htm

Preechr · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:10 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: how did we get into a discussion about hydro?
I thought we were talking about oil.
Hydro is not really expandable to the scale we would need it if we were to use it to power hydrogen cars. We would likely use solar instead. I’ll talk peak oil. Peak oil is completely true. The only thing that is debatable is when it will happen. I’m in the camp that believe Peak oil will occur between 2005 and 2010. Bring your best arguments and I’ll try to respond to some of the things brought up earlier in the thread.

Preechr · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: now the alarmists are saying--look--so far, we have only found enough oil to sustain us for the next 20 years!! We are going to run out!!! Peak oil is not about running out of oil, it’s about flow rate. The United States hit peak oil in 1970, but we still have a lot of oil. We have not run out and we will never run out, but no matter how many wells we drill, we will never be able to equal the output of our peak. As we speak, the aggregate global oil production is about 85 million barrels per day. In 10 years, that figure may be 75 million barrels per day. There will still be plenty of oil, it just won’t be able to be delivered to market at the rate it is now. That is peak oil.

Preechr · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject:

perdidochas wrote: Research Eugene Island, Lousiana. This one is a favorite of the abiotic oil crowd and has been twisted beyond reality. Here is reality:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml

This field is producing one sixth of what it was at its peak. However, there have been two events in which oil migrated into the field. Unfortunately for the abiotic oil generation crowd, there were studies done, they know where the oil came from, what triggered the event, were able to determine it’s age, and worst of all they know that it won’t stop this field from continuing to decline.

Quote: In the early 1990's an ambitious investigation of Eugene Island was undertaken through the joint auspices of the Global Basins Research Network, the Department of Energy and the oil industry.18 The purpose of the project was to develop new technologies to extract hydrocarbons from the streams which feed reservoirs instead of merely draining the reservoirs themselves, or to enhance the streams so that they will better feed the reservoirs. The study focused on Eugene Island and on the Gulf of Mexico in general because newly migrating hydrocarbons were well documented in this region, and migration approached rates of extraction. The project first had to determine the pathway of the migrating hydrocarbons and their origin.
The study determined that hydrocarbons were indeed migrating along the Red Fault. They concluded that as oils at depth are over-cooked and cracked into gas, this results in an increase of pressure. This is due to the expanding volume of gas produced from the more compacted volume of oil. When the pressure grows to hydraulic fracturing stress, the faults open and release a stream of oil and gas upward toward the surface. The migration pathways seem to branch from what appear to be three primary source areas at depth.
The migrating hydrocarbons contain biomarkers, heavy metals, and sulfur isotopes which indicate a carbonate marine source of Cretaceous age. The three sourcing depobasins are believed to be turbidite sands: organic detritus rich sands stirred up and deposited by deep sea turbidity currents. These turbidites were capped by a salt sheet and then buried beneath 3 million years of deltaic sands, resulting in the geopressures and temperatures necessary to transform the organic detritus into oil and gas.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml

Preechr

mathurin wrote: 1.349 trillion proved reserves This number has to be taken with a grain of salt as much of it is based on the published reserves of the OPEC countries. OPEC decides how much oil it wants to produce, then assigns a production quota to each OPEC member nation based on the proven reserves of that nation. When they first went to this system, all OPEC members increased the claimed amount of proven reserves by double or triple so that they could get a bigger piece of the quota pie. As time has gone on, the ridiculousness of their claimed reserve numbers is becoming apparent. For example, Kuwait was claiming to have 99 billion barrels of reserves, then last November, they dropped the bombshell that their Burgan oil field, the source of virtually all of their oil, had passed it’s peak. The 99 billion number was garbage and Kuwait now could not meet their quota.

http://www.energybulletin.net/12336.html

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Preechr wrote: ieatfood wrote: how did we get into a discussion about hydro?
I thought we were talking about oil.
Hydro is not really expandable to the scale we would need it if we were to use it to power hydrogen cars. We would likely use solar instead. I’ll talk peak oil. Peak oil is completely true. The only thing that is debatable is when it will happen. I’m in the camp that believe Peak oil will occur between 2005 and 2010. Bring your best arguments and I’ll try to respond to some of the things brought up earlier in the thread.
read this--it shatters peak oil into a billion pieces: http://mit.edu/ceepr/www/R2004-171.pdf

Preechr · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:02 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: Preechr wrote: ieatfood wrote: how did we get into a discussion about hydro?
I thought we were talking about oil.
Hydro is not really expandable to the scale we would need it if we were to use it to power hydrogen cars. We would likely use solar instead. I’ll talk peak oil. Peak oil is completely true. The only thing that is debatable is when it will happen. I’m in the camp that believe Peak oil will occur between 2005 and 2010. Bring your best arguments and I’ll try to respond to some of the things brought up earlier in the thread.
read this--it shatters peak oil into a billion pieces: http://mit.edu/ceepr/www/R2004-171.pdf I think you should read it your pdf again. Not only does it not dispel peak oil, it barely even addresses it. Peak oil is not about running out of oil. It’s not about the running out of reserves. Peak oil is about the flow rate.

In the few places peak oil is brought up in your article, it actually confirms its existence. For instance, your article mentions that the Appalachian area peaked in 1900 and that Texas peaked in 1972. No rise in oil prices or new technical breakthrough has managed to increase the flow rate from those areas. They do still have oil. They haven’t run out, but they have passed their peak.

I’m not going to go line by line to point out how that article doesn’t do anything to disprove the concept of Peak Oil. If there are certain points you think it brings up, post them and I’ll address each one.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Preechr wrote: I think you should read it your pdf again. Not only does it not dispel peak oil, it barely even addresses it. Peak oil is not about running out of oil. It’s not about the running out of reserves. Peak oil is about the flow rate.

In the few places peak oil is brought up in your article, it actually confirms its existence. For instance, your article mentions that the Appalachian area peaked in 1900 and that Texas peaked in 1972. No rise in oil prices or new technical breakthrough has managed to increase the flow rate from those areas. They do still have oil. They haven’t run out, but they have passed their peak.

I’m not going to go line by line to point out how that article doesn’t do anything to disprove the concept of Peak Oil. If there are certain points you think it brings up, post them and I’ll address each one.

Saudi Arabia alone has over 80 known
fields and exploits only nine. Of course, there are many more
fields, known and unknown. The Saudis do not invest to dis-
cover, develop, and produce more oil because more production
would bring down world prices.

with so many unexplored sources of oil and rising technology, i don't see why oil would have to "peak" in the next 50-100 years, which is the time it would take to develop oil replacement technology

Preechr · Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 7:28 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: Saudi Arabia alone has over 80 known
fields and exploits only nine. Of course, there are many more
fields, known and unknown. The Saudis do not invest to dis-
cover, develop, and produce more oil because more production
would bring down world prices.

with so many unexplored sources of oil and rising technology, i don't see why oil would have to "peak" in the next 50-100 years, which is the time it would take to develop oil replacement technology There are actually more than 80 oil fields. Up through 2000, there were 101 oil fields and more than 9 are being produced. But the real fallacy is the implication that all fields are the same. They aren’t. Not even close.

There is one field in Saudi Arabia so massive that no two fields found anywhere else on the planet are its equal. It’s called the Ghawar field and all by itself, it has accounted for 55%-65% of every barrel of oil Saudi Arabia has produced. When that one field peaks, Saudi Arabia will have peaked. It is, or was, capable of producing more than 5 million barrels of oil per day. Ghawar may have peaked. It may not have. Only the Saudis know and they aren’t telling.

Saudi Arabia’s second largest field is Safaniya. At its peak, it was producing 1.5 million barrels per day. That was 1981. Now Safaniya produces around 600,000 barrels per day.

The third largest oil field is the Abqaiq field. It peaked at 1 million barrels per day in 1973. The last production numbers released for this field, in 2002, were 500,000 barrels per day. It was the Abqaiq facilities that al Qaeda tried to hit with carbombs a couple months ago.

Fourth is Berri which peaked at 800,000 barrels per day in 1976. That last production numbers I have for Berri were 300,000 barrels per day and that was in 1994.

Fifth and sixth were Zuluf and Shaybah which are producing between 400,000 and 500,000 each. Zuluf may have peaked but Shaybah probably hasn’t yet.

Beyond that, they start to get small in a hurry. Marjan peaked in the late 70’s at just over 100,000 barrels per day. Khurais, Abu Jifan, Farhah, and Qirdi are all really close to each other and were produced collectively. They peaked in 1981 and none of them are being produced any more. The Hawtah trend makes up 14 small fields that were produced together and peaked in production only 3 years after they were brought on-stream. The rest of the fields have similar stories. Most are tiny. Some were bigger but peaked and production has dropped too low to be commercially viable. Nothing in the rest of Saudi Arabia, and it has been thoroughly explored, will be able to replace Ghawar when it goes.

Sorry for the lack of links in all this. Most of it is taken from papers and books that I own. I will search around for some supporting websites so that you don’t have to take my word for it.

A sign that we may be at, or passed the peak:

The oil market is a seasonal one. Demand goes up in the winter, because so much energy is used to heat homes. Then demand falls in the Spring as the weather warms. In Summer, demand is back up because of increased driving and generation of electricity for air conditioning. As the heat abates, demand for oil is down again in the Fall.

The periods between the Summer and Winter demand spikes are referred to as the ‘shoulder season’. To keep the price of oil from collapsing, OPEC typically cuts production during the shoulder seasons. That didn’t happen this year. We are in the spring shoulder season and OPEC is still pumping as fast as they can. That is why oil is going up. While the OPEC heads talk a good game about the market being well supplied, the speculators are seeing that OPEC is strained just supplying enough oil now. What is going to happen in 3 months when demand is higher than it is now? OPEC can’t pump any more than 100% of their capacity.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187171,00.html

Just something to think about.

Preechr · Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:08 pm Post subject:

Page 10 of this pdf has peak production numbers and dates for most of the fields I mentioned. Their numbers are a little different from mine, but not so different as to be anything more than trivial.

www7.nationalacademies.org/bees/Matt_Simmons_Twilight.pdf

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

you're missing the point
its not about saudi arabia, which contains only a small percentage of the world's oil
its not about fields that are currently producing oil

its about fields where we havent explored yet
its about places where no one knows how much oil there is because we haven't drilled
its about new technology which is not in use yet

there is plenty of oppotunity out there to increase the flow of oil
its just a matter of the people who own the capital to go out and explore, extract, and refine the oil

right now, theyre just not doing that--thats why it looks like we are peaking
but if prices keep on rising, that's gonna change
we are restricted by the amount of capital, not by geology

Preechr · Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 9:51 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: you're missing the point
its not about saudi arabia, which contains only a small percentage of the world's oil
its not about fields that are currently producing oil

its about fields where we havent explored yet
its about places where no one knows how much oil there is because we haven't drilled
its about new technology which is not in use yet

there is plenty of oppotunity out there to increase the flow of oil
its just a matter of the people who own the capital to go out and explore, extract, and refine the oil

right now, theyre just not doing that--thats why it looks like we are peaking
but if prices keep on rising, that's gonna change
we are restricted by the amount of capital, not by geology There was a geophysicist by the name of Marion King Hubbert who developed a mathematical model back in the 50’s to predict, with good accuracy, the reserves and projected peak output of oil fields from the data of a few wells. He also discovered that his model scaled up and could be used to predict the reserves and projected peak output of a region. In 1956, Hubbert presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute that predicted the US would achieve peak output in 1970. He was off by 1 year. It happened in 1971.

The US did find oil after 1956, and in fact, the largest field in the US at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska was discovered in 1968. It didn’t matter. The price of oil went up and many new technologies came along in those years also. They didn’t matter either. The data that was known back in 1956 was enough to make a prediction accurate to within 12 months.

Statistical analysis has a way of predicting the long-term outcome out of a collection of seemingly random happenings. Just ask the casinos in Las Vegas. The same mathematical model used to accurately predict the US peak output has been used to predict the peak of global oil production. They’ll probably find new oil fields. Maybe some of them will be very big, and I’m sure there will be new technologies developed. It won’t matter.

The date the model spit out for global peak oil production was Thanksgiving, 2005. I am making a killing on the easily predictable inevitability of this market. If you are not making money, then it is you who is missing the point.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Preechr wrote: There was a geophysicist by the name of Marion King Hubbert who developed a mathematical model back in the 50’s to predict, with good accuracy, the reserves and projected peak output of oil fields from the data of a few wells. He also discovered that his model scaled up and could be used to predict the reserves and projected peak output of a region. In 1956, Hubbert presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute that predicted the US would achieve peak output in 1970. He was off by 1 year. It happened in 1971.

The US did find oil after 1956, and in fact, the largest field in the US at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska was discovered in 1968. It didn’t matter. The price of oil went up and many new technologies came along in those years also. They didn’t matter either. The data that was known back in 1956 was enough to make a prediction accurate to within 12 months.

Statistical analysis has a way of predicting the long-term outcome out of a collection of seemingly random happenings. Just ask the casinos in Las Vegas. The same mathematical model used to accurately predict the US peak output has been used to predict the peak of global oil production. They’ll probably find new oil fields. Maybe some of them will be very big, and I’m sure there will be new technologies developed. It won’t matter.

The date the model spit out for global peak oil production was Thanksgiving, 2005. I am making a killing on the easily predictable inevitability of this market. If you are not making money, then it is you who is missing the point.

a statistical model is only as good as the parameters it is based on
hubbert does not know how much oil has yet to be discovered
hubbert does not know how technology is going to allow us to find and extract more oil
it is impossible for him to know such information and therefore it is impossible for him to predict the future
he is just a charlatan.

i'm sorry, but "random" statistical models cannot predict such phenomena any more than they can predict who will win the world series in the year 2058. The casinos in las vegas are based on games that have fixed rules and odds. They are not random at all.

i'm glad that you have made some bank on this
but be careful
oil prices have a history of fluctuation
what goes up can very easily come down
oil companies know this and that is why they are very cautious about investing any new capital into oil exploration.
if you think you are smarter than the financial experts who work for the oil companies, then you should invest wherever you see fit. Oil companies are careful not to invest too heavily in oil, anticipating a future price collapse. You should heed their caution.

Preechr · Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:41 am Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: a statistical model is only as good as the parameters it is based on
hubbert does not know how much oil has yet to be discovered
hubbert does not know how technology is going to allow us to find and extract more oil
it is impossible for him to know such information and therefore it is impossible for him to predict the future
he is just a charlatan.

i'm sorry, but "random" statistical models cannot predict such phenomena any more than they can predict who will win the world series in the year 2058. The casinos in las vegas are based on games that have fixed rules and odds. They are not random at all.

i'm glad that you have made some bank on this
but be careful
oil prices have a history of fluctuation
what goes up can very easily come down
oil companies know this and that is why they are very cautious about investing any new capital into oil exploration.
if you think you are smarter than the financial experts who work for the oil companies, then you should invest wherever you see fit. Oil companies are careful not to invest too heavily in oil, anticipating a future price collapse. You should heed their caution. Mathematical models like the one Hubbert published are often used to predict the behavior of a system in physics, biology, economics, sociology, and political science among others. Do you remember the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’? The main character in that movie was putting together a mathematical model to predict social dynamics. Don’t be so arrogant as to condemn it as farce just because you don’t understand it, especially when the National Academy of Sciences, a group of people far smarter than you or me, accepted and honored Hubbert’s peak mathematical model back in 1975.

As for being a charlatan, Hubbert was a head geophysist for the US Geological Survey. That’s not usually the position one takes to con people out of money. He died back in 1989, but you can read about him here if you are so inclined:
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/tribute.htm

If it were just Hubbert’s predictions that indicated the peaking of global production, that would be one thing. When combined with the overwhelming evidence mounting in support of an impending peak, to ignore it is pure folly. I notice that, other than your weak attempt at calling Hubbert a charlatan, you haven’t addressed a single point I’ve brought up. Instead you’ve gone to ignoring facts, real world observations, and scientific evidence to cling to an almost religious belief of something unknowable in the future coming in to save the world from high gasoline prices. Good luck with that. As for myself, I’ll stick with the evidence.

Ragnar Danneskjold · Joined: 11 Oct 2005 Posts: 2628 Location: Mulligan's Valley

I believe that will Will never 'Run out' because when the world is completely off oil, there will still be a lot of half empty fields left.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Preechr wrote: Mathematical models like the one Hubbert published are often used to predict the behavior of a system in physics, biology, economics, sociology, and political science among others. Do you remember the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’? The main character in that movie was putting together a mathematical model to predict social dynamics. Don’t be so arrogant as to condemn it as farce just because you don’t understand it, especially when the National Academy of Sciences, a group of people far smarter than you or me, accepted and honored Hubbert’s peak mathematical model back in 1975.

As for being a charlatan, Hubbert was a head geophysist for the US Geological Survey. That’s not usually the position one takes to con people out of money. He died back in 1989, but you can read about him here if you are so inclined:
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/tribute.htm

If it were just Hubbert’s predictions that indicated the peaking of global production, that would be one thing. When combined with the overwhelming evidence mounting in support of an impending peak, to ignore it is pure folly. I notice that, other than your weak attempt at calling Hubbert a charlatan, you haven’t addressed a single point I’ve brought up. Instead you’ve gone to ignoring facts, real world observations, and scientific evidence to cling to an almost religious belief of something unknowable in the future coming in to save the world from high gasoline prices. Good luck with that. As for myself, I’ll stick with the evidence.

dude, you can model social dynamics because you can take a social structure and study it and learn what the parameters are and extrapolate that into a model

you can't model what you can't see. And you can't see the ground that hasn't been explored. You also can't see the technology that hasn't been developed yet.

you can model poker games or a social colony becuase these are things that you can observe. You can't model oil in ground that you haven't drilled. You have no way of knowing what's under there. As for the geologists, they've been wrong since the early 1900's. Countless scientists have always been making predictions of all kinds of natural resources running out (everything from aluminum to oil). And countless times, they have been wrong.

As for "evidence," I really see none. So far, you've only mentioned that this guy has developed this model and it has predicted an oil peak in the US. I don't think that's really much evidence.

You've talked about current Saudi fields, which we have already established are irrelevant. And then you talk about OPEC pumping at capacity, which I agree they are. But that is simply because the oil producers haven't chosen to explore for more oil. But we can blame OPEC for that.

I really see no other compelling evidence at all. Perhaps you'd like to present some at some point.

Preechr · Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 8:10 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: Countless scientists have always been making predictions of all kinds of natural resources running out (everything from aluminum to oil). And countless times, they have been wrong. At this point, we are just going around in circles. We are not talking about oil running out. Peak oil concerns the flow rate. If all you want to do is argue that oil will never run out, you are right. Oil will never run out. It simply won’t be able to be delivered to market at the rate it is now for very much longer.

ieatfood wrote: You've talked about current Saudi fields, which we have already established are irrelevant. When talking about oil, only in your mind is Saudi Arabia irrelevant.

ieatfood wrote: And then you talk about OPEC pumping at capacity, which I agree they are. But that is simply because the oil producers haven't chosen to explore for more oil. ..and of course you have some evidence for that claim. Please post the link because I think you just made it up and don’t know what you are talking about.