permaculture

[Sean Maley <semaley@yahoo.com>]

To be clear, there is much confusion on the numbers published for oil 
production.  First, there are several information sources, including: IEA and 
EIA.  To add to the confusion, none of them define their terms the same way; 
many report "total liquids", which includes Natural Gas Liquids, plus the 
usual Crude and Condensate.  The "total liquids" peak stands around 84-86 
million barrels per day.  Debate against the concept of Peak Oil usually 
involves production "potential" total liquids, which is effectively opinion.

In fact, the Crude + Condensate has declined since November 2005 (note the 
price).  What we should remain as the alarming statistics should be the 
export market.  The big three exporters - Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Norway - 
account for a significant portion of the expected production increases.  
Norway has the most reliable statistics and has failed to increase 
production, due to less than expected production.  Nobody really knows why 
Russian and Saudi exports have been declining, but Saudi Arabia claims global 
inventories have been "oversupplied".

The export market becomes more significant when we remember that these 
exporting nations have a surplus of a resource, so increase their use of it.  
As their production hits "unexpected" snags and declines, the exports decline 
at the combined rate of domestic growth of consumption plus the decline rate. 
 Major exporters tend to become importers within just a few years (UK for 
example).

There could be oil pumped for hundreds of years, but the question will be how 
quickly the top consumers will have to cut their consumption to match the 
export markets.  When depends on which country you live and the strength of 
your currency.  The USA is in deep fertilizer (sub-prime scandal causing 
currency to plummet, combined with a 30% dependency on export markets).

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2716


-Sean.
Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote: I frequent "The Oil Drum" 
website often and 20-40 years to be the consensus among some very savvy 
oil-industry and Peak-Oil people who write there. It's a very rational site, 
mostly. But we're talking at much, much higher prices than we pay now. I 
didn't mean that it will be enough to satisfy demand or pump as much as we 
are pumping today. Just that oil isn't going to be out of the mix for a while 
yet. It sounds like we could pump about 30 million barrels per day by 2040 
instead of 
the 90 million we pump now, at least in some of their scenarios. About 1960 
levels, if I remember my numbers right.

Toby

Healing Hawk wrote:
> Hi, Toby,
> What information sources do you use that tell you there is three decades of
> oil left available to us?  I want very much to believe you are correct on
> this.  Thanks.
>
> Tommy Tolson
> Ecocity Austin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
>
>
>
>
>   

_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture





       
---------------------------------
Building a website is a piece of cake. 
Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.