More Dispatches From Peak Oildom
Over at The Oil Drum there are some fancy graphs within this post that commenters are desperate to get the world to look at, ostensibly because they represent stunning proof of the Saudi Arabian strain of Peak Oil. Longtime readers know that I am skeptical of the Peak Oil theory, or at least skeptical of the false logical link from declining to production to the popular talking point that "we are running out of oil." (Notice all the graphs in the post have only a few recent years data. Do they want us to take this seriously? Trends from 2004 to now? C'mon, this is laughable.)
Anyway, as a counterpoint to the extreme pessimism over Saudi production, I had lunch recently with a leading oil and gas industry investor who had just returned from Saudi. His view was that Saudi had gotten off easy for decades, doing very easy pumping without having to employ the most advanced technologies to get their crude out of the ground, but that this was changing. Saudi is going to have to suck it up and begin to employ the oil service sector to a healthy degree as they move from the decades-long 'low hanging fruit' era to the modern era. That application of new technology should have enormous consequences on Saudi's probable reserves calculation and future production.
Peak Oilers love to demand that we think through the consequences of declining oil production without even offering the option of actively encouraging more production and arresting the decline in production that is well within our capability to do so. We can't produce oil of we don't drill for oil. We are not limited by 'what is out there', we are limited only by our desire/ability to find, extract and refine sources of energy. The policy response should be more drilling (in addition to energy diversity initiatives, let unfettered hydrocarbon technology compete freely with non-hydrocarbons).
Gateway to my previous Peak Oil posts here.
UPDATE: Check this out, too. TigerHawk's conclusion sounds alot like this: "Peak Oil is a second cousin of global warming. It shares a declinist perspective and it exists to heap scorn on the endeavors of humankind."
Anyway, as a counterpoint to the extreme pessimism over Saudi production, I had lunch recently with a leading oil and gas industry investor who had just returned from Saudi. His view was that Saudi had gotten off easy for decades, doing very easy pumping without having to employ the most advanced technologies to get their crude out of the ground, but that this was changing. Saudi is going to have to suck it up and begin to employ the oil service sector to a healthy degree as they move from the decades-long 'low hanging fruit' era to the modern era. That application of new technology should have enormous consequences on Saudi's probable reserves calculation and future production.
Peak Oilers love to demand that we think through the consequences of declining oil production without even offering the option of actively encouraging more production and arresting the decline in production that is well within our capability to do so. We can't produce oil of we don't drill for oil. We are not limited by 'what is out there', we are limited only by our desire/ability to find, extract and refine sources of energy. The policy response should be more drilling (in addition to energy diversity initiatives, let unfettered hydrocarbon technology compete freely with non-hydrocarbons).
Gateway to my previous Peak Oil posts here.
UPDATE: Check this out, too. TigerHawk's conclusion sounds alot like this: "Peak Oil is a second cousin of global warming. It shares a declinist perspective and it exists to heap scorn on the endeavors of humankind."
posted by Donny Baseball at 9:30 AM
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