Talk:Peak oil/Archive 3

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Transportation & "New urbanism"

Hi, first off, I just noticed new urbanism today. I'm wondering about the section you deleted from peak oil: is your only issue with it that it mentions new urbanism? I tried to soften the statement about that "movement", and I don't think it's a plug (though maybe it belongs in the peak oil mitigation section more than the main article). I believe thre rest of the section is based on the writtings of James Howard Kunstler and others, so it's hardly OR. I do think some discussion of suburbs could go there (as I'm sure do those who wrote the section), so care to help flesh out what you would consider acceptable? NJGW (talk) 16:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If there had been a single source in that section making the point it makes, I would have had no problem with it. But as it stands, it reeks of "I told ya so" from the Smart Growthers and New Urbanists, promising energy-profligate suburbs to be "slums of the future". Speaking of which, what is this quoting? There's no source saying it. There's also no guarantee a lack of oil, out of all energy sources, will strand our suburbanites.--Loodog (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

So if I cite one source from Kunstler you'd be satisfied that the section can stay? NJGW (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As much of the section as appears in the source.--Loodog (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And do you consider any mention of "new urbanism" to be a plug? In my opinion that's a bit extreme, as any mention of mitigation forms (as in hybrids, wind energy etc.) would be plugs by the same rational. NJGW (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I mostly see it as a plug because of the lack of sources, but also because the availability of one energy source is, at best, peripherally related to housing patterns.--Loodog (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've added references to Kunstler's book on the subject, as well as a video lecture he gave at TED2004. I also added other forms of mitigation so it doesn't seem like a plug for "new urbanism". NJGW (talk) 18:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(undent) This claim: "the availability of one energy source is, at best, peripherally related to housing patterns" makes sense only if one or more alternative sources of energy are available for replacing liquid fuels from petroleum to power automobiles at the present level of use, and could be phased in quickly enough to make up for declining oil extraction. (This might require, for example, replacing the entire vehicle fleet, a process which takes about 20 years.) What energy sources do you believe canreplace petroleum in motor vehicle applications and sustain the suburban lifestyle at its current scale? I thought everyone was aware that suburban sprawl depends on the automobile, and the automobile depends on petroleum. Petroleum powers about 97% of transportation in the U.S., and housing development in the U.S. since WWII has been almost entirely in neighborhoods built on the assumption that everybody has a personal automobile. Even if somebody knew of a viable replacement for transportation fuels it would take decades to rebuild the vehicle fleet and install the infrastructure. Powering vehicles is very different than powering homes, factories, and other static applications. There are lots of energy options for things that don't move. In contrast, no other existing or readily conceivable energy technology possesses petroleum's combination of desirable properties for vehicles: (historically) low cost, ease of handling and storage, high energy yield per unit of fuel (by both mass and volume), and straightforward design of resulting engines. By comparison, battery technology has several disadvantages: limited range; slow recharging time; all rechargeable batteries steadily lose capacity as they age; greater mass and volume for a given range. Hydrogen is even farther from being a practical energy storage medium for vehicles, and may be less efficient than batteries overall. The disadvantages of alternative vehicle propulsion schemes make consumers reluctant to switch until the price of oil becomes extremely high, and consumers will not be able to replace existing vehicles quickly in any case. The long-term cost of transportation which consumers expect certainly factors into their choice of housing, since a housing purchase essentially commits the buyer to years of some corresponding level of routine travel. --Teratornis (talk) 08:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

My further reading about biofuels led me to Jatropha oil which might ultimately become a significant source of motor fuel.Jatropha has some desirable properties, such as being able to grow on extremely marginal land that is unsuitable for food crops. However, vast areas would have to be brought into cultivation to supply even a fraction of current petroleum use, and this would take time to scale up. The EROEI of energy crops in general is currently unclear. --Teratornis(talk) 07:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

So is there still an issue here?Kgrr (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing heard in a month. I assume we are done.Kgrr (talk) 14:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Terminology

It seems much of the confusion around this topic is because of the blurring of concepts between the Total resource, Economic resource, Proven reserve, Recoverable reserve, etc. A clear set of nutshell definitions here or elsewhere would be very helpful in avoiding confusion over the size of each of these. LeadSongDog (talk) 22:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Most of these appear in other articles, but do not seem to have definitions there either (we can search for them with {{Google wikipedia}} which I like better than Wikipedia's built-in search because Google tolerates misspellings and word stems):

• Search Wikipedia with Google for: "Total resource"
• Search Wikipedia with Google for: "Economic resource"
• Search Wikipedia with Google for: "Proven reserve"
• Search Wikipedia with Google for: "Recoverable reserve"

--Teratornis (talk) 05:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Defining such terms is one thing; quantifying them is another. Matthew Simmons, for example, wants open audits of all the world's major oil fields. Most petroleum-exporting countries consider their own reserve estimates as state secrets. The resulting uncertainty tends to paralyze industry and government leaders around the world, as it's impossible to predict when a shortage might occur and how severe it might be. All the uncertainty creates the perfect excuse for business as usual - politicians generally cannot motivate people to make sacrifices until those people are in serious pain. Also, I'm not sure we need separate articles to define each term, because of WP:NOT#DICTIONARY. It might be better to define them in separate subsections of Petroleum and we could then link to them from instances of these terms elsewhere. --Teratornis (talk) 06:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Oil reserves lists some definitions, but not in linkable sections. We could add invisible name anchors to make the definitions linkable. --Teratornis (talk) 08:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

These are concepts describing a resource, not just dictionary definitions. The concepts apply to other resources such asCoal, Gas, Uranium, Phosphorus, Copper and other metals. I think it may be very useful to create separate articles for use in other peak scenarios like Peak coal, Peak gas, Peak uranium, Peak phosphorus, Peak copperand Peak metal for example.Kgrr (talk) 01:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Peak Oil and Peak Petroleum - EIA Statistics

Care should be given on all sides of the Peak Oil debate to definitions. Peak Oil theoryhypothesis is an extension of the observation that the quantity of production from any source of a finite resource tends to follow a bell curve over time. The bell curve's time axis expands when the assumption of fixed real cost of production is relaxed, but in general, holds.

All information is from the EIA.

Limiting an analysis to just conventional crude oil is a very strong assumption. This "crude oil" assumption results in substantially different conclusions than relaxing the analysis to include wider ranges of stored energy liquids. Is the world depleting low cost of production crude oil? Of course it is. Has the world reached or is it near peak production of crude oil? Perhaps. But this is a logical fallacy if one ignores petroleum liquids other than crude oil which are online now and are used in the production of consumed products as an energy source. Peak Oil is also an analysis in a vacuum if it ignores the range of substitutes to crude oil in terms of price and supply.

If for example, an analysis is using the figure of 84.6 million barrels per day in 2007 of global production (as estimated by the EIA), then the analysis is not considering just crude oil but rather a basket of liquid hydrocarbon sources. This basket is comprised of crude oil, condensates, natural gas plant liquids, refining processing gains, and certain other liquids. For example, the U.S. produced 5.1 million bbl/d of crude and condensates, 1.0 million bbl/d of refinery processing gains, 1.8 million bbl/d of natural gas plant liquids and 0.6 million bbl/d of other HC/Oxygenates of which 0.42 million bbl/d was ethanol blended during refining. The U.S. consumed 20.7 million bbl/d during 2007. If an analysis compares the 5.1 million bbl/d of crude oil production to the 20.7 million bbl/d of consumption it is comparing apples and oranges. Peak Oil analysis I've seen are conveniently and consistently limited to the US's 5.1 million bbl/d of domestic crude oil production and ignore 3.4 million bbl/d of other stored energy liquids that are produced in the US and are used in the production of the 20.7 million bbl/d of consumed liquid petroleum products.

Using this definition of oil (including these convensional condensates, NGPLs, refining gains - mostly resulting from the drop in specific gravity of the liquids during refining -, and hydrocarbon/oxygenate adds) the world's top producers of input source petroleum liquids (in thousands of barrels per day) according to the EIA are:

2007 Rank	Country	Peak Year	Peak Year Amount	2007 Amount
1	Saudi Arabia	2005	11,096	10,234
2	Russia	2007	9,876	9,876
3	USA	1985	11,192	8,481
4	Iran	2005	4,238	4,043
5	China	2007	3,901	3,901
6	Mexico	2004	3,848	3,501
7	Canada	2007	3,358	3,358
8	UAE	2007	2,948	2,948
9	European Union	1999	4,076	2,818
10	Venezuela	1997	3,518	2,667
11	Kuwait	2006	2,675	2,613
12	Norway	2001	3,423	2,565
13	Nigeria	2005	2,630	2,352
14	Brazil	2007	2,279	2,279
15	Algeria	2007	2,173	2,173
16	Iraq	2000	2,582	2,094
17	Libya	2007	1,845	1,845
18	Angola	2007	1,769	1,769
19	Kazakhstan	2007	1,445	1,445
20	Qatar	2006	1,141	1,136
21	Indonesia	1981	1,712	1,044
22	India	2007	881	881
23	Azerbaijan	2007	850	850
24	Argentina	1998	917	791
25	Oman	2000	972	714
26	Malaysia	2004	862	703
27	Egypt	1996	934	664
28	Australia	2000	828	595
29	Columbia	1999	830	543
30	Ecuador	2006	536	512

Several countries which had peak production prior to 2007 are projected to set new highs in the future in the EIA's "reference" model, for example, Columbia. Even more countries with highs set prior to 2007 establish new future highs in the high price model.

Hubbert observed that production of crude oil from any single source of a finite resource such as crude oil follows a bell curve over time. In his original Peak Oil work he summated these bell curves and concludes that production of crude oil from all conventional sources will also result in a bell curve and used this to estimate the date of US crude oil peak production. The difference in moving from a single source to Peak Oil's all sources is a larger time scale to the bell curve.

If one then relaxes the assumption of conventional crude oil to all conventional petroleum liquids plus conventional oxygenates the bell curve will result again but with an even larger time scale (as stated above, the US produced 5.1 million bbl/d in 2007 of crude but 8.5 million bbl/d of conventional petroleum liquids.

If the assumption is relaxed again to include unconventional petroleum liquids (for example Canadian tar sands, Mexican and Venezuelan ultra heavy, biofuels, coal to liquids, and gas to liquids) the bell curve expands again with even a pessimistic peak well into this century. If you relax the assumption again to include sustain higher prices at or above the current $130, then shale comes into play and the bell curve extends out into the next century.

If you relax the stored energy liquids assumption of Peak Oil to include stored energy liquids and compressed gases then hydrogen enters the bell curve and the bell curve expands into centuries or even millennium and becomes a curve of the depletion of uranium, ignoring solar. Assume fusion power at some point later this century and the bell curve expands into eons. The last time crude oil was above $100 per barrel (in 2006 real dollars) was 1864. This new unconventional source of oil replaced depleting bio-oils as a liquid energy source. The economy and planet kept on turning. 38.112.20.26 (talk) 18:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9

So peak oil is wrong because some day we'll use hydrogen and uranium instead? All you've done is prove that this should only be covering sweet crude, and ignoring unconventional oil. Every non-renewable commodity has a Hubbert curve. Would you like to suggest a way to improve the article? NJGW (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I was quite clear that the peak oil hypothesis is correct, stating, "Is the world depleting low cost of production crude oil? Of course it is. Has the world reached or is it near peak production of crude oil? Perhaps." Your question, "So peak oil is wrong because some day we'll use hydrogen and uranium instead?" is rhetoric. I have know idea what your pronoun "this" is that you contend I've proved.

I stipulated that all non-renewable resources have a Hubbert curve. What I stated, I thought clearly, was that the shape and size of any Hubbert Curve is dependent upon the definition of what you are measuring. Is there a Hubbert Curve for light sweet crude? Yes ... and then there is another Hubbert Curve for all conventional crude oil with a peaking year further out in time and maximum production greater than the light sweet crude curve. And then there is another Hubbert Curve for all conventional petroleums with a peaking year beyond that at a higher level of total production. Then there is yet another Hubbert Curve for all conventional plus first tier non-conventionals (crude + condensates + NGPL + RG + Conventional HC/Oxygenate Liquids + Ultra Heavy Crude + Tar Sands + Coal to Oil + Gas to Oil). This Hubbert Curve has a peak decades from now at levels significantly higher than the conventional oil Hubbert Curve. Beyond that is yet another Hubbert Curve for all conventional plus first tier non-conventionals plus shale. This Hubbert Curve has a peak centuries from now.

Right now we are starting to substitute conventional gasoline engines with a set of new engines and motors. Consider a world in which say 50% of the power of your 2015 car comes from gasoline burned in a small efficient engine and 50% comes from stored electric power you bought from your electric utility. Lets assume all electric power is produced by burning coal. All you have done effectively is exactly the same thing in terms of resource depletion as adding South African style coal to liquid gasoline unconventional to the Hubbert depletion model. Its simply a matter of economics whether its cheaper to crack coal into gasoline or burn it in a giant utility plant transmit the energy to you as electricity and then use that to add power to your small gasoline engine. The world will probably do both depending upon localized economics.

A 2008 $4 gallon of US gasoline (9.22 million bbl/d of consumption)is about:

28% Domestic Crude Oil (4% Alaskan + 7% Gulf of Mexico + 17% Lower 48)

5% Domestic Refining Gains

10% Natural Gas Plant Liquids (NGPL)

4% Mostly Domestic Hydrocarbon/Oxygenate liquid adds (3% Ethanol 1% other, the US imported a trivial 28,000 bbl/d in 2007 of fuel Ethanol, 12,000 from Brazil, 5,000 from El Salvador, 5,000 from Jamaica ...)

53% Imported Petroleum (19% Canadian comprised of 9% crude + 2% NGPL + 8% Tar Sands Unconventional Oil, 15% Saudi Arabian, 14% Mexican some of which is unconventional heavy, 11% Venezuelan some of which is heavy, 11% Nigerian, 5% Angolan, 5% Iraqi, 4% Algerian, 2% Ecuadorian, 2% Kuwaiti, 2% Brazil, 1% Columbian, 1% Russian, 1% British, 7% everyone else none above 1%).

Now jump ahead to 2015. Assume the US follows a price shock efficiency gain similar post-1979(when we went from the last oil crisis to the last global oil glut in 1986). Post 1979 average mpg of the fleet went from 17 mpg to 22 mpg in the mid-1980s. 13% gain on 90% of the vehicles with gasoline engines (including Prius-style internal storage hybrids) and a 10% market share for Hydrogen Fuel Cells evolving along the 2008 Hondas, 100% plug-in electric evolving the 2009 Chevy Volt, and 2nd Generation Prius Hybrids with plug in charging). Assume this fleet in total gets 50% of its power from external electric including the electric power needed to crack the water into hydrogen.

In 2015, 2008's gasoline consumption of 9.22 million bbl/d is dropped to 8.9 from conventional fleet gains along the post-1979 experience on 90% of the fleet plus an additional reduction of .46 million bbl/d from 10% of the fleet going plug-in Electric/Hydrogen with 50% of power from gasoline. This would suggest a 2015 usage of 8.44 million bbl/d of gasoline - this is just an estimate, but its plausible. In 2008 about half of all petroleum and other hydrocarbon liquids are used for gasoline. Assume that there are no net gains on non-gasoline uses of petroleum as economic growth washes productivity and substitution gains - this is a very conservative assumption. So we are talking around 17.75 million bbl/d of inputs of which 9.31 million goes to non-gasoline usage.

Assume the EIA's most recent (June 2007) reference case 2015 unconventional hydrocarbon liquids production. These figures in light of changes from 2007 to 2008 are conservative.

2015:

2.3 million bbl/d - Canadian Oil Sands

1.0 million bbl/d - Heavy/Ultra Heavy Crude

1.4 million bbl/d - Biofuels

0.6 million bbl/d - Coal to Liquids

0.5 million bbl/d - Natural Gas to Liquids

These figures are global but would be disproportionly consumed in the US (the expectation being that the Chinese will probably go hard with coal to liquids).

So in 2015 the US would look something like this:

30% Domestic Crude Oil

5% Domestic Refining Gains

11% Natural Gas Plant Liquids (NGPL)

6% Mostly Domestic Hydrocarbon/Oxygenate liquid adds (5% Ethanol)

2% Coal to Liquids

1% Natural Gas to Liquids

1% Domestic Heavy, Sands and Shale

44% Imported Petroleum (of which Canadian Tar Sands would rise to 15% and 2% NGPL, Mexican and Venezuelan heavy and even ultra would be roughly 8%, leaving conventional imported crude at comprising a gallon of U.S. gasoline at 19%).

"Would you like to suggest a way to improve the article?" I did in the original post and will respond further now.

Begin with the 2nd graph in the main article which shows ASPO and other depletion models. The graph itself shows a wide range of peaking years due to a great extent to the definitional issues I raised. There are apple models which show crude oil only, peaches which show crude oil and Natural Gas Liquids (what the EIA and I called Natural Gas Plant Liquids, not to be confused with unconventional gas to liquid) and orange models which cover all conventional liquids - crude oil, condensates, NGPL, refining gains and liquid blends. In the production of consumed liquid petroleum products all these conventional source resources are currently used in significant quantities.

The graph uses 2004 data. The meaning of historic data then from 1940 through 2004 is unclear. The graph combines models of Crude Oil, Crude Oil + NGPL and Crude Oil + All Conventionals. The actual production histories of these three resources should be graphed from a reputable source - say EIA. Then each of the models should be labeled with the year they were run and graphed from that point forward.

What a neutral article should show is a graph with a series of Hubbert Curves for a series of ever broader definitions of resources. If you people want to simply make assumptions which prove your political positions go ahead and graph Hubbert Curves of depleting light sweet crude. I’ll be filling up in 2015 my 40 mpg car with gasoline and 11 cent kilowatt coal-fired electricity. That this gasoline is comprised of significantly depleting light sweet crude is true and also solved. The sky hasn’t fallen either. 38.112.20.26 (talk) 19:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9

What you didn't stipulate clearly is why you would lump those various energy sources together in a big Hubbert curve. There's a whole section on non-conventional oil and it's effect on Peak oil, and given that most of the numbers out right now include these non-conventional figures, I'm not sure what you'd want changed as far that those are concerned. As for the other resources, right now we have a petroleum economy, and all of our technology (from fuels and plastic parts to lubes and cleaning supplies and fertilizers) rely on petroleum. There's a whole article about changing that fact (mitigation of peak oil), but just saying it could happen doesn't make it so. Sure, we could make oil of coal, but then you'd have waaaayyyy less for you electricity. Now, what I'd really like to see you do is make petroleum out of nuclear power.

Hubbert warned about this in the 50s, we saw what could happen in a hurry in the 70s, and Hirsch wrote a whole report in the 90s for the government that said we still weren't on the right track. You are asking for a graph showing something that isn't happening. The fact that you hope to be driving a hybrid that only gets 40 mpg in 2015 shows you're just as non-serious about dealing with the real issues here as too many others... that's just not progress. There were cars in the 1940s that were that efficient (the Crosley got 50mpg!) without the need to burn more coal besides. And all the while demand keeps going up and up and up. NJGW (talk) 03:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

"You are asking for a graph showing something that isn't happening."

Graph 2 shows precisely that. See Graph 2's current non-crude conventionals which are the plots labeled "All" rather than "CO" for crude only. EIA's crude plus conventional has a peak beyond 2030. Why the assertion that conventionals aren't happening given that the difference between crude only and crude plus conventionals is in the millions of bbl/d right now.

International Energy Outlook 2007 - Report #:DOE/EIA-0484(2007)- Release Date: May 2007 Table G2. World Conventional Liquids Production by Region and Country, Reference Case, 1990-2030 (Million Barrels Oil Equivalent per Day)

Year	1990	2004	2005	2010	2015	2020	2025	2030
Total World	65.7	80.4	81.9	86.2	91.6	96.5	101.4	107.2

Note: Conventional liquids include crude oil and lease condensates, natural gas plant liquids, and refinery gains. Sources: History: Energy Information Administration (EIA), Office of Energy Markets and End Use. Projections: EIA, System for the Analysis of Global Energy Markets, run 2007March21a (2007).

Then we could take up non-conventionals which are in place now. If you were to plot EIA's Crude + Conventionals + Non-Conventionals the Hubbert Curve will peak well above 120 million bbl/d beyond 2030. Then there's a trillion barrels of American Shale beyond that.

Report #:DOE/EIA-0484(2007) - Here is the history of non-conventional HC Liquids (million bbl/d):

Year	Canadian Tar Sands	Heavy	BioFuels	Coal Liquids	Gas Liquids	Others	Total
1980	0.2	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2
1990	0.4	0.0	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.7
2000	0.7	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.3	0.2	1.7
2004	1.1	0.6	0.4	0.08	0.3	0.2	2.6
2010	1.9	0.9	1.3	0.3	0.2	0.0	4.5
2015	2.3	1.0	1.4	0.6	0.5	0.0	5.8
2020	2.7	1.2	1.5	1.1	0.8	0.0	7.3
2025	3.2	1.4	1.6	1.8	1.0	0.0	9.0
2030	3.6	1.7	1.7	2.4	1.2	0.0	10.5

The EIA is scheduled to update this soon, no doubt with the recent spike in conventional crude oil, the supply of unconventionals will increase. My suspicion is that the projections of future Chinese Coal to Liquids are underestimated.

The gallon of US 2008 gasoline going into your car is comprised of:

8% Canadian Tar Sand Unconventional Oil

12% Natural Gas Plant Liquids (American & Canadian) - Conventional

5% Refining Gains - Conventional

4% Other Hydrocarbon Adds of which 3% is Ethanol

7% Mexican and Venezuelan Unconventional Heavy Oil

64% Conventional Crude (susbtantially reduced % from 1980).

BOTTOM LINE ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF PEAK OIL:

Is there a Hubbert Curve for global Crude Oil? Yes, for any given price.

Is that peak immanent? Maybe

At what level is crude going to peak? Depends a lot on price and substitutions but

70 million bbl/d is on the low end and 100 million on the high.

When will this occur? Probably, somewhere between now and 2030

Why the range? Because any finite resource has a set of Hubbert Curves that results when you relax the simple model's fixed price assumption. There is a fixed quantity of oil on Earth. How much of it can be recovered is dependent on price, which pays for the cost of that recovery and the tech to be able to recover it. The integral of the Hubbert Curve is the total amount of production. The peak of the Hubbert curve and the rest of its shape is complex and the difference between the integral of the Hubbert Curve that humanity actual experiences and the total amount of oil on Earth is an extremely large quantity. This economically and technically unrecoverable amount is so large in fact that small changes in the price of oil, results in small changes to the percent of oil that is economically recoverable. But when you ably a small percentage change to a large quantity the changing results represents years in terms of altered peaks and changes of millions, maybe tens of millions of bbl/d of peak production.

Then it gets even more complex when you allow price to vary and you apply it also to the demand side. So as the price of oil rises more oil is recoverable but less is demanded as consumption switches to alternatives. Say for example, hydrogen. So when you raise price the new Hubbert curve will have a lower peak due to lower demand and demand side substitutions but a greater total area due to supply side tech and cost recovery.

So from an evironmental point of view isn't high oil prices good? That's not clear. High oil price will mean that the total area of the Hubbert Curve will become larger, so the total amount of carbon burned is greater. But the peak usage of oil will be lower, so the rate of the carbon injection is slower. You need to consider the time carbon remains in the atmosphere and the marginal effects of atmospheric carbon levels.

U.S. crude oil production peaked in 1970 at 9.64 million bbl/d. But we took off-shore drilling in the Eastern Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific along with ANWR offline for environmental and political reasons (although the peak may still have been in 1970 had they been allowed). By the way, as evidence that a simple Hubbert Curve is price dependent, U.S. crude oil production is currently increasing again even though we are beyond our 1970 peak.

Will this mean that there will be less physical petroleum derived products after the date of global crude Peak Oil? No, this is the fundamental flaw in the Peak Oil Advocate's arguments. This flaw is in the form of a non-sequitur: Hubbert Curves are true and the peak of crude oil is at hand (a plausible if not outright true minor premise), therefore the world is about to run out of gasoline (false major premise).

Why is that? Because there are a lot of very close substitutes for crude oil as an input for petroleum based outputs, like gasoline.

But aren't those substitutes theoretical? No, these substitutes are called "conventional" hydrocarbon liquids and production is about 10 million bbl/d globally right now. These conventionals are not exotic and have been used for decades. When you plot the crude + conventional Peak Oil Hubbert curve the peak is at least 2030 and the production per day is over 110 million bbl/d. The US Department of Energy "reference" case model of June 2007 estimated 2030 global conventional oil production at 107 million bbl/d. The reference case is a set of assumptions is a mid-price with moderate global economic growth assumption.

U.S. crude production is 5.1 million bbl/d. U.S. Crude + Conventional production is about 8.8 million bbl/d and is rising! DOE estimates the US domestic crude plus conventional production will climb to 9.5 million bbl/d through 2020.

Do you mean things Canadian tar sands? No, those are called "non-conventional" oil and represent another set of next best substititutes to crude oil and the conventionals. Currently, the world is producing about 3.5 million barrels per day of these non-conventional hydrocarbons. When you plot the Hubbert Curve for crude + conventional + non-conventional, we're still on the left hand side of the curve in 2030 in the DOE model at 118 million bbl/d and rising.

Currently the U.S. is producing about 9.2 million bbl/d of Crude + Conventionals + Non-Conventionals. The DOE's reference case projects U.S. Crude + Conventionals + Non-Conventionals to rise to 10.1 million bbl/d through 2030.

So here is the 2007 DOE model for Crude + Conventionals and Non-Conventionals - Globally (million bbl/d) fromhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/ieopol.html

Year 2030

Scenario Conventional Non-Conventional Total

Low Price 128.3 5.4 133.7

Reference 107.2 10.5 117.7

High Price 89.1 14.3 103.4

38.112.20.26 (talk) 20:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9

1. Please review your points, such as missing info from graphs... it's actually there.
2. Please add links to outside graphs INSTEAD of tables and copy/paste jobs; this will increase readability of your posts.
3. Please remove the political commentary from your post. It makes it too long to read, and this is not a political forum. Also, you need to start adding citations for any allegations you feel are somehow important enough to stay on this talk page.
4. Feel free to suggest cited text for an addition to the section on Peak oil criticisms. NJGW (talk) 21:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

"If you relax the assumption again to include sustain higher prices at or above the current $130, then shale comes into play and the bell curve extends out into the next century." Comes into play - when? Oil shale isn't something one flips on with a switch. Building the extraction plants and associated infrastructure takes decades, and the Law of Unintended Consequences can interfere at any point. (The oil shale industry has been burned before by unexpected drops in oil prices following price shocks. This further delays the necessary investment.) The relatively easier Athabasca Oil Sands have their extraction-rate limits as well; from the peak oil article:

• Another study claims that even under highly optimistic assumptions, "Canada's oil sands will not prevent peak oil," although production could reach 5 million bbl/day by 2030 in a "crash program" development effort.
  • Söderbergh, B.; Robelius, F.; Aleklett, K. (2007). "A crash programme scenario for the Canadian oil sands industry" (PDF). Energy Policy. 35 (3). Elsevier: 1931–1947. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2006.06.007. Retrieved 2008-06-17.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Exponential growth in demand for oil makes short work of any increase in reserves. Two billion emerging middle-class consumers in China and India aspire to the gaswasting U.S. lifestyle; if they get what they want, oil consumption could multiply fast enough to burn quickly through any conceivable expansion in unconventional oil extraction. In the meantime, the world has added about 250,000,000 new people since world oil extraction plateaued in 2005; all the new arrivals essentially have to eat oil, since the non-petroleum-dependent fraction of agriculture hasn't been adequate to feed the world's exploding population for decades. See Albert Bartlett's lecture: Arithmetic, Population, and Energy. --Teratornis (talk) 19:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Increases in tar sand production in the EIA's high price model represent only 28% of increased non-conventional oil production from 2005 through 2030. EIA shows 4.4 million bbl/d of tar sand oil by 2030. Total conventional and nonconventional does not peak in this report. Global Insight contributes a section in the report regarding global GDP growth and total energy consumption which shows exponential economic growth and linear total energy consumption.

• • U.S. Energy Informational Administration (2007). "International Energy Outlook - 2007" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-06-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

38.112.20.26 (talk) 20:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)glennscott9

So after reading this mile-long rant, can you list the definitions that need to be clarified or changed to give fairness to all sides? Can we get specific here? Kgrr (talk) 13:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing heard in two months.

 DoneKgrr (talk) 11:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Demand Growth

I think it's worth pointing out, as the demand graph indicates, that demand increase in the US over the past decade and a half or so has rivaled that in China in absolute terms. people assume that it's all a matter of developing economies demanding more and more oil, but America's own increase in demand has contributed a comparable amount to tightening markets. I'd put a blurb in about this myself, but I don't have the actual numbers, and I don't want to just eyeball it off that graph...TastyCakes (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that demand growth in China over that period is exponential, compared to a more linear trend in the US (where we may be dropping off starting this year). The point is that tells us what to expect in the future, which is more important. The US has done it's damage, but consumption rates now seem to be tapering off. NJGW (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree part of the issue with China is that it is projected to grow much more in the coming years. But the fact remains that in the current supply crunch, demand growth in the US is as much at fault as in China (or almost). The fact that China is starting from such a low level of course means that even a great percentage jump in its consumption is smaller than a relatively small percentage jump in America's already high consumption. I think this simple fact is overlooked by a lot of people, and that it should be included in this article. People say "oh, Chinese and Indian demand increase over the past decade has driven up the price of oil", well yes it has, but America has done its part in the picture as well. Incidentally, I think stating categorically that any country's oil use is going to increase exponentially or taper out is unwise in the current market, and I certainly don't think it's established enough to be presented as fact in an encyclopedia article (unlike America's demand increase over the past few decades). TastyCakes (talk) 18:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree with TastyCakes. This article should definitely mention that fact. Note the use of the phrase "in absolute terms".Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually I agree with you both. That is an important caveat to the whole 'China/India consumption growth' issue raised in the demand section. Can you find a source which makes the comparison for us? NJGW (talk) 19:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It's silly for Americans to blame the Chinese and Indians for trying to do what Hollywood has been urging them to do for decades - drive cars like all the pretty people do routinely in Hollywood movies. The U.S. has lived in the dreamworld of cheap petroleum, and sold the dream to everybody else. This finger-pointing reminds me of a child who eats most of a bag of potato chips, and then blames another child for eating the last dregs. The U.S. is the world's largest importer and consumer of petroleum, and will be for a long time. The Chinese and Indian governments must eventually stop subsidizing fuel to the individual citizen, regardless of political fallout, because the rising price of oil would otherwise bankrupt them just as it must eventually bankrupt any nation that depends heavily on imports and fails to cut them. The world cannot consume more oil than it produces, so if world oil production falls, so must world oil consumption. It won't matter whether China's consumption has been growing exponentially up until then. China's consumption can affect the schedule of rising oil prices, but even if the U.S. was the only nation that consumed any oil, the U.S. could consume all the world's oil by itself - and might have gotten close by now, had the 7% annual growth in consumption (doubling time: 10 years) during the 1950s and 1960s not been interrupted by OPEC. At the United States' historic exponential growth rate in oil consumption, we could have doubled three more times since 1970, putting the U.S. alone around 80 million bbl/day of consumption by now. Which is about what the whole world currently consumes. --Teratornis (talk) 20:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Soap. Although I guess a little leeway is to be expected in talk pages... I just want the page to point out the facts concerning oil supply and demand. The more opinion and speculation that can be removed from it the better. TastyCakes (talk) 21:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The demand growth causes the peak oil problem to become worse sooner. Since it's not easy for someone to increase the supply of oil, the supply curve is relatively steep or 'inelastic'. Also people are really not ready to change their consumption habits and in addition when the number of consumers is growing, we get a steep or 'inelastic' demand curve. When you have these two conditions together, prices tend to soar. It's not just India and China, but it's also the lack of conservation.

So what can we do in order to resolve this issue? Kgrr (talk) 14:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The growth in demand will not change when the world peak in production happens/happened. It's a non-factor in this article. It is, on the other hand, very relevant to the Price of petroleum article Kgrr (talk) 11:16, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Lead

I think the lead looks overly long in this article... I think almost everything that needs to be said (and then some) is said in the first paragraph and the rest should be moved to lower sections (possibly with some of the dangers of peak oil without sufficient mitigation thrown in). I also think it goes too deep into the Hubbert stuff for an introductory paragraph. Perhaps it could be mentioned, but I think the whole thing should be moved to a "history of the concept" or "Hubbert's Peak" section. TastyCakes (talk) 17:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. If the lead was reworked along with the next few paragraphs as a coherent whole, I'd support inclusion of timing in the lead even though it's going to stir controversy. 17:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC) 80.238.240.15

The lead is long for a reason, long articles have long leads so a person can just read the lead and get a good overview. NJGW (talk) 17:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not think this article needs a lead this long to give a good overview of the concept. I think a good lead would look like this:

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. Because the world's petroleum supply is effectively fixed, if global oil consumption is not mitigated before the decline phase begins, a world energy crisis may develop because the availability of conventional oil will drop causing prices to rise, perhaps dramatically. People have predicted the possibility of reductions in standard of living, economic output and even a breakdown of society as a result. While there is little argument that peak oil will eventually occur,when it will occur is subject to significant debate.

Does that not effectively wrap up everything the intro has to say? I'm not saying the rest should be deleted, but that it should be integrated into later sections. TastyCakes (talk) 18:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, think this is much better than the current lead. Obviously, I don't have the editing experience you guys have and I don't know all the proper policies but still... there's so much cruft in the current lead! We've seen in the past few days several editors going straight for the lead with their pet concerns and sometimes without having a basic understanding of the article's topic. That can't be a good practice. I can see how a lead might need a massive clean up every so often if a lot of editors behave like that. Yeah, this is only WP:My_Opinion. 20:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC) 80.238.240.15 —Precedingunsigned comment added by 80.238.240.15 (talk)

No it doesn't. For a good overview of "lead philosophy" read wp:lead. It suggests that articles over 30k should have a 3-4 paragraph lead, and that there be no "teasers" in the lead (rather concepts and ideas should be explained). Effectively summarizing the whole 130k article in a single paragraph is not possible. Think of it this way, the lead should be able to stand on its own as a mini-article. NJGW (talk) 18:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where the "teasers" are in my summary paragraph. If there is more information that could be added, sure. But most of the first paragraph is on hubbert's method. This is then followed by a paragraph that says the same thing as in the second sentence, but now provides a possibly biased POV source. The third paragraph says (in a very verbose fashion) that some people think decline in oil production will happen very rapidly. The fourth paragraph is on why some people think peak oil is not/will not be a critical issue and the fifth is a paragraph on why some people think it is/will be. It is not, in my opinion, a matter of there being too much information for summary in one paragraph. It's a matter of the intro becoming sprawling, repetitive and overly detailed. If there is enough unique information to sum up the idea in 5 paragraphs, fine. But I don't believe that is the case in this article as it stands now. The intro could be significantly cut down and would be, in my opinion, a better article as a result. Peak oil is a simple concept with very complex possible repercussions. I would expect many such subjects to have leads much shorter than the lengths of their article would suggest. TastyCakes (talk) 18:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

"Teasers" means you give all these concepts, like mitigation, crises, and predictions, without explaining what they are and why or how they are important. Right now the lead tells a)what peak oil is, b)how the idea came about, c)why it's important, d)what can be done about it, e)when people think it will happen. An effective summary. NJGW (talk) 19:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of the concept of a teaser. I don't really feel like fighting about this, but I will ask, why is Hubbert's theory explained in greater detail in this article's lead than in its own article? And how is it an effective summary if you could describe the same in perhaps half the space? I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I just think the lead section is wordier and less concrete and to the point than it could be. But if I'm the only one who thinks that, whatevs. Do I get points for using whatev in a sentence? hmm I have to stop hanging around teenagers so much. TastyCakes (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I will attempt to answer why is Hubbert's theory explained in greater detail in this article's lead than in its own article? Simple. Detail of the basics described in Hubbert's theory have been dragged into this article in order to fend-off POV pushing. The lead is much more wordier than it used to be when worked on this article to achieve GA. I think it's time to bring the lead back into a concise, easy to read section. The lead should give you the important nuggets that peak oil are all about. Kgrr (talk) 02:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done

"Every energy unit delivered in food grown using modern techniques requires over ten energy units to produce and deliver."

This sentance gave me pause. I'm not necessarily disputing the claim, but doesn't it require a citation? 207.119.87.217 (talk) 00:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The same claim exists in the wikipedia Agriculture article in the Agriculture and petroleum section. It has quite a number of references. Take your pick.Kgrr (talk) 21:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Good catch! I added a "citation needed" there. Thanks for producing a ref if you've got quite a number.

A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation indicates it's an incorrect factoid. A more believable ratio would be 1:1 (in the U.S.) It would only be true if you included the sunlight to grow the food in the energy total. Most likely it's an urban myth that someone found somewhere on the Web. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It is correct. Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to the consumer in the U.S. food system. Giampietro and Pimentel, FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY (1994) Kgrr (talk) 01:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice try but no cigar. If you actually read the full report rather than the executive summary (which doesn't actually give numbers), you will find it says that 1 kcal of inputs produces 1.4 kcal of outputs in United States agriculture. Other than that, I have doubts about the objectivity of the paper, not to mention the organization itself (dieoff.org?). They're trying to claim the US is running short of farmland for its population, but China has less farmland than the US and manages to feed 1.3 billion people on it. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Do have the actual paper? To my knowledge, the full paper is not online. Did you find it online? Then why don't you correct the reference. Dieoff.org is not the publisher of the Giampietro and Pimentel 1994 paper, it's Carrying Capacity Network. Paper is just re-posted in dieoff.org. Where it was reposted should not affect its credibility. Kgrr (talk) 12:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

"In their refined study, Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to the consumer in the U.S. food system. This includes packaging and all delivery expenses, but excludes household cooking).20 The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy. This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable fossil fuel stocks." Dale Allen Pfeiffer (2003-10-02). ""Eating Fossil Fuels"". Energy Bulletin. Retrieved 2008-07-09. Kgrr (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I did find the actual paper cited which like almost everything is available on the Web, and it stated that the US agricultural system produced 1.4 kcal of output per 1.0 kcal of input. I could probably find this one, too, but it's getting too much like the Federer/Nadal tennis match at Wimbledon - there's always a spin on the serve and it goes on and on until you can't see anything anymore. Anyhow, the relevance to peak oil is limited because "fossil fuel" agricultural energy inputs (e.g. for fertilizer, irrigation, and crop drying) largely come from natural gas and coal-burning power plants, so oil doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with it. Ball's back in your court. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You found their initial draft.Kgrr (talk) 05:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I chased down their next version from the citation and I keep not seeing the 10:1 ratio in it. What I do see is that they added a few extra numbers to get a 1:1 ratio. Other than that, their paper contains a lot of highly dubious theorizing which is not hard to refute using publicly available data. And I'm getting sick and tired of chasing down second and third-hand references from people who claim documents say something completely different from what the documents actually say.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 06:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

OK ... So I have a proposal. Since it's not important to the peak oil case and definitely not urgent, I really don't want to chase down what amounts to a very small side effect. We should leave the claim alone in this and use the Pfeiffer2003 article (above) that has a reasonably credible source like Energy Bulletin serve as our reference. Let's soften the claim from a definite 10:1 to something like it's thought to be anywhere from 2:1 to 10:1. And then we should pose the question to the Agriculture article and let them solve what the true ratio is if it is important to them. And then if and when they figure it out, let's correct this article. Otherwise, we get caught up in solving something that is not really urgent or important to the peak oil article. We have much more urgent matters to deal with.Kgrr (talk) 13:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not really a solution. If you take a truth, and an untruth, and average them, you end up with a half-truth. The problem here is that the cited reports say something completely different than the authors say they do. That's because someone (Party A) quoted someone else (Party B) who quoted the original source (Party C). You shouldn't do that (see WP:citing sources, particularly with reference to checking content). By the time you (Party D) read Party A's interpretation of what Party B thought Party C said, there was nothing left of the original data. The original data showed that the energy ratio was between 0.5:1 and 1:1. That is useful information because it demonstrates that biofuels are not the hoped for solution to the peak oil crisis (because it shows that it is basically an expensive way of converting diesel fuel into ethanol fuel), but it is otherwise misleading and off-topic. So, unless someone feels up to writing something about the energy balance of biofuels in relation to peak oil (which has been analyzed by various sources), I suggest we delete it. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

My point is 1) You have never read the updated Giampietro and Pimentel report that is being quoted because it's not online. 2) You don't trust a second hand reference (for which I gave you a link and the full quote above) because you believe it's a myth and 3) that we are not going to pee in our pants if this problem is not solved right away. 4) A ratio of 0.5 energy in and 1 food energy out is impossible when including total energy costs like fertilizer and transportation. The best available is nature where 1 unit of energy in produces 1 unit of food energy out. To make fertilizer from oil takes energy, to bring the food to market takes energy etc. 5) If you delete it, people will miss the point that our current methods of agriculture are very fossil fuel dependent. So what I was saying was soften down the claim because it really does not have to be accurate to the dime for this article and the exact figure still seems to be up for debate. The claim has been softened up already by someone else not paying attention to the talk page and it reads: "It has been claimed that every energy unit delivered in food grown in the United States (using early 1990s techniques) required over ten energy units to produce and deliver[115] although further analysis largely discounts these figures as based on oversimplified assumptions." But I am against deleting the point entirely.Kgrr(talk) 11:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

1) So far I've read numerous papers by Giampietro and Pimentel and so far they're all at variance with the quoted statistics. 2) I don't trust second hand references, period. 3) It's a minor issue but it annoys me because the numbers don't match the original sources (which happens to be the FAO). I think the numbers should match the sources. 4) Here's a thought experiment: take a seed, plant it by hand in your garden, ignore it until it's mature, pull it out of the ground by hand and eat it. Your fossil fuel consumption is zero. So, 0:1 is the best food energy ratio you can get. 4.a) Hardly anybody uses oil to produce fertilizer - the economics are unfavorable. Most people use natural gas or coal. You could use nuclear, solar, or wind power. The conversion of all inputs to oil equivalents is misleading because most agricultural inputs are not oil-based. 5) I think I might have found the source of the 10:1 ratio. If you grow food and feed it to animals, and then eat the animals (ref: Pimental) you might get a ratio in this range. For chickens the conversion factor from grain to meat is 4:1, turkeys: 10:1, pigs: 14:1, and so on. Pimental's solution is to become a vegetarian. But if this is what they are alluding to, the article should say so.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 01:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not worth arguing about. Throw the point out. But you are confusing energy in Kcal/caloric value in Kcal with weight of food to grow a full grown chicken, turkey, pig, cow.. etc. Your seed does need sunlight to grow. Kgrr (talk) 04:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) For what it's worth, I read somewhere that up to one third of the petroleum input to food energy in countries such as the U.S. can come from driving a car to the grocery store to buy the groceries. It should be relatively straightforward to add up all the food calories in a particular shopper's load and compare it to the energy content of the fuel burned to go shopping. For example, if a single adult eats 2000 kcal/day and drives to the grocery once per week, it wouldn't take a very long drive to burn up more than 14000 kcal in gasoline. Gasoline#Energy content lists the energy content of one gallon of gasoline as150,100 British thermal units (37,800 kcal). Thus a 20 mile round trip to shop for one week's worth of food in a car that gets 20 miles per gallon would consume more than twice as much energy in gasoline as the shopper needs as food calories for one week. Another way to look at it is if you could somehow survive by drinking gasoline for food energy, two gallons of gasoline would be enough to power a human body for about a month. Not many forms of food can deliver energy at such low cost, except perhaps to buy grain directly from a farmer and mill it yourself. (Single adult shoppers would probably be more wasteful than adults who shop for whole families, since the latter would haul larger loads per trip.) In other words, I bet a lot of people who drive cars to shop for groceries are themselves spending more energy in petroleum than they get by eating the food they buy. (Since I bicycle to the grocery store, I know I can only be burning a small fraction of my grocery calories to fetch the groceries - otherwise I would eventually starve by burning more calories than I can haul home.) Also note that the energy requirements of food vary enormously with the type of food. Low-calorie lettuce trucked all the way across North America probably has a fantastically wasteful ratio of petroleum consumed per food calorie delivered, and similarly for frozen fish flown to cities far inland from fish markets on the coasts. Low-processed food from the local farmer's market might have relatively low petroleum input. The amount of petroleum input to food probably shows up in the cost per food calorie from different foods. The cheapest sources of calories you can buy at the grocery (such as flour and oils) probably have the lowest petroleum input per food calorie - or else the producers would be losing money on them. Grain-fed poultry or beef will clearly have more petroleum input per final food calorie because of the energy loss that occurs when animals eat plants to add weight. And that's part of why steak costs more than spaghetti. But probably no food at the grocery store is a cheaper fuel than petroleum. To get really low petroleum food you'd probably have to buy it directly from a nearby farmer and avoid using petroleum for processing and transportation. It's too bad humans cannot digest grass and wood - then we could eat at the bottom of the food chain, like goats or termites, without needing any petroleum. --Teratornis (talk) 07:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Fact tags that need to be resolved

1. As the synfuel would be used on site, the process would be more efficient and may just provide enough fuel for a new organic-agriculture fusion.{{Fact|date=May 2008}}{{huh}} Kgrr (talk) 03:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Typically the author of this line has one month to come up with a reference. I will give it t the end of July before this sentence gets deleted due to the lack of a supporting reference.Kgrr (talk) 14:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

 DoneKgrr (talk) 13:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

2. " however, coal-to-liquid technologies could provide an extra 150 years or so of liquid fuel without impacting electricity generation" (this was inserted to day by an anon editor; besides being off topic and pushing a specific POV, it's unsourced; will consider finding a better spot for it if it ever gets a good source) NJGW (talk) 21:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's highly dubious, particularly the "without impacting electricity generation" part, so it needs some backup. First, there's the obvious problem that converting coal to an oil substitute would remove it from use for electricity generation. Second, C2L technology is very expensive and environmentally problematic and so has mainly been used in wartime by countries who's oil supplies have been cut off. Third, it's more efficient to burn coal as coal or syngas rather than going through the process of converting it to liquid. And last, people will never let us forget about the greenhouse gas issues. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

 DoneKgrr (talk) 13:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

3. "As Peak oil is concerned with the amount of oil produced over time, the amount of recoverable reserves is important as this determines the amount of oil that can potentially be extracted in the future." This is a nonsense statement. Peak oil is really concerned about the rate of oil produced over time. Kgrr (talk) 19:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Alaska oil reserves peaked in 1978

Alaska oil production peaked in 1988

It's Reservoir Engineering 101. Oil production rates are highly predictable once you know the total oil reserves and the reservoir characteristics. Different fields have different curve shapes, depending on reservoir drive, but once you have them fully delineated, you know what they're going to do. For example, here's Alaska reserves on the left and production on the right - a typical Hubbert bell curve and highly predictable once discoveries peak. Now, in the case of Alaska it's a left-skewed bell curve - they pre-drilled a lot of the wells in anticipation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline being completed, so production came on fast and then peaked when Prudhoe Bay was fully drilled out. This is typical of a lot of recent US fields. They drill them as fast as possible to get the cash flow - some of the recent Gulf of Mexico fields have peaked in the first year of production - and then they follows the decline curve down a highly predictable slope. The flip side is that once you know what the production decline curve looks like, you can estimate what the total reserves in the field are. The oil companies have all kinds of software to do that for them.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confusing "reservoir engineering 101" with what needs to be written about in this article. I understand that peak oil and oil depletion are related. In Wikipedia we need to separate these two topics so that the articles don't overlap too much. The peak oil article deals with what happens with the production rate. The oil depletion article deals with how much oil is left. The diagram on the left is irrelevant to the Peak oil article because Peak oil is not about how much oil is left, but it's about the peak in the oil production rate. However, it might find a place in the oil depletion article. The diagram on the right is fully relevant to the article - it shows the oil production rate peaking in Alaska. It has nothing to do with the oil depletion article. Again, this talk section is not a forum about the oil industry, but a forum about the article we are writing. Can you please stay focused? Kgrr (talk) 11:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done

United States Oil Production + Imports != Consumption?

I see similar numbers all over the web. u.s. oil production : approx 5 Million barrels per day u.s. oil imports : approx 10 Million barrels per day u.s. oil consumption : approx 20 Million barrels per day

this obviously doesn't add up. what am I missing here? the same numbers can be seen in the graphs in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.81.252 (talk) 23:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that it's hard to get sources to explain what exactly they mean when they say oil/petroleum. See the tablehere from this EIA page to see where those 5, 10, and 20 numbers come from and how it actually does all add up. 5 and 10 refer to crude, 20 refers to all petroleum products. NJGW (talk) 00:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are a few things going into the 20 million bbl of consumption which are not actually oil:

• Natural gas plant liquids,
• Imports of refined products (the US is short of refinery capacity and imports a lot of fuel),
• The infamous processing gain (the increase in volume resulting from the fact that the products are less dense than the oil they are produced from).

So, you have to add NGL's to the domestic production and refined products to the imports, and then adjust the volume for density changes. This complicates the calculation quite a bit. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 01:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Agricultural effects

It seems to me that 'Agricultural effects' section is un-proportionally long and goes details which don't belong here. At least, the fourth level subsection 'Mitigation of agricultural effects' is not needed by the structure nor by the content. Of course, this is important information, but suits better in the Agriculture#Agriculture and petroleum or in its own article.Beagel (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

It does seem rather long and off-topic. Nitrogen fertilizer, for instance, is not manufactured using oil but natural gas, and if the latter ran short there are substitutes for it. In the "mitigation" subsection it gets completely off-topic by discussing at length organic agriculture and genetic modification. So, I think some pruning would be useful.RockyMtnGuy(talk) 05:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions?Kgrr (talk) 19:07, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Move to the Agriculture#Agriculture and petroleum.Beagel (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Moved.Kgrr (talk) 10:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Lead

Here is an outline of the current lead.

• P1 Introductory paragraph on Peak oil.
• P2 Peak oil theory as related to M. King Hubbert's original paper
• P3 Economic effects
• P4 Political and ecomomic reactions to high prices
• P5 Optimistic timing of peak oil
• P6 Pessimistic timing of peak oil

Can we agree that no further changes are needed in the lead? I am getting tired of re-writing it all the time to remove POV and duplication of material. Perhaps we should "lock it" by restoring it if it is changed without discussion here.Kgrr(talk) 19:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. I think that should be stated in the first section above or in a FAQ. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I wanted to go over the second archive for more points to place in that first section. NJGW (talk) 19:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's discuss what parts of the archived version needs to go back into the lead. I think it's very close to where it needs to be. Kgrr (talk) 08:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The lead appears to be very stable now and appears to have reached consensus. Please discuss any changes before making them.Kgrr (talk) 14:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Hubbert's background

Probably a good idea to include some information on Hubberts background and influences. Since as a famous geo scientist he was totally immersed in these ideas of http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics - Encyclopedia of Earth and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophysical_economics Thermoeconomics - Without including that information in some form it kind of shorts out the actual significance of Hubberts contribution. So... I put some bio information at the start to give people a reference for this geo scientist.skip sievert (talk) 21:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No. This article is about peak oil, not M. King Hubbert. You copied a couple of sentences of his biography and then deleted the link to his biography. If anyone needed to know more about him, they would have been able to follow the link. I've reverted your "contribution" Kgrr (talk) 08:25, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Hubbert invented the concept.. why not say a little about him? I mistakenly deleted the link to his page... that should have been there along with the new information. Maybe you are right though.. and the extra bio information is redundant... Could it be possible to mention a little something though about his background in the article here... do you think ?... or is it overkill?skip sievert (talk) 15:30, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The lead is pretty explicit in stating that it is Hubbert's concept. There are links in the first two paragraphs to Hubbert himself, as well as to Hubbert peak theory and Hubbert curve. Yes, more info on Hubbert himself would be overkill... there are people who think the lead is far too long already. NJGW (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok... Sorry about accidentally removing the wiki article link to Hubberts page... an oversight on my part.skip sievert (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

We have all made mistakes while editing on Wikipedia. Fortunately, the whole community of editors check each other's work. --Teratornis (talk) 06:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Dubious

(was new sections)

I added two minor sections, one for supply and one for demand on the way politics enters the scene. I also demoted nationalization so it's a subcase of political oil supply. TMLutas (talk) 02:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for discussing your sections here. I have edited the titles of the sections so that they can encompass outside forces on the free market. On the demand side, I *disagree* with some of your assertions. While taxation and subsidies can influence the demand, they don't affect the supply. Peak oil is about the rate of supply, not about the demand. Please correct your new sections or provide references to back up your text. On the supply side, we will need some more text to add meat to monopoly and some of the other claims you make. I suggest we only discuss the major factors. Kgrr (talk) 13:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

A major comment on your reference: 1) Do not use blogs as a reference, they are not credible references in Wikipedia. 2) Do not use the inline style of references in this article. Please see above for the proper reference style for this article.Kgrr (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The section in question has been removed because of a lack of consensus on the issue.Kgrr (talk) 10:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "wood082004" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/worldoilsupply/oilsupply04.html |title=Long-Term World Oil Supply Scenarios - The Future Is Neither as Bleak or Rosy as Some Assert |publisher=[[Electronic Industries Alliance|EIA]] |author=Wood John H, Long Gary R, Morehouse David F |date=2004-08-18 }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/worldoilsupply/oilsupply04.html |title=Long-Term World Oil Supply Scenarios: The Future Is Neither as Bleak or Rosy as Some Assert |date=2004-08-18 |publisher=[[Energy Information Administration]] |author=Wood John H, Long Gary R, Morehouse David F |date= |language=English |accessdate=2008-07-27 }}
• "wsj111907golddavis" :
  • {{cite news |url=http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3265 |title=Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production |author=Gold Russell, Davis Ann |date=2007-11-10 |publisher=[[Wall Street Journal]] }}
  • {{cite news |url=http://www.rigzone.com/news/article_pf.asp?a_id=53040 |title=Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production |author= Gold Russell, Davis Ann |date=2007-11-10 |publisher=[[The Wall Street Journal]] }}
• "RCDuncan2001" :
  • {{cite journal | quotes = | author = Duncan, Richard C. | date = | year = 2001 | month = November | title = The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge | journal = [[Population & Environment]] | volume = 22 | issue = 5 | pages = pp. 503–522 | issn = 0199-0039 (Print) 1573-7810 (Online) | doi = 10.1023/A:1010793021451 | id = | url = http://dieoff.org/page224.htm | language = English | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote = }}
  • {{cite journal | quotes = | author = Duncan Richard C | date = | year = 2001 | month = November | title = The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge | journal = [[Population & Environment]] | volume = 22 | issue = 5 | pages = pp. 503–522 | issn = 0199-0039 (Print) 1573-7810 (Online) | doi = 10.1023/A:1010793021451 | id = | url = http://dieoff.org/page224.htm | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote = }}
• "koppelaar092006" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/asponl_2005_report.pdf |format=PDF |title=World Production and Peaking Outlook |publisher=[[Peak Oil Netherlands]] |author=Rembrandt H.E.M. Koppelaar |date=2006-09 }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/asponl_2005_report.pdf |format=PDF |title=World Production and Peaking Outlook |publisher=[[Peakoil Nederland]] |author=Rembrandt H.E.M. Koppelaar |date=2006-09 |language=English |accessdate=2008-07-27 }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/asponl_2005_report.pdf |format=PDF |title=World Production and Peaking Outlook |publisher=[[Peak Oil Netherlands]] |author=Koppelaar Rembrandt HEM |date=2006-09 }}
• "energybulletin112006" :
  • {{cite news |url=http://www.energybulletin.net/22381.html |title=CERA says peak oil theory is faulty |publisher=[[Energy Bulletin]] |date=2006-11-14 }}
  • {{cite news |url=http://www.energybulletin.net/22381.html |title=CERA says peak oil theory is faulty |publisher=[[Cambridge Energy Research Associates]] (CERA) |date=2006-11-14 |language=English |accessdate=2008-07-27 }}
• "campbell1222000" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html |title=Peak Oil] Presentation at the Technical University of Clausthal |author=Campbell CJ |date=2000-12 }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html |title=Peak Oil] Presentation at the Technical University of Clausthal |author=C.J.Campbell |date=2000-12 |language=English }}
• "censusworldpop" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html |title=Total Midyear Population for the World: 1950-2050 |publisher=U.S. [[Census Bureau]] |date=2008-06-18 |language=English |accessdate=2007-12-20. }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html |title=Total Midyear Population for the World: 1950-2050 |publisher=U.S. [[Census Bureau]] |language=English |accessdate=2007-12-20 }}
• "deffeyes012007" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html |title=Current Events - Join us as we watch the crisis unfolding |date=2007-01-19 |publisher=[[Princeton University: Beyond Oil]] |author=Kenneth S. Deffeyes }}
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html |title=Current Events - Join us as we watch the crisis unfolding |date=2007-01-19 |publisher=[[Princeton University: Beyond Oil]] |author=Deffeyes Kenneth S }}
• "bostonglobe122005" :
  • {{cite news |url=http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/12/11/price_rise_and_new_deep_water_technology_opened_up_offshore_drilling/ |title=Price rise and new deep-water technology opened up offshore drilling |date=2005-12-11 |author= |publisher=[[The Boston Globe]] }}
  • {{cite news |url=http://boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/12/11/price_rise_and_new_deep_water_technology_opened_up_offshore_drilling/ |title=Price rise and new deep-water technology opened up offshore drilling |date=2005-12-11 |author= |publisher=[[The Boston Globe]] }}

DumZiBoT (talk) 21:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I have been working on references. I will check the duplicate references and eliminate duplicates. Thank you for the report. Kgrr (talk) 13:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done

I am new so please excuse the question. Did you just thank a bot? as in an automatic process?? (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)aharon42 (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Technically I thanked a bot. Thanks for reading and contributing.Kgrr (talk) 10:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nationalization of oil supplies

"politics have now entered the equation of oil supply"

Why is it that nationalization is politicization but privatization is NOT politicization? Is a policy of private sector control over oil supply not politics? Is a policy of private sector control over policy not politics? Rtdrury (talk) 23:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think politics have been there since the beginning. I think it's control over the supply and demand in various ways.Kgrr (talk) 05:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Well as more and more of the world's oil reserves are controlled by national oil companies (I think it's over 95% now), it becomes increasingly possible for oil to be used as a political tool of some countries' governments. Similarly, companies likeSinopec and CNOOC are competing in the world at large with the backing of the Chinese government, because securing sources of oil is a national priority for the government. They are offering what amounts to "state scale" aid (loans or investment in hospitals, schools, infrastructure etc) and trade agreements for access to their oil, which is/was simply not possible from the private oil companies. So in short, while oil was of course always an industry heavily entwined with politics (which makes the original quote above kind of naive), I think it's certainly getting more so because now the politicians (rather than the businessmen) have control of almost all of the oil. TastyCakes (talk) 16:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

When a national government owns an oil resource, it may respond to market signals differently than a private individual or company that owns an oil resource. In general, we might expect private owners to pump oil out of the ground faster in response to higher oil prices. A national government, on the other hand, might consider other factors such as what it sees as the long-term interests of its citizens, and slow the extraction rate of oil so as to avoid exhausting the resource quickly, which could leave the whole country high and dry sooner. A government can often afford to plan farther ahead than individual firms which have to satisfy shareholders every quarter; thus a government could decide to ration its oil production many years into the future, possibly in hopes of getting a higher future price, or to leave something for its children. A national government might also favor its own domestic oil consumption growth over exporting the oil for cash. See Export Land Model. Look at how much economic activity a large oil importer like the United States sustains with the oil it imports. The value resulting from consuming oil can be many times higher than the value resulting from selling it to someone else who will consume it. The only reason an oil-rich nation would export any oil is because its domestic economy isn't developed enough to use all its oil productively. The U.S. is still one of the world's top oil producers, but is a net oil importer because the U.S. economy is highly developed (and not particularly efficient). --Teratornis (talk) 06:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

It's true that national oil companies tend not to respond to price signals in the same way as investor-owned oil companies. When a publicly-traded oil company sees an opportunity to make a profit (e.g. prices go up or it finds a new oil field) it immediately issues new shares or takes on debt, drills a bunch of new oil wells, and cranks up production. When a national oil company is in the same position, the government which owns it often diverts the money to general revenue and uses it to build roads and buildings, subsidize consumption, and hire hordes of new bureaucrats. This can have unfortunate repercussions when, as in the case of PEMEX in Mexico, its biggest oil field (the Cantarell Field) goes into terminal decline. Mexico has other big oil fields, but they would be much more expensive to develop and, because the Mexican government has been skimming all the profits, Pemex doesn't have the capital or the technology to develop them. The Mexican constitution forbids foreign companies from producing oil in Mexico, Pemex can't issue shares on foreign stock markets, and Mexico's credit rating is not good enough to allow it to borrow much money, so it's stuck in a trap. Mexican oil production has been declining since 2004 and will probably continue to due so until it ceases to be an oil exporter in the not-too distant future (it has 9 years of oil reserves remaining). On the other hand, take Canada, where the national oil company Petro-Canada has been privatized. Most of the oil (for historical and geological reasons) is owned by the Alberta provincial government, which is an enthusiastic supporter of free enterprise. It has put the oil rights out for competitive bidding, with the rules designed to maximize the amount of competition. However, the government is highly aware of how fast they are being depleted and has imposed rules on the private companies to maximize the life of the fields. The result is a very flat decline curve, considerably unlike that of Mexico. In addition, since it was highly aware that the conventional oil fields were going to run out eventually, the Alberta government, in cooperation with private enterprise, spent on the order of $1 billion on research to develop non-conventional production technology. As a result, although the conventional oil is almost gone, non-conventional oil from oil sands and heavy oil deposits has grown to more than offset it, private companies are spending over $100 billion on new development, and production is expected to continue to increase into the foreseeable future (Canada has at least 100 years of non-conventional reserves remaining). RockyMtnGuy(talk) 15:02, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Tasty Cakes and RockyMtnGuy: So the motives for nationalization of oil may be different. It could be to extend the strategic value of the domestic oil by not exporting it or producing it quickly (Canada), or they can use oil investments to stimulate the economy by subsidizing oil use (Mexico), or even both (Venezuela). Either way, it's control over the oil resource. Monopolies restrict the rate of production to maximize revenue (OPEC). Since production out of oil wells is restricted by the formation the oil is in and the grade of the oil, there is an upper limit as to how fast the oil can come out of the ground. On the other hand, the oil flow can be stopped altogether. This behavior only serves to delay when peak oil and depletion happen. You can expand the supply and demand sections on control over the oil as long as it's in the context of peak oil. Kgrr (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Canadian energy production

Canadian energy consumption

Mexico and Venezuela are not really stimulating their economies by subsidizing oil to their consumers. Basic economic theory holds that they are incurring a dead-weight economic loss - but it's popular with voters. Economic principles say that if someone else wants to pay more for something than you do, you should sell it to them, and consume whatever they don't want. Here's a couple of charts of Canadian energy production and consumption. In reality, production considerably exceeds consumption, and most of the uranium, natural gas and oil go to export (mostly to the US). Note the amount of renewables used internally. Canada is selling its oil, natural gas, and uranium because it really doesn't need them, and the money is nice to have.RockyMtnGuy(talk) 03:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

RockyMtnGuy: "When a national oil company is in the same position, the government which owns it often diverts the money to general revenue and uses it to build roads and buildings, subsidize consumption, and hire hordes of new bureaucrats." They made the initial investment and then have to make payments on the debts. Until they service their loans, no one will lend them more money because (Mexico) is up to their eyeballs in debt. Call it skimming, call it what you want but whether it's a country or a business, you have to service your loans. Many of the recent oil discoveries are not economically profitable to drill for. Doing so is just like opening up a new credit card to pay off existing debts.Kgrr (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

They don't necessarily have to borrow money. They could finance it out of cash flow or they could tap world equity markets. Unfortunately, the nationally-owned oil companies have been treated like cash cows by their governments and the money has gone into government coffers (as, really, disguised taxes). They don't have enough capital reserves left to finance new ventures, and they can't issue shares to foreigners on the international markets, so they can't develop new fields. At today's prices it's hard to find an oil play that is unprofitable, but the national oil companies don't have the capital, and the multinational oil companies are using their profits from past investments to buy up their own shares and return the money to their investors. They have already developed most of the opportunities they have access to, and the national oil companies own the ones which are left.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 03:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

RockyMtnGuy: "Canada has at least 100 years of non-conventional reserves remaining" Be very aware that the 100 years comes from a production ratio (the amount of oil in the reserve / rate at which its being produced). Heavy, gunky, dirty, sour oil does not produce very fast and cannot be produced any faster. Be aware that peak oil is about a rate of supply.Kgrr(talk) 17:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Canada's ability to produce non-conventional oil is limited more by labor shortages and inability to absorb capital investments than technological or geological limitations. Non-conventional oil is very labor intensive. Canada has the reserves, the technology, the prices are high enough, and there's enough money out there looking for a way to produce oil, but frankly, Canada just doesn't have enough people to ramp up its oil production to the levels the rest of the world (especially the US) would like to see. So it's going to be a long wait.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 03:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Canada has lots of people, and many of them are looking for work due to the demise of the auto industry and its suppliers in the Great Lakes region. It's just hard to move lots of those people to Fort McMurray, Alberta, where the winter weather is much worse, and there isn't enough local infrastructure (housing, etc.) to support them. This might be a good time to get serious about telerobotics for skilled labor, with truck drivers in the tar pits earning over $100,000/year now. How hard could it be to remotely pilot those trucks? --Teratornis (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done

add more details about ethanol in article

Could we consider adding a couple of details about how ethanol is possibly inefficient. I read several articles in 2008 where even Europe is coming out against ethanol because its a net loss in terms of energy. I can do the research if other editors concur.aharon42 (talk) 19:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It's worthwhile, since I've seen a number of studies which show there is little if any gain in energy by producing ethanol. Given the energy-intensive nature of first-world agriculture, it's basically a very expensive method of converting diesel fuel and natural gas into automobile fuel. You might also mention that nobody has enough farm land to produce enough ethanol. One study I saw estimated that if the U.S. converted its entire corn crop into ethanol, it would supply 12% of the country's fuel requirements. It becomes a choice between driving and eating.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, corn based ethanol is pretty clearly just an elaborate way of converting subsidies into fuel, but cellulose based ethanol does seem to have a future. Companies like Iogen have made real headway in fermenting cellulose. That doesn't mean it's ready for prime time.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Cellulose conversion appears to be worse than converting corn. It's several times as expensive, which is why they are using corn. The sheer volume of plant material required and the fuel required to move it to the plant are the problem, not to mention the inefficiency of fermenting cellulose. The studies I have seen show about a 50% return on energy invested, IOW it takes 100 energy units of diesel and natural gas input to produce 50 energy units of ethanol output.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The figures at Cellulosic_ethanol#Environmental effects: corn-based vs. grass-based are quite different from that. Got cites? LeadSongDog (talk) 17:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I am currently reading a book called "Gusher of Lies", by Robert Bryce. You could also try Ethanol Reality Check. I was hoping someone else would do the leg work because checking numbers is tedious, particularly when there are obvious inputs like transportation fuels missing from government studies. Also, they fail to consider much more efficient alternatives, like feeding the cellulose straight into a burner. That has worked for centuries (but has led to deforestation of a lot of countries).RockyMtnGuy(talk) 18:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's another reference on the subject Ethanol and Biodiesel from Crops Not Worth the Energy from Science Daily.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's the Patzek paper.LeadSongDog (talk) 20:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

And here's Pimentel and Patzek. I'm not sure I buy their premises, though. They seem to base it on the least efficient possible implementations, e.g. 8% ethanol from the fermenters, simple thermal distillation without heat recovery, etc. They also assume feedstock grown just for the purpose, rather than byproducts of food production. GIGO pertains.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

8% alcohol from cellulose might be optimistic - other sources I have seen use a figure of 5%. You can get as high as 15% to 20% using grain alcohol fermentation, but then you're using a high-quality feedstock that is better used as food, which brings up the food vs. fuel conundrum. Best case is sugarcane, grown using manual labor and no fertilizer - e.g. in Brazil.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

No. Adding details about Ethanol is off topic. Ethanol will at best delay peak oil. The efficiency of Ethanol is discussed in the Ethanol article in the "Food versus fuel debate" section. Perhaps this debate should be isolated better and cleaned up there.Kgrr (talk) 11:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, we also have a Food vs fuel article which is the appropriate place to document the debate about biofuels efficiency and the complex interrelationship between food and fuel prices. Everybody gets different numbers with ethanol because the EROEIvaries with every corn field, every distillery, and every fueling station, just as EROEI for petroleum varies with every oil well, refinery, etc. (The EROEI for petroleum varies by up to two orders of magnitude, with oil shales at the bottom, and the long-since exhausted gushers of yesteryear at the top which returned 100 barrels per barrel invested.) There is no one single EROEI for most energy sources, as the various resource locations differ in quality and in geographic factors which influence transportation costs and so on. How fertile is a particular field? How far away is the distillery? How far away are the end-consumers? The energy gain varies all over the place and could well be negative for some combinations of corn fields, distilleries, and customers. Then again, the energy gain is probably positive overall for the ethanol industry because its profits increase as the price of oil increases. If the energy gain is negative, ethanol would require ever-larger subsidies as the price of oil increases, because the cost of petroleum input would increase faster than profit from the ethanol output (ethanol cannot sell for a higher price than the energy equivalent in gasoline). However, the U.S. is phasing out its ethanol subsidies, because the high price of oil has made subsidies unnecessary, and the industry projects continued growth as long as the price of oil stays high. If ethanol works without subsidies, it probably is not an energy loser. Also we should bear in mind the liquid fuel price premium: a unit of energy in the form of refined gasoline costs many times as much as a unit of energy in the form of coal. See Barrel of oil equivalent. Since coal is currently so much cheaper than petroleum in the U.S., comparing energy gain alone can be very misleading. A more economically relevant measure of gain might be "liquid fuel returned on liquid fuel invested" (or perhaps more generally, to account for the possibility of hydrogen or battery vehicles, "mobile energy returned on mobile energy invested.") Ethanol from corn probably wins that one, whereas wind power (unfortunately) probably does not yet. For wind power to produce a net gain of mobile energy, we need something like a hydrogen economy or electric vehicles. --Teratornis (talk) 00:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Typing error?

"Predictions as to what exactly these negative effects would be vary greatly." My language isn't English, but isn't "would be vary greatly." wrong? Isn`t it supoused to be something like "would vary greatly." or "would be very varied."190.176.242.14 (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

That actually is technically correct English, but since I agree it sounded awkward I changed it to "Predictions vary greatly as to what these negative effects would be." NJGW (talk) 03:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Citation for prediction of peak US production in 1965-1970

The cited paper, http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf, doesn't state that US oil production will peak in 1965-1970, nor anything else about necessary bell shaped curves for limited supply commodities, or how it predicts this. At least as far as I can see by reading some of the article and searching the entire article for the terms. The cited page (36) mentions none of this. There is a graph on the next page about the relative production of nuclear power and oil that when interpolated implies this. But this is just a schematic drawing showing relative production over time. Given it isn't stated elsewhere, this is not a prediction.Diderot's dreams (talk) 16:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The shape of the curve is not that of a Bell curve, it mearly resembles a bell curve in appearance. Look at pages 22-27 for the full explination. I've fixed the bell pages in the citation. NJGW (talk) 16:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the citation. I see the info is there. I didn't find anything by searching because the PDF reader doesn't recognize the text because its actually an image or set of images. Diderot's dreams (talk) 16:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Specifically the oil production peak is predicted/estimated/guestimated on page 24.Kgrr (talk) 19:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done