We've past peak oil - world oil stats deliberately inflated.

zod

IEA Whistleblowers Say World Oil Stats Deliberately Inflated to Avoid Financial Panic, Appease the US

World oil reserves are far lower than officially reported, the situation far more serious than publicly admitted, and we're already past peak oil. That's the word from two anonymous IEA whistleblowers, The Guardian reports. To add insult to industry, the figures were deliberately massaged, at least in part, to appease the United States:
Apparently the IEA was concerned that reporting the true reserve numbers -- and keep in mind that determining oil reserves is as much art as science -- it would trigger a buying panic.

cnocbui

Those OPEC fellas are crafty devils, got to hand it to 'em.

Capt'n Midnight

Expect the orange slice to get bigger, as the price of oil goes up alternatives will become economically viable


It's not the peak of oil

It's the peak of cheap oil

IT Loser

Venezuela and Canada have lots of that tar stuff. In Venezuelas case, it is super-heavy, which means super-expensive. Canadian Athabasca is more viable. Couldnt have happened to nicer people either.

johnathan woss

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Expect the orange slice to get bigger, as the price of oil goes up alternatives will become economically viable


It's not the peak of oil

It's the peak of cheap oil

Capt'n;
The IEA forecasts have always been optimistic (whistle blowers came out this week and said they have been massaged to appease the USA). They were revised down from the 2007 WEO to the 2008 WEO and have been revised down again.

Can you please explain what reasons you have (if any) for being MORE optimistic than the IEA about non-conventional oil supplies ?

Thanks.

Capt'n Midnight

johnathan woss wrote: »

Can you please explain what reasons you have (if any) for being MORE optimistic than the IEA about non-conventional oil supplies ?

Thanks.

roughly 1/3 of the oil in most fields is extracted - further extraction won't be cheap but is probable in the future

can't remember the exact figures but 5-10% of that is wasted in the refining process

insulating buildings and moving to diesel could reduce our demand for oil by more than 1/3
insulation of commercial premises is cheaper than building nuclear power stations to supply the waste heat

there are vast hydrocarbon stores in
tar sands
methane hydrates
coal - liquification or as simple as feeding coal powder slurry to modifed oil burners in power stations ( double the feed volume, 4% of the energy is lost boiling off the carrier water, but heat recovery may get that back , of course you need more emissions control)

technologies that are not yet on line because of cheapness of oil
oil from algae
hydrogen from algae, use to to make other fuels
methanol from chemical sources

methanol fuel cells - the only reason why the 20th century had anything other than electric vehicles is because electrical storage is too heavy/expensive.


stuff that don't work and is diverting investment and interest
bio-ethanol is a more or less subsidy for farmers , the energy used to separate out the water means at best it can be treated as a way to convert other fuels into something that you can put in a petrol tank.

hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles or indeed anything other than an energy store / energy distribution in ultralong pipelines


Again the point is that it's the end of cheap oil, not the end of oil / oil substitutes.

johnathan woss

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

roughly 1/3 of the oil in most fields is extracted - further extraction won't be cheap but is probable in the future

can't remember the exact figures but 5-10% of that is wasted in the refining process

insulating buildings and moving to diesel could reduce our demand for oil by more than 1/3
insulation of commercial premises is cheaper than building nuclear power stations to supply the waste heat

there are vast hydrocarbon stores in
tar sands
methane hydrates
coal - liquification or as simple as feeding coal powder slurry to modifed oil burners in power stations ( double the feed volume, 4% of the energy is lost boiling off the carrier water, but heat recovery may get that back , of course you need more emissions control)

technologies that are not yet on line because of cheapness of oil
oil from algae
hydrogen from algae, use to to make other fuels
methanol from chemical sources

methanol fuel cells - the only reason why the 20th century had anything other than electric vehicles is because electrical storage is too heavy/expensive.


stuff that don't work and is diverting investment and interest
bio-ethanol is a more or less subsidy for farmers , the energy used to separate out the water means at best it can be treated as a way to convert other fuels into something that you can put in a petrol tank.

hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles or indeed anything other than an energy store / energy distribution in ultralong pipelines


Again the point is that it's the end of cheap oil, not the end of oil / oil substitutes.

I've seen all that before mate.

But do you think the IEA is unaware of anything you've posted ?
What do you know that you think they don't ?

silverharp

The light blue and purple sections would look to be variable depending on the story you want to tell. I hope it doesnt include any of the dubious ultra deep water stuff which may never see the light of day

Gurgle

zod wrote: »

IEA Whistleblowers Say World Oil Stats Deliberately Inflated to Avoid Financial Panic, Appease the US

treehugger.com referring to the guardian
I think I can stave off panic for the moment.

Capt'n Midnight

If you include taxes the cost of fuel in the EU is far more than in other parts of the world.

So there is no problem with an economy working with fuel prices of $200 a barrel, we are doing it every day. This means the rest of the world could function with oil prices high enough to allow many alternatives to be come economical.

Imagine if we used the excise duty on fuel to fund renewables , our demand for oil would fall , if the entire EU did the same.


The price of oil is based on cost of production as well as supply and demand. Reduce the demand and the price falls.

Remove the speculators and the price falls further, I can't remember the average number of trades oil does, but it's something like 40 trades, with each middleman getting a cut.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/31523-oil-trading-volume-surge-desperation-of-the-roaches

1.5M contracts, representing 11.5Bn barrels of oil were exchanged on the ICE, while the NYMEX rolled about 9Bn barrels during the month. The reason traders prefer ICE is because it is far less regulated so they can play games (like taking both sides of a trade just to churn barrels higher) more easily than on the NYMEX, which has rules.

Still 20Bn barrels of oil represents some pretty active turnover for a country that "only" consumes 20M barrels a day

20Bn barrels traded in one month in the US
world supply is about 0.08 Billion Barrels a day

One of the main factors in the cost of oil is the number of middlemen taking a slice of the pie.

This one is for the global warming crowd
http://www.people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/appl5en/worldoilreservesevol.html

About 50% of all the petroleum consumption took place after 1984 and about 90% of all the petroleum that has ever been consumed was so after 1958