It's strange how we engross ourselves with political trivia but huge issues like oil depletion are ignored. The de facto position on fossil fuels seems to be
1) coal and gas exports will pay for oil imports
2) gas can replace coal fired baseload and will balance wind and solar.
None of that helps global CO2 emissions. Governments seem inordinately proud of our fossil fuel export industries whereas you'd think they would be carbon taxed under a consistent policy.

A couple of major shifts in demand could derail the gas export push. One is the fact south eastern Australia (SA, Vic & Tas) may only have another decade of reliable local gas supplies. Long term their gas will have to come somewhere else, a problem foreseen by Rex Connor 40 years ago though Rex didn't know about fracking and coal seam gas. A second development could be a mass shift to CNG fuel in otherwise diesel powered trucks and buses, perhaps even farm machinery. A trigger for that could be high bowser prices for diesel and the removal of the fuel rebate.

I think the Federal government should prepare a report on Australia's long term gas needs. How much can we export, how much can we burn in power stations and how much could be used as a transport fuel? All of that is additional to gas for heat and chemical feedstock such as urea fertiliser.

Good article Mark and pertinent comments, Taswegian. Governments are occupied with 'urgent and not important issues' so the important ones like peak oil and gas fall off their radar. I'd like to suggest some more solutions:

Yes the Murdoch press,or more broadly a lack of effective press accountability leading to false propaganda propagated by multinational resource corporations is a big part of the problem. This has to be fixed through the political process; the apathy with regards this situation is coming to an end with the Murdoch press overstepping the mark too often and the tide is turning against them.

We need a 'limited ads' paper similar to the UK's 'Guardian' to highlight the real issues. This will have to come from grass roots sponsors and perhaps, like some of the news websites that have come on line, a rich benefactor.

I disagree that modern society can't continue without fossil fuels. If you read sites such as 'Climate Spectator' and 'Renew Economy' you will see what is not written in the corporate rags. Renewable energy is viable and in many markets is becoming cheaper and new gas or coal, because there is no fuel cost. It's also a lot more secure. Embodied energy payback time is less than 2 years - solar and wind power plants produce at least 20 times more energy than is used to make them.

Planes can run on LPG stored in carbon fibre tanks. Jet fuels can and are being made from biomass. My friend's plug in electric car has the acceleration of a V8 and range of 90 kms; energy cost is half that of petrol models . Metals, plastics and fertilizers can be produced using a small fraction of today's fossil fuel consumption. The future is here, we just have to believe it and embrace it. Modern society will have to change but it can still go on without fossil fuels. Provided we make the change in time to avoid climate catastrophe and complete depletion of the fossil fuels that are left.

< Yet once Peak Oil bites, energy-producing countries may hoard the increasingly precious stuff, like Russia did with its grain harvest recently, or sell it selectively to their friends. Or to those who bully them. >

Yes. Peak oil could hit little Australia very hard and very suddenly, if supplying countries decide they are going to hoard or be selective, or if the big US and Russia bully their suppliers to supply them and no one else. We could be looking at a very ugly new world more or less overnight.

<< And now even industry is getting worried, and claiming that our sell-off of gas may leave us short of energy as early as 2015 >>

This would appear to be the key in the current in-bed-with-business political climate to getting something done about changing the balance between selling off oil and gas and planning for an energy-secure future.

Appealing to government is useless. We need a few leaders of big businesses to realise the enormous threat to our society’s future and to their profit margin or very survival. If we can get a few of them on board, we might have a chance of actually steering our society away from the cliff and ever so slightly towards a sustainable future.

Great article Mark.

Oh well, it will just be back to Daisy the cow, some chooks and
fruit trees on 5 acres. Thats how they lived a hundred years ago.
I'll just have to charge the ipad from the rooftop solar cells :)

Thinking inside a very limited circle or locked and bolted box of ideas, limits the questions and, if the questions are limited, so also are the answers; and by implications the choices. Of course there are other options. We don't need to compress methane by 2500 PSI at massive energy inputs and or cost, simply to liquefy it, when a catalytic option beckons.
Passing methane, [lighter than air natural gas, biogas,] through a catalyst, knocks off a few hydrogen atoms, and converts it to heavier than air, liquid methanol. Most jet turbines can be adapted to use gas or a denser methanol diesel mix?
4.7% methanol added to standard petrol produces a lead free high octane option; given it has less carbon than petrol it is not quite as dense and occupies more space. Even so, we can expect to get similar range, by simply installing tanks 25% larger.
As long as we humans produce waste, we will be able to produce methane as biogas. Stored on site in a simple bladder, it can be fed into a ceramic fuel cell, to create on demand power, with the bonus of endlessly available free hot water. The addition of food scraps and wastage, creates a saleable surplus, or energy to recharge body corps/tenants' electric vehicles.
As for oil and gas, we have probable reserves to our immediate north, [a euphemism for the great barrier reef,] to rival the complete known reserves of the entire middle east.
However, we could chose to produce or farm very low water use endlessly available algae, some of which are up to 60% oil, meaning, a trillion tons of annually produced algae, could provide in excess of 500 million tons plus of bio-diesel.
At the height of the worse drought in living memory, the only thing we were successfully growing, in many parts of the Murray, was oil rich blue green algae. Rhrosty.

Good article Mark.

I thought that nutcase 'Cheryl' would have commented by now...

Yabby, your comment is excellent. If we returned to that era we wouldn't have war either. Oil and war go together. Oil and exploitation go together. Oil and Oligarchs go together.

No oil = a more sensible, less destructive, more peaceful world!

If someone who hasn't contributed a post on this article is referred to as a nut case, I'll be interested to see what the reaction is to this post. Peak Oil: it's a myth in spite of people like Mark foretelling the imminent destruction of the world as we know it for at least the past 6 or 8 years. It's a myth because, as the price of oil rises due to shortage or increased demand, so alternative sources of energy will become available thanks to the laws of economics making it viable to develop or exploit the alternatives. It's an old saying but the stone age didn't end because the world ran out of stones: it ended because new and better ways of doing things were discovered or invented. So it will be with oil and the world will not suffer more than a temporary blip in the on-going and relentless march towards a higher standard of living and a better quality of life for its human inhabitants.

One of the replacement fuel options of the future will be endlessly available hydrogen. Extracted from endlessly available sea water, via vastly improved Memtech filtration/catalytic water molecule cracking, and then used to power super silent fuel cells, it becomes water again; indeed, the purest most pristine available?
Sodium ion batteries will likely replace rarer more costly lithium. Combination capacitor ion batteries, will reduce recharging times, to just 5 minutes or less.
And the introduction of the lighter than lithium sodium ion? Could extended ranges to around 400 kilometres? Given a rest break comfort stop is required for every three hours of travel? Electric vehicles may well predominate road transport options, with very cheaply produced hydrogen being preferred as an onsite, Industrial fuel cell power generation source for rail, and large industrial processes or manufacture.
Almost totally irrefutable basic common sense, should require us to build many more dams, most of which could also produce hydro electric power/hydrogen, which would maintain reasonably stable environmental flows; between increasingly severe weather events; all while mitigating against environmentally disastrous and ever worsening flood events? i.e., Massive erosion and marine environment, flora and fauna damage; or, even possible extinction?
Well look, if the sea grass and or coral is repeatedly killed off, [by suspended flood water solids,] so also the species totally dependant on it/them. Rhrosty.

If you read pages 182 and 183 from Paul Robert's book "End of Oil" published in 2004 you will see how John Howard sold off our gas at bargain basement prices to the Chinese. It is an unrecognised, tragic national scandal (Just google the book name etc. and read it online at Google Books for free.)

Congratulations Bernie Masters - you have just presented the energy economics argument against peak oil which has already been pretty well thoroughly debunked, not least by the recent commentary in Nature on 26 January. The failure of oil production to respond to the price signals since 2005 shows that the system has reached a limit and that economic theory is wrong. Its obvious - the world really IS finite.

Michael_in-Adelaide, if you read my post again, you'll see that I said: "alternative sources of energy will become available thanks to the laws of economics making it viable to develop or exploit the alternatives". Of course the world will run out of oil one day but that's not the issue. The only important issue is whether there will be alternative sources of energy to keep the world's economy turning and economics says that of course there will be.

Hay David G, where did Genghis khan get his oil from? Perhaps we could tap that source.

Then again we could just use the vast amount under the reef. It will probably be some time before the greeny useful idiots latte set start pushing for this. However like their sudden silence on damn building, when it looked like Brisbane could run out of water, they will if their life style is threatened.

I wonder how many lefty posters we would loose, if Google was off the air for a few days?

If we but invent better ways of producing endlessly available and much cheaper than coal-fired power options; and we can! Then these options will simply walk out the door; and into the third world/emerging economies/biggest polluters, especially if we can keep the cold dead hands of the worlds' fossil fuel energy cartels from getting a vice like death-lock grip on them.
We will see these same options emerge, if we but can raise our myopic focus from much more expensive wind and solar, as the only available alternative options.
Given; available wealth determines the options; then the cheaper options will invariably prevail in the poorest economies! Currently, the cheapest options are fossil fuels.
Sure we could lose some coal export incomes; but, if we could demonstrate, that coal-fired zero emission is possible and immediately available, by incorporating large scale carbon absorbing oil rich algae production as a sideline fuel producing enterprise.
Then we could more than replace any income from lost coal sales by exporting the newer technologies!
Perhaps even as income earning owner operators?
Look, every western style economy rests on just two economic pillars; energy and capital, then surely we either replace the energy pillar, with universalistic available/acceptable alternative(s); or, see human caused climate change worsen or even pass a tipping point toward a global catastrophe, from which there is no return?
And just a 2C increase in ambient temperatures is that tipping point?
Moreover, we already have enough Co2 in the atmosphere to almost guarantee we traverse through that tipping point and really must act to lower atmospheric Co2 levels, while we still can.
No amount of strong personality sabre rattling or end of world predictions or pontification, will ever achieve that outcome!
Human nature being unchangeable, and or people forced to get by and or feed a family, on just one or two dollars a day! What are their available options? Buckley's!
However, simply creating cheaper than fossil fuel, endlessly sustainable/available, carbon neutral or carbon absorbing energy options that walk out the door, will do just that. It's simple maths. Rhrosty.

We're all agreed that oil is a finite resource and at some point we'll run out of it, or at least, get to a point where the EROIE is so low it's not worth drilling for it. The question is: will we have the political will to use the remaining oil for the development of a new economy based on renewable fuels? There is growing evidence, however, that renewables alone won't be able to support the number of people we have on the planet now at a reasonable standard of living i.e. their basic needs met. Oil from algae may save the day in terms of transport fuel, of course, let's hope so. But there's another worry, and that is a collapse of the world's economic system (we are currently in a credit bubble that will burst at some stage) that may mean there is no money for the development of all these innovations coming on line. As the Royal Society said last week, we in the developed world have to cut our consumption so that the poor might get out of poverty, but global population growth must stop. As michael_in_adelaide keeps pointing out, we live on a finite planet. At some point, growth has to stop. In the meantime, however, we do face an imminent energy shortage, particularly in oil, and as a community we must focus our time and money on trying to find environmentally sound alternatives. If we can't or don't, then severe contraction in the economy and in population is the only option left.

The BP Statistical Review of World Energy (June 2011), estimated the world uses oil for 33.6% of its energy needs. So finding more oil is essential.

But, it's getting harder to find. And so, exploration is taking place in spots no one would have ever considered before. It means that as the oil price stays high — it's just under USD$120 per barrel - oil fields that were uneconomical to drill have become, well... economical.
Brent Crude - Oil just below USD$120 per barrel.

Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency has called for action on the use fossil fuel based production of electricity, oil supplies peaking and dangerous increase of global warming. In Australia road congestion is growing worse

Peak oil is a fact, not a theory. From US conventional oil production peaking in 1970 to global conventional oil production peaking in 2006 the figures are indisputable. Even institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and publications like The Economist that are not known for alarmism have admitted that oil production from conventional sources has peaked.

There is a myth that “Oil production is still increasing annually”. Like many peak oil denier myths this oft touted gem is true up to a point, but only if you include unconventional oil, natural gas liquids and biofuels etc. Which means that when you take those figures away you get…that’s right…a peak in the production of oil from conventional sources.

The question is why do we need new frontiers if oil production isn’t peaking? It is an odd concept that oil companies would spend billions of dollars in politically unstable countries and areas where the physical barriers are immense such as the Arctic just for the hell of it. The truth is all the low hanging fruit have been picked. All the easy to access and produce oil has been found and developed. What we are seeing now is increased exploration in increasingly economically dubious areas such as the Canadian tar sands, deepwater drilling, and fracking and horizontal drilling in tight oil plays.

It is as if the pundits pushing “the peak oil myth” have never seen a globe before. The world is round. There is a finite amount of land and ocean that can realistically be developed to economically produce oil and natural gas. From all the evidence that has been collated over the last few years it appears that we are pushing up against these limits right now.

Oil is the most energy dense product available on the planet, it is vital for industrial and economic ‘growth’. We are at the end of this growth paradigm. Substitution works for a while but the laws of diminishing return will come to haunt the old economic theory that we can just swap to something else when one resource becomes scarce.

Bernie Masters, the economic argument you present is dangerously naive but it is a naiveté shared by many of the world's economists -the assumption that market forces will gallop to the rescue and will cause us to switch to alternative forms of energy is consistent with economic theory but inconsistent with the way the real world operates.
The adage Businesses do not plan to fail, they merely fail to plan applies here to governments. As long ago as 1972 the Club of Rome's report warned about the dangers of relying on oil to drive the economy. Yet there was no concerted effort to develop alternatives.
Instead we have painted ourselves in a corner - we have created a world that is dependent on oil and spent little or no money on developing alternatives. So it is not a matter of oil depletion making alternative energy sources more attractive the sad reality is that we have not invested in the R & D to enable us to make a smooth transition to a an economy that does not depend on fossil fuels.

I have to wonder if any of this matters. We all live either inside or outside of a great bubble. Those who live inside believe in a future for their children and grandchildren that rivals anything from the most futuristic cartoons and movies. For them, the hope is that someone will learn to break the 2nd law of thermodynamics allowing them to do all kinds of marvellous things, many of which have been listed in the above posts.

There are also those who live outside the bubble. They believe that the use of the cheap and abundant energy contained in oil and it's derivatives have allowed humanity to breed in rampant numbers and those numbers and the use of precious resources is now threatening the very foundation on which society is built.

Does it matter which side of the bubble you're on? No amount of facts or argument will sway you. It's a bit like the argument between god believers and atheists. Nothing is going to put the issue of peak resources to bed unless or until the disastrous predictions begin to come true in an unmistakable fashion, so lets just sit back and enjoy the ride. Lets see what 2020 brings us.

If the peak resource issues become obvious, we can always blame the greens, the commos, the gays or the Government of the day. The list is endless and the Government powers will gloss it over anyway, so you'll never know the truth and that truth might just be that humanity has used the cheap and abundant energy in wood, then coal, then oil and finally gas to over-populate the planet to the point of no return where a crash of civilisation and a plunge in human numbers is the result.

But there is no imperative to conduct the research which I agree is so badly needed, BAYGON, and the reason for this is that oil is not yet in such short supply that its price has gone up sufficiently to cause people and governments to spend the billions of dollars needed to find alternatives to oil. Yes, I may be naive but, since 1972, world population has increased significantly yet global poverty has dropped in percentage and absolute terms. Some environmental problems have worsened while others have greatly improved, so the Club of Rome was wrong when it made it's dire predictions in 1972.
I see our greatest hope as GM plants being created that produce oil-like organic chemicals in their tissues that will then be harvested and refined to replace current fossil fuel oil resources. If this can be made to work, then we'll be using the sun to produce oil via photosynthesis.

Bernie - you are miles behind here in the energy debate. The alternatives don't currently exist and would take decades in any case to scale up to the level of energy use required. We don't have decades, we only have a few years.

And as for GM plants making oil etc - dream on. As a geneticist/biologist I can tell you that that is pipe dream. You need to consider the oil inputs into growing the plants, the energy provided by the sun per sqare metre, efficiency of photosynthesis etc. If you looked at that (and the competition of biofuels with our food supply) you would realise it is never going to happen.

People who make economics arguements need to put real numbers behind them instead of waving their hands and telling us that the market will "find a way".

Thanks, Mark, for an article that has implications far beyond Australia. You'd be surprised how many people in the northern hemisphere think of Australia as virgin territory, with lots of room for more people and lots of resources to be extracted. Much of this has to do with incrediby careless use of statistics; as well as worship of GNP, the God who has to be propitiated by being pumped up bigger and bigger all the time.

The prospect of having civilisation as we know it completely collapse is, I've always thought, an intrinsic part of the human condition.

On an individual level it's easy to imagine simply going back to the kind of life we had in the 19th century, when we had Daisy and our chooks and before our use of energy skyrocketed, but that's not going to be possible for everyone. If there does turn out to be an energy crisis, then we will inevitably see a period of famine and social disorder the like of which we post-WW2 dwellers are scarcely able to contemplate.

I don't think it's unreasonable to appeal to economic factors in situations like this. There will be some element of market forces giving rise to hitherto-unknown or uneconomic alternative technologies and this will offset the diminishing availability of oil somewhat. Every time an article such as this one is written, it will serve to encourage business to at least look into energy efficiency and alternative energy sources. It's pretty sensible to imagine that energy companies are probably obfuscating the actual state of energy reserves in order to protect their short term profitability (and perhaps unrealistic to expect these same companies are sufficiently prepared to weather the disappearance of their core business. Look at what happened to the photo processing and recorded music industries, and what's happening to retail, as precedents).

Mainly though I think the greatest usefulness of articles such as this is to point to the fact that we simply don't know what is going to happen in the future. We can speculate and/or appeal to scientific evidence all we like, but in situations like this we can only have confidence in our predictions when we are sure the factors we see as coming into play are 100% accurate - but given the manifest lack of clear consensus I think you'd have to say this isn't the case with energy.

Summing up, the only way to live happily is to crystallise your life down to its essence, and learn not to need anything that isn’t part of that

"... the only way to live happily is to crystallise your life down to its essence, and learn not to need anything that isn’t part of that."

not least jam sandwiches...

Even if we could find a source of cheap renewable energy or use some of the myriad suggestions above and if such sources of energy were practical, it would only exacerbate, not resolve, the problems of humans living on the planet.

Today we stand at the peak of consumption, and on the downslope of many critical metals, and other resources such as phosphate. Our ability to grow food has also peaked.

Releasing more heat into our environment, creating more electricity to power more gadgets and furher undermine the cycle of life on the planet is not what we need. As with most technology in the past, were this to become practical, given the inability of human beings to transcend our evolved evolutionary feelings and patterns of action, it would contribute further to the disparity of wealth, and hasten collapse.

The pursuit of some perpetual motion machine or free energy is a form of denial, one of the major psychosocial roadblocks to the possibility of transforming ourselves into a sustainable species.

Transmuting lead to gold, hydrogen to helium will not feed or clothe us or bring happiness. Its still a Faustian bargain where we lose our soul....

The 20 years figure sounds like 20 years of production at known reserves and is low. I doubt that the figure is right. The stat is missing something, which is probably why its been ignored in the media. Another problem is that they keep on discovering more reserves so in 20 years time you may find that the production to reserves ratio is 30 years, as in fact has been happening since they discoverd oil.

Yes peak oil is dead, but in any case it was only ever intended to apply to easy lift oil - the stuff from the big oil reserves and wasn't so bad if you took into account just oil on land. But it was never intedned to apply to total oil production, and the forecast in its modern form by Campbell and Laherrere, did not anticipate the deep ocean oil finds now being made (look up the article in Scientific American in, I think, 1988 its available online).

Gosh Curmudgeon you just can't let it go can you? Peak Oil is more alive than ever. The biggest oil find since the 1960s, the Kashagan oilfield in the Caspian Sea has 13 billion barrels of proven reserves. Development of the field has however been plagued with funding problems with Shell shutting its Caspian office in May last year. At this stage it is unlikely this field will produce anything close to the original estimates due to ongoing delays with development. Just another nail in your 'Peak Oil is Dead' arguement.

On a more important point, most here seem to believe that consumer lifestyles can be sustained as long as the world transitions to renewable energy and we produce goods more cleanly and efficiently. This assumption, reflected in political discussions, continuously pushes the message we can grow our economies while reducing ecological impact, clearly a myopic view which relies heavily on the belief renewable energy can be substituted for fossil fuels. There is little discussion whether or not that expectation is possible.

Globally we are already in overshoot. Technology will never be able to solve the ecological crises, certainly not in a world based on economic growth and with a growing global population. Claims technological solutions can solve the ecological crises and sustain economic growth are simply ridiculous.

After examining all the evidence on varieties of solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen, as well as energy storage systems, experts have concluded the figures just do not support what almost everyone assumes; they do not support the argument that renewable energy can sustain a growing consumer society.

Growing economies require vast amounts of electricity and oil which today simply cannot be converted to any mixture of renewable energy sources, each of which suffer from limitations arising from intermittency of supply, storage issues, resource limitations, scarcity of rare-earth metals land for biomass competing with food production, not to mention inefficiency.

We must, as global consumers, learn to live ‘simpler lives’ using less resources and energy and build a new economic system based on equality and sustainability.

"We must, as global consumers, learn to live ‘simpler lives’ using less resources and energy and build a new economic system based on equality and sustainability."

I'll drink to that! It's a shame that the mega-wealthy, the warmongers, the capitalists, the Oligarchs and the imperialists won't!

Curmudgeon has raised an interesting point about 'deep ocean oil finds', namely, the ultra-deep pre-salt deposits off Brazil and elsewhere. Despite their huge depth (the Tupi field lies below 2,000 metres of water and then 5,000 metres of salt, sand and rocks), the Brazilians are certainly beginning to produce from these. Whether they can do so without major environmental accidents like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or whether production of such oil will have a high enough EROEI to make it worthwhile in the long-term, remains to be seen. It would be nice to have a cushion from the coming oil shock but, on the other hand, the atmoshere would hardly cope with having an additional 400 billion barrels of oil burnt. Maybe it's time the world agreed that we have to keep a lot of our coal and oil reserves in the ground to save ourselves from irreversible climate change.

Yes popnperish, that's why I named my son Sam Yandwich.

I think you'll find that the world is never going to agree on anything. And even if it does, there will always be some way consensus is undermined from within. That's the whole problem - you just have to learn to live with it.

Well I am pleased to see that I am not all on my own.
Roses1, the problem is not with the media but with the politicians.
While I do not go along with conspiracies, I do think that pollies in
most countries have agreed, probably with a wink & a nod, to pretend
that there is no problem at all. After all if they spoke the truth they
would be expected to do something about it.

I seriously doubt that we have enough land able to be allocated to
the growing of crops to fuel just our own aircraft, let alone visiting
aircraft. Alan Joyce understands the problem, he is just hoping that
they can keep flying.
Re natural gas, well the old joke about "Would you fly in a coal fired Aircraft ?"
is very relevant, I definately would not fly in a cng aircraft.

Australian depletion is now at approx 18% /yr depletion rate.
Now you know now why Shell closed its Sydney refinery and the others
are planing the closure of their refineries.
From about now we are fully at the mercy of overseas refiners and
suppliers. Just hope nothing goes wrong anywhere or we will not even
have emergency supplies of petrol & diesel.

We have no choice but to use all available alternative energy sources.
As the Hirsch report shows to make a smooth transition to whatever
comes next we need 20 years to prepare. To make the change with only
very bad depressions and very high unemployment we need a 10 year start.
We have missed the boat, so we are in for a very bad time ahead worse
than the 1930 depression and because of the bad food supply situation,
according to the UN, there will almost certainly be starvation.

Ho hum doom and gloom predictions such as these have had a poor track record since Malthus. This is all part of the same system of beliefs which brings you fears of overpopulation, resource depletion, global warming etc.. Anyone remember the food gluts which led to dumping of crops off the coast? We have had as many problems with excess as we have had with lack.

The US has more than 100 yrs of gas for its own population at today's usage rates but the author doesn't want gas either. What does he want? Apparently to get everyone worried about his Malthusian ideas though he presents little evidence for them other than what someone else said.

I guess enough people will take the bait to keep him happy for a while.

Do people really think that industry and Governments of the West will just let it all run out overnight while amateur doomsayers will be proven correct. Don't think so.

Rhosty, I think you had better go back and study chemistry again. Sodium comes after Lithium in the periodic table. It might be cheaper, but is certainly heavier, actually almost twice the density of lithium.

David

Fracking for gas/oil is merely a game extender. Oil from fracking accounted for less than 5% of daily U.S. consumption last year. This is even after a 750% increase in tight oil production since 2003. Clearly there needs to be an unprecedented increase in exploration and drilling from fracking to even begin making a dent in the broader shortfall.

Fracking production figures for individual wells commonly decline 60-80% in the first year followed by a more gradual decline. This means new wells must constantly be drilled to avoid production for a whole area dropping off very quickly. The EIA forecasts that domestic production of tight oil will max out at 1,325,000 barrels a day by 2030. This is only 7% of current U.S. daily consumption.

No one seriously believes that the U.S. economy can grow without increasing oil consumption. The numbers don’t stack up.

As for the “The United States is now or will soon be a net oil exporter” phooey - the rise of tight oil extracted through fracking has been hailed as a new era for U.S. energy independence. Some have even gone as far as saying that the U.S. is now a net oil exporter. The devil is in the details. On a Btu basis the U.S. imported 58% of the oil it consumed in 2011. Now it is true that the U.S. became a net oil product exporter in 2011 for the first time in over sixty years. This is however very different from being a net oil exporter. Petrol, diesel and heating oil made up the majority of these products, much of this oil was imported as crude, refined in the U.S. and then exported.

This doesn’t make the U.S. a net oil exporter. Total net crude and product imports did fall 11% in 2011 to 8.436mb a day, the lowest point since 2005. Domestic oil output did rise 3.6% to 5.673mb a day. But this still leaves a 48.7% difference between imports and domestic oil output, a huge gap that the IEA forecasts will not be closed as far out as 2035.

Geoff of Perth
I see from your second post that you're beginning to see reason in this debate. I have hopes that you will soon realise that peak oil is not so much dead but never intended to apply to total oil reserves in the first place. Its been consistantly misapplied. Recent scare stores concerning peak oil have, however, completely died for all but a fringe element.

The deep oil stuff is just part of the known and completely untapped reserves, notably unconventional oil. Check out the stuff on the Canadian fileds and ask yourself why Canada only recently become a major oil exporter.

Judging by the responses perhaps there were two articles that Mark wrote. Increasingly it seems that terms like climate change, population growth and climate change generate a pavlovian response where the substance of the argument rapidly drowns in a morass of misconceptions.
It was treasury that stated Australia would run out of oil by 2020 - Mark quoted the treasury statement and then asked quite reasonably what plans have been made? The government seems on other occasions to act on treasury advice so why not this time?
For those who are convinced that a business as usual scenario will see us through or those who are convinced that we should be aiming for a zero carbon high energy economy the following link might be instructive. The danger of the absurdity is well summarised here http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

David; of course you are right about sodium density! Currently, we get about 300 kilometres range, out of a half ton of lithium. Denser sodium ion crystals might hold 3-4 times more stored energy in smaller half/quarter ton battery packages?
That is why they may enable increased range? Denser heavier but much smaller very long life packages, might be conveniently contained inside a tubular carbon fibre chassis, where the weight is positioned to assist a significantly enhanced lower centre of gravity and better handling characteristics.
Sodium is much more common than lithium; albeit, we have quite a lot of the latter and a virtually captive market?
Capacitor/battery combinations already trialled; demonstrate, that a three quarter charge is possible in just five minutes. Enough to allow reasonably placed recharging stations to serve our future long distance needs? Albeit, much of our intercity travel needs will be replaced by the optic fibre highway and very rapid rail options?
I agree with the other posters who say that our globe is already over populated and further growth is unsustainable?
As is turning food crops into alternative fuel! A process which always accompanied by an energy debt. Cheers, Rhrosty.

Not 'Cheers!' Rhostry, 'Glooms!' as the original author of this article is wont to say...

It's the same problem that we had here in NSW when the dams started to run dry, not so long ago.

It suddenly occurred to the citizenry that no-one had actually articulated a plan for the State's water for more than fifty years, meanwhile, the population grew a tad. The government eventually cobbled together a plan to keep the State's thirsts quenched, and spent a cool couple of billion on a desalination plant.

The dams are now 100% full, and the government faces a difficult choice: run the water from the plant back out to sea at a cost of $80-$100 million a year. Or close the whole thing down and write off the investment.

This is a purely economic problem, and the writer is fully justified in asking the question - why is the government not listening to Treasury. The presence or absence of oil itself is less of an issue - neither Sweden nor Switzerland produce a single drop of the stuff, and their population is not starving last time I looked. But if we are about to run out, and require replacement sources, these need to be planned for, I would think.

Doomsday scenarios are fun, of course, but not the most relevant issue.

What is a point to sell gas and coal in enormous amounts to pay for oil imported?

Electrical cars and nuke mini-engines could do without contributing to overseas-based monopolies.

@ myforum - peak oil is not jut about transport - hydrocarbons in their various guises form the backbone of the global economy. Our love affair with the motor car inhibits politicians from doing anything that will deny access although if we were being practical we would stop burning the stuff for private transport and restrict its use to the manufacture of plastics and the like - this at least would buy us some time.
Electric cars are a possible solution - most all electric vehicles have an effective range of 300kms between charges but would only constitute progress if they were recharged using solar panels

The situation that the world finds itself in is really simple.

We now use 5 to 6 times the amount of oil we discover in each year.
There is only one possible conclusion to such a parameter.
Any oil found now is more expensive to extract or is in more expensive
areas in which to operate. They are not drilling kms below the sea bed
just for fun. As these more expensive sources get mixed with the older
oil sources the ratio changes and the price per barrel goes up & up.

The only end to this is that the oil gets too expensive to sell and
its cost leaves nothing to buy food. At that point production stops.
It is at this point that we hope "someone" has found the magic bullet
that can keep us in business as usual.
Natural gas can extend the time to when we reach cutoff.
If we are silly enough to sell off all our natural gas then all we do
is reduce the time margin to get the energy transformation done.

It is the politician's job to manage that transition, as after all
surely their main job is to manage the country to adapt to changing
conditions. That must be the most fundamental political job !

Rhrosty; The only electric car that I am aware of that has a range of
300km is the $100k + Tesla which has a large battery.
The Mitsubishi imev has a range of about 100km and the Nissan leaf has
a range of 150km.
Range anxiety seems to disappear after the driver gets into the habit
of plugging in whenever he arrives home.

I placed an preliminary order for a Nissan Leaf and last week had a
call from Nissan to confirm I was still interested as delivery was for June.
I then said you must now have a price.
Yes, he said $51,500 including charger !
Now this price is $20,000 dearer than the US price and $10,000 dearer
than the UK price for the same car.

I told him to forget it, as I don't pay the "Rip the Aussie Off Price"
I got a lot of spin about Australian design rules, taxes etc etc
but he had no real answer.

The Nissan Leaf has a good reputation in the US and the owners seem
very enthusiastic about the car and it would have suited me for the type of travel that I do.

I will just wait until the market can start pulling the price down.
The electric Ford Focus is reported to be available later this year.

Curmudgeon:

Africa is the last great oil frontier, Madagascar has been targeted by Exxon and Norway’s Statoil since 2005. Statoil has found a billion barrels of oil equivalent. That may seem like a huge find but consider this: the largest conventional oil field in the world, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has produced 65 billion barrels of oil since 1951 from initial reserves of over 100 billion barrels. The Madagascar field extends down to Mozambique where Anadarko have found 1.3 billion barrels of oil. Further inland Tallow has found 1 billion barrels of proven reserves in the Ugandan Albert basin.

Plenty of other African countries are now being explored by a number of interests but they have yet to show any major finds.

Oil pundits might be saying “game on” but really all there is to show at the moment is a lot of hope and we all know that at the end of the day hope won’t fill the petrol tank. The truth is that most of the new oil finds throughout the world are less than 2 billion barrels each. The global annual consumption is currently a little less than 33 billion barrels per year. There is a huge disconnect between the size of the fields currently being discovered and the predicted future demand for oil.

Conventional or un-conventional, we are in for a very rough ride ‘oil wise’ ahead.

You might also be interested in the following link: you rate a mention in the references as number 105 in this important piece of work!

http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/CanRenewableEnergySustainConsumerSocietiesTrainer.pd

“Do people really think that industry and Governments of the West will just let it all run out overnight”

Now these are the same people that are only interested in getting re-elected or making even more profits.
Yes sure they are going to be altruistic and look to the future of the world.
I am also looking up at a squadron of pigs as they pass overhead. I don’t think so.
The one thing that could save the “end of the world as we know it” has not been mentioned as usual.
Lower the population.
If the population keeps increasing at the present rate (and there is no way that it will not) we have no chance of continuing on with our present life style.
Keep up the good work though and discuss all the different ways of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and it will take our minds off the Armageddon approaching.
You could be fooled into thinking that this has not happened before with other species and also some sub branches of humans.

Geoff of Perth - thanks for the reference where I got footnoted.. interesting.. now as for the African stuff you're quoting, sorry but you're misleading yourself.. admittedly there have been no on-shore oil finds such as the OPEC fields for some time.

But search on resources curse and Brazil.. they are trying to come to terms with being a major exporter due to massive, new offshore oil finds - an upper estimate of 150 billion barrels or so, last time I looked, and inital forecasts are always far short of final production. No reason to believe its a one-off. Other fields are out there. So the next big thing in oil prioduction is not Africa but ocean. (Although but please note you seem to have forgotten Nigeria, which has been producing oil for decades.)

Also, as I have previously noted, you still have the problem of deciding whether the undoubted production plateau is a result of OPEC deliberately not investing in production, as economists have suggested, or some sort of limit in its fields. Considering that production is not showing any real signs of major decline, it may well be the first option.

So sorry, the world will be in oil for the next few decades and maybe the next couple of centuries at least. Let peak oil die in peace.

Curmudgeon
If we accept that 'peak oil' is 'peak conventional oil' then it's a reality. Peak Oil occurred in 2006. But if it includes all the unconventional oil then we may have some way to go before reaching the peak, depending on the viability or net energy from the ultra-deep ocean deposits and the Arctic etc. If the EROEI is too low they'll stay right there in the ground. The world community may deem the Athabsaca tar sands too polluting and do to Canada what is now being done to Iran - exclude them. All of which brings the peak forward.

Sarnian
I'm the first to put my hand up and say population is the problem but it is tied to oil supply and climate change - both impact on carrying capacity. We have supported seven billion people largely thanks to cheap oil. The population will have to decline as oil inevitably will.

Even if oil reserves were not increasing, which they are with Venezuela now having more reserves than SA, Shale gas, which is convertible to petroleum equivalents, has enormous reserves, vastly surpassing known oil reserves.

And even if Shale gas were not around, which, despite the new alliance between the wretched greenies and gullible farmers, it is there is always abiotic oil.

But keep ignoring these' facts'; I know how you inner city gamers and Gibsonites fancy end of world scenarios.

A special mention to whichever pixie said this:

"We must, as global consumers, learn to live ‘simpler lives’ using less resources and energy and build a new economic system based on equality and sustainability."

And here's to that paragon of the simpler life, the one celled amoeba.

Abiotic oil Cohenite? Where's the evidence? It's an unsupported theory.
Shale gas is a gas, not a liquid and can't really replace oil for transport unless all the cars are converted. There's still controversy over how much there is and whether it can be extracted safely. We all await with interest its development but don't hold your breath.

Oh come on poper, Germany fought WW11 with petrol produced from coal, & South Africa drives around on some of it today. With todays oil price, we could produce our petrol/diesel from our coal economically.

It is just as easy to convert gas, & it would go well with the heaps of shale oil we have proven. However, converting to natural gas is not that hard, with modern cars. If it were marketed at its real value, rather than with parity pricing, we would all happily convert.

It would be much easier than converting to electric cars, with the infrastructure required for either.

I often wonder what the greenie ratbags are going to say when we have to build new real power stations to charge the fool things, if we are silly enough to produce them.

Hasbeen is correct cng is a viable option and can be used as a transition fuel.
It will require a very high cost to provide the infrastructure.
The gas would have to be distributed by LNG tankers to service stations
where they would convert to CNG for the customer.
It may be possible to supply the service stations via the gas mains if
that was within their capacity.

However it is done it will be very big money. The real problem is that
we are flat out selling our natural gas for export when we should be
keeping it to extend our transition time.

I disagree with Hasbeen on electric cars as they are more efficient
from mine to power station to wheels than any other path.
Eventually everything will have to be electric with the energy
generated by various alternative systems plus nuclear.

Ultimately we have no other choice.

Hasbeen
Some of us out here would actually like to solve the problems confronting us without being abused by people like you. The bottom line is we can't utilise all the oil and gas out there without destroying the atmosphere and us along with it. Yes, of course there is CTL and easy conversion of cars to gas, but it does not solve the problems of greenhouse gas emissions even if it does solve the energy problems short and medium term. Electric cars will be OK if we can run them on renewable energy, but we should be using what relatively cheap oil we have now to make the cars and machinery and other infrastructure for this new kind of economy.

Popnperish, actually crude oil plus all liquids flatlined onto the
bumpy plateau in July 2008 which was what triggered the jump to $147.
It appears from what I have been able to find out in that July there
was zero spare oil available and further spots could not be filled.

There is confusion as to just what is the peak. What happened in 2006
was that production of crude oil stopped increasing.
That is not the peak point just the start of the peak.
Look back in 50 years and the flat top will look like a peak.
The time of the peak will be the middle of the plateau.

Because of the scale of the oil industry it is not generally known
that all these shale oils, very heavy Venezuelan, Brazil etc etc
natural gas et etc cannot overcome the depletion rates that are now
appearing in all the old oil fields.
Some people are getting so carried away that they believe the US has
become an oil exporting country. In fact they import 40% of their oil.

Thanks Bazz
Yes, I've seen other reports that unconventional will not make up for the decline in conventional oil, especially if population and demand continue to rise. But I'm not sure any of us know yet at what point producing unconventional oil becomes unviable. Will it be low EROEI? Will it be sheer difficulty e.g. mining in ultra-deep water or the Arctic? Will it be an international treaty that forbids their extraction for environmental reasons? The situation seems to change almost daily. I'm trying to keep up but there are so many variables!

Poper, some of us would like you to stop "solving" non existent problems, costing us a fortune while you do it, & giving so much of our hard earned to a bunch of lying warmist alarmists.

Better still, get them to do something useful, like collect garbage, not propagate it.

*The real problem is that
we are flat out selling our natural gas for export when we should be
keeping it to extend our transition time.*

The real problem Bazz, is that you and other Australians won't make
a firm commitment to buy that gas, or it would be there for you when
you want it.

Companies are not going to spend hundreds of millions of $ drilling
for gas, if they cannot sell it. They are not going to spend billions
on export terminals, unless they have 25 year contracts to purchase.
Its not like a shop, where you hang out your shingle and wait for
customers. Banks simply won't fund projects that have no committed
buyer.

So without committed buyers, you would not even know if there is gas
there, as nobody would drill for it. Australians are of course free
to guarantee demand for the next 30 years, in which case your
supply will be assured

It is technically possible to make oil products from shale, tar sands, very heavy oils in capped wells, or from coal. What is unsound is the the assumption that unproved technology can and will be developed in time to cope with the peaking and then decline of world and Australian oil production. By the time oil production peaks around 2010 /12 nearly all the good oil- that is the light sweet crude that is easy and cheap to find extract and refine- will be gone. The remaining oil will be heavier and sour, and cost a lot more find, extract from difficult locations in the Arctic regions or in very deep water and to refine out all the pollutants, all of which will produce a huge increase in carbon dioxide emissions.

This change is already underway in Canada which has huge reserves of tar sands and is planning, a pipeline to the pacific coast to satisfy the need for crude oil in China and Japan. One half of the energy in a barrel of synthetic crude oil made from, tar sands is required to produce it, making it a major emitter of greenhouse gases. some oil companies want a nuclear power plant s-which will take at least ten years to build - to extract ultra heavy oil from the vast oil-sand fields.

When economists say that there is lots of oil left in the world that is an ecologically obscene distortion of the truth. Most of what's left is not the good oil, but the bad oil that will increase global warming to such an extent that it will destroy the world economy, food production and billions of people will starve. Especially if fuels for vehicles is distilled from food crops of corn, sugar or wheat, which is planned in many countries. Without oil, democratic countries with fall apart. The only ethical choice for Australia to to conserve our own oil, bear the pain of much higher petrol prices and to recognise this is threat to Australian national security is tantamount to treason by big oil interests.

Dear Hasbeen
No problems? Start by reading the post by PEST. Then move on to some climate literature. Alarmist? Me? No, just alarmed. Terrified actually.

Yabby, the demand for gas would not increase overnight, it would
wind up slowly as more vehicles were refitted for CNG.
We already have NG and as it stands now we could increase the drilling
at a slower rate than we are now undertaking. It is not a problem.

Well, Delta has bought a Pennsylvania refinery !
Hmmm, what do you think that means ?
QANTAS invests in biofuels.
Caltex preparing to close the Kurnell refinery.
Hmmm, I wonder what the QANTAS board is thinking about ?
There is a suggestion that Delta might be looking at buying oil wells.

Are we seeing a future pattern here ?

Popnperish, yes it is hard to cover everything that is happening.
All I can see is that there is a big transition ahead that will be
expensive just at the time when the financial world is in a mess with
lots of pixel money being produced, but no money for investment, except
to hold creditors at bay.

No point expecting governments to act, they are only interested in the
next election. To get anything of any substantial action will require
legislation, but they cannot admit there is a problem.
I had the opportunity to speak with my local member recently and later
sent him a copy of the suppressed report from the Infrastructure,
Transport and Regional Development and Local Government.

Despite that he is still pushing policies such as 2nd airports and
the tunnel link between the F3 & M2.

They would not see the writing on their own bedroom wall !

“The real problem Bazz, is that you and other Australians won't make
a firm commitment to buy that gas.”

The Real problem is that Australia lacks leadership who will take action.
We need a strong government that will bring in tax penalties for overlarge cars, tax incentives for economical cars, such as electric and gas fueled.

In 2005 an entrepreneur in Perth tried to startup the importation and possible manufacture of the Indian electric car called the “Reva”. The Howard Government stopped him, “because they were unsafe for Australian roads”. This was despite the fact that they had been accepted in the UK and were allowed in London, without paying the congestion charge.
It could have been the start of a viable electric car manufacturing industry instead of trying to prolong the manufacture of dinosaur “big” cars here. I am pretty sure that big oil stopped them from becoming established.

*We already have NG and as it stands now we could increase the drilling
at a slower rate than we are now undertaking. It is not a problem.*

Well then we would not know that there was gas there, Bazz. There
are plenty of areas left which have never seen a drill. So they
can be kept for the future.

Someone says this:

"Then move on to some climate literature"

The point is if you scratch a peak oiler the alarmist will usually come out of the shadows.

There is no "climate literature"; just reports on modelling; no evidence, just predictions, sorry projections.

A game I like to play is to ask the alarmists to name one paper/literature which supports AGW; just one.

Yabby, there are thousands of wells to be drilled in Queensland & NSW
over the next very few years for coal seam gas.
It does seem to be there. My suggestion is we stop the export of the
gas so that the drilling will be slowed down and ramp it up as the
demand for NG increases.

Unfortunately billions are being spent to export NG through Gladstone
so it is probably too late to stop the export. We will help other
countries extend their transition time while we exhaust our supply.

By the time the public realises that the politicians responsible will
be relaxing by the pool with their super super.

Australia has failed to support electric vehicles and not just cars.

The 250 watt “pedelec” is the safest mass produced electric bicycle. Available in Europe, Japan, and many other countries but banned in Australia since 2001, it offers a simple, healthy and viable alternative to much motor vehicle travel in urban areas. EU safety regulations applied in 2011 and Australia should adopt them for 7 reasons.

1. In 2008 pedelecs were considered safe and used in countries with overall low road death rates per 100,000 population: Netherlands and  Sweden 4.0, Japan 4.7, Germany 5.4 and China 5.7. All lower than Australia with 6.8 in 2009.

2. pedelecs enlarge public transport catchment areas and make cross suburban travel much easier across radiating rail and express bus networks.

3. Riding a bicycle uses the ergonomic ‘mechanical advantage’ of pedalling over walking to go 3.5 times as far, making tenfold more homes accessible to railway stations. pedelecs are even better.

4. Millions of the elderly find walking and driving too stressful. In 1990 Japan conducted research which found that elderly cyclists needed bicycles with auxiliary  motors that  took 50% less effort to pedal, and contributed to their own overall wellness and mobility.

5. pedelecs look similar to bicycles with male, female, fold up and tricycle frames; have wheels 20 to 28 inches; weigh 15 kg  to 25 kg.; have automatic start by ignition key; cutting out at 25 Km/hr; and use EU approved lithium batteries.

6 pedelec designs  with regenerative  braking when slowing or going down hill extend  the life or range of batteries. They can also be charged during the day from solar cells.

7. At night pedelecs could be charged with off peak mains electricity or from “back up batteries” in pedelec 'stables' at  places of work, study, shop or play,.
The “back up batteries” would be charged from roof top solar cells during the day. pedelecs have the potential to red.

Australia's regulations for 200 watt electric bicycles without automatic speed limit bans the Safer 250 watt pedelec being used

*My suggestion is we stop the export of the
gas so that the drilling will be slowed down and ramp it up as the
demand for NG increases.*

Well Bazz, if there is that huge amount of CSG coming out the top,
there must be enormous reserves of coal below that. AFAIK the
South Africans became pretty good at converting coal to fuel, so
there are the reserves that you worry about. So you can put down
the worry beads and sleep soundly now :)

Dear Cohenite
Start by reading Naomi Oreske's article and her reference to 928 papers: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

The problem with your suggestion is that the seams are too narrow to
justify open cut or underground mining.
Another reason might be that the seams are too deep.
One company, Linc Energy has a prototype plant operating at Chinchilla
in Queensland that burns the coal in place and brings the gas up and
feeds it into a Topisch plant and produces diesel fuel.
They are building a full scale plant in South Australia to use the same process.
There are lots of ideas like this but doing it on the scale of oil
production is another matter altogether.
Still they will all help, but none are permanent solutions.

popnperish refers to Oreskes and her 928 papers.

Some critiques of Oreskes:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/clouding_the_truth.pdf

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/oreskes-clumsy-venomous-smear-campaign-busted/

In regard to Oreske's list, I said pick one that you think proves AGW! Why is this so hard to do; that other alarmist Geoff did the same thing and threw a lot of tin pot papers at me.

In any event popular Mechanics has a longer list of papers which disprove AGW. I will select this one which inelectably disproves AGW:

http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/2011-09.pdf

This paper shows that the well documented climate shift in 1976-77, which was due to entirely natural factors, is responsible for ALL the subsequent temperature increase; this means that the increase in CO2 has had NO temperature effect since 1977; thus conclusively disproving AGW.

Please do the same with one of Oreske's papers.

hahahahahahaha ... deep breath ... hahahahaha ... deep breath ... hahahahahaha ... ROFLMHO

Anthony Cox just can't help it, here on OLO for Pete's sake - simply predictable and simply astounding.

Here's a tip - stick to Marohassy, Nova, or the 'Lord's blog sites ... more kudos!

Well what do you know?

Yes it's another deep, well thought out scientific argument from Bony.

Actually this one displays more use of grey matter than most of his posts.

Good on you mate, I'm sure you'll get converts with such a searching investigation into the subject.

Pick a paper bonmot and tell us why it proves AGW; if you're capable that is; I don't think you are.

cohenite,

"...this means that the increase in CO2 has had NO temperature effect since 1977; thus conclusively disproving AGW."

Da dah!

(next you'll be telling us that neutrinos travel faster than light)

Poirot, Superposition, an essential quality of quantum physics, relies on FTL conditions.

You and bonmot have presented yourselves as knowledgeable on matters of science, yet you act like teenagers and have never presented any scientific evidence for your believe in AGW.

Bonmot is obviously a troll and a tedious one at that so we'll leave him to his feckless stupidity; but what about you; are you going to contribute something meaningful or do I have to get banned again for accurately describing your comments.

cohenite,

bonmot is the one who is knowledgeable about climate science, and he has presented plenty of evidence on this forum - most of which has been greeted with ridicule and derision. If he or I resort to "antics" occasionally, it's only from sheer exasperation.

Hey Cohenite

how about this for starters:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

tends to blow all of your accusations and assumptions out of the water, but then I am sure you will have some conspiracy site reference to troll through which you can counter this with, by the way it is peer reviewed and published.

This document was written by scientists from the Department of Biology, Stanford University, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Palo Alto, and the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, I am sure they know nothing about what they are talking about!

Have another go if you must!

Cohenite,

I have just spent about 5 hours going through your latest attempt at debunking AGW; unfortunately the link you provided runs almost 100% counter to what you claim.

Your link to: http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/2011-09.pdf

Goes far from disproving AGW, if you read it in full you will come to the conclusion that overlaying a basic economic/financial précis to disprove AGW is fatally flawed on page 7.

As a marine scientist I have no problem with the physics, mathematics, statistical analysis etc.

The argument put forward is conclusive in some key areas; however the conclusions drawn are a complete 'long-bow' in disproving any AGW premise.

If you need to rely on 'Popular Mechanics' to provide proof positive of the inaccuracy or AGW you really need to take a good long and perhaps hard look at your overall evidence process.

The article, although well written, has a number of fatal flaws, in particular basing their argument on central and mid latitudinal regions, for which much is already know, and taken into account. No data is provided at the higher latitudes where extreme forcings are clearly taking place, one wonders why this was not also explored, and I think the reason will be evident to any genuine scientific scrutiny.

Cherry picking certain East Anglia data and other information within the article clearly puts a specific slant on the conclusions made.

Economic/financial theory might be ok, however understanding the forcings and logarithmic function, vital in climate and weather analysis is clearly lacking.

I know you have a particular bent on AGW and no doubt this response will not dispel your particular 'fervent support' against AGW, perhaps you could consider 'climate change' as something that does not only include warming but one that exponentially results in clear and undisputed forcing on climatic model simulations and the reality of our changing climate.

I find your blind faith interesting; most straw men fail to look at the entire picture when ones mind is already made up.

Back to the drawing board me thinks!

Geoff

For the benefit of those who think biofuels such as ethanol are the
answer to our fuel problem here is an interesting article.
It is US based, of course as most of this info comes from there.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-farming/corn-ethanol-ze0z1205zsie.aspx

It does point up the poor ERoEI of ethanol. Sugar cane is better perhaps.

cohenite,

What do reckon about the latest media campaign from the Heartland Institute. Absolutely gobsmackingly insane (if you don't mind me saying so :)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/heartland-institute-global-warming-murder?CMP=twt_gu

This is the orgainsiation that unceasingly pushes the "AGW is bilge" line.

Here's an excerpt from its own press release:
"Billboards paid for by the Heartland Institute point out that some of the world's most notorious criminals say they "still believe in global warming:....The billboard series features [among others]Ted Kaczynski, the infamous unabomber, Charles Manson, a mass murderer, and Fidel Castro, a tyrant...what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists in the "mainstream" media and liberal politicians say about global warming..."

But wait, there's more.....
"The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants and madmen."

Unbelievable!

@ Poirot,

<<Billboards paid for by the Heartland Institute point out that some of the world's most notorious criminals say they "still believe in global warming>>

I’d say it’s proof of the old idiom: “what goes around comes around”

It’s a ploy the warmists have been using for years. If you read Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway (a source much cited by warmists on OLO) you get the distinct impression that the only scientists who doubt AGW are those funded by Big Tobacco or Big Oil.

SPQR,

It's difficult to deny that a promotion such as this is incredibly damaging to Heartland's credibility. I mean it's just plain stupid.

The pertinence of you're "what goes around comes around" idiom is entirely lost amidst the inanity of Heartland's premise.

It reminds me of when Fox News started a comedy segment to counter Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert...and the segment was exceedingly lame and not funny, and consequently was pulled very quickly from programming.

...stupidy, stupidy stupidy (to quote Baldrick once more)

When economists say that there is lots of oil left in the world that is an ecologically obscene distortion of the truth. Most of what's left is not the good oil, but the bad oil that will increase global warming to such an extent that it will destroy the world economy, food production and billions of people will starve. Especially if fuels for vehicles is distilled from food crops of corn, sugar or wheat, which is planned in many countries. Without oil, democratic countries with fall apart. The only ethical choice for Australia to to conserve our own oil, bear the pain of much higher petrol prices and to recognise this is threat to Australian national security is tantamount to treason by big oil interests.

If we had leaders who had any brains or morals at all, they would act decisively and nationalize the oil and gas industry.
Only allow a small amount of gas to be exported.
Bring in a punitive tax on large cars, give a tax incentive to own a very fuel efficient or electric car.
Ban private cars from CBDs, provide free public transport in CBDs, improve, electrify and extend railways.

*If we had leaders who had any brains or morals at all, they would act decisively and nationalize the oil and gas industry*

Hehe. Given that the Govt can't even supervise the installation of
pink batts, now they are going to run the oil and gas industry :)

Perhaps you should try Venezuela and see what happened there.

Australian banana republic, here we come, if Sarnian has his way.

Yabby,
I don’t have to have my way, it will happen eventually anyway but by taking early action it would eke out our rapidly depleting resources a bit longer and give us a bit more time to prepare.
By the way in Venezuela at least the population is getting some of the profits from oil, instead of all of it going to the people running the world, the oil corporations.

*By the way in Venezuela at least the population is getting some of the profits from oil*

Hang on Sarnian, since Chavez took office, he was fortunate enough
to have the price of oil go from 10$ to 100$. Despite this, we
have rising crime rates, electricity black outs, falling food
production, a massive drop of investment in new jobs, high inflation,
a 40% drop in oil production, just to name some.

Taxation is a very sensible way for Govt to source revenue from
resources. I remind you of the 40% oil resources tax which we
are paid, for any oil discovered in Australia.

So if you nationalise the industry, whose technology are you going
to use to find the oil which is still to be found? And whose capital
are you going to sink into dry holes, when 100 million $ can be
blown on a single deep hole? We frankly don't know how much
oil Australia has, as most of the continent has never seen a drill.

“We frankly don't know how much
oil Australia has, as most of the continent has never seen a drill.”
Yabby. You are suggesting that there is a lot of undiscovered oil in Australia.
OK these days the seismic survey and other methods used negate a lot of “dry hole drilling”. The oil corps has a very good idea of what is left to discover and they are not scrambling to drill “the rest of Australia”. Could that be because they know there is none to be found?
Oil discovery for the world peaked in the 1960s. I cannot believe that big oil has not been frantically searching for more with the price at new heights.
If the industry was nationalized, then the work force will not disappear in a puff of smoke but will be actively looking for more work. I would think that it would even be feasible for our government to hire a work force to continue production with suitable oversight.

global oil discovery peaked in the late 1960s, as shown in the following chart.
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/peak-oil-reference/peak-oil-data/oil-discovery/
Since the mid-1980s, the world has used more oil than it has found. The world now discovers 10 - 15 billion barrels of new oil a year, but consumes 31 billion barrels.

Hang on Sarnian, since Chavez took office, he was fortunate enough
to have the price of oil go from 10$ to 100$. Despite this, we
have rising crime rates, electricity black outs, falling food
production, a massive drop of investment in new jobs, high inflation,
a 40% drop in oil production, just to name some.

The fact that the US has targeted Venezuela because they nationalized their own oil industry and did not come to heel even though the US tried to pull one of their covert coups and reinstall a puppet government, could have something to do with that?

By the way crime rates have risen everywhere. Food production is also falling everywhere and you would hardly expect investment in the middle of the GFC?

In the 1980s hundred of drillings for oil where made at points in a grid right across both north and south Australia. A Victorian education department employee worked on that project and told me about it but when I tried to get info he clammed up about. Anybody on the list know any thing about it and the results. Another source said it was done at the request of Resource minister Rex O'connors.

*Oil discovery for the world peaked in the 1960s. I cannot believe that big oil has not been frantically searching for more with the price at new heights*

Well yes, for shallow oil, which nearly ran out of the ground and
could be pumped for a dollar a barrel. You forget that in the
late 90s, oil was only worth 10 bucks a barrel, hardly a reason to
rush out and drill for more.

The technology to drill for deeper oil offshore, ever deeper, is
quite complex and high risk. They are still finding new oil in
places like the Gulf, where they have been drilling forever, only
now deeper. Still pleny left to drill as the technology changes.
But as we saw with the BP well, its high cost, high technology and
if you get it wrong, the cost is enormous. You need a little more
then good employees to do that. You need the very latest state of
the art equipment and global specialists. As we've seen with the
Brazilian finds, its only when you actually take huge financial
risks, that you know if its there or not. So there is plenty yet
to drill.

Given that Govt can't organise pink batts, now you want them to
risk taxpayers funds on deep well drilling! Not too smart of
you, Sarnian.

In Australia the bottom line is the oil majors are closing refineries.
That is it.
Not far in the future will import all petrol & diesel.
If there was anything significant available they would be after it.
After all their share price depends on what reserves they have.

*In Australia the bottom line is the oil majors are closing refineries.*

Well of course they are, Bazz. Why would you invest billions into
updating our old and worn out refineries at huge cost, when you
can do it far cheaper through the mega refineries in places like
Singapore? Alot of our gas/oil is in the North and West of
Australia, which is far closer to Singapore, then it is to Sydney,
with its union problems, high labour costs and red tape. The Asians
will do it better, faster, cheaper.

http://www.appea.com.au/oil-a-gas-in-australia/oil.html

Bazz, according to APPEA, we have 50 sedimentary basins in Australia,
34 of them have seen little exploration. There are of course good
reasons for this. When Hawke brought in the Resource Rent tax,
oil was taxed at 40%. Next you have company tax, another 30%.

Given that the Govt takes the large majority of profits from any
oil found, why would you take huge risks drilling in Australian
waters? Best you do what we do now, drill around 100 holes a year,
in areas where you are pretty sure that you might find something.

For companies its all about risk and reward. BHP spends alot of
money drilling for oil, where potential profits are much higher then
can be achieved in Australia. Fair enough, that is good management.

So my point remains, a large chunk of Australia has not been
seriously drilled and we simply don't know what is there, as given
the tax implications etc, its not worth the risk.

“Given that Govt can’t organize pink batts, now you want them to
risk taxpayers funds on deep well drilling!
We have already done the pink batts once beforeYabby, you are starting to repeat yourself
Thank you Bazz, you prove my point that there is not enough for big oil to keep open refineries let alone waste money by drilling.
“Its not worth the risk.” You seem to be all over the place on thisYabby, we should not nationalize the industry but leave it to the big oil, and then you follow on with “they will not take the risk of drilling because of the tax they are charged.
So what is your position on this? Big oil or Big government?
Hurry up though the government has just put out a paper that says that we will have no oil left to produce within 20 years and it takes 20 years to bring a new find into production.

Have a look at the link below , it should frighten you?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3657

*So what is your position on this? Big oil or Big government?*

I guess they could nationalise your house too, Sarnian, but I would
stick up for your rights that they don't. I don't believe in theft.

If the Govt thinks that they could find oil, they are free to cut
back on your pension and use the money to hire half a billion Dollar
deep water rigs and go drilling. We'll soon see how good they are
in the oil business. Why does it have to be one or the other?
The Govt sells oil drilling permits, they could pick the best ones
for themselves. Clearly you would agree with Govt risking your
money in the oil business, if you think that they should own the
industry.

You seem to want oil companies to take these kinds of risks, so that
you can drive your car, but you don't want them to benefit if they
do find oil. Well they are not going to risk huge losses, to keep
you happy, Sarnian.

If the Govt limited it tax take to half of profits rather then
70%, companies might be more interested in drilling for oil in
Australian waters.

In the end, the user pays for finding that oil, one way or another.
The more difficult it is to find, the more it will cost to drive
your car.

Geoff; you refer to the Schneider paper, his last before he died, proving AGW on the basis of a consensus; I rebut it here at comment 61:

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/what-does-it-take-for-a-worldwide-consensus-just-75-opinions/#comments

For those who are interested which does not include Geoff. Schneider uses a circular logic; AGW is real because all those who publish about AGW agree it is real; in other words the consensus is proved by the consensus.

In respect of the McKitrick paper; Geoff, you obviously do not understand this paper; a primer of it is here:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/has-co2-warmed-the-planet-at-all-in-the-last-50-years-its-harder-to-tell-than-you-think/#comment-1059587

And Poirot goes on about Heartland noting that various prominent lunatics believe in AGW. It's not what I would have done but then I wouldn't have done this either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIsritzu1og

Pathetic.

Yabby you are putting words in my mouth that are not coming from me, I do not want the Gov to take any risks in an oil search because I am convinced that there is very little left to find.
What I do want the Gov to do is face up to the approach of peak oil and take some precautions towards keeping the country moving as much as it will be able to.
That means conserving our resources not searching for more that is not there.
What has nationalizing my house got to do with eking out depleting reserves of oil And Gas?
To do with improving public transport to replace private cars?
No one will be able to afford to drive cars in the near future, except Electric or perhaps alternatively fueled cars.
Face it, life is going to change for you as well as everyone else/.

*I do not want the Gov to take any risks in an oil search because I am convinced that there is very little left to find.*

So Sarnian, despite the fact that all these areas have never seen
a drill, we should just accept your conviction that there is no
oil to find and you clearly don't want anyone to try.

How defeatist and foolish of you. Luckily more sensible people have
a say in these matters.I remind you that until the 60s, the
Australian Govt was convinced that we had no iron ore and the export
of iron ore was banned, until a bloke called Lang Hancock showed
that there were mountains of the stuff under our very noses.

*That means conserving our resources not searching for more that is not there.*

Well you really don't have a clue on that. Sorry, but your guesswork
is not good enough.I'd rather see some high tech oil majors take
their chance and risk their money.If the oil price goes to 300 bucks,
they might have a reason for risking even more, as long as we leave
them some of the profits to justify the risk.

If they had not drilled for gas as they have, you would not have
a clue that it was even there.

Yabby as I have said before with a question ?

In the 1980s hundred of drillings for oil where made at points in a grid iron patern right across both north and south Australia. A Victorian education department employee worked on that project and told me about it but when I tried to get info he clammed up about.

Anybody on the list know any thing about this Austrlias biggest driil or the the results.
Another source said it was done at the request of Resource minister Rex O'connors. This list does not supply sensible answers to sensible questions.

Yabby,
Things have over the last 50 years or more progressed beyond just
sticking a pipe in the ground and hoping.
When they drill these days they have a much better idea of where to
find the black gold. An article I read by Colin Campbell illustrated
this by knowing where the continental plates have been and where they
are going. He commented that that knowledge told them not to waste
their time drilling in certain places.

If I remember correctly he said that the area North of Canada would be
a waste of time for those reasons.
So that together with using earthquake pulses as well as their own
sonic systems gives them a good starting point.
There are other reasons that some areas might not be explored because
of the cost of extraction and transport at feasible oil prices.
Many areas in Australia would I think be in that classification.

*There are other reasons that some areas might not be explored because
of the cost of extraction and transport at feasible oil prices.*

Well exactly, Bazz. Oil companies don't focus on the highs but on
the lows. Not so long ago, the oil price dropped back to the 40 dollar
mark, when there was a bit of a surplus. Oil companies take note.

Once oil firmly jumps into the 1-200 Dollar price range, new areas
are opened for exploration and drilling, which we have not even
drilled yet. Next there is the political risk and financial risk.
Given that even posters here want to nationalise oil assets, the
moment that oil companies have discovered them, it is simply not
worth the risk in many countries, so little or no exploration takes
place. Venezuela for instance, has alot of undeveloped oil, but
nobody is going to invest there, so production has fallen by 40%.
Not because of a lack of oil, but because of the political situation.

Does the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) list at:
http://www.appea.com.au/oil-a-gas-in-australia/history/1959-1999.html
deal with your question PEST?

Thanks for that WmTrevor.

I note that 1992 Federal Government changes name of Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) to Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) and creates the separate Bureau of Resource Sciences (BRS) from former BMR's minerals assessment section and former Bureau of Rural Resources (BRR).

No hint of what I was looking for. My next move is to research what Minister Rex O'Connor did .

A report last year in the Economist noted:

'The old continent [Europe] has nearly as much technically recoverable shale gas (natural gas trapped in shale formations) as America. Europe's reserves are 639 trillion cubic feet, compared with America's 862, according to America's Energy Information Administration, a government agency...

'Costs are higher in Europe, for several reasons. First, European geology is less favourable: its shale deposits tend to be deeper underground and harder to extract.

'Second, America has a long history of drilling for oil and gas, which has spawned a huge and competitive oil-services industry bristling with equipment and know-how. Europe has nothing to compare with that. In 2008, at the height of the gas boom in America, 1,600 rigs were in operation. In Europe now there are only 100. America's more cut-throat market drives costs down. A single gas well in Europe might cost as much as $14m to sink, three-and-a-half times more than an American one, estimates Deutsche Bank.

'Third, America's gas industry faces fewer and friendlier regulations than Europe's. Call it the Dick Cheney effect. And fourth, in America wildcat drillers, if they strike it rich, enjoy access to a spider's web of existing pipelines, so they can get their gas to market. Europe has no such network nor open-access rules.'

There is a problem with shale gas wells. The depletion from the first
year is high, typically 15% to 20% which means they seldom last more
than two years, so another well has to be drilled.
It seems that they have to have a continuous drilling operation.
This of course is expensive and because of the low price many are
going broke.
This might be why there is not much interest in Europe.

From what I have read coal seam gas is different as coal is naturally
fractured. It would be interesting to hear how long coal seam wells last.

Cohenite, do I really need to labour a simple point, AGW is not what I have been talking about..........I support the premise that climate change is now clearly an Anthropogenic issue....big difference, perhaps you should update your mental process on what climate change really means....DH.

As to energy, explain to me why the Saudi Minister for Energy, who gave a very uninformative speech at the recent Adelaide Energy Forum, stated "Saudi Arabia is now investing heavily in searching the Red Sea for possible oil reserves, pretty much states that Saudi oil (land backed) is cactus.

I recently released a peer reviewed paper on warm water trends in a marine embayment that show clear signs of Anthropogenic emergence, perhaps when you get enough time you could read the paper and make some 'scientific comment' on the findings.

Given your so-called expertise in climate change, I am sure it won't take you too long to find it on the web.........here's hoping....fool.

Pest, I just read yesterday that the number of shale gas drilling rigs
in operation has fallen to 600 in the last year for economic reasons.
The US shale gas is having difficulty making a profit.
Contrary to what of optimists are saying the US will not be an oil
exporter anytime.