Bit nasty of you there Michael-in-Adelaide re the troll remark. You're the one living under the bridge of your mad 'end of the earth' fantasies. Your article reads like a first year reporter positively gushing over a pop star. I wonder if you can see the hypocrisy of writing anti-population articles 'while the children are asleep'?

Curmudgeon - you keep trying to ridicule peak oil concerns by referring to reserve sizes when it is production RATES that matter and are important for the functioning of the economy. If you agree with the definition of peak oil when why do you continuously try to dismiss peak oil concerns? Or do you simply not understand that activity of any kind, including economic activity, requires energy? Less energy, less activity (= economic contraction).

The truth is that your comments simply try to spread confusion and doubt where none is appropriate. Hence the troll tag...

" I wonder if you can see the hypocrisy of writing anti-population articles 'while the children are asleep'? "

? Sorry - you've lost me.

michael_in_adelaide
You were the one who keep on insisting that oil is about to run out when it isn't .. if you agree that there is plenty of oil left then we've made progress..

Now production rates have obviously levelled off.. the question is why? Because OPEC isn't producing as it should.. the fields are still going but declining.. one theory is that OPEC countries have not been investing in production and exploration as they should, as one way of ensuring that the price stays up without trying to enforce production quotas.. As you will see if you look at the production results the big news is the ongoing shift to non-OPEC oil. that is going to accelerate particularly now that they've found those vast new offshore fields. Also note the vast expansion in output from Canada.
In the mean time oil will certainly become more expensive.

As you can see peak oil is of very little use in analysing any of this. Oil is the most analysed commodity, but analysts of all stripes are often wrong in forecasting it, and that includes those who bang on about peak oil. Now you might begining to understand why I'm so dismissive of it..

Alan Parker • OAM
“Conventional oil “ is typically high quality, free flowing light oil that is under pressure and in most cases pumps itself out of the ground until about half of the oil had been extracted from an oil reservoir. The “peaking of world conventional oil production” is the sum total of all reservoir production when it reaches a peak and is referred to as “oil peaking” or “peak oil” Most, of the reserves of conventional oil requires less energy, produces less CO2
and cost less to extract and refine into fuel and petrochemicals than non-conventional oil.

“Non-conventional” oil reserves are mostly, heavy and tar like requiring a lot more investment and energy to extract from sands or rocks on the surface or under ground and then refine it into usable oil products. It includes some high quality, free flowing light oil that is recovered from oil fields in deep water (<500 m) or from Polar Regions. Non-conventional oil can also be synthesised from coal or gas which will greatly increase CO2 emissions which needs to be buried underground in safe way that prevents it leaking back into the atmosphere. This is possible by “carbon sequestration” .

Government intervention is necessary to prudently risk manage the unsustainable growth of oil dependence. Planning, researching and developing practical measures to mitigate the potentially disastrous consequences of conventional world oil production peaking is needed at least ten years before the peak.

Adapting to oil peaking without boosting CO2 emissions will be extremely complex, will involve trillions of dollars invested world wide and many years of intense effort by all the developed nations. Oil peaking presents Australia and the world with a risk management problem like that of global warming , over population and depletion of the worlds fresh water reserves.

I have lived in Iran and hd the pleasure of having dinner with Ali Samsan when he came to Melbourne and he fired me up to write a paper about oil, dependence for a transport research conference

I look forward to reading Kjell's book - thanks for 'tanslating' Michael.
I hope he addresses some of the issues in PEST's post, namely, how to deal with the decline of conventional oil without raising carbon dioxicde emissions. I am currently reading Michael T Klare's excellent book "The race for what's left - the global scramble for the world's last resources" and I am genuinely shocked by the extent of unconventional oil reserves, but will they come at an unacceptable environmental cost?