Sad news for peak oil disciples, apparently

Surfing google I came across this article entitled "bad news for peak oil desciples". I never really saw myself as a "disciple" of the peak oil theory, rather somebody who sees no real evidence that there are sustainable crude oil reserves left in the United States for energy independence. Nevertheless the article alludes to a number of new oil reserves discovered around the world that stacks up against the theory of peak oil:

A great example is the Bakken oil play in North Dakota, which is forecast to produce one million barrels per day by the end of the decade, up from the current level of 500,000 barrels and the mere 60,000 just five years ago. Plays such as this have resulted in total U.S. oil production setting new highs while domestic demand is still at 2008 recessionary levels. Consequently, refined products last year were the largest component of U.S. exports, which hasn’t happened since the 1940s.

business.financialpost.com...

The USG estimates that there could be as much as 4.3 billion barrels of crude oil in the Brakken oil fields. If we're talking about producing 1 million barrels a day (assuming, and this is a big if, this crude is going to to the American consumer only) that oil field will be depleted in 15 years. It will certainly be nice to have homemade crude pumped to American owned vehicles, but long term this isn't happening:
www.forbes.com...

Remember, the United States consumes more than 18 million barrels of crude oil a day.

Further down the article:

Similar developments are happening all over the globe. A story this month in Forbes highlighted a massive oil field in Western Siberia called Bazhenov, which is estimated to cover 2.3 million square kilometers — the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined. This field would be 80 times the size of the Bakken play, the article states.

Bazhenov holds a significant amount of oil shale reserves, not crude oil but oil shale, the two are different:

But as great as the Bakken is, I learned last week about another oil shale play that dwarfs it. It’s called The Bazhenov. It’s in Western Siberia, in Russia. And while the Bakken is big, the Bazhenov — according to a report last week by Sanford Bernstein’s lead international oil analyst Oswald Clint — “covers 2.3 million square kilometers or 570 million acres, which is the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.” This is 80 times bigger than the Bakken.

www.forbes.com...

Crude oil accounts for 75% of energy consumption along with gas and coal:
suite101.com...

Shale oil (otherwise known as Kerogen) is an alternative non-renewable energy. It was pimped as a viable alternative to crude oil in the later 70’s by none other than Jimmy Carter, so I find it ironic that may contrarians, most of whom are on the rightwing, promote this particular alternative source without knowing it’s an alternative unconventional oil in the first place.

I get the contrarians over their scepticism concerning peak oil, because there isn’t really a shortage of oil out there in general. It’s important that we define what we mean by peak oil and in what context we apply it to. While there may still be trillions of barrels worth of oil still locked up out there, the availability of crude oil reserves in particular, our staple energy, is in question. 40 years ago the majority of our crude was sourced from local domestic sources, these days the majority is foreign sourced and it’s been on the decline:
www.eia.gov...

Fact is, we haven’t been able to find any new viable crude reserves that will lift us from our dependence on foreign nations. There just aren't any, just afew reserves left to last us for another decade or two without heavy dependence on other nations.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I like the story.

This is an interesting topic that is very rarely discussed.

While I do somewhat agree with your assessment of possibly diminishing crude oil deposits, I am on the fence about the idea of Peak Oil.
What we have found, to date, is more like skimming the cream off of the top of fresh milk.

The politics of capitalism demands scarcity.

Everyone seems to think that Libya and Iraq were both all about the oil, but in my opinion, that is too simple an explanation.
The mass destruction of those two countries was about blowing up the old decaying infrastructure in order to build new infrastucture more conducive to the global mining and oil cartel.... AND it was about the oil (and water and gold).
But the point in controlling the oil was about keeping the oil off of the market, thereby driving up price and keeping the supply artificially low.

I do not think that we have crossed the peak oil threshold.

Oil reserves that have been deplete have shown to fill themselves back up.
Whether or not this is due to either some hidden reserve that was previously unknown or some type of heating mechanism in the Earth's mantle resulting in petroleum by-product, I do not knot.

But the idea of peak oil is most definitely used along with artificial scarcity to control the behavior of people.
It is no different than a heroin addict who needs their drugs.

In addition, new oil drilling and fracking technologies are very expensive. The research we’ve read shows the cost of developing many of these unconventional oil plays requires a break-even price ranging from US$60 to US$130 per barrel, depending on the play type, which happens to be quite similar to the breakeven price for many Canadian oil sands projects

Yes. So as these new technologies come out and we tear up previously untouched ecosystems we can all pat ourselves on the back and cheer "we beat peak oil."

The very fact that such lengths have been taken to extract new untouched deposits speaks more than reports on either side of the peak oil fence.

This all depends on what games the PTB are going to play with our lives in the future, will they release better technologies to the public that require little more than jumping in and driving and never filling up.
Or, we get dragged down this route, until all the oil is almost gone and then resource wars fuel other larger agendas of population control and territory expansion, this will require human sacrifice during wars to get them what they want, what could be more perfect from the point of view of a sick #, predating on the people.
You can bet your bottom dollar the PTB, will not want humanity to achieve independence from them in any way shape or form.

Still does not change the fundamental fact that oil is bad for us all. So there is more of it, which means that we can make even more spoiled dependent humans so one day the crash can be even more horrific. Good news for the satanists.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


oil shale is kerogen.The Bakken play is tight oil play.Because shale rocks as a reservoir cap,it is also referred to shale oil.

The real question is "Why in the world do we need to use fossil fuels for energy in the first place?" Are we so backward scientifically that we can't figure out anything better? Something we don't have to war over? Something FREE!?

The question isn't whether there's enough of it. The question is why are we so damn stupid that we perpetuate its use?

it's generally a case of when not if we will hit peak oil, you'll know when we've hit it, the price will go up 100 fold. whether we will hit it in our life though isn't really the issue, the issue is we use oil. far far too much. s+f

people get shale oil and crude oil mixed up far too often. I just love it when a contrarians tells me that there are a trillion of barrels estimated below the rockies, and then I have to explain to them that:

A) Shale oil is an alternative fuel source to crude oil, and
B) Shale oils were more often promoted by peak oil theorists in the late 70's and their viability was dismissed by many conservatives at the time.