Do you believe the scientific reports that oil production is declining, that we are coming to the end of oil?

Yes I believe the reports. Oil takes millions of years to make, and mere months to mine.

This is my honest, yet cynical point of view on the matter… Oil is running out, and we already have alternatives, solar, wind, kinnetic, nuclear, hydrogen, etc. I think we have the technology to adapt over night if we needed to, but we wont, because too many fat cats have too much money invested in oil, and until they have drilled every last drop, they wont move in to other technologies.

Oil companies have billions and billions and billions of dollars, when the time is right, and it suits them, they will buy out several patents, research several new things, and roll out their new line of shit for the masses.

Your point of view maybe cynical, poisonedantidote, but it could be right on the money. I hope that even your cynical point of view has an undercurrent of reality, otherwise we may find our civilization falling down around our ears. The oil is going to run out & it remains to be seen what happens next.

Umm – yeah. It is a finite resource.

Whether or not it’s a good idea to reduce our carbon emissions (it is) it’s very hard to tell how much oil is available for two reasons.
Oil reserve statements from some of the biggest holders are manipulated and there is no way to know what’s really in the ground. OPEC countries came up with a scheme by which their production allocations were based on reserves. Within a year they all had twice the reserves they used to.
Is there any truth to the possibility that there is abiotic oil in the ground at serious depths created by geological processes rather than heaps of fossils ?? The Russians are rumored to strike oil anywhere they are willing to drill deep enough. When they hit it, it is at very high pressures. ...Sounds a lot like the Deepwater Horizon site too.

The absolute amount of oil produced each day is of secondary importance to whether the global demand for oil outstrips the supply. Once this happens consistently, the price will shoot up and oil-based economies start to suffer. One might have thought we’d have learnt from the oil-price shock of the 1970s, and put sufficient effort into re-engineering our economies, but they remain hopelessly dependent on the black stuff.

I believe oil will run out in my lifetime, I’m 21 and there would not be this much fear and suspicion towards the Arab states if they were not sitting on oil. I feel like our governments (US and EU) are being really naive and almost blind to the situation of ‘no oil by 2060’. They either have some secret solution or are just really scared and whistling their way into the good books of the Arab states in order to get oil discounts (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, possibly Syria).

The oil driven, never ending ‘debt ceiling’ economy scares me massively.

@trickface I believe we’ll stop using fossil fuels as our predominant energy sources in that lifespan. One way or another…
Oil is very useful for other chemical needs and plastics of many sorts.

Oil won’t “run out”, but with declining and ever-harder production, it will become less economical to use. In addition, there is no alternative that can fulfill all of oil’s roles, despite the misplaced hopes of many. Oil has been used so thoroughly because it is easy to transport over distances and energy-dense, just to name a couple of qualities. There are also limited quantities of rare earth metals required for so-called “renewable” alternatives, which require extremely harmful mining to get (not to mention that China has reduced and likely will stop exports of those metals).

The U.S. government has put out reports analyzing the impacts that peak oil could have, but of course they’re mostly interested in the military ramifications.

Also @Linda_Owl, you didn’t mention that most of the food in the U.S. is grown using oil fertilizers, because industrial agriculture has long ago depleted the topsoil in the Great Plains.

Yes, and “Drill Baby Drill” is a moronic non-answer. Here’s an actual graph of production through 2011 versus demand and projections to 2015. The remaining oil reserves in the US are a drop in the world demand bucket. We need a national Moon-Shot style technology program directed at the renewable energy resources of the future. Or we can just tie ourselves in political knots and watch China take over the position as the world’s number one superpower.

“Science” has shown nothing of the kind.

As @incendiary_dan stated correctly (he’s often right about some things), we aren’t exactly “running out of” oil, but we’re finding it in harder to reach places (deepwater offshore and Arctic locations, to name two) and finding it in more difficult (read: “expensive”) forms to refine (Athabasca shale fields, for example). But it’s really not so much more expensive (in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars) than it has been for much of the latter part of the 20 Century. (The reason it seems so much more expensive when you buy it is because the dollar is being made less valuable, but that’s another story.) To my knowledge, we haven’t even started to explore Antarctic reserves in any meaningful way.

It’s true that oil production has been declining in some areas, though. Part of the reason is that we do have alternative energy sources, chief among them being coal for generation of electricity. And what people really think of as “alternative energy”, including wind, solar and biomass fuel, is increasing every year, mostly due to government subsidies, because those forms still can’t compete economically with fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and nuclear power. I’m not ignoring the direct and indirect subsidies that are also granted to users of those fuels.

Finally, I wish that people would disabuse themselves of the notion that it is “government’s” job to come up with alternatives, or to bet on likely winners. If that’s truly the case, then we are well and truly fucked, because they are collectively incompetent at guessing which technologies are likely winners, and completely incapable of inventing and / or developing them from scratch.

Just over 100 years ago our major cities were in real danger of being buried (almost literally) by horse shit, from the locomotive power of the day. The parallel development of cheap, mass-produced automobiles, petroleum fuels and electric power (including electric streetcars) saved the day.

Look for a technological fix – or work on one yourself – but don’t expect Congress (or Parliament) to come to the rescue.

@WasCy World production peaked in 2008. Failing a massive new find, the remaining, more difficult to develop sources of oil will not reverse that trend. Meanwhile, as the chart I posted indicates, demand is widely outstripping supply.

Canada has a large supply of oil sands and of a tyle relatively easy to bring up and refine. Unfortunately, our own oil shale deposits are much smaller and the technology to bring them up and refine them at today’s cost per barrel isn’t there. We do have a massive supply of natural gas in the US, and that burns much cleaner than oil or coal. We have the technology to exploit that more fully, and should do so. t would take some infrastructure upgrades to make it a practical alternative for vehicle fuel other than fleet vehicles. But there is no mystery technology required.

I would not be so quick to dismiss government participation. The government could fund research much as they did with NASA and the Space Shot.The chart I posted shows that even with the sources you mentioned, we are on a downward slide in production while third-world modernization and growth is massively increasing demand. The present track is unsustainable, and if we immediately exploited ALL the reserves of the US, it would hadly show as a blip on the production curve.

I agree that the government is making some effort in identifying alternative energy sources, but they are not pushing it as much as it should be, because the oil companies control far too many of our congress by the money they give out for re-election funding. We are, by far, too much dependent upon the non-renewable resource of oil. Oil is involved in almost every aspect of our lives. We are reaching the end of the easily obtainable oil & what is left will become more & more expensive to reach. We need to readjust our mindset to acknowledge this situation & not think that we can continue as we have in the past, forever.

I believe many of you have hit upon parts which are correct.
I think that we are not running out of oil per say, we’ve simply exhaused supplies of cheap, easily accesable surface oil. Almost all aspects of our economies are heavily dependent on oil, but there are alternatives.
I also believe we as a species who behave in self interest via ‘group think’ as in free markets…“the solution is built into the problem”. And as stated above, as oil supplies dwendle, (regardless who says what) price of oil will raise, other sources of energy will emerge, entraprenuers will take advantage of technoloy and refine these processes and we will be fine!
Already countries are positioning themselves towards various options, as US going into Afghanistan to get access into the major gas fields of Central Asia. China developing new Nuclear technology (Pebble Bed Reactors). Hydrogyn, Solar, other alternates.

I wish I could count on technology to bail us out. However, there is nothing quite like oil. We’ll still have electricity, even if we end up going nuclear. Oil is so much more than energy, though. Oil is fertilizer, and plastics, and even things like aspirin and paint. I’m not worried about transportation or keeping the lights on – I’m worried about the ‘unpleasantness’ that will occur when people aren’t getting fed.

In the old days, there were things called “cargo cults.” Indigenous people on remote islands saw planes from “civilization” bring all kinds of wondrous items – umbrellas, radios, you name it. They had no life experience that told them how these things came into being, so they reasoned that the Gods (or whatever) sent the airplanes. When the war ended and the planes didn’t come anymore, they built runways, and “radio towers” out of bamboo, hoping this would cause the planes to come back. That’s a cargo cult for you.

Nowadays, I think people don’t necessarily realize where all the “stuff” comes from either. Oh, yeah, we know it comes from factories where it’s manufactured, but people don’t realize how much stuff is soaked in oil. And to hear people say that “technology will save us and we’ll be fine” when they don’t understand how technology will do that, remind me of the old cargo cults. I think we’re in for an increasing number of rude awakenings.

Even if we could produce more oil, there is the matter of carbon emissions and climate change. Climate change is not something down the road. It has already started. The record amounts of droughts, wildfires, flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes are not statistical aberrations. They are the real deal, and things will only be getting worse. We cannot continue to use coal and oil the way we are without very serious repercussions.

@LostInParadise Not to mention the toxification of the total environment.

Just to clarify about oil shale.. “The largest deposits in the world occur in the United States in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; about 70% of this resource lies on land owned or managed by the United States federal government.[22] Deposits in the United States constitute 62% of world resources (~1.5–2.6 trillion barrels); together, the United States, Russia and Brazil account for 86% of the world’s resources in terms of shale-oil content.[19]”

@toaster That resource holds promise for the future, but we currently lack the technology to extract it economically. And since oil is so vital in other uses such as plastics, paint, fertilizer and medicines, and is a dirty energy source driving global warming; it seems foolish to rely on that source being available in the short term.

Youre right, but Athabasca tar sands were slated to never be developed, but since now economically extractable, billions upon billions are being invested in pipelines, equipment, refineries, and the such. Not to mention numerous tailing ponds contaminating the rivers, with indigenous communities downstream… So YES very bad and crude techniques indeed… I was more interested in the geological aspects of the deposits.

Oil production is slowly becoming more expensive. Because geologists recommended easy access first.

From The Ecologist: Peak oil is ‘getting closer’ but the world is not ready

From everything I’ve read, I feel we’ve reached Peak Oil. But I think oil will cease to be the “super commodity” it has come to be. I think it will be replaced in the market by water and water rights.

@Yetanotheruser Reasonable guess, but are you sure enough to by futures now?

From a rather leftist Web site, there is a new boom in oil, though prices will remain high.

@LostInParadise Even added reserves recently discovered don’t equal infinite supply. In truth, they may be more of a curse than a blessing. The additional supply may lead short-term thinkers to put quarterly profits ahead of long-term survival of our species. We are seeing this year the increasing results of global climate change driven by our use of fossil fuels.

@ETpro If I had funds to invest, I would certainly consider water futures, if they were available. In the region where I live, most water rights are owned by the local municipalities or by the local water authority. I can’t even catch rainwater to use for watering!

@Yetanotheruser “I can’t even catch rainwater to use for watering” Seriously? Why do they limit that? Are you required to point your raingutter downspout into the storm drain so they can collect it?
On the Caribbean Island of Saba, everybody collects rainwater, and where some folks in the U.S. might have a basement they have a several-thousand-litre cistern from which the household supply comes.

@Yetanotheruser Who gave anybody deed to the sky? Good lord, man. Keep your powder dry.

Dry powder is not the problem. Dry garden soil, dry lawns, dry forests…we’re not in the middle of a drought, but it has been a dry year…

I grew up in a region (Illinois) where it was legal to have a cistern. My uncle had a downspout that had a valve to direct the water either the storm drain or to the cistern. I don’t know the capacity of the cistern, but with the rainfall in that region, it wasn’t much of an issue.

Of course, when it rains, I am allowed to let the rain fall on my garden and my lawn.

NEWS FLASH!!!
I just finished doing a little research, and found that, according to this article, the law making it illegal to capture rainwater was repealed in 2009! I’m going out this weekend to build my own cistern system!

@ETpro your question led me to this research; thank you!

@Yetanotheruser I am so happy for you. I was totally bummed out at the idea that some legislative body would try to take control of the skies.

@ETpro they did, up until 2009!

Monbiot has become a joke. His recent article shows he doesn’t understand just how Peak Oil works. If oil production has a temporary increase, but at a lower EROEI ratio, it’ll peak faster.

@incendiary_dan It would surely all be a joke if the consequences were not so deadly serious. The current drought may be the worst natural disaster in US history. And this is just getting started. If we do not act to stop the buildup of atmospheric CO2, it will get much, much worse.

Yea, the drought is getting serious. When I talk to people about my survival stuff, they always think I’m preparing for zombies or communists or something, but it’s droughts, climate change, and peak oil I’ve been talking about for years. Shit’s real and it happens.

It seems we’ll have to learn some low-irrigation/no-irrigation horticulture (like I haven’t been saying that for years. It helps build soil and sequester CO2, by the way).

@incendiary_dan Kinda like Xeriscape only for gardens?

@incendiary_dan , I agree about the problems related to global warming, but I don’t see how the utilization of additional oil sources is going to cause oil use to peak sooner.

@LostInParadise It’s primarily about the economic effects of having an energy source that is so much lower in efficiency. The “sweet, light crude” that we used to get a lot of from Saudi Arabia and other countries in that area has a payoff of 100–200 gallons per gallon used to pump it. The poorer sources that are being tapped now in North America have about 2–4 gallons per gallon used, and that rate drops.

@Yetanotheruser Kind of like that, but with more of an eye to building soil and growing lots of plants in the process. One could consider hugelkultur to be a tool you could use is xeriscaping, combined with the usual accompanied strategies (heavy mulching, dense polycropping, etc.).

@incendiary_dan thanks for the link. I currently have a rather large garden, of the conventional flat-bed type, with 4×4 plots. It has been a garden, more or less, for at least the last 15 years, possibly more. I think I am going to start next year, converting some of the plots to hugelkultur plots. They are small enough I can do the digging required by hand.