Energy Security

[Rick M]

Hi, Dayuhan
You have obviously thought a great deal about these issues and your observations are excellent.

Your choice of the Oil Drum entries by Sam Foucher is a good one to illustrate your point.
I must admit that I have difficulty understanding some aspects of both his graphs and his text.
In any case his focus seems to be on projections… anticipating the future, and I have little interest in the specifics of predictions.
His projections may be correct, in which case peaking is imminent.
His projections may turn out to be overly pessimistic, in which case the impacts may fall more on our children and grandchildren.
Personally, I am even more concerned that the burden may fall on them, so the timing of peak seems minor to me (apart from the fact that a later date affords us some valuable time to mitigate, though I doubt that North Americans would cooperate enough to make effective use of the extra time).

I agree with most of your points but the issue of oil-field depletion needs to be weighed against the potential increased production which you (correctly) listed.
I don’t think that I agree with your conclusion that our recent difficulties (possible plateau and attendant risks) are unrelated to arrival of peak. I think we are closer to peak than most mainstream analysts concede, and that the increased price volatility is a reflection of that.
I do agree that there was no impending scarcity when prices & demand peaked last summer.
I would like to consider your arguments a bit further before responding to them in detail.

Meanwhile, I should mention that my own thinking on energy security has shifted considerably over the years.
The larger Peak Oil issue was the initial focus… I wanted to learn whether it was BS or a legitimate concern. I am now convinced that it is the latter.
But both common sense and the work of Robert Hirsch, Jeff Brown, (Canada’s) Jeff Rubin and Chatham House (UK think-tank) all point toward export decline as a second and more imminent concern.
Third, both concerns then led to the issue of emergency planning (by government, not the personal/survivalist kind).

The last of these has been my primary focus for the past two years, but I would prefer to leave that aspect for now and return to the first two (PO and export decline).

Both topics are covered quite effectively in a UCSB lecture (undated) by a French analyst and by Jeff Brown, who was one of the first to raise the export decline issue.
This YouTube link takes a full minute to download and get rolling, but I believe it is worth examining:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7h4V...layer_embedded

The first presentation, “A Peak Oil Primer” is by Catherine Gauthier (4:30- 23:30).
She examines demand growth, URR, timing of peak (at 12 min), its consequences, etc.

The feature presentation is by Jeffrey Brown (25:00 –59:00) whose analysis is in three parts:
1. Peak Oil (27:00 –39:00). Please note his point at 29:00 about the minimal difference to the timing of peak which results from having additional reserves. Also, at 37:00 he points out that in post-peak Texas, a surge in drilling did nothing to stem the decline in production. He asks a very good question at 39:00.

2. Export Decline (39:00- 57:00) Brown’s central point is that global oil exports could effectively be finished around 2030 (ie. a very serious problem). Meanwhile, most of the optimists are telling us that peak production is unlikely to occur prior to 2030 (ie. no need to worry for a few decades). Yet the difference between the two scenarios is radically different: a world which has just hit maximum production versus a world with no remaining export capacity. (The next 20 years should be very interesting, especially on the energy front, and there are many reasons for Defense analysts to get involved proactively.)

3. Electric Transportation: (57:00 - 58:45)

If people don’t have an hour to spend on this (which I can fully understand), I would encourage them to at least examine Brown’s 18 minute analysis of export decline (39:00 - 57:00).
If anyone spots something which they do not feel is credible, please speak up.

Thanks again for your interest, everyone.