Saturday, March 8, 2014

Just sayin'

Chart from http://crudeoilpeak.info
With most commentators saying that we don't 'need' oil and gas from Russia to continue our ongoing bonanza of consumption this chart would seem to suggest otherwise. I'm trying to think of a better adjective than 'precipitous' to describe production levels.

Factor in the decommissioning costs of winding down a whole industry and it's not hard to see why oil majors such as Shell are walking away from the North Sea and blasting their cash in the direction of shareholders.

The only thing that's puzzling me is why Scotland and London are arguing over who gets to keep the  'riches'. Might it not be a better idea to use the remaining oil to build some kind of society that can exist on an EROI level of 5:1 while we still have a chance?


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10 comments:

  1. SaintSMarch 8, 2014 at 11:55 AM

    On that basis then, Jason, shouldn't the state (British/Scottish/whatever) nationalise the fields or acquire the capital infrastructure in the North Sea by statute? No oil company is going to invest in sustainables.

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    1. Jason HeppenstallMarch 8, 2014 at 12:33 PM

      The main problem is that it's getting uneconomical to extract the remaining oil. If the industry were nationalised then the state would have to pick up the tab for extracting expensive oil, refining it and then decommissioning all the hardware. Effectively that's what is happening anyway - see Cameron's latest bribe to inject 2 billion pounds into the industry. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/north-sea-oil-investment-could-be-at-risk-if-scotland-votes-for-independence-warns-david-cameron-ahead-of-aberdeen-cabinet-meeting-9146867.html

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  2. Wolfgang BrinckMarch 8, 2014 at 5:13 PM

    Looking at that graph, I can't help but getting flashbacks to second semester calculus where we learned that the integral of a function is the area under the curve. In the case of this curve, the area under the curve is the sum total of oil sucked out of the periphery of Britain since 1975. Whatever Great Britain is at this point, whatever it can count as contributions to its culture, its civilization since 1975 is symbolized by the area under that curve. It's all there in a very neat lump that looks like the top half of a two humped camel. If we project the curve at the right, it seems to hit bottom around 2016. End of the curve, no more curve. The trick going forward will be to find out if any of that energy that was under that curve has been stored in some way that can be used to keep some aspects of civilization going. It seems as if we are about to enter an era where as Jim Kunstler likes to say, we burn our furniture to keep ourselves warm. If five percent or whatever of the energy that was under that curve is still laying around in one form or another, that five percent will be what we have to keep civilization going, until we have burned all the furniture, that is, and it may not be long. Great Britain may be able to burn oil from elsewhere for a while and the US as well, but all the curves in aggregate are invariably heading for the bottom. Related posts elsewhere indicate that oil companies are already starting to burn their own office furniture to keep their investors warm. Time to start knitting warm clothes since burning our accumulated furniture will be a short term affair.

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  3. JoeMarch 8, 2014 at 6:42 PM

    I've looked a bit on line but still not found the reason for the decline in production in the late 80's to early 90's. Do you know?

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  4. bagginzMarch 8, 2014 at 9:12 PM

    That first huge peak in production along with it's decline corresponds pretty closely with Margaret Thatcher's term as Prime Minister (1979 to 1990)

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  5. bagginzMarch 8, 2014 at 9:36 PM

    ... the deep trough corresponds to John Major's conservative government (November 1990 – May 1997 ) which presided over a UK recession and was characterised by party bickering and in-fighting. Just after the peak turns upwards Tony Blair swept into power with a landslide election victory. The the second large peak corresponds to Tony Blair's three terms as Prime Minister. As the peak declines he hands power over to Gordon Brown.

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  6. UnknownMarch 9, 2014 at 7:09 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  7. afterthegoldrushMarch 11, 2014 at 2:17 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Jason HeppenstallMarch 11, 2014 at 7:43 PM

      Hi After. Yes, that would be great - but I have no way of contacting you. You can email me on jasonhepp at gmail dot com

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  8. UnknownMarch 31, 2014 at 10:22 PM

    All this talk of our willful destruction of our planet which we are no doubt causing makes me wanna watch this video repeatedly
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74

    Shows you what's at stake.

    Orbital.

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