A little nuance is required to accept my underlying point that there are no perpetual motion machines, and that's obviously not possible for some people bent on acting superior through semantics. But obviously I'm referring to the strident belief of some people who insist some energy sources are essentially limitless to the point that they require no inputs. ... I'm sure you'll object on technical grounds, but the First Law essentially dictates that you can't get something for nothing.

Really? Not related to entropy? So usable energy is not lost in the process of extraction, refining and delivery the deeper and dirtier you go? That's interesting. Please share your findings with XoM.

Or you could just stop objecting by alluding to the "replenishing" of oil over the course of 50 million years, as if it has any relevance whatsoever to the here and now of modern, complex societies.

As a matter of energy density, "free energy from the sun" does not efficiently move an 18-wheeler full of goods.

Nuance is not the problem. I am not trying to argue the existence of a perpetual motion machine.

Cold fusion is not "something for nothing". Cold fusion was supposedly a process for initiating the fusion of deuterium to helium, a highly exothermic (to journalists "energy releasing") process. The same thermodynamics that describe the process within the sun. Thermodynamics states that the process will release energy. The problem is the "activation energy barrier" that prevents the reaction from occurring. Thus the rate of the reaction is the problem with fusion. Thermodynamics does not say anything about the rates of reactions. The reaction that proceeds readily at the temp and pressure at the core of the sun does not occur at the temperature and pressure accessible on earth. Cold fusion proponents claimed to have found a way around that barrier. Their concept did not violate any laws of thermodynamics, but it did seem unlikely. I was almost completely skeptical the instant I heard about it, but you never know. At this point it was clearly a bust.

Usable energy is lost in oil recovery and entropy increases but that does not tell you anything about the future problems in oil production. Usable energy is lost in using oxygen as part of metabolic processes in your body and the oxygen is consumed. But you do not worry about running out of oxygen. That is because there is balance between consumption and replenishment. In the oil equation there is not balance between consumption and replenishment so the oil is being depleted. This is not thermodynamics! This is not entropy!

And who the hell is XoM and why should I care?



The slow rate of replenishment is the real source of the problem.


This comment has nothing to do with the errors you are making.

If we define 'problem' as future oil is going to take more effort to extract than past oil given the exact same technology then I agree the slow rate of replenishment is the real source.

But like we covered that's not actually the problem we face.

Oh, and obviously Jiggs obsession with entropy has basically nothing to do with his discussion.

Like if Jiggz is saying that nothing can stop the eventual heat death of the universe in like ten billion years, I guess maybe he's right. Who cares though.

I still don't even understand what the thermodynamics based argument even is. Oil might not be a viable energy source in a few years or could be used for a hundred more years. Neither contradict anything about thermodynamics

What if I told you that's what oil is?

Hey Jiggs,

What's total liquid production at these days?

You mean of real oil or real oil+total crap?

LOL!!! It's always largest at the peak, genius. That's why it's called a peak. What matters is how production looks going forward. You might have absorbed that by now if you had the capacity to be anything but a troll.

anyhoo....

relentless, it keeps coming in like waves eroding the shoreline:

Pretend to the Bitter End

The oil picture has bamboozled both the broad public and the smaller cohort of supposedly sentient observers. I maintain that the deflationary contraction underway worldwide is largely due to the fact that the world has run out of a particular form of oil: affordable oil. Turns out the peak oil story is still true, just playing out differently than a lot folks predicted. We’re at the mercy of a pretty basic equation: oil over $75-a-barrel destroys industrial economies; oil under $75-a-barrel destroys oil companies. There is no “just right” Goldilocks place on the gradient.

The public got bamboozled by the Ponzi scheme of shale oil. It seemed like a fabulous techno-rescue: the “fracking miracle!” It operated by converting mountains of cheap leveraged capital into a very rapid bump-up in US oil production. It got full traction after a couple of years of $100 oil squashed economic activity — and then squashed demand for oil. Whoops.

Oil’s prologue likely to be a harbinger of worse things to come

Even at last year’s oil prices, the industry was not making money. In the first nine months of 2015, when US crude averaged $51 per barrel, cash outflows for capital spending and acquisitions exceeded inflows from operations by $907m for Noble Energy, $1.57bn for EOG, $1.85bn for Chesapeake Energy and $1.94bn for Hess. At today’s oil price of about $37, revenues will be even lower.

With no growth and no profits, the US exploration and production industry is facing a gruelling year.

It wasn't really making money at 2013's prices either, just able to keep the duped investors flowing in.

Peak Oil? What Peak Oil?

It is unbelievable how many times I’ve heard people telling me “the US has become self-sufficient in oil production,” a group that includes some respectable members of the EU parliament. This is probably due to the confusion that the media have made on the fact that the US production has recently surpassed the US imports of oil. It is true, but that tells you nothing of how much oil the US still imports. And that is, actually, much more than it was at the time of the oil crisis and domestic consumption is on the increase.

... Art Berman clarifies the situation and wonders why “consumption has increased by one-third and imports have doubled but we no longer need to think strategically about oil supply because production is a little higher?”

Nuance apparently is the problem. You're applying a literal interpretation of the "something for nothing" assessment. Star creation (for cold fusion) is absolutely a bid to produce near infinite energy from - in theory, once it's "perfected" - minimal input.

It is a dream to harness near limitless energy via minimal inputs. At the very least, it's a bid to provide an energy source presumably many times more efficient than the reigning champion: fossil fuels.

The latter being "hot" fusion. Just to be sure we're all clear on the distinction.

So, they can't make the magical reaction happen because they can't figure out a way to reproduce the necessary pressure and temperature here on Earth? They've failed at star creation? ... Sounds like you're not saying it's trying to defy the laws of physics, you're just saying it.

It is science fiction that has never been successfully reproduced. That's because it's impossible, as every effort to replicate Fleischmann and Pons' claims has subsequently bared out.

Is this a serious statement? The loss of usable energy getting energy out of the ground most certainly means increasing cost for the very specialized companies that embark on such an endeavor. You're essentially trying to claim cost "does not tell you anything about the future problems in oil production." Wow. ... Meanwhile, COST is precisely why drillers are slashing CaPex, laying off legions of workers and an increasing number are going bankrupt. Cost is also why U.S. production has finally begun its long-predicted decline.

This is a rather horrible analogy. DUCY?

My God. You just got done above literally saying "Usable energy is lost in oil recovery and entropy increases." ... Did you lose your thought process from one passage to the next?

Entropy increases in any process, including fossil fuel extraction, as you concede above. For some reason, you are entirely focused on the cycle of fossil fuels from creation to consumption, and (curiously) back again over millions of years. When I refer to entropy of the oil production process, I am focused on one direction of the cycle. The process of finding it, pulling it up out of the ground, refining it and delivering it. There absolutely is increased resistance to that process the deeper you go (or the harder packed the source rock).

And as we covered above, the deeper (or harder) you have to dig, the more resistance you face in bringing the resource up and refining it.

Yeah, that would be the commonly known trading acronym for ExxonMobil. They would love to hear your insight about how the basic laws of physics don't apply to future production limitations.

Ummmm... Yeah, I guess if we all lived millions of years, that would be relevant. But for those of us focused on the here and now for complex societies teetering on the brink, the "real problem" clearly appears to be the imminent, near-term decline of global petroleum production, as shown in the data by every reputable energy monitoring entity, including the notoriously sugarcoating IEA, EIA, JODI and the World Bank. This is because all the "low-hanging fruit" has been picked, and what's left is no longer economical to produce. It will get far worse, and war will very likely precede the harshest affects that would have played out if peace holds. This was always "peak oil."

LOL!!!! The only person making a fundamental error in this exchange is you. Tell us more about how "usable energy is lost in oil recovery and entropy increases" but then that's "not the problem" and "this is not entropy" because "millions of years."

To paraphrase an old joke, peak oil is the defining problem of the near future and always will be.

So Jigggz the peak is HAPPENING? Like RIGHT NOW?

Good to know.

Considering how sick the world has become since conventional oil peaked in 2005, it already is the defining problem ... of the present.

All that remains is global production decline - pretty much right on schedule, actually.

You missed the joke and lol at 2005 being the production peak.

LOL... no, I got the lame attempt. Just that it doesn't apply.

And, it's not surprising that you'd be in the jj camp of cornucopian champions who can't distinguish between conventional and unconventional oil production. Fits.

People who don't even understand that there are vastly different grades of petroleum (pop. = you) probably shouldn't be declaring what the discussion is about.

Shhhh... Adults are talking.

jiggs i truly enjoy your physics diatribes. They are beautiful nonsense.

Oil production would be down outside of the minor technicality that oil production is actually up materially.

One of the adults, who has an advanced degree in physics, said he didn't understand wtf you were even arguing with your thermodynamics "argument". You declined to elaborate.

IT FITS IMO.

Jiggs, I just asked for a single number. Is there a reason you can't give it?

.

Lol.

We just started this conversation a couple of pages back and you did what you always do. Abandoned it when I pointed out how you're completely mixed up.

So why don't you go back to the part where I point out how you use "conventional oil" in two different contexts, reply, and stop being a coward.

So, when I attend to life during the holidays, this is gonna be your asshat conclusion each time from here forward? That I "abandoned" goofy you? F**** way off.

We did go back to that lame gear shift of yours. I was referring to the context you used when you said "unconventional oil is a subjective term." You're simply trying to deflect embarrassment. You literally challenged me to provide a definition, which I did. There was no dual contexts, imbecile. Just you desperately wishing all oil was the same so it could fit within your narrow "no problem because supply/demand" world outlook.

Hey Jiggs. What's the number?

Edit: I do enjoy how you always go back to the "I was doing something else!!!" excuse. Even though we can see that you're still participating elsewhere. You're such a fraud. A funny fraud though.