You don't seem to understand Jevon's paradox. It's not something that has to happen. It's something that does happen.

The point being that your claim that economic growth requires more oil is wrong because as you agree increased efficiency means we can do more with what we have.

It's hard to remember the original point because you do your standard thing where you disappear from the thread for long periods of time whenever we start getting into substance.

But we'll just say it was pointing out how your arguments are based on incorrect premises. And it happens all over the place and is why you always come to the wrong conclusions.

Yes, you tried this before. Which was when I then reminded you that what does happen isn't actually being remedied by what (you believe) COULD happen. If we COULD use less oil, overall, we would.

In short, you're once again appealing to hope and wonder, while ignoring reality. It's the same sad argument you apply that leaves you looking ******ed.

And no, it's absolutely YOU who doesn't understand Jevon's Paradox. Or you're being willfully obtuse in a perpetual bid to troll.

Yes, but efficiency gains absolutely do NOT OFFSET increased demand from developing nations! We have seen this, year after year. Jeezus, are you lucid?

If your theory were true, we'd be using less total oil volume per day by now based on our "efficiency gains." We never have. That's the reality.

Well, as I've stated, my time is limited. I don't visit the site 37 times per day, like you do. I pick and choose what threads I have the time to respond to.

This one requires a bit more time than others, mainly due to the wall of semantics and straw men people like you throw up each time.

Again, no... that would be you. It's your incorrect premise that efficiency gains can and will somehow lead to less overall global oil consumption, ... even though it has never actually happened yet (and won't).

The only things that will reduce overall oil consumption is a miracle new efficient and abundant energy source - as yet unidentified - ready for mass commercial production almost immediately, ... or global economic depression. And if it's the latter, it only underlines my thesis. You'd better hope for that miracle, which is what your entire argument has relied upon from the start.

It's just like investment bulls' perpetual assumption for endless growth. Baseless, not grounded in reality... but damn it, you're holding on tight til the bitter end! There apparently are no limits to man's genius!!

Of course it can. In fact, that's precisely what happened. Thanks to technological advancements, US shale - previously part of the vast amount of unrecoverable reserves - flooded the world's oil markets, pushing production far past demand, and dropping the oil price drastically.

I mean, it's like reality conflicts with your mental model, so you retreat into your mental model. It's weird, man. We have hard proof that technology offset average well decline by tapping in a small part of the vast set of (what were then) currently unrecoverable reserves. That's a fact. Your statement above is completely contradicted by real world evidence.

All finite reserves eventually peak. Everyone knows this. Hell, we'll reach Peak Nuclear Fusion in the sun in 5 billion years time.

The only interesting question for any peaking scenario is when. You have zero evidence that this will happen in the next ten years. There is in fact ample evidence it won't. Economically recoverable reserves at current prices are more than large enough to offset any conventional, older well declines for at least two decades. This is settled fact. Add to that the likelihood that within a decade, electric vehicles are going to start taking up a huge proportion of transportation energy, and peak oil looks less than 1 in 100. That's without even counting stuff like sunlight-to-fuels which advancing nanotechnology and computer simulating power will eventually solve.

The peakers are already out by 40 years and 300% in terms of possible supply. You yourself were off on the timing by many years already. Why should we listen to you, saying it's just around the corner, when you and everyone in your club (including people much smarter than you) have been dead wrong again and again?

It's called a reality check. This is what the best minds of the 1970s - who thought in ways similar to you - thought:



Why doesn't this make you stop and think: "gee, I wonder if I'm making the same kind of hilariously bad error that these guys were?"

These kinds of errors aren't limited to oil. Peaks and crises have been predicted in practically everything possible - from food production to the carrying capacity of the Earth to all kinds of minerals. Every single one of them was wrong - for over a millennium. Betting against people like you is a sure thing, man.

LOL... Wrong. A thousand times wrong, and you're too arrogant to get it. Easy loans amid economy-killing $100+ oil price allowed them to "flood the market." Not technology. That wad is shot, and they're now paying dearly for that mistake. The entire sector is. They "flooded the market" in the same way sprinting, full-bore for a mile, at the start of a marathon is any indication of a runner's capacity to finish the race.

Trolls like you just don't have the capacity to understand or acknowledge what went into that very short-term "oversupply." Time and time again.

The wells for the technology you award yourself victory over have an average annual decline rate of 40%. Do you have any idea what that actually means? Probably not. That means within 2-3 years, each $8-12 million well is pretty much shot. That means you have to keep digging more and more wells just to maintain stasis, let alone grow. The good ole' days of drilling a well and profiting off that formation for 40 years? Long gone. That's a real problem for the industry. A problem you don't understand, because you appeal only to the magic of illusion.

Projection, at its finest.

Conventional (affordable) oil production already peaked, dip****. 2005. We've covered that FACT.

The unconventional crap you're going on about costs about 3-4x to produce. That puts drillers quickly out of business unless the world maintains $100-150 oil price (and that's not happening), OR Wall St. continues to foolishly send them investment capital (that has now ended).

Your avatar is so very fitting. It's how I envision you - a very, very punchable face. It's absolutely NOT settled fact. At current prices, U.S. production is already in decline. Look it up, ******.

Yeah, electricity still isn't an energy source, genius. And the vast majority of that electricity? Still made with fossil fuels. Yeah, I know... pffft, learning.

And why WOULD anyone count it? It remains test-phase energy technology of the future, and always will be. It also won't provide the energy density needed to move freight, and won't fertilize crops, nor kill bugs, nor pave roads or any of the other 10,000 uses oil provides. I know physics is pseudo-science to economics majors, but it doesn't need your approval to still be true.

Far more often correct than incorrect. And M. King Hubbert as well as the Club of Rome, if you're at all honest about what they presented, are still right on track in their predictions.

10 years of global slowdown with no end in sight. European banks in deep crisis. Brazil and other S. American nations in free fall collapse. Japan, the world's third-largest economy, out of Keynesian options. When does any of that give arrogant investment bros like you pause? Ever? Oh, wait. I forgot. Non-homogenous, lazy culture is to blame in all those situations, isn't that right tone-deaf, non-racist Trump defender?

Here's the reality ... or "established fact" ... that you'll no doubt continue to ignore.

Oil industry bankruptcies pile up

Since the start of 2015, 130 North American oil and gas producers and service companies have filed for bankruptcy ... Bankruptcies have accelerated as cash-starved companies find it almost impossible to raise capital. Energy companies have been virtually shut out of the high-yield bond markets, banks are cutting credit lines and asset sales have slowed.

"I don’t think the E&P model in North America is economic and I don’t think it was real economic even at $80 and $100 oil," Jim Chanos, Kynikos Associates founder and president, said in an Bloomberg TV interview Thursday. "It’s certainly not economic at $45 oil."

U.S. oil production down 800,000 barrels per day in 15 months

Production has been eroding since peaking last April near 9.7 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Last week's output of 8,977,000 barrels a day is the lowest since October 2014

Revving Up Oil Fields Won’t Be So Easily Done
Laid-off workforce, idled equipment pose obstacles to budding recovery for U.S. energy industry

“It’s scary to think what a drag and what a headwind finding experienced labor is going to be this time around,” Mr. Patterson said, adding that while his fracking fleet is still in good shape, a lot of equipment isn’t. “Pop the hood on your car and let it sit for a year. I guarantee the car won’t be in the same condition.”

Jiggs, it's so funny that you always have time to post the same old tired talking points. But when it comes to having to think about the topic or answer questions outside of your simplistic one dimensional view you avoid and delay and eventually retreat right back to saying the same old ****.

LOL..... There's really no need to change strategy when you can't find a way to move the ball.

I return to the same pillars entirely because you keep returning your laughable argument of hopium and wonder. "It doesn't HAVE to be that way because technology!!" You're the one who can't seem to "think about the topic."

Same old ****.

If your theory of efficiency gains were true, why does mankind need (and use) more and more oil every year? You don't have an answer to that question, and it's a real blind spot in your "No Problem" approach to world events.

I'd say the market incentive is already there, and has been for some time now. Yet nothing is changing. Consumption keeps rising. Markets keep relying on and anticipating increased consumption. And discoveries keep plummeting.

Gosh, why isn't technology allowing us to use less?

Because of Jevon's paradox bro

Jiggs, you can't seem to understand the simple fact that we can get more efficient in how we use oil AND we can use more at the same time. But those both don't have to happen together. You keep missing this point.

And I don't even understand what you mean when you say 'if your theory of efficiency gains were true' since you admitted we are more efficient and you couldn't point to a single instance where we are less efficient.

You keep falling back to this same point that makes absolutely no sense and contradicts the simplest point ever that you already agreed is true.

Wrong, as ever.

I'm telling you what actually happens (we constantly consume more, just as Jevons dictates). You're telling me it "doesn't have to be that way." ... Every barrel we save via "technology gains," we lose two to developing nations wanting ever more. ... When China and India, and dozens of other developing nations, pray to the same "efficiency" God you do, you may have a point. Until then, you don't have a leg to stand on.

You still don't get it. And we're still using more oil every year, a fact that makes your latest "no problem" assessment irrelevant.

It remains a global economy that depends upon annual growth of a globally traded energy source.

Jiggs, I love it when I learn things from you that you don't even understand.

You still don't understand Jevon's. It's not 'increased energy efficiency leads to more energy use in all cases'.

In my world, yes I believe we'll have increased energy efficiency AND increased energy use.

But that's not your world. You're saying the supply of energy will be fixed (or decline). That's one of your premises. And if that premise is true Jevon's doesn't apply. But in your world we would still have technological advances that make out use of energy more efficient. And so in your world, with YOUR premise, you still can't make the claim that we wouldn't have growth. Because we easily could through increased efficiency.

In all cases were energy production increase is actually possible, yes. YOU are the one who doesn't understand it. It's so bad, you're now conflating two different ideas as if they run concurrently.

LOL... Your world already dismisses U.S. production decline as well as the slow destruction of the world economy due to resource depletion. So it's no surprise you don't understand what's being conveyed.... I guess because, you know, ... technology.

Wrong, as ever. Idiot.

Try and follow along for the first time in this thread:

I'm saying Jevons clearly exists in a world of continued production growth, such as we've always known. Until it can't ... entirely due to peak, or depletion, or net energy decline (all the same). Obviously, when total liquids peak is finally reached, Jevons is no longer even possible. "Loose monetary policy" can stall for a few years, but the diagnosis remains.

You're trying to suggest mankind can just willfully shift gears before it ever becomes a problem ... via efficiency gains.

It's already becoming a problem, and there is ZERO indication mankind is prepared to effectively adjust. Instead, it's attempting to dig deeper. To borrow, bomb and pollute more in order to dig deeper. That's a bleak reality you simply can't deny with a straight face. If it were doable, we'd be doing it. The U.S. and Europe is "adjusting" to flat consumption, and look what is happening as a result? A rapidly dying middle-class, over-leveraged banks, rotting infrastructure, social decay, etc. etc. ... All with no end it sight.

Again, if we as a species "could" use less, we would have used less long ago. We aren't. Instead, the planet is now making that decision for us.

Jiggs, you still miss the point. Go back and read my post again and see if you can figure it out.

Also, this:


Is amazing.

We never got to 10, but I think we got to 5.

We also had GDP and GPI.

US GDP growth... for 2016... 1.5-2%. Global GDP growth probably closer to 3%. (Guessing, don't have definitive numbers obviously).

I doubt GPI is out, but I'll concede that its probably lower, because, lol GPI.



So Jiggs, how was 2016? I assume:

Should have gotten him to put some money on it. Nice bump!

Even better times:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=21772

Looks like we're less than 3 years from CATASTROPHE!!!!

Hah, Jiggs is literally never going to put money on his peak oil predictions. It's hard enough to get him to actually make a statement that could be bet on.

Holy wow. Those are comedy gold. How does Jiggs bear the shame?

This thread is more what I was looking for, thx for the bump. It'll take a while to read.

it's funny watching cornucopians hand each other trophies based 100% on the radar blip that is unconventional oil/gas production the past half decade.

Like clockwork, the arrogant optimism is usually buoyed by pretending technology is "lowering production costs more and more every day." TS is a big champion of that vague assertion as fact. It really isn't.

As I provided in post 36, the Douglas & Westwood study from a couple years ago has most US producers needing global oil price in the $110-135 per barrel range just to maintain free cash flow. If you think production costs have improved to around half that within a couple years, you might see someone about your hopium addiction.

These companies are hemorrhaging CAPEX and are buried in debt. Who seriously believes the industry will unburden itself from its existing $2 trillion balance sheet?

Yes, I'm on record for dates in the 2015-2020 range for all liquids peak. Some of those dates have passed, and production has been able to climb as a result of duped Wall St. investment capital. I've always said "there's plenty." The question is "at what cost?" Most of the "proven" junk will remain in the ground, and I think most of you know it.

All I've been wrong about is the industry's capacity to borrow and keep the wildcatters drilling a few years longer.

But where are we, really? The first-wave effects of the Peak Oil dynamic, ultimately, hit in 2008. We papered over that problem, just like the industry is papering over its production growth mandate. It's all growth addicts know how to do.

I'm still waiting for a single one of you to offer an alternative narrative for why global growth is so sluggish, going on 8-10 years running now. The best effort included the word "super-cycle" over and over again, but never really provided a diagnosis.

How long before any of you trolls - who, to a man, miss the point - start cheering arctic drilling efforts in a desperate bid to pretend you "won" just a little while longer?

Declining net energy is the diagnosis. It will get worse.

My trophy is the "Jiggs proposed something a year ago and it didn't work out at all like he predicted" trophy.

Colour me SHOCKED that you didn't even make a passing reference to the experiment you proposed!

This absolutely isn't what you've always been saying. It's good to hear though!

Why exactly is declining net energy so problematic? It's true we have all missed your point. No one disputes this. That probably says something about how you are communicating your point rather than indicating a problem with your audience.

Yes, it absolutely is. And the last time you attempted this re-writing of forum history, I provided the multiple instances when I said precisely that.

I'm also on record as adhering to the Pentagon JOE's assessment of 2020 peak and near-term decline.

LOL... if that's what you need to tell yourself. But I've spelled in out perfectly clear for anyone not in 100% denial.

I just described how it's problematic. At this point, people like you are faking that they don't understand.

So once again: If your cost increases are rapaciously taking from the overall energy pie, you have less surplus energy to provide for advanced society's needs even though you're producing a bit more to offset (at best) natural population growth.

Again, it's called resource depletion. It's taught in any basic physics or geology class.

less surplus energy? Worldwide energy use has grown exponentially for many decades and shows no sign of stopping that growth. Seems like we currently have more surplus energy than we have ever had.

Like these graphs





hardly paints a picture of the ENERGY PIE rapidly eating itself. Things seem pretty OK bro...

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=18471

It's worth noting that a lot of those energy price increases in the 2000s are due to "green" policies as well - such as forced solar subsidies, as well as actual green policies, like improving particulate emissions from coal stations.