Over the Peak¶
Testifying to the effectiveness of radically illiberal zero-tolerance policies, Outside in has just two semi-regular trolls. One, from the right, pops in occasionally to berate me for promoting the genocide of the white Volk. The other, from the left, specializes in cod psychoanalysis, directed primarily at my recent ancestors. Due to incontinent potty-mouths, mood-control issues, and addiction to argumentum ad hominum, in neither case can they be trusted with the door-key. Sporadically, however, some fragment of a spittle-flecked rant is worth passing on.
Quickly following upon the recommendation to readers here that the Archdruid Report contained some highly intelligent discussion of historical models (or ‘time shapes’), Left Troll turned up, in a slightly less deranged fury than usual, to denounce ‘our’ flirtation with druidic villainy. After scolding ‘us’ for the “ignorance displayed in this thread about the latest happenings in fusion research … [which] is just astounding” (remedial education here), he noted that “No one has mentioned methane hydrate.”
Insofar as it can be unscrambled from the snark, this is not actually an unreasonable point — and nor it it one that I think the druidic hordes here would disagree with. The world is awash with hydrocarbon deposits, whose magnitude is most probably vastly greater than even the most optimistic estimates anticipate. If anyone has been vindicated by recent energy economics, it is the much-derided market fundamentalists (such as Daniel Yergin), who have persistently argued that price signals matter far more than geology when it comes to the unlocking of resources. When geophysics ventures into this territory, it is typically blind to the perspective constraints set by existing price conditions. What is ‘really’ there depends hugely upon the incentives to find it. The idea that scientific experts enjoy superior insight to market actors is a classical example of academic hubris.
Peak Oil is an intriguing theory, because — when strictly defined — it has to be true. It is near-impossible to refuse its claim, when it is abstracted to something like: Fossil fuel reserves are finite, and the consumption of any particular type of hydrocarbon deposit will tend to accelerate to a peak, followed by decline, characterized by rising extraction costs, and approximately described by a bell-shaped curve. Such a claim tells us much less than its most enthusiastic proponents pretend, however, since hydrocarbon resources are immensely heterogeneous, in chemical type and mode of geological confinement. A Hubbert production curve for Texas petroleum tells us almost nothing about the global prospects for hydrocarbon exploitation, in which the nature of ‘reserves’ can undergo sporadic, revolutionary revision.
Beyond denial, dismissal, and under-estimation of market dynamics, Peak Oil promoters have resorted to two main lines of argument, in order to keep their favored narrative on a rising curve. Firstly, they have incorporated Global ~~Warming~~ Weirding scares into their models, hoping perhaps to substitute a loosely-coupled moral panic for resource depletion concerns. (I’m going to bracket this topic for now, due in part to its fundamental irrelevance.)
Secondly, they have turned to the concept of EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested), in an attempt to over-ride market dynamics with a second-order geophysical argument. The beauty of EROEI, from the Peak Oil perspective, is that it calculates hydrocarbon extraction in purely energetic — rather than economic — terms. A declining EROEI, even given extreme price incentives, still describes a collapsing energy economy. Alberta oil sands, for example, have a dismal EROEI that can be as low as 3:1 (you can’t get fuel out of the muck without heating the dirt). Unfortunately, for those binding their case to this type of calculation, the EROEI of hydrocarbon fracking is in the region of 85:1 (!). There’s no continuing trend (of EROEI-deterioration) to hang on to.
No surprise, then, to learn that central Peak Oil discussion hub The Oil Drum is being shuttered. The very last reason to read Greer is to bask in the wisdom of his Peak Oil analysis (whose principal merit is its comparative sobriety and moderation). In his sharply comical description of financial boom-and-bust, Greer ruthlessly skewers the “This time it’s different” mentality of band-wagon climbers. Peak Oil, too, is a “This time it’s different” story, and there’s no fracking reason to believe it.
As for methane hydrate, the principal point right now is that we don’t even need it yet. There’s still a lot of gas left in the tank.
ADDED: Greer contra fracking (and technological fixes in general).
Money quote: “The current fracking phenomenon, in other words,
doesn’t disprove peak oil theory.
It was predicted by peak oil theory. As the price of oil
rises, petroleum reserves that weren’t economical to produce when
the price was lower get brought into production, and efforts to
find new petroleum reserves go into overdrive; that’s all part of
the theory. Since oil fields found earlier are depleting all the
while, in turn, the rush to discover and produce new fields
doesn’t boost overall petroleum production more than a little, or
for more than a short time; the role of these new additions to
productive capacity is simply to stretch out the curve, yielding
the long tail of declining production Hubbert showed in his graph,
and preventing the end of the age of oil from turning into the
sort of sudden apocalyptic collapse imagined by one end of the
conventional wisdom. ”
More
here.
ADDED: A brief hydrocarbons extraction technology update.