According to Washington, the American Shale Oil Boom Should Peak in 2016. Then What?

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/231030/according-to-washingtonthe-american-shale-oil-boomshould-peak-in-2016-then-what/



It will be crucial that the American bedrock oil boom happens again elsewhere, if the industry wants to find a way out of the problem of the decline of conventional oil production. But where?

According to Washington, the American Shale Oil Boom Should Peak in 2016. Then What?
Le Monde, France
By Mathieu Auzanneau
Translated By Matt Valentine
22 January 2014
Edited by Gillian Palmer

For the oil industry, the shale oil boom in the United States is an avenue that may indefinitely put off the decline of the worldwide output of crude oil. However, according to the most recent forecast published by the Obama administration, it will not last very long. The race to take advantage of this production peak has begun!

~snip~

Shale oil — bedrock oil, strictly speaking —- enabled a 15 percent leap in American production of crude oil last year. It was the strongest growth recorded anywhere in the world for 20 years. The output could increase again by as many as 780,000 barrels per day in 2014, which would be a dramatic increase of around 10 percent.

However, the output still has not yet reached its greatest heights.

In December, the Obama administration announced that American production of crude oil should peak in 2016, which would be "almost" level with its historic record from 1970. This output will begin to decline again in 2020. New technical approaches, which are very plausible, could delay this decline — we shall return to them later.

[peacebird]

1. Wait... We are putting how many communities at risk of poisoned water for a resource that will peak

in two years?!?

Really?

[bananas]

4. Shale oil, not shale gas; Shale gas won't peak until after 2040

Shale gas is what's getting all the attention about water,
it will keep increasing through at least 2040 (according to the eia).

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Feds-predict-oil-boom-will-peak-in-2016-5069918.php

As to natural gas, the energy agency anticipates that production in the U.S. will climb at least through 2040 - helped both by geologic fundamentals and the relatively lower cost of extracting the fuel. Gas production is forecast to reach 37.6 trillion cubic feet annually by 2040, up from 29.5 trillion cubic feet last year.

[hunter]

11. So much bubble market bad paper to sell!

So many ways to screw our kids and grandkids!

You do realize, no, this shale gas will be used to make synthetic fuels and back-up unsustainable intermittent "alternate" energy schemes?

Then what? Coal? Nuclear?

Tough choices ahead, the worst possible being business as usual.

A sustainable non-fossil fuel, non-nuclear, society doesn't look anything like the one we have now.

Unfortunately organizations like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, solar contractors and the like, can only raise money from people who have money, people who are deeply vested in the non-sustainable society we now have.

How do we proceed from here?

I wish I knew.

[kristopher]

2. These projections by the EIA are widely considered to be complete junk

Deceiving EIA Forecasts (Letter From CleanTechnica Readers)


The following is an open letter a few CleanTechnica readers wrote, after discussing recent EIA forecasts down in the comments section. As you’ll see, it’s in response to some absurd forecasts regarding US renewable energy adoption. Here’s one highlight:

it was forecast that we would reach 0.45 GW of Solar PV on the grid by 2035, in November 2013 we reached 7.11 GW according to the FERC.

Surely, in making new predictions it would be appropriate for the EIA to address how their models could produce a 25 year forecast which has already been surpassed 16 times over in less than 3 years.

Anyway, below is the letter, followed by some renewable energy charts I’m adding and some additional commentary....

The open letter to Energy Secretary Moniz follows and is an absolute must read with a complex case presented clearly in a series of easy to follow graphs.
Boiled down to its essence, the EIA forecast assumes that the skyrocketing growth of renewable energy stops completely in 2016 and doesn't resume for nearly 20 years.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/LTR-to-Moniz

[NickB79]

5. So you think shale oil production will peak before 2016?

If so, good.

[kristopher]

6. I have no idea.

It's no wonder you love nuclear power, given the way you completely fumble the clear meaning of my post.

The OP is citing the EIA as a reliable source of forecasts regarding energy. It has become abundantly clear that is no longer true - the more non-fossil/nuclear sources of energy come online, the less reliable the EIA's data treatment methods become.

[NickB79]

7. I was hoping to agree with you on something, actually

If you feel the EIA's estimates of when shale oil would peak are bullshit, that could only mean two things: either you thought the estimate was too far out (peaking before 2016), or too short (peaking after 2016). Those are literally the only two possible conclusions one could draw from your post.

Since the oil and gas boom are a global threat to this planet, I was hopeful that you were saying the oil boom would peak and fall off BEFORE the time the EIA estimated, not after it.

It appears you are fumbling your own "clear meaning" of your post

[kristopher]

8. Yet more evidence of the insightful, analytic, razor-sharp mind that led you to nuclear.

A third alternative is that I said what I mean - the agency being quoted has demonstrated (see my first post) that their analysis is worthless.
I make no claim to a crystal ball about peak oil of any kind. What is evident is that the sort of reasoning which led you to conclude I'm even addressing that question (let alone that my non-existent stance "could only mean two things&quot is clearly the same type of reasoning that leads you to think that nuclear power is somehow a good idea.
Your history of posting is replete with that kind of whack-a-doodle thinking. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you insisting in 2008 that within 5 years the world's oil supplies will be completely crashing? How many times do you have to be that wrong before you admit to yourself that there is something fundamentally flawed about your method of analyzing problems?
Here's a tip in case that moment is now - you don't start with your conclusion and work backwards as you have in this thread.

[NickB79]

9. So, to recap

You post a link to an OP discussing the EIA's very specific estimate for when shale oil will peak in the US, calling the EIA's estimates trash because they've consistently underestimated the growth of renewable energy (which I should note I nor no one else here questioned). But from this, you find it entirely unreasonable to draw ANY conclusions whatsoever about the future of shale oil's production, because that would be just "whack-a-doodle".

So, the entire point of posting your comments in this thread did what exactly to bolster thoughtful discussion and reasonable exchange on this forum?

And since you're going off on another one of your tangents (something you're apparently incapable of NOT doing in any thread, I see), I'll indulge you a little bit this time:

How many times do you have to be that wrong before you admit to yourself that there is something fundamentally flawed about your method of analyzing problems?

Of course I've been wrong before. So have you. We are human; we all make mistakes. That's why I keep asking questions and changing my worldview over time as new information presents itself. You'll note that I HAVE changed my opinions on many issues here at DU since I joined over a decade ago. It's how people's beliefs and mindsets evolve. Of course, I'm more than willing to admit to my mistakes. You on the other hand......

[kristopher]

10. Nick, you said unequivocally that the world supply of oil would NOW be in catastrophic decline

Since that underpinned years of antirenewable, pronuclear posts by you, it isn't just "being wrong"; tt is being spectacularly wrong in the face of a world of evidence that should have led you to alternative conclusions. And it is that failure to see the obvious which pushes your opinions into the far fringe.

As for the meaning of my post - again it is just what I wrote. The OP is predicated on a source that has no validity. To me, that means discussion based on that source is worse than pointless. Knowing how to identify the validity of information is one of the key skills a researcher needs to acquire. I'd suggest it is something you need to work on before you try to rewrite the words of others here on DU.

[FBaggins]

12. Except for the fact that with shale oil...

...they've consistently underestimated production. In fact, far from a doomy peak-ish prediction, this is yet another increase to their prior predictions.

Also - keep in mind that with renewables, we're still talking about a comparatively small slice of the pie. Changes in policy (that are not in the predictive wheelhouse) have large impacts on the results... in both directions. We've seen phenominal growth in one year... followed by almost nothing in the next.

[kristopher]

13. Junk is junk.

It is pointless to pretend that the nature of the junk is relevant.

[FBaggins]

14. And it's pointless to call something "junk" just because...

...you don't like what they say about a pet topic that's dramatically impacted by non-predicatable government action.

They, for instance, make scores of predictions about production, consumption, and prices for lots of energy sources and fuels both domestically and all over the world. Have you ever demonstrated that their overall track record is poor (or even looked)?

[kristopher]

15. Not true

They have a proven track record of increasingly poor predictions and have reached the point where they simply no longer have credibility. As a proponent of the traditional energy system they are dedicated to, I can see why you'd want them viewed favorably, but you are SOL.

[FBaggins]

16. There's a lack of content in your bluster

Repeating the claim doesn't make it any closer to reality. You've demonstrated many years of misses in their renewables forcasting... but haven't produced anything that indicates that their predictions in general (or, more relevantly, in this data series) are less accurate than some other source.

Again... in the case of shale oil, the reality has been consistently larger than their predictions.

[hatrack]

3. Uh, um . . . TECHNOLOGY!, That's what, Mr. Freedom-Hater!