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Peak Oil, IHS Data and The Broken Clock
Nate Hagens, The Oil Drum
We have been writing for almost 3 years on this site about the privatization of energy data by IHS Energy and the negative impact the lack of accuracy that CERA’s historically optimistic claims are having on energy policy. The rebuttals and counteranalysis at TOD to CERAs assertions are too numerous to list. Today at the IHS Energy Conference in Houston, the CEO of IHS Energy, parent of CERA and other energy information agencies, asserted that Peak Oilers don’t have the data to support their claims. This post is a brief rebuttal to this ‘news’ coming out of Houston, and a plea to refocus the questions to what is relevant and probable, not on what is irrelevant and unlikely.
… Well right off the bat I should point out, with a track record like the one above, I’m not sure we want the data that IHS refers to**, but here are some excerpts from the Bloomberg story this afternoon. I should also state that it’s not CERA’s fault that the traditional media still seems to fawn over their every assurance.
(14 February 2008)
Long, detailed article. Many comments at original.
Critic: Facts bury theory on Peak Oil
Edward Klump, Bloomberg News via Denver Post
IHS Inc., owner of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said those who espouse the theory that the world’s oil production has already peaked lack evidence to support their claims.
“The only thing that’s relevant is our data,” Jerre Stead, chief executive at Douglas County-based IHS, said Wednesday in an interview in Houston.
Believers in the so-called Peak Oil theory “don’t have our data,” he said.
Stead made his comments at an industry conference hosted by Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
U.S. oil futures jumped 57 percent last year on the way to topping $100 a barrel for the first time in January. Crude has traded between $86 and $95 this month.
Peak Oil supporters include billionaire hedge-fund manager Boone Pickens and Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons. Stead said some supporters of Peak Oil are interested in being consultants.
IHS is standing by the facts, he said.
(13 February 2008)
The Peak Oil Crisis: The Future Of Our Cars – Part 4
Tom Whipple, Falls Church News-Press
Hardly a day goes by without an announcement that some company is either developing a new model of an electric powered car or has made some sort of progress on the ones under development. These announcements are coming from major automobile manufacturers all over the world and from numerous startups working in small garages. It is clear from all the activity and rapidly increasing oil prices that the day of the electric car is almost upon us. For the immediate future there is no practical alternative for personal mobility with the speed, flexibility and comfort that we have become accustomed to except the electric car.
Before we look at the various forms these electric cars might take we should answer the key question of whether there will be enough electricity to replace gasoline and diesel we currently consume in cars and trucks. In the long run the answer, of course, is “yes” – provided we can hold industrial civilizations together long enough in a era of oil depletion to produce and install the equipment necessary to supply electricity from renewable sources – solar, wind, the seas, and biomass.
A recent article in Scientific American makes the case that a massive solar power facility covering much of the southwestern U.S. could, when combined with innovative ways for storing power and a new nationwide electrical grid, provide a third of our current electric requirements within 40 years. It seems likely that even with existing technology; a decades-long crash program could cover whatever is needed As long as the sun is shining, the energy is there; all we need is the time and admittedly massive resources to convert it into usable forms.
If we can’t build the infrastructure to generate renewable forms of energy quickly enough, then the only hope is massive conservation of electricity (think no air conditioning) until such times as we can.
(14 February 2008)
Peak Oil Models Forecast China’s Oil Supply, Demand
Lianyong, Feng Junchen, Li; Xiongqi, Pang; Xu, Tang; Lin, Zhao; Qingfei, Zhao; Oil & Gas Journal via Red Orbit
Peak oil models show a widening gap between China’s oil demand and production. The generalized Weng model predicts a peak oil production in China of 196 million tonnes in 2026 and the Hubbert model indicates a peak oil demand in 2034 of 633 million tonnes. Production
Because forecasts indicate a widening gap between production and demand, China’s government is undertaking various measures to reduce this gap and more measures will be needed in the future. In 2006, China imported 47% of the oil it consumed.
For predicting future oil production and demand in China, this article shows the results of three peak oil models: Hubbert, Generalized Weng, and HCZ.
FORECASTING MODELS
Peak oil models
The Hubbert model, first published by M.K. Hubbert in 1962, correctly forecast the oil peak in the Lower 48 states in the US.1,2 Chen Yuanqian in 1996 proposed use of the Generalized Weng model,3,4 and Hu Jianguo, Chen Yuanqian, and Zhang Shengzong developed the HCZ model in 1995.5
OIL DISCOVERY TREND Fig. 1
The Hubbert model has been applied widely in the world, while application of the Generalized Weng and HCZ model has been limited to mostly China.
Although all these models forecast reserves and production of oil fields, they are seldom used to predict oil demand. Based on the theory that everything in the world follows the natural process of “risegrow-mature-decay,” we believe demand of oil would follow the same pattern and predicting oil demand with these models is feasible.
(14 February 2008)
Has anyone seen a better online version of the work by these Chinese professors, students and engineers? For example, a version with the figures.
With no oil solution, future looks dire
Richard Halloran, The Honolulu Advertiser
A fresh assessment of Asia’s energy future asserts that the region, along with the United States, is being confronted with a “daunting challenge” as oil consumption is rising much faster than production and the end of the world’s oil supply is in sight.
“Today,” says a book published by the East-West Center, the research and educational institute in Honolulu, “the challenge of energy security is greater than ever. The days of cheap and plentiful oil are over. World oil production is likely to reach a peak some time in the next 10 to 15 years.”
It will level off and decline after that.
The principal authors, Fereidun Fesharaki and Kang Wu, researchers who are authorities on energy, warn: “Coupled with emerging supply limitations, the Asia-Pacific region’s increasing demand for oil raises fears of tensions among Asian nations and between Asia and the West.”
…Indeed, the competition for energy in Asia, even more than the confrontations between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, and India and Pakistan could be the cause of hostilities across the entire region, with unpredictable consequences.
The East-West Center’s book, “Asia’s Energy Future,” points to the obvious cause of the increased consumption of oil, which is economic growth. “Since 1900,” Fesharaki says in an overview, “well over one-half of the annual growth in global oil consumption has originated from Asia and the Pacific.”
In one year, 2004, “China alone accounted for nearly one-third of the growth in oil consumption in the entire world.” India was not far behind, the book says, “and this pattern is projected to continue.” The demand is “driven primarily by the growing number of motor vehicles.” Heavy industry is partly responsible in China, less so in India, which emphasizes information technology.
A complicating factor: Half of China’s oil imports come from the Middle East while India is even more dependent on Middle Eastern sources. That is not likely to change, which gives Beijing and New Delhi reason to dip into the power politics of that already volatile region.
Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday’s Focus section.
(10 February 2008)
