Talk:Peak oil/Archive 5

Removal of hidden warning statement
I have removed the "please do not edit until you have discussed things on the talk page" warning hidden in the article. This is in clear conflict with a number of Wikipedia's core principles, such as WP:BOLD. It amounts to instruction creep and even, if seen negatively, to snobism. Past research has shown that heavily edited articles improve, rather than decline, and there are better ways of dealing with vandals or recurrent "good-faith, bad results" edits. Ingolfson (talk) 13:51, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, and anyone who really feels heavily enough about this to do major rewrites of sections (i.e. changes that are more than gradual, yet non-vandalistic) is NOT going to be deterred by a hidden text warning anyway. What this does is scare away less opinionated and less experienced editors. Ingolfson (talk) 13:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There are many articles on "probation" throughout wikipedia. This article used to attract a lot of very POV editors, and many of them had a hard time with the subject matter because they were not as familiar with it as they thought they were.  They also raised several conspiracy theories that had no basis in any RS sources.  The message asks those who feel there are major revisions necessary to mention them on the talk page, as it is often the case that they are not the first to bring up the issue they feel is present... only to find out that the issue has in fact been clearly and adequately addressed.  For example, you inserted a definition of Peak oil into the lead with out a source.  Every sentence in the lead has been highly worked on, so that's not the best way to approach this article.  If you have any suggestions, requests, questions, ideas, or musings about the article, feel free to discuss them here.  There are many extremely knowledgeable editors who will be glad to help.  NJGW (talk) 15:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No warning can conflict with WP:BOLD, because if people are following the guideline and actually being bold, a warning won't scare them. If someone has to be coaxed and encouraged to be bold, they aren't being bold. In any case, the editor who placed the commented warning in the article was being bold. People can and do use WP:BOLD to justify whatever they feel like doing, which makes it one of the least effective guidelines to cite in a content dispute on Wikipedia - the opponent can always cite it to justify doing the opposite. If the warning was in fact violating WP:BOLD (it isn't), Wikipedia also has WP:IAR which tells us to ignore a guideline when we think it gets in the way of improving the encyclopedia.
 * Discussing changes on a talk page in no way contradicts WP:BOLD - if anything, it takes more boldness to call attention to one's ideas and invite criticism than to try to sneak a change into the article and hope nobody notices. In what sense is an editor not being bold if they discuss a change here?
 * The warning is appropriate because peak oil is an article that elicits the Dunning-Kruger effect. The subject is technical and specialized enough that a person needs some serious study before they can contribute substantially to the article, but unlike most other technical topics that matter only to tiny communities of specialists, peak oil matters to everybody. Almost everybody is addicted to oil to some degree, so most people probably overestimate their knowledge about it. The handful of qualified editors have better things to do than to correct the same misconceptions typed in by an endless parade of naive editors.
 * It's one thing to remove a warning, and quite another to take responsibility for cleaning up any mess that results. Are you planning to watch the article and police the newbie edits?
 * If you're worried about scaring away inexperienced editors, what will scare them away faster? Discussing their changes here, or making a naive edit and watching it get reverted? I think the fastest way to drive away newbies is to destroy their work. Newbies benefit when they ask for some guidance, because experienced editors can tell them how to avoid wasting their time on edits that won't stick. And even if our registered user accounts aren't enough to write an encyclopedia, you haven't shown any evidence to support the claim that the warning is going to lead to a net reduction in constructive edits.
 * You're also misinterpreting WP:CREEP, which lots of people do because that guideline seems to suggest that written instructions are inherently evil (which would apply to WP:CREEP itself, as someone pointed out on its talk page). The real definition of instruction creep is the accumulation of instructions that nobody follows. Instructions should codify actual practice, and when they do, they simplify people's lives, by eliminating the need for trial and error. In the case of the warning you removed, it was there to tell people how to avoid wasting their time by making the same mistake as N people before them. Without the instruction, people can go ahead and make the same mistakes, and waste their time and the time of other editors as they inefficiently learn why they should discuss contentious changes on Wikipedia's talk pages. Obviously talk pages are beneficial, otherwise Wikipedia wouldn't have them. --Teratornis (talk) 04:48, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Contains Redundant section: Criticisms
"Optimistic predictions of future oil production" summarizes the criticisms of peak oil theory in a logical place. "Criticisms" section is redundant and should be consolidated here. 76.168.225.131 (talk) 19:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Supply and demand--Separating the inseparable?
The article separates demand from supply. They surely exist separately prior to a sale. But in hindsight, don't they converge at the market price as production/usage (if storage is negligible, which I think it is)? If a source reports that supply or demand has increased or decreased in x years, aren't both equivalant to saying that production/usage has increased or decreased? We can't use what isn't produced, and we can't see demand that isn't supplied. All we can see in retrospect is historic production/use and price. Tom Haws (talk)

I would like to put the demand sliding report into the timing of peak oil section because it demonstrates that oil production/use has actually decrease in the past couple of years. Is there a good way I need to explain that? Tom Haws (talk) 20:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Tom, supply and demand are not the same. They intersect to create price.  If demand is high and supply is low, price is high... etc.  Petroleum can be stored in many places, such as in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (727 million barrels).  Global strategic petroleum reserves hold over 4 billion barrels.  Supply, which is the refined petroleum (and other liquids) available in the open market, is affected by releases of strategic reserves (note that production is not the same as supply).  Demand and usage are not the same either; demand includes all the people requesting that oil be sold to them, and does not quantify the amount of refined petroleum actually consumed.


 * Most of the big issues with Peak oil begin with the fact that until recently demand has grown very steadily for a long time, catching up with production. When production can not go up anymore (and begins to decline), the strategic reserves will slowly be used up until supply also begins to decline.  Then usage will be forced to decline, but demand could theoretically keep going up (imagine a room with one cupcake, full of people yelling for more).  Of course, as price price reaches a certain point, it causes demand to drop (as buyers can no longer afford the product, or alternatives become relatively less expensive).  I hope this helps... let me know if part of this is confusing.  NJGW (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it sounds like you are saying storage is not negligible as I had assumed. And your storage numbers are indeed significant, which does indeed insulate usage from production. I stand corrected. Tom Haws (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Two comments:
 * Strategic reserves are fairly large, but I don't think any countries have recently tapped theirs. The U.S. government, for example, resisted calls to release petroleum from the U.S. strategic petroleum during the price spike of 2008, since the reserve exists to buffer catastrophic supply failures. The total world strategic reserves amount to only a few months of consumption (4 billion barrels/30 billion barrels/year). That is negligible in the face of a permanent reduction in supply. The reserves are only there in case one or more large oil suppliers shut down temporarily.
 * Re: demand. Suppose a famine occurs, and there is only enough food to keep half of a population alive. In a free market, the price of food will go up until only half of the population can buy food, and the other half will starve. According to Demand (economics), "In economics, demand is the desire to own something and the ability to pay for it." By this definition, the starving people who cannot afford food have no "demand" for it. That would probably sound strange to them, as their desire for food will be their strongest desire in their last few weeks of life. We should probably use the word "desire" when we mean desire, instead of what the economist means by "demand".
 * --Teratornis (talk) 05:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The key qualifier is "and the ability to pay for it." If the starving people had the money, they could buy all the food they needed. If you apply basic economic theory, you can make starvation go away. Simply provide enough menial jobs at a low enough wage that only the desperate will apply for them. The desperate then earn enough money to buy enough food to keep them from starving. Where does this food come from? Well, the desperate consumers give enough money to the farmers that the farmers have the incentive to produce enough extra food to feed them; or in the event of a famine, they give enough money to the importers that the importers bring in enough food to feed them. Objections are raise by the wealthy who 1) have less money because it was taken away from them to give to the poor, and 2) have less food because the poor bought it. However, this method has been proven to work in real life, which is why you seldom see starvation in 3rd world countries with functioning governments any more. Oil differs from food in that 1) it is not necessary for survival and, 2) it is a non-renewable resource, so the same approach is not really valid.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The difference between oil and food may not be so great.
 * Oil is necessary for survival of a large fraction of the Earth's current population. Take oil away suddenly, and the world would probably collapse back to something like the pre-petroleum-age population in fairly short order. Take oil away slowly, and maybe at least the wealthy can find sustainable substitutes for it. However, if the substitutes are inherently more expensive, that might be bad news for the poor. The poor do depend on oil, even though they don't consume much. Most of what they do consume is probably in the form of fossil fuel inputs to their food. For example, when the World Food Programme flies an armada of cargo planes full of food to the latest famine spot, the beneficiaries might be indirectly consuming more oil in those meals than they would in a year of ordinary subsistence farming. The WFP alone keeps about 100 million poor people alive, and a large percentage of its budget is for fuel. Not to mention the fuel cost embedded in the food it buys.
 * Functioning governments appear to be more likely in nations that consume lots of fossil fuels. If this is not mere coincidence, then a too-rapid decline in oil production might reduce the number of functioning governments, thereby making starvation more common.
 * Food (in abundance, anyway) becomes a non-renewable resource when intensive agriculture exhausts farmland over time. Oxfam says global warming may have the same effect by increasing crop failures, especially in the densely populated tropics. David Attenborough claims it may already be too late for coral reefs which support ocean ecosystems that help feed a billion people. The Econ 101 picture of food was valid in the year 1850, when the population was still small relative to the resource base. Once the population grows enough to run into hard resource limits, the pie stops getting bigger, and the market can only allocate the scarcity (as occurred in extreme form during the Siege of Leningrad).
 * --Teratornis (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Agriculture and Population Limits
This section contains non-mainstream sources and websites of doubtful credibility (Countercurrents, for example). Further, it attempts to predict the future (WP:Crystal Ball).

The section should be re-written using peer-reviewed journal sources, mainstream media sources, and/or government reports. Otherwise, it will require deletion. Opinion pieces on little-known environmentalist websites that predict the imminent collapse of society do not rise to appropriate standards. Geogene (talk) 21:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * From the text you deleted: "A list of over 20 published articles and books from government and journal sources supporting this thesis have been compiled at Dieoff.org in the section "Food, Land, Water, and Population."" 22:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Papers and books from reputable sources should be cited individually. Violating journal and book copyrights (and most of them ARE copyrighted) by posting such papers on a personal website, and then placing links to that personal website on 100 or so different Wikipedia pages is not necessary and not helpful to Wikipedia or its users. Though I expect it would increase your traffic and Google rating.


 * By citing a personal website instead of the original paper, book, or article, you make it more difficult for references to be identified and followed up. Readers have to go browse the personal website (convenient for the owner, no doubt!) to find the bibliographic information.


 * Further, papers posted on personal websites are less trustworthy than papers found in libraries, academic web sites, or Google Scholar because nobody knows if the website owner has reproduced the content faithfully. This places the credibility of the reference material in doubt.


 * I also can't help but notice that the link I deleted, and you have apparently restored, goes to the website's main page. I have to browse the personal website to find the material. Again, convenient for someone looking for a cheap way to build traffic and rankings. The links to that site are spam and should be purged from Wikipedia. All 96 or so occurrences of it. Geogene (talk) 23:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I support the return of the text that I accidentally blanked in the article. It is the spam and the use of conspiracy theorists as sources that I object to. Geogene (talk) 23:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I intend to delete the following references:


 * (1) Self-published material by Dale Pfeiffer, a conspiracy theorist. Inclusion gives undue weight. Why do we care what he thinks?


 * (2) Material by David Bradley, published by a tiny environmental organization in New York that nobody has ever heard of. If you want to use wind power, the peer-reviewed literature is full of references you could have used instead that are more reliable than some club's website. Geogene (talk) 00:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions. Your contributions will be evaluated per wp:BRD.


 * Please list which journal articles and government publications from the dieoff website you would like us to help you turn into citations.


 * I didn't see anything at Dale Allen Pfeiffer about conspiracy theories... care to cite that, or show that he and his writings are non-notable? Also, what's so contestable about the Bradley cite?  If it really pains you that much to see his paper used to cite such a small detail, feel free to change it out (but please be much more careful when editing from now on so there's no more collateral damage).  NJGW (talk) 00:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. Apparently I have made another error. It appears that the website I attributed to Mr. Pfeiffer is not Mr. Pfeiffer's conspiracy theories, but rather conspiracy theories propagated by the source that was used in this article. That means that I must retract my accusation that Mr. Pfeiffer is a conspiracy theorist as being unfounded. He was merely published by them.


 * This is sufficient to delete the link to "From the Wilderness Publications" as not credible. I would suggest another Pfeiffer source that is less...extreme. Lest we encourage others to make the same mistake. Geogene (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Does anyone else agree this characterization? NJGW (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Now, perhaps you would like to comment on your inclusion of someone's personal website as a source for the article? Specifically answer the points I made above. Geogene (talk) 00:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Does anyone else find repetition tiresome?  NJGW (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I have merged "Agricultural effects", which was empty, with "population limits". Geogene (talk) 21:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This particular subsection is extremely dubious, and doesn't display much understanding of either the petroleum or agriculture industries. Certainly, the American agriculture industry shows a high dependence on cheap oil, but the U.S. has a large surplus of agricultural production. The U.S., after all, has more agricultural land than China, which has four times its population. Countries which are closer to suffering shortages aren't nearly as dependent on cheap oil, relying more on cheap labor to produce their food. Also, the section is obsessed with possible shortages of nitrogen fertilizer, which doesn't require oil in its production at all - it requires natural gas. Peak gas is a separate article, and a rather poorly written one at that. Suffice it to say that U.S. natural gas production is still increasing, and that there are large stranded gas reserves in Alaska and countries such as Russia and Iran. If the price of nitrogen fertilizer were to skyrocket, one would expect them to construct new fertilizer plants to take advantage of it.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Are there sources that talk about these issues? That would help improve the section, and be a good counter-point to include.  NJGW (talk) 17:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Imposed by nature
A Norwegian IP keeps trying to insert a link to the sales page of a Norwegian documentary. I have seen no indication that this person is making any other edits except to hate on consensus at my talk page. NJGW (talk) 21:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

{moving conversation from my talk page)

"PEAK OIL - Imposed by Nature" is a film and it is referred to by a link to it's website. The same goes, as you may have noticed, for several references under "Reports, essays, and lectures" and "Articles". Just like "Video documentary" they reside under "Further Information". So will you now please redo your undo. If you don't, I will make this a case for Administrator. And I hope that we will be spared for this kind of un-productive behaviour from you in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.140.113 (talk) 20:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You need to read wp:BRD, then read wp:N, then read wp:CONSENSUS, then read the talk page of the article, where you will see any new links need to be proposed first (as agreed upon by consensus). If you don't do that, you have no idea what's going on.  I would suggest not taking this to wp:ANI though, as you'd just be wasting their time.  Your time and all of ours would best be spent discussing this at the article talk page, as I have said several times already.  Also, use your named account so that you are not on a dynamic IP and communicating with you is easier.  NJGW (talk) 21:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You seem to be a real troublemaker. Not only taht, you seem to enjoy it as well. If I wish to place a link on Wikipedia that is sincere and real, well then I do it and I don't need anybody's consensus on that, so cut the crap motherfucker! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.140.113 (talk • contribs)


 * Let me start over. Hello, and welcome to the internet.  Although you may feel that not seeing someone's face gives you permission to be rude, that's just an illusion.  Furthermore, welcome to Wikipedia.  Wikipedia's content is created through a consensus based framework, following the guidelines and policies set up through consensus of it's users.  Thank you for your interest in the Peak oil article.  It is important that you catch up on the development of the article.  This can be done by reading the talk page.  We sincerely hope you learn how this project works.  If you can not do that, good luck in your future endeavors elsewhere.  NJGW (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry for being rude to you, but I get very angry when you cannot tell me the reason why you find my edit inappropriate! Can't you just tell me this straight instead of giving me a lot of references? That will make our communication so much easier. It was only YOU who reacted negatively to the link I inserted. So why did you undo it?


 * Besides, I have worked seriously as a journalist on the Peak Oil issue since 2002, and I am still in touch with most of the key players. I have followed the Peak Oil article on the Wikipedia since the beginning. It has not become better, rather worse. Unfortunately I have no time, neither the intention, to contribute to the article, but I demand an explanation to your removal of the link. So, the explanation please... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.140.113 (talk) 22:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Anon, are you Amund Prestegard? If so, welcome and please do help us find the sources which would help improve the page.  We are very interested in your thoughts and suggestions.  As for the link, it is to a sales page for a movie, not some resource which would allow users free access to information.  That's spam.  Also, if you are the movie maker, Wikipedia asks that you not edit in a way that promotes yourself or your interests.  Aside from that, your input and cooperation would be very valuable.  Keep in mind that an attitude against consensus has no place here.  Please get a named account so personal messages can be left on your user page.  NJGW (talk) 23:03, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * If a link to information on a film and where you can buy it is seen as spam, then I believe the Wikipedia is dead, and the respect for films as a medium is none. On the website troposdoc.com you will find several informations and links, carefully selected, intended to give a sober presentation on the issue, which cannot be said about the Wikipedia article which is the typical; if you say "yes" then you have to say "no", so-called objectivity.
 * I have decided to not waste any more time on this. My experience from life tells me there are more important ways to go. PS. I do also believe that contributors/editors to Wikipedia should operate under their real identity. In this way it may cool down some of the authority-freaks that operate "under cover", if you see what I mean? All best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.140.113 (talk) 07:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry this is the way you feel, but imagine if you will that every person with a website placed a link on Wikipedia. Your thinly veiled accusation towards me shows you have not paid attention to the past two years of development of this article.  NJGW (talk) 07:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * If a link to information on a film and where you can buy it is seen as spam, then I believe the Wikipedia is dead, and the respect for films as a medium is none. end quote 85.165.140.113. - 85.165.140.113 Wikipedia has numbers of guidelines for reasons that help to make it neutral and reliable. Credibility as to conflict of interest is one of those. Trash talking other editors is not a good method either. That also violates guidelines. Information should be the focus of contentions and how that relates to presentation and guidelines - skip sievert (talk) 07:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

3. Optimistic Predictions
"Non-'peakists' can be divided into several different categories based on their specific criticism of peak oil. Some claim that any peak will not come soon or have a dramatic effect on the world economies. Others claim we will not reach a peak for technological reasons, while still others claim our oil reserves are regenerated quickly over time." This paragraph is a heading for what follows. It generalizes people that do not believe in peak oil.

207.189.237.183 replaced this with "The rising price of oil products has had a dramatic effect on Reserves. BP determines that reserves have doubled since 1981. The ever increasing volume of resource has been instrumental in higher and later forecasts of the Peak. As the growth rate of URR & reserves in increasing, optimistic estimates of future production continue to flourish. "

Peak oil is about the *rate* of oil production, not the *quantity* of oil reserves. Comments? Kgrr (talk) 14:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

207.189.237.183, I do agree with you that reserves can appear to grow as oil prices rise due to the fact that there is still a lot of oil out there that is uneconomic to extract at lower oil prices. But this is not infinite. You can certainly explain this phenomenon under oil reserves with the proper references. kgrr talk 16:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I take serious issue with the labeling of the passage: "Optimistic ... lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations." as being 'optimistic'. What is optimistic about not requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. We are losing 200 species a day due to these 'lifestyles'. In 50 years there will be nothing left, literally. There is also the problem that continued growth of economies and populations for another 20 years would be an utter disaster, which is what continued energy expansion would in effect guarantee, making the crash even harder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.232.74.193 (talk) 04:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Reserve growth does not necessarily delay the peak; see File:US Proven Oil Reserves 1900 to 2005.png which shows that U.S. oil reserves grew "dramatically" right up to the very year that U.S. oil production peaked (1970) and then declined. Another point is that reserve growth outside a few relatively honest nations such as the U.S. is questionable, because much of it has been in countries which do not allow outside experts to audit their announced reserve figures. OPEC countries have an incentive to inflate their reserve estimates to increase their production quotas. Non-OPEC countries may have their own incentives to fudge, for example to attract investment, to maintain political careers, etc. It's not clear that all the people reporting these reserve figures get paid to be honest. And since everybody starts by picking the low-hanging fruit, the remaining reserves are harder to extract, which means their costs are higher, their development times are longer, and their EROEIs are lower. --Teratornis (talk) 22:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Projections of bountiful oil are "optimistic" because most people are addicted to oil to some degree. To an alcoholic, a prediction of plentiful booze would seem "optimistic", and a prediction of the end of booze would seem "pessimistic". (If only the alcoholic's liver could speak!) I imagine if the 200 species which go extinct each day could register an opinion, they would not like what humans are doing, but unfortunately only humans can edit Wikipedia. Where I live, the roads are choked with people tooling around in gas guzzlers who show no sign of concern about the external costs of their petroleum-fueled driving habit. It would be interesting to loiter at a gas station and survey the drivers coming in to fill up, asking whether they were thinking about how many species they are helping to exterminate today, and if not, whether they care now that you mentioned it to them. From what I can see, this type of environmental concern is so far down on the average person's list of priorities that it probably does not affect their behavior in any detectable way. Even people who profess to care rarely go so far as to cancel this year's vacation plans. --Teratornis (talk) 05:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a myth that people are addicted to oil - they just think they are. In reality, Americans are no more addicted to oil than Italians are addicted to tomatoes. Despite what people think, there exists a price, no matter how high, that they will stop buying at. That was $147 in 2008. At that price, people parked their old gas guzzlers and stopped buying new ones. It has nothing to to with environmental concern, it's just basic price shock. Be prepared for oil to go back up to that price, because the supply picture is looking bad. So, despite all the yelling and arm waving and gnashing of teeth, people will just get used to to driving less. After all, nobody ever died from driving less. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * How much did U.S. oil consumption actually decline during the oil price run-up? I was under the impression that the decrease in driving in 2008 in the U.S. was only about 2% (which is like a 4% reduction since miles driven had been increasing at about 2%/year). The larger decline in the latter half of 2008 (which still hasn't been very large) was due to people losing their jobs from the economic downturn. But even with the deepest economic downturn in decades, the roads are still choked with cars where I live - many of them single-passenger SUVs. Cutting the first 10% or even 20% might not be that terrible, but much beyond that and I think we'll see how addicted people are. You're right that it has nothing to do with environmental concern. If people cared about the environment, they wouldn't be burning gasoline. But note that addiction does not mean a person will pay any price. Heroin addicts, for example, would probably not pay a billion dollars to shoot up. At that price it would be less painful to go cold turkey. --Teratornis (talk) 07:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Whoa! All this talk about 200 species going extinct every day is not backed up by an reliable source. According to the IUCN Red List, during all of human history, the total number of animal species that were scientifically documented as having gone extinct is 717. Even if this only represents 1% of actual animal extinctions, because there are probably many animal species that went extinct during this time period that were never discovered in the first place, it's still magnitudes of order away from being 200 per day. Grundle2600 (talk) 02:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

New source
A report by British paper The Independent regarding the subject of peak oil, quoting Dr Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That information is included in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Plateau_oil section.--Teveten (talk) 09:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 08:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

ABARE
Added a link to the Australian Energy: National and State Projections to 2029-30, ABARE Research Report to verify Australia's projected production peak. Thought it might be more relevant than BP's assesment. 220.101.72.170 (talk) 09:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A: Graph on p.45 shows a peak in 2000 higher than in 2009
 * B: 2007 report on 2000 production levels is more credible than 2006 report on 2009 production levels.
 * -69.127.80.29 (talk) 15:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A: Thats not true. They are close.  The 2000 peak was 1438PJ (See Energy statistics - historical  table l) and the projected peak in 2009-10 is 1451 PJ.  Thats just for Crude. LPG production continues to increase (See as above, but Australian energy table h).


 * B: It is a 2007 report as well, and also incorporates 2000 levels into it. But it is an Australia specific report and so more likely to be accurate.


 * Yes it is a projection, but so are the totals of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. They are based on indigenous production, not total available resources.


 * I would accept that this info might need a caveat that it is subject to change. However, the previous entry gave the impression that oil and LPG production in Australia peaked due to supply.  The ABARE report determines that oil production will decline because mature fields will start to deplete and there will only be minimal investment in new fields in response to market shifts.  However, this report also estimated that Australia has about 2260 GL at 50% probability, or about 10 times current Economic Demonstrated Resources.


 * Finally please read the source more closely before telling me that I am misrepresenting it. I am not wedded to these stats, if you can find a source that counters it then fine, but BP's stat review is not it.  In fact they both agree that production was high in 2000.  I am just suggesting that this issue is slightly more nuanced than the BP's stats allowed for.  In particular, this resource is legitimate and relevant and so must be taken into account and not just deleted WindyHaven (talk) 00:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A: The table you link to does not include the stats for 2009, so this sounds like wp:SYN. It also adds crude and gas in the same stat, so it's not really usable for our purposes anyway.  Look at the table of crude production.  I was about to say the page again, but I'm tired of repeating myself.  It's pretty self explanatory.


 * B: It's a report published in December 2006, and the graph projects a 2009 level below that of 2000.


 * C: If the new fields are not being drilled, it is because they are not worth the investment and production costs. This is the limiter in Peak oil around the world, not just Australia.  There will always be oil in the ground that is too hard to get to.  69.127.80.29 (talk) 02:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I thought you were being deliberately obtuse about the date of report, so I checked and found I had actually put the wrong web address. The one that you were looking at was from 2006.  This one is from 2007.  Apologies, my mistake.  Now if you look on page 45 of that report, there is a clear peak at 2009-10.  As I pointed out, they are projections, but so are those of Kuwait and Iraq, and you are leaving those unmolested.


 * As to the mixing of crude and gas. Those stats actually include crude and NGL's (like propane, butane, and condensate)that you usually find together. While you might be technically correct that those aren't crude, I think you are splitting hairs.


 * By your own circular logic as the price of oil rises then it will become more economically attractive to extract oil, production will increase and Australia's peak will potentially move forward. So a slowdown in production in the past means that Australia has already gone over the edge? Couldn't there be a number of market driven reasons such as cheaper crude from overseas?  Shouldn't the peak be based on Economic Demonstrated resources not rates of production? It seems feasible that as prices rise we will see a new peak.


 * Now, as I mentioned before this is a legitamite source and just because it does not agree with your narrow focus does not mean it can be dismissed. The argument is more nuanced than the article allows. WindyHaven (talk) 05:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * "Deliberately obtuse", "molest", "circular logic", "narrow focus". Them's fightin' words.  Please don't assume that it's OK to be rude on Wikipedia just because you can't see the other people involved.


 * As for the causes of a peak, you're rehashing old ground here. There was an editor a while back that thought we should discuss this, but really it doesn't matter why the peak occurs if it occurs.  Resource exhaustion is just another way of saying "I can't suck it out for the market price."  There's always more oil left.  Check the archives if that doesn't make sense.


 * Now to the differences between projections for Kuwait/Iraq etc, those are areas that have been growing in production along a clear arch. Extrapolating their peak makes much more sense than saying there was a peak last year... every single year!  For the Aussie data, it's really bizarre that there was a peak in 2000 that was accepted by ABARE in 2006, but not in 2007.  Seems weird to me.  Glad you finally found the right link, even if you still haven't put the right link in the article.  I'd say the thing to do is leave the 2000 peak, but place a caveate that ABARE thinks there might be a final peak in 2009.  I've done that now.   69.127.80.29 (talk) 16:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Those are fighting words? Last time I checked those are the words of a robust academic discussion!  The only one remotely personal was 'deliberately obtuse' which I think applies to both of us because we were both sure we were right!  I could not understand why you were not correctly interpreting the graph I thought was in front of you, and I am sure you thought the same of me.


 * But, you did raise some good points, and it probably would be a good idea to keep both sets of data on there until something more current comes along. Though if your assertion above is correct, is is really so strange to have multiple peaks?  Production could decline and then increase again as price increases. I mean, its useful as a guide, but it does not seem like peaks really tell us everything about future availability of oil resources?  Especially given that it is predicated upon such an arbitrary guide in 'market price'.  As I said before, these arguments are a lot more nuanced then one set of stats communicates WindyHaven (talk) 01:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The Hubbert peak is the global maximum. There can be local maximums depending on a lot of different factors, including whether one is studying a well, a field, a country or a planet, as well as the physical and economic context and technology available.  Most of today's restrictions are physical (the mega fields in the Middle East which still produce the vast majority of our petroleum are declining). Some are economic (the tar sands of Canada and Venezuela and the deep wells in the G. of Mexico are only profitable when oil is above $70-80/bbl).  But either way, the peak is the peak and it tells you to either start looking other places or start using different fuels.


 * The utility of the Hubbert curve can be examined at Hubbert peak theory. There is also a lot of discussion in the archives:  Talk:Peak_oil/Archive_2, Talk:Peak_oil/Archive_2, Talk:Peak_oil/Archive_2  69.127.18.249 (talk) 05:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

ideas to expand peak oil novel
just was looking for a novel and found the section to small. could be enriched by the content of http://www.energybulletin.net/node/44031

the article speaks of 4 more novels, one from 1909(!)

--Stefanbcn (talk) 14:35, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Nations in decline of oil production
I didn't found the list of nations, where the oil production is in decline.This site: [Oil in decline] has a list with nations and its year of decline of oil production. This list is below:

1955: Austria 1966: Germany, 1970: Libya, Bahrain, Venezuela, Ukraine 1971: USA. 1973: Canada, Malaysia 1976: Iran, Rumania 1977: Indonesia 1978: Brunei, Yemen, Trinidad 1981: Tunisia. 1982: Chile. 1983: Peru, Albania. 1986: Cameroon. 1987: Hungary, Netherlands. 1988: Croatia, France. 1991: Turkey. 1992: Pakistan. 1995: Syria, Egypt. 1996: Gabun. 1997: Italy. 1998: Uzbekistan, Argentina. 1999: Yemen, Colombia. 2000: Australia, Great Britain. 2001: Oman, Congo. 2002: Denmark. 2003: Norway, China, Mexico. 2004: Qatar, India, Malaysia, Ecuador. 2005: Thailand.

Agre22 (talk) 02:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)agre22


 * This article isn't about decline, it's about peak. See oil depletion.
 * Those numbers aren't "declines", they are peak years.
 * That list does already exist in the article, albeit with clear sourcing.
 * - 69.127.18.249 (talk) 15:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

IEA figures distorted
This, published in The Guardian says that the US are manipulating the IEA to make them say that there is more oil than there is. It should probably be included. Smartse (talk) 11:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * But that's not what the piece says. It says that an (unnamed) whistleblower says that's what is happening. There's no reason we should treat an anonymous source as credible without independent corroboration.LeadSongDog come howl  17:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, the article refers to two anonymous sources, one current senior IEA official and one former.--CurtisSwain (talk) 20:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Survey of Geologists
This may be of interest/value. I don't have time to get into it right now, but someone else might want to take a look. Supposedly, 70% of geologists surveyed consider Peak Oil to be a serious concern.--CurtisSwain (talk) 06:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Problems with some of the "keywords" related to the main page
A) Peak oil is not based on observed production rates of individual wells, Arps quantified the majority of type curves used by petroleum engineers during the 40's, utilizing exponential, hyperbolic and harmonic declines. None of these resemble a bell shaped curve, and Hubbert certainly never used individual well production in his literature, he aggregated from much higher levels, both during his original 1949 and 1956 papers, as well as his later works. Colin Campbell correctly references the standard field level production profile in his late-90's book ( sitting somewhere in my office ) and that isn't a bell shaped curve either. Its the aggregation which is bell shaped, and its above the field level ( Hubbert used states, large geographical areas and countries ).

B) Depletion has nothing to do with falling supply. Or reserves for that matter. Depletion starts the day the first barrel is produced, and continues until all recoverable oil has been removed from the reservoir. The RATE at which depletion occurs is a function of production and reserve revisions, but certainly the statement as written is inaccurate.

C) As a petroleum engineer doing SEC proven reserves I can honestly say that Hubberts method is not used, and has not been recognized as any sort of standard practice by the SPE, as a means to predict reserves from wells. Arps did that related to decline curve analysis, unless the engineer wishes to use an approach developed a couple decades back by Fetkovitch.

D) Unpublished statistical studies also show that Hubberts method, or its variants using the linearization method also have near zero applicability to a field level solution.

All of these issues are with the introduction paragraph. How population, demand ( peak oil is at its core only a supply side argument ), and the basics of agriculture got involved later in the article is beyond me.

Petroleum Supply: If you are going to lead with a quote from someone saying the easy stuff is gone, you should do it right. JP Lesley said about the same thing in 1886 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania....why not include that quote as well? If nothing else, it will give the reader some idea that these claims have been going on longer than the lifespan of some quoted earlier as "oil industry experts".

Consequences of Peak Oil: Why not lump the earlier die-off claims, as well as the argriculture, population and demand scenario's in here instead of up front? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 04:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur with your very interesting remarks. IIRC, the first time the peak oil was predicted, it was in 1919, by USGS, predicted for ... 1928 - obviously no previous editor is aware of the fact. I am afraid this article makes a mincemeat of many things, mixing truths (oil is limited) with approximations (Hubbert curve~actual curve) and outright opinions (peak oil date can be predicted). There are more problems to this article, including POV : most references and bibliography point to ASPO and friends, which is not normally permitted in a Wikipedia article. The Hirsch report is brushed off and its conclusions are warped. The total misunderstanding of economic laws (demand is *not* a mere function of availability, price is *not* a function of the sole demand, etc.), the americacentrism (the whole economic life depends on oil, no oil reduction programme is possible without damaging the economy) are other problems with this article that should be worked upon. The incredible length of the article actually saves the day, as you may suppose a normal reader will certainly never read it entirely. How this article may have reached a "Good Article" status is very surprising.--Environnement2100 (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I call bullshit. HikeMySkirt is an SPA that only shows up once in a blue moon to stir up some hornets, and Environnement2100 has nothing but a disruptive history here (funny that they both suddenly reappear on the same day). What's more, the issue being raised has been dealt with thoroughly in the past.  The total world reserves prediction hasn't changed much since the 60s, and comparing the predictive techniques of the late 1880s to today's technology is one of the silliest straw men I can think of.  I move we speedy archive this discussion.  Anyone that wants to know more can see the archives for discussions on this issue, and this for a snippet of Environnement2100.  66.90.185.182 (talk) 11:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not know what an SPA is, but I do know what several decades of professional experience have taught me, and I stand by every comment I made, and after several years of watching this Wiki, I am also reasonable certain that my comments have not been handled in any way whatsoever. And I said absolutely nothing about JP Lesley's predictive technique because he did not have one, and instead relied on near personal knowledge of every well, farm, township, county and formation ever encountered in his world until that point in time.


 * I move we actually dump every piece of dogma, myth, speculation, conjecture, accountants acting as references and every other discredited piece of information in the entire wiki and go back to the fundamentals which started this mess in the first place ( Hubbert, 1956 ).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 05:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No, hes right, we still use the predicting curve that Hubbert made in 1956. Sounds so accurate to me. Seriously, I think i have to agree with the others here, just try to keep it balanced and NPOV. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 05:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

George Bush
Sombody should remove the George Bush remark. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.221.240.193 (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Just so you're aware, you could have done that yourself, but thanks for the note. --FormerIP (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

External links trimming
I did some trimming of the ELs. There is more that could be done. If someone gets a chance, please move the links specifically about oil depletion and petroleum (rather than specifically about peak oil) to those articles. Also, some of the links in "Articles" should be used as references, to flesh out sections in the body. 69.127.18.249 (talk) 04:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Bell-curve
I recommend that all mentions of bell-shaped curve are removed from this article; a bell shaped curve is something else entirely.--Environnement2100 (talk) 08:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This is true. It is not a true bell shaped curve, and there is one place in the article where this claim is made.  This will be changed.  However, there is nothing in the first paragraph about bell curves, so I've started a new section this discussion. 69.127.18.249 (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I would disagree. The standard Hubbert curve is bell-shaped, it is just not the same type of bell-shaped curve as the normal distribution curve. Mathematically, the two types of curve are significantly different, but in appearance they are rather similar. The normal distribution curve is not the only example of a bell-shaped curve to be found in mathematics, it is just the most prominent example.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Peak Oil Depletion Curve Graph
The legend on this graph obscures the projected future oil production rates for most of the models that are being plotted, from about 2025 on. This is a significant problem with the graph; does anyone more knowledgeable about the subject know of a comparable graph that doesn't do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.125.110 (talk) 21:57, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's information that belongs at oil depletion. This article is about the peak of production, which the graph illustrates fairly well for most of the models.  69.127.80.40 (talk) 04:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Synthetic sources, use of waste heat from nuclear power plants
The sentence: ''A 2007 news bulletin published by Los Alamos Laboratory stated that waste heat from nuclear power plants could be used to convert sequestered CO2 and hydrogen gas into methanol, and then into gasoline. '' is miss leading.

The source does not mention waste heat at all.

The two central steps in the process are electrolysis of water and water based solutions to produce CO2 and H2, this uses large amount of electricity.

Heat is used at some points in the process but probably at temperatures far above waste heat from a nuclear power plant(about 40 C).

The CO2 sequestration is done in the cooling tower in the power plant, this does not mean that the wast heat is used, just that the cooling tower has dual use in order to save capital cost and reduce the energy need for fans.

Wast heat has low exergy and could not be used effectively to produce gasoline that has high exergy.

At 22:22, 17 March 2010 I removed the words "waste", "heat" and "plants" from the sentence. At 06:46, 18 March 2010 69.127.56.159 reverted my change with a reference to figure 1 in the source http://www.lanl.gov/news/newsbulletin/pdf/Green_Freedom_Overview.pdf The figure does not mention any waste heat, the closest I come is "Hot fluid from Nuclear reactor" The word Hot implies that it is not wast heat and the process is still an electrolysis process so it is primarily electrically driven.

I am going to change "waste heat from nuclear power plants" to nuclear energy. Since the hydrogen production is integrated in the process I will also replace hydrogen with water. Please do not reinsert any statements about the process being based on waste heat with out full support in sources. 82.209.156.151 (talk) 00:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You are correct; the source does not say the word "waste". But that does not mean you should remove all mention of hydrogen from the article.  Better to fix a problem completely than to remove valuable information.  69.127.56.28 (talk) 03:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of the opening paragraph and its veracity
I would like to discuss the accuracy of the opening paragraph, particularly within the light of verifiable sources rule which is supposedly a requirement in the rest of the article. The 5 sentences are labeled below with my comments as to the particular problems involved.

If we are going to do this, it should be done right, and the subjective measures used when this paragraph was written need to be discarded in favor of the objective view required under current guidelines.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 00:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

First sentence
I would prefer to emphasize that this is a theory, not an established fact, e.g. "Peak oil is the theory that there is a point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached"... RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Second sentence

 * This paragraph has been well vetted in the past by petroleum engineers, geologists, etc... but since you took the time:


 * "Hubberts' method was not based on wells, and Arps in 1949 had already defined the basic empirical equations for oil well declines" - Do you have a source for both of these claims? This must be stated in your source.  All sources I've seen agree with the statement as it is.


 * "NONE of them had anything to do with bell shaped curves." - Hubbert curve has nothing to do with bell curves. Nobody says here that it does.  What are you criticizing?


 * "Hubbert also did NOT use groups of wells to create a bell shaped curve (sic), he was a prototypical discovery process modeler, he used groups of discoveries, fields if you prefer, over large geographic areas." Again, this disagrees with sources.


 * Please show a source stating that Hubbert didn't aggregate wells into fields into regions. Hubbert was comparing discoveries to production.  If you have sources which show he didn't use production data, please provide them.  So you know, his 1956 paper is full of production data and discussion about production.


 * That just the first sentence. Let's deal with that before we move on because it's a lot.  69.127.18.249 (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The decline rate of oil fields is the aggregate of the individual oil wells within the fields. The decline rate of individual wells is highly predictable based on the characteristics of the oil field. Predicting the decline rate of the oil field as a whole is somewhat more complicated because you need also to predict the drilling of new oil wells. However, once you have determined the drilling rate of new wells, the production curve of the whole field becomes more predictable. If you assume that step-out and in-fill wells are drilled at a constant rate until the entire oil field is developed, and then drilling stops, the aggregated production curve will generally be somewhat bell-shaped. If production constraints are imposed or secondary recovery techniques are introduced, then the curve will be more complicated. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * 1. No petroleum engineer who has ever done decline curve analysis could possibly have vetted the idea of any kind of increasing, bell shaped, logistic, exponential increase or whatever else has been claimed at the well level. None. Arps work is appropriately footnoted when Fetkovitch advanced the decline curve / type curve analysis concept when he tied the profiles back to rock properties in his 1980 paper. The reference for well profiles used by engineers to this day is as follows, Arps, J.J., Analysis of Decline Curves, Trans., AIME, 1945 160, p. 228-247. Please reference any source which says otherwise, something which should at the least be included to back up that statement if in fact it was "vetted".
 * 2. Lahherre references Hubberts bell shaped curve here. http://www.oilcrisis.com/LaHerrere/multihub.htm It is quite common for Hubberts profile to be referred to as "bell shaped". I notice below it has been resolved that this stop. This is good.
 * 3. Please reference the sources.
 * 4. Hubbert doesn't even use the word "wells" in his 1956 paper. His smallest grouping is a US state. He used aggregate production data of fields, as well as undiscovered to make his initial total volumes to fit under his grid system. His 1956 paper covers this. The claim that Hubberts profile applies to wells is a mistake on the part of those who aren't familiar with reservoir dynamics involved. An explanation of Darcy's Law should cover this for anyone mathematically inclined, if it is desired. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs)


 * 1. I did a google search for "Arps, analysis of decline curves," and the first link states, Exponential, hyperbolic, and harmonic decline curves are possible, depending on the specifics of individual oil wells." The second link states Arps' findings as, "Arps (1945) (1956) collected these ideas into a comprehensive set of line equations defining exponential, hyperbolic and harmonic curves."  Not sure why you keep harping on bell curves, as we've established multiple times that this isn't a normal distribution we're talking about.
 * 2. Again, as RockyMtnGuy points out, a bell shaped curve doesn't have to mean a normal distribution, so your continued pressing of this point doesn't prove anything.
 * 3. I guess it really doesn't matter exactly what Hubbert did in 1956, because the sentence is not about Hubbert 1956.
 * 4. ... but as long as we're on the subject, do you know for a fact that Hubbert didn't do use well data? Not that it makes any difference to this sentence in the lead, but unless you find a source which says exactly what he did or didn't do, you can't make an assumption about his methods.


 * It doesn't really seem like you're arguing about the article as it's written. It seems like you're trying to have an argument with Hubbert.  This isn't the place to do that.  69.127.56.159 (talk) 07:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I read his paper, he never used the word wells. So it can't be referenced as his method whether he did or not.
 * So can we take out the wells component, because all his examples of states and large areas aren't wells, and no one can provide a reference saying he did? People demand sources, so either we find the one for wells (which I say doesn't exist) and reference it, or we remove the improper claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 00:26, 20 March 2010


 * Like I said, sounds like you have no issue with the article as written since it doesn't mention well aggregation being Hubbert's method. Also sounds like you're making a wp:POINTed argument.  69.127.56.28 (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The statement: I read his paper, he never used the word wells, involves a logical fallacy: argument from silence - i.e. the paper does not mention wells, therefore wells must not be involved. There is an old saying that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". In fact, the production curve of of an oil field or region is the aggregate of the production curves of all the wells, existing and future, in the oil field or region. Hubbert did not get down to that level of detail in his paper, but he obviously knew what was happening. If you are working for an oil company, you can interrogate the company's well database, sum up their individual decline rates, and get the decline rate for all the existing wells. Then you can interrogate the capital spending budget, determine the number of wells to be drilled, estimate their incremental production, and then do decline estimates for them as well. If you sum all the wells up (existing and proposed), you get the future production curve for the company as a whole. This can be a depressing experience because it can indicate approximately how long the company and therefore your job is going to last.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You are using deductive reasoning on a different topic (field development) to infer that Hubberts method involved some sort of bell shaped/logistic/increasing profile for well production. The work done by Arps stands in direct contradiction to that reasoning, as well as its application for half a century to millions of wells. Either we can reference Hubbert saying that his profile applies to wells, or we cannot. If we cannot, we certainly CAN'T use the word wells in the given sentence. And of course Hubbert knew what a individuals well production profile looked like, its why he never claimed that his technique applied to them, he knew better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 16:58, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "... to infer that Hubberts method involved some sort of bell shaped/logistic/increasing profile for well production". Who is saying what about well-decline curve shapes? Nothing about it in the article.  The article is stating a mathematical equivalency to help readers visualize the topic (a+b=c).  Hubbert showed that when the aggregate data (which ever way it was collected) could be linearized into predictive models.  Like RMG said, the process Hubbert himself used to collect the data is much less interesting than the models he produced.  To geologists, it's so basic a concept--field data being an aggregate of well data--that there's no need to mention it (like a statistician leaving out the he used algebra while performing ANOVA analysis).


 * Now if you want to get some refs together and help prove what you're saying about Arps & individual well depletion curves, that could be used to make Hubbert curve a more interesting article. 69.127.56.28 (talk) 03:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

A really good illustration of the above points is the "End of cheap oil" article by Campbell in Scientific American, 1998. There is a graph of aggregate production in the article which shows individual wells making up the total. But the article itself doesn't mention that particular issue... it's just too basic of an idea. 165.230.203.23 (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * An example of what Colin said can be found here. He does say wells. http://dieoff.org/page140.htm He is also incorrect. Here is an example done by a relatively well known engineering and software company using the ideas of how wells produce, not what is claimed by Campbell in his paper. Having created, audited, certified and testified on using these techniques over multiple decades, I am amazed that such a basic error has established itself so thoroughly. Note that no examples have a peak production rate somewhere in the middle of the production stream. Notice that these are based on concepts more than half a century old, and quite common to those with actual experience on this topic. Can we please change the claim of individual well production looking anything remotely like this bell shaped curve stuff now? Example at: http://www.fekete.com/software/rta/media/webhelp/c-te-analysis.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 05:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Third sentence
The third sentence may have been true during the 19th century, when people had no physical possibility to control the well's production. Nowadays, it is wrong : all wells have some kind of production control device. Moreover, new wells are developed within specs, which include a daily production which will remain stable over the commercial life of the well ; actual field development depends on this constant production over the first 5 to 10 first years of the well. No bell shape there.--Environnement2100 (talk) 08:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ref please??? You've been very wrong about a lot of different things on this topic before.  As for bell shaped, see my other comments.69.127.18.249 (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Generally speaking, oil companies develop a new field as rapidly as possible until they hit the geographic limits of the field. This produces an exponential increase in production until drilling stops (as it inevitably must). Then they produce the wells as fast as possible unless some government agency intervenes to stop them. This produces an exponential decline curve. Now while prudent production practices would cause companies to throttle back production to preserve reservoir pressures and produce the field at a constant level, this is usually not what they do. In fact, they often overproduce the field and cause a precipitous decline in production toward the end of its life, hence the "declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted." comment. It is true that in a perfect world, they wouldn't do this, but this is far from being a perfect world.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Fourth sentence
The fourth sentence is wrong if you look at the main producers production curve, such as Saudi Arabia.The source provided (Testing Hubbert) actually shows that th Hubbert curve does not fit.--Environnement2100 (talk) 08:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The article you link to contradicts your words. It says that Hubbert predictions are significant in general, regardless of the fact that no model is going to accurately predict the exact production curve of an individual well or field.  69.127.18.249 (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Saudi Arabia is anomalous because it has been acting as "swing producer" to stabilize world oil markets. Other curves may be somewhat anomalous (e.g. the US curve shows a secondary (albeit lower) peak when the supergiant Prudhoe Bay field (the largest in the US) came on production. I could provide other examples of anomalous national production curves. However, these anomalies tend to average out over all countries, so the global summary curve tends to be rather Hubbert-like.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Fifth sentence
I think this section misses the significant point that, in mathematical terms, the oil production curve is the first derivative of the oil depletion curve with respect to time - the two are intrinsically linked by the laws of calculus. The Hubbert curve is a bell-shaped curve, and the oil depletion curve is a sigmoid curve, but this is what you would expect given the mathematics of the relationship. Again, this has little or nothing to do with the normal distribution curve or its integral, the cumulative probability curve. They are just very similar-looking curves. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The rate at which oil production transitions from month to month or year to year is a derivative of nothing. It is simply the rate at which a given well, field, country or even the world produces at a given point in time. Certainly there is no calculus required for me to drill, complete, and put a particular Berea well on-line in Washington County Ohio. And my main complaint with "oil depletion curve" is that after three decades in the industry, I've never heard of it. Certainly I've never seen it used in reserve or resource evaluation, and tries to link things which I'm not even sure are pertinent to the topic. And how a normal distribution gets involved in here is way beyond me, certainly such a distribution should never be confused with a simple production rate, which certainly isn't a normal distribution of results but only time series data.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by HikeMySkirt (talk • contribs) 19:22, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Crude (2007) documentary
The link to Crude (2007) was removed by anonymous user 69.116.144.208 on the grounds that it "is about oil, not peak oil". Please watch the movie, it is definitely about peak oil. For some evidence, in the Director's Statement, the director says, "Now, after less than a century of significant exploitation, the world's oil tanks appear half empty. New discoveries began drying up thirty years ago. Increasingly worried voices from inside 'Big Oil' are warning that we may already be at the peak of production. Whether we hit the peak last year, this year or it is still two decades away, it is clear that oil is running out. As soon as we crest production the days of cheap oil will be over though not, it seems, our thirst..." In his response to the AGU's award, the director writes, "When I first started drafting the film, in late 2005, concerns about peak oil and climate change were still considered fringe issues by many in Australia—if given much thought at all. Not so now." DBrane (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * While it does seem that the director made the movie because of peak oil, the "about the movie" section of the movie's web page barely gives any mention of peak oil (an off-hand remark about an "impending energy crisis"). I don't think you can make a movie about the "big picture" of oil and not have it deal with peak oil.  However, I was trying to prevent a link farm from forming (which seems to happen quite a bit at this article).  If a different editor wants to reinsert the movie, that's fine, but more important than adding lists to the lists in this article is adding to, refining, and updating the content.   69.116.144.208 (talk) 01:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Brasil and West Africa
As I understand it, gigantic new oil fields have recently been found outside Brasil and West Africa. Why aren't these countries mentioned in this article? Clearly the presence of such findings would dispute the validity of a Peak Oil hypothesis. --Kebman (talk) 17:41, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is true large fields have been discovered in those places, but not enough to greatly change total world reserves (no more than say... 5% I would think). And of course no one expects those fields to produce forever either, so really all those discoveries alone would change is the timing, and then probably not by much.  Much more significant are unconventional resources, namely oil sands and oil shale, which could drastically push out peak oil timing if they could be produced at a greatly increased rate from where they are now (a big if).  I'll point out that even oil companies don't really dispute that sooner or later the world will produce less and less oil.  The dispute is over when, and the track record for predicting that is pretty awful for everyone involved.  TastyCakes (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Good answer! I still think these new findings should be explained in the article; why they are important in the grand shceme of things, or not, since they are now used to dicredit peak oil hypothesis. I say, let's have the facts! :D Alas I don't sit on them myself... --Kebman (talk) 19:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * People who are trying to "discredit peak oil hypothesis" are by an large conspiracy theorists who believe that any oil shortage is a tool of the Illuminati to instill their NWO and implement a world government. Per wp:UNDUE and wp:V we can only give them the coverage that scholars and the media give them... which is none.  These opinions only exist in fringe blogs (blogs on the whole being fringe to begin with), and seem to only get attention from blog-type media.  As for Brazil's oil, it's such a small amount in the grand scheme that even Brazil's biggest oil exec is saying peak oil will happen this year.  By looking at the actual numbers (which are in the article) it's easy to see that it would take many many mega-projects to significantly alter the timing or effects of peak oil: we use 85 million barrels a day, 31 billion a year, so that even if all of the 5-8 billion barrels of P2 oil (probable, or 50% probability of recovery using future technology) in the Tupi fields are extracted all at once, peak oil will happen 2-3 months later than expected. This is mentioned at the top of this talk page in the mini-faq.  69.116.144.208 (talk) 01:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Unconventional sources
The article states: Moreover, oil extracted from these sources typically contains contaminants such as sulfur, heavy metals, and carbon that are energy-intensive to extract and leave highly toxic tailings.[70] 150.203.35.113 (talk) 04:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Can someone point me to where in that cited article it mentions anything about heavy metals?
 * What is "oil contaminated with carbon" supposed to mean?
 * That is a good question. "Highly toxic tailings" also strikes me as hyperbole that you won't find supported at Athabasca Oil Sands or Oil Sands.  To me it seems clearly biased and should be changed.  TastyCakes (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't have access to that article at the moment, but and  confirm the first issue.  I just googled it and it popped right up.  Might be the way to go to figure out the second issue too.  As for tailings, a similar google search let's you take your pick of references.  Or simply use two refs from  this page. 69.116.144.208 (talk) 16:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree heavy metals is correct. Carbon as a contaminant didn't make much sense so I removed it.  I also described the tailings ponds as "sludge" rather than "highly toxic" which I think is more accurate.  TastyCakes (talk) 16:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Oil extraction does not grow exponentially
I intend to change this sentence in the introduction:

The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows exponentially until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted.

...because it's wrong. Oil production grows logistically until it peaks.

Twerges (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * ...Furthermore, I notice now that there's a graph on the right hand side, with a Hubbert curve, labelled "logistic distribution". But the article text claims it's exponential. I think we should make the article text consistent with the graph.Twerges (talk) 21:52, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, to quote the Logistic function article you linked to: The initial stage of growth is approximately exponential; then, as saturation begins, the growth slows, and at maturity, growth stops. In other words, the first part of the logistic curve is exponential in nature. The Hubbert curve is the first derivative of a logistic curve, and as a result the first part of the Hubbert curve is also exponential in nature. This mathematical relationship isn't really explained very well in the article. However, Hubbert's work was more practical than theoretical, so he didn't really explain the math behind it. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 01:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Rising importance of peak oil.
A few years ago I got banned from wikipedia by a certain Billy Con-artist for trying to put a link into the Global Warming article to peak oil. Looking back, peak oil really was quite an off-beat subject that seemed to be very nerdish and which very few people had heard about. But that is clearly changing! For a while now, I've been monitoring google news stories for "global warming" and it is quite noticeable how the news outlets are fed up with global warming (Dropped from highs in 2007 of 20,000 news hits a day, to 7000-8000/day today, a trend which is continually going down). Just as a guess, I wondered how that figure compared to peak oil, and it is clearly going the other way having increased to around 6000.

OK, we don't know the date of peak oil, even if it is a meaningful "event", but what seems pretty clear is that sometime in the near future as news interest in "peak oil" heads up the peak, and "global warming" comes down the slope of public interest, the new boy wiki article on the block of peak oil is going to walk past the has been of global warming.

So, keep up the good work, the future is peak oil! 85.211.162.77 (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not a beauty contest or competition between the two topics, and an increase in interest in peak oil (or other energy depletion issues) does not automatically translate into "coming down the slope of public interest" for global warming. In fact, many aspects of peak oil will only increase interest, on the part of those who are well informed, in global warming; for example, increase in use of tar sands, or coal, or other non-conventional sources, as a possible reaction to peak oil, would make global warming worse. 19:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC) Harel (talk) 19:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Timing of Peak Oil section and subsections
Although I have followed peak oil for 10 years now I regret not to have contributed here earlier. A good and thorough article overall. For this section however, I see two concerns:

1. The terms "optimistic" and "pessimistic" include the POV that late peak is better in all respects (online definition of optimistic: "expecting the best in this best of all possible worlds"). Correspondingly about the term "pessimistic". Clearly without dispute, some things will be better/easier with a late peak (and more difficult with an earlier peak) while other things relating to pollution for example, might very well end up being worse. Proposed new subsection names would be Early Prediction and Late Predictions, or Earlier and Later, or something along those lines.

2. Either in another section, or expanding this section to "Timing and Level of Peak".

There is a vast, huge difference between predicting peak at 110mdb in 2012 (for example) and predicting a peak at 90mdb in the year 2012. This variable has profound impact, as profound or in some scenarios more profound, as farf as the effects on society, than the date alone. To have a useful summary of predictions/analyses side by side, this variable needs to be included.

There are a few mentions scattered here and there, but not organized as the timing is. If someone has time, a two dimensional graphic (one axis for how early, the other for what level the peak would be) is one possibility. Without that, then at least adding careful parenthetical or otherwise linked information about "at X mbd" next to every date prediction "will peak by the year Y" would allow readers who scan one prediction after another in this section (which does a decent job of listing predictions from many sources) to get a more useful sense for how sharp an impact on society is implicit (all other factors being equal) in each respective prediction.

Peak in the year 2020 at 115mbd? Or peak in theyear 2020 at 88mbd? Very, very big difference... Make it easy for readers to have this variable in the predictions (or state "level of peak not predicted" for those who refuse to include that estimate but only estimate date of peak)as they scan and juxtapose all the analyses we have listed side by side in the current form of the section..--Harel (talk) 22:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Re: #1, I don't think the words introduce any sort of bias in the article, but perhaps there are more neutral ways of stating the same thing. Earlier vs. Later feels a bit awkward and informal to me ("earlier than what?"), otherwise I'd be for the change.


 * I am thinking of the terms earlier and later like the sense of the terms "older" and "younger" where these words don't need to be relative to some point; the same sense of the word we use when we say, "younger visitors to this part of Florida seem to enjoy Disney while older visitors seem to prefer..." Thus you have earlier and later predictions, younger and older people, cheaper or pricier restaurants. I wouldn't use the word "bias" but certainly a value judgment as per the definition of "optimistic" cited above as "expecting the best in this best of all possible worlds" for optimistic. The current language basically states a POV that earlier peak is bad news in all ways, and later peak is good news in all ways. I'm open to alternatives to "earlier" and "later". Those just seemed the most simple and accurate terms for what the intention is: earlier dates of peak versus later (including "time=infinity" or "never") dates for peak. --Harel (talk) 23:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Re: #2, if there are RS sources which discuss these issues in the same way you suggest, then by all means be wp:BOLD. If it's any more than a retelling of RS sources though, it's unfortunately novel synthesis and not really appropriate for this venue (regardless of real-world veracity).  69.127.18.249 (talk) 20:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments here too. I assume RS stands for referenced source. I wish I could take credit for being so smart as to be "novel" and the first person to have ever thought about this. I'm not. It is unfortunately true that only a small minority of articles on the matter take this dimension into account, the rest being over-simplified (sometimes to extreme levels of confusing peak with "running out") and if not that, then less extreme levels of distortion. I'll be glad to be bold when I next have free time to do a more exhaustive search; meanwhile, I'll hope that people who have been following peak oil and are on wp might beat me to it (if not, I may try to boldly add from RS by summertime) Thanks. --Harel (talk) 23:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear my original suggestion #2 is not for novel synthesis in the sense included in your link since it does not include any new conclusiond (a fortiori, no new conclusion "that was not in either of the multiple original sources" since it introduces no new conclusions at all) but rather instead -andwithout making any new conclusion(s) - to organize the data, which in fact has two or more dimensions, in a way that highlights the two or more dimensions (time of peak, and level of peak**) rather than the current form which takes this data and organizes it as if only one (relevant) dimension/variable exists (time of peak). As I said when more time I'll find one articles which is among the smaller collection of more careful expositions, which don't brush such things under the rug, which we can then add reference at same time as more accurate and careful organization of peak is made. Or else, another possibility would be to keep the current organization, but add a caveat that yes, cites an outside reference, to point out that the effects on society cannot be approximated with only the date of peak but depend also on the level of peak.--Harel (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (other post-peak variables include length of time of plateau, and rate of decline post-plateau. However these variables come in after initial peak. In the leadup to the peak, which is being predicted, these two do not directly come into play)

I've noticed a lot of scholarly articles (in research journals and policy journals) using the words. I've decided they are accurate representations of how the literature describes the situation. 165.230.203.23 (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't dispute that the terms are used widely (not sure whether universally in scholarly articles, but certainly widely). Nevertheless, an article on "climate change" might well clarify for readers that while that's a commonly used term, that the phrase does not refer to any 'change' in climate; that indeed climate 'has always changed' but that the term refers to modern, faster, anthropogenic changes. Other examples come to mind, too..but in any case, similarly it should be clarified, at least, for readers that the so-called "optimistic" scenarios are not necessarily those which would result in the best or optimal outcomes for society as a whole. Harel (talk) 19:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That might work in a note or something, so that the flow of the text doesn't get disrupted. It seems hard to do without editorializing though.  24.16.85.252 (talk) 17:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Link to Oil Smoke and Mirrors in section Documentary films
Dear all

I propose to add a link to Oil, Smoke and Mirror in the documentary films section. Ohnoitsjamie and I disagree on the relevance of this link. See e.g. talk

I believe it is worth having it here, amongst other reasons because this documentary can be watched online for free without copyright infringement. What do you think?

--MarmotteNZ (talk) 10:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Can't find any indication that this is a notable documentary. Ohnoitsjamie stated that it's a fringe doc, and given the heavy concentration of the film on 911 conspiracy theories, I tend to agree.  Seems more about 911 conspiracy than anything else.  We don't link to things just because we can.  Please state why you think it adds to the article.  24.16.85.252 (talk) 17:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * "Can't find any indication that this is a notable documentary."...what would that be? I get a 404 when going to www.notable.documentaries.org :-/  As I wrote earlier, I think it ads to the article a lot because 1/it can be watched online, therefore can be watched with no further expense by any reader discovering this topic on wikipedia and wanting to learn more without having to spend $10, 20 or 50 and wait a week for the delivey of a DVD, 2/It contains, besides of the 911 conspiratonist bits, interviews from notable experts (from the industy as well as (retired) politics) which show very clearly how this issue is voluntarily unspoken and obfuscated from all politician's discourse, and ignored in all public policies. --MarmotteNZ (talk) 03:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Snark will get you nowhere here. WP iz sirius bizness.  Read up on notability.  206.188.60.75 (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * THX 206.188.60.75, but the guidance you quote is quite explicit about its own scope: "The notability guidelines are only used to determine whether a topic can have its own separate article on Wikipedia and do not govern article content." so your remark is out of point. As of mine, sorry if you don't appreciate irony, but what I mean is that their is no one unique criterion to evaluate the notability of a documentary. Also note that other documentaries and links (e.g. Collapse) have a large conspirationist content as well. --MarmotteNZ (talk) 03:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * A) We're not talking about content. We're talking about links.  I thought I remembered notability listed among the criteria at wp:ELNO, but I could be wrong or that may have changed.  I hold that given the large numbers of items having been inserted into the section in the past, notability is an important issue.  See previous discussions on the issue.  However, if you disagree we can move to the issue of wp:V (see ELNO #2).
 * B) As far as Collapse goes, you're complaint is not a convincing argument for inclusion. If you'd like to discuss the merits of that link, we can do so separately.  I note, however, that the wiki article about that movie (to which we link, rather than linking directly to the film) states that the documentary presents certain views as those of some person, and that the film itself is neutral on those ideas.  I also see that the movie had great critical acclaim.  206.188.60.97 (talk) 19:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 206.188, I think the policy he's looking for is reliable source. The documentary does not seem to pass under those criteria, and it doesn't really matter if it's easily accessed if it is not an acceptable source. To put it another way, the fact that it seems largely composed of fringe theories discredits it to the point that its use is inappropriate, in my opinion. TastyCakes (talk) 20:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok tHX all, I won't try any further ;-)--MarmotteNZ (talk) 10:39, 13 September 2010 (UTC)