Talk:Peak oil/Archive 7

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

ref 1 out of date, failure of predictions, & consequences

Ref 1 is labeled as if it is from 2012. The paragraph in ref 1 after the first sentence is now out of date, and the predictions of "some geologists" have proven incorrect. Following the FT ref trail, the definition is from an article dated 1 Dec 2009.

1. I'll change the label on the ref to show that it comes from 2009.

2. I also suggest that the consequences of failure of these and other similar predictions ought to lead to a radical change of tone of the whole article. The general tone of the article is that peak oil is an inevitable and urgent fact, even though the "unconventional sources" section entertains the possibility of much larger reserves, postponing peak oil a long way ahead; and the "synthetic sources" section allows the possibility of unlimited future gasoline. The first has already begun to happen and cheap solar panels have shown that the second is no longer inconceivable.

Gravuritas (talk) 21:41, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

A section on failed peak oil predictions would add valuable perspective to the article. Plazak (talk) 00:08, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but we need to go further than that. The enthusiasts for this creed have written chunks of this article in a way that conflates predictions with facts. When the early predictions turn out to be incorrect, then unfortunately the article then needs extensive modification instead of just an appendix showing the out-turn of the predictions. Also, as the predictions turn out to be incorrect, the articles is getting accretion of 'peak _cheap_ oil' and 'peak oil _per capita_' to muddy the waters instead of facing up to the failures.

Gravuritas (talk) 22:28, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

US crude oil and Hubbert curve

The curve illustrates extremely well two main aspects. Firstly, Hubbert-type curves originally showed some good fits to some oilfields and some regions, and some countries. Over the longer term many countries are showing deviations on the upside for crude oil production, suggesting that Hubbert curves are becoming poor models due to technological and or economic developments. I have no wish for US domination of this or any other article, but the US curve is particularly apt because Hubbert made some US predictions, the actual production curve matches a Hubbert curve well initially, and the curve is now deviating significantly upwards. Gravuritas (talk) 18:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

It's probably pretty important for anybody making substantive claims or edits in this article (or any other related to Hubbart) to study the history behind the story. Hubbart was a Shell Oil geologist who became the grandfather (creator?) of modern resource statistics through his prediction of recoverable oil reserves depletion in the US. The fact that his curve fit so well with the US production rates has been discussed continuously (ad nauseam) and in-depth since the 1950s. It is by no means synthesis to put those two graphs together.

There is also plenty of scientific literature discussing the accuracy/usefulness of Hubbert's statistics. There's really no reason for people to let their own opinions on the matter (or the opinions of non-experts) drive the tone of this article. Sadly, it appears that that has been the trend in the article's recent history. Sorry for going slightly off-thread-topic there; I believe Bobrayner's edits were entirely in good faith. 108.242.178.208 (talk) 05:52, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm being dim, but I'm not clear what your point is. I didn't add the graph originally, but I think it serves a useful purpose as I've described above. Bobrayner deleted it and I reinstated it as I think there is at least a discussion to be had first. I have no reason to doubt Bobrayner's good faith and his is certainly a tenable point of view that it should be deleted- but I think that the only justification heard so far for deleting it- that it constituted undue focus on one country- is not good enough, for the reasons I've given above.

Gravuritas (talk) 18:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

My statements about Hubbart were to help Bobrayner understand the reason the graph is not novel synthesis. Your statements about the graph didn't address that claim that he made. The whole exchange highlights, in my eyes, a big problem which keeps coming up in the editing of this article: it is a very technical and complex issue which is not covered/understood well by the media, leading to poor understanding of the issues and history (not to mention the statistics) involved. That was what prompted my second set of statements. 108.242.178.208 (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

A graph of US oil production versus a Hubbert logistic curve is certainly justified, because Hubbert's successful prediction of peak oil timing in the lower 48 states is commonly used to justify applying the concept to world peak oil. Hubbert asserted that logistic curve would be a good model for nations and areas within nations, as well as for the world. Plazak (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Effects of Shale Oil on peak oil

As a high school student in the 2000's I experienced first hand the 'peak oil scare'. I remember discussion in schools revolving around whether or not the world will go into an oil shock due to depleting supply and the massive talk around ethanol.

Since 2011 these fears have been completely disproved due to shale oil/oil-bearing shale. However I think this article needs to make this clear and maybe add a section on how the rising prominence of shale slowly disproved the peak oil scare? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.108.78.10 (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The US EIA expects both US shale and total crude production to peak and go into decline before 2020. Keith McClary (talk) 01:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Updates needed?

How does this graph relate to the theory of peak oil? Also, what role do restrictions on drilling play in limiting how much oil is recovered? How have these restrictions changed over time? I assume these issues are covered in reliable sources and I suggest this article needs work to address them. Candleabracadabra (talk) 15:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

That graph is a perfect example for Peak Oil. It shows a reasonably good fit to Hubbert's curve, with about four prominent spikes which show the temporary effect of technological advances. Oil is a finite resource that will only be useable for a finite period of time (fact). Hubbert created a new way of looking at discovery data to guess how long that would be, and so far his central assumptions have proved legitimate. Apparently he was too conservative in factoring in new extraction techniques, so the graph has shifted a bit to the right; peak oil will only truly be pinned down after the fact. The new extraction techniques help us dig deeper, squeeze harder, and boil faster, but they don't create new oil.

This is a slow moving story about a future event. Incremental updates are of dubious value. The bulk of the content should be dictated by the longitudinal study of oil production and use, and literature reviews of those studies. Changing the wording of sections based on quarterly updates is not helpful, especially given that those numbers are very often amended in the following years.

If the petroleum engineers of the world start publishing papers about how we need to rethink Hubbert, then it's time for big changes to the tone of this article. Until then, it really just needs to be cleaned up again. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 05:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Gravuritas' claim of POV

Gravuritas, you don't seem to understand wp:POV. There is no bias in describing Dreyfus and Simmons as oil industry experts. The fact that they don't agree with you is not the issue here. You must learn to move beyond your opinion and start bringing in sources which back you up. I've asked you to do that multiple times on this page, and you either refuse or cannot. It's getting old. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The second para described two observers as petroleum industry experts. The WP entry for one says "On February 11, 2006 Deffeyes claimed that world oil production had peaked on December 16, 2005." That makes him wrong, on this precise subject, in a major way, and so his expertise is, at the least, questionable. Turning to Simmons, the oil price wager reported on his WP page is not too good for his credibility in this arena either. Quite apart from the specifics of these two individuals, describing the holders of a particular view as "experts" in the second para gives their opinion undue emphasis, and the results is a lack of balance. It won't do.

Gravuritas (talk) 15:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

So wait, are they experts or not? One is a former Shell engineer, oil industry expert witness, and geology/petroleum professor. The other started a banking system for the oil industry and was hired as an energy expert by the Bush admin. Seems the only POV is that you, Gravuritas, don't think they are expert enough.

In my mind, calling them "observers" is somewhat POV (as it makes them seem just casual), but accurately describing them as experts fixes that issue. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 15:12, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

If I were a trial lawyer I would so much love to have an expert witness against me who had claimed that world oil production had peaked, not just in 2005, but on a precise day in 2005. I'm sure your belief in his expertise would be a character-forming experience, and my doubts about his expertise would be shared by many others.

I've no particular desire to call them observers- it was just what remained of the original sentence with 'experts' deleted. Could we just say "Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons predict....."?

Gravuritas (talk) 16:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

They both appear to qualify as experts, but it would be more descriptive, precise, and less POV, to describe them by their qualifications rather than just as "experts." How about something like: “Some, such as professor emeritus of geology at Princeton Kenneth S. Deffeyes, and former presidential energy advisor Matthew Simmons, …” Plazak (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

They both have WP pages, and for each there exist both expert credentials and a reason to laugh at their expertise. To me that suggests just using their names, linking to their respective pages, and letting each reader decide. Moreover, given that para 2 presents one view of peak oil and para 3 presents a differing view, I would suggest that ascribing credentials to these 2 gentlemen in para 2 while letting the contrary view in para 3 merely be described as 'some estimations' unbalances the article. But there are bigger fish to fry in this article and it feels like headway is getting very difficult.

Gravuritas (talk) 17:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Gravuritas, based on your comments here, I would describe you as NOT an oil industry expert and NOT qualified to talk on the subject. Based on 35 years experience as an analyst in the oil industry and having read their books, I would confirm that Deffeyes and Simmons are and were (Simmons is dead) oil industry experts. Other than that, I would suggest that you be more humble in the presence of greatness. Not mine, theirs. You suffer not from delusions of greatness but delusions of competence ("laugh at their expertise", indeed!).RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

From http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events-06-02.html "In the January 2004 Current Events on this web site, I predicted that world oil production would peak on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2005. In hindsight, that prediction was in error by three weeks. An update using the 2005 data shows that we passed the peak on December 16, 2005. "

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=53&aid=1&cid=regions&syid=2004&eyid=2012&unit=TBPD

Total oil supply 2004-2012 83,041.3 84,504.3 84,485.6 84,326.0 85,438.9 84,592.5 87,157.8 87,572.9 89,292.5

Not funny?

Gravuritas (talk) 20:55, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, it is kind of funny if you look at what is happening behind the scenes. I have often upset the Peak Oil crowd by pointing out that Canadian deposits of oil sands (which Americans like to call tar sands) are equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil, and Venezuela's are even bigger. There are also ways to produce oil than pumping it out of straight vertical wells. In fact, Canadian conventional oil is nearly exhausted but of the 3.86 million barrels per day of oil the chart shows Canada producing, only about 0.5 Mbpd is conventional oil - almost all of it is oil sands or produced by fracking, and most of it is exported to the US. Unbeknownst to most Americans, US imports of Canadian oil are getting to be bigger than imports from all of OPEC. Of the increase in US production, probably around 2.5 Mbpd was produced by multistage fracking of horizontal wells. It probably is true that world conventional oil production peaked in the 2000's, so in that sense Deffeyes, Simmons, and Hubbert were right. Others of us have been looking for the exception that proves the rule, and I think we've found it. This doesn't invalidate these experts' opinions, it just limits their scope, and it doesn't make them non-experts, it just makes them non-experts in non-conventional oil. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:25, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

To exclude Canadian tar sands and oil shales (in the original kerogen-shale sense) from oil-peak theory is certainly justifiable, because they are mined, rather than recovered by drilling and producing through wells, and because peak-oilers, from Hubbert onward, have put them in another category. I think that most industry people such as yourself knew that they would be exploited someday. But to arbitrarily exclude all "non-conventional" sources is highly questionable, because one generation's non-conventional is the next generation's conventional. What we call non-conventional are just the latest examples of ongoing technological improvements, like waterflooding was a hundred years ago. For that matter, hydraulic fracturing has been commonplace since the 1950s, and massive hydraulic fracturing since the 1970s. I have not studied Deffeyes and Simmons, but for any prognosticator to assume that technology will stand still would be obvious folly. Hubbert, never a fool, explicitly acknowledged that technology would march on, but believed that it would not be sufficient to change the shape of his curves. I would be surprised if any book on the subject, such as those by Deffeyes and Simmons, would not address this point. Critics, on the other hand, have long argued that peak oil theory did not sufficiently allow for improved technology. I guess I'll have to dig up some sources for this after I return from vacation, to add to the article (no, I haven't forgotten the article). But you have to score one for the critics on this point. Regards. Plazak (talk) 20:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Most of the article, and the entire section 'Demand for oil', is misguided

( We need to scrap much of this article. It is well-sourced, but it is babbling, without central theme, and says little more than oil production will one-day peak and then decline (duh), and here are a bunch of poorly analyzed (if analyzed at all and not just stated) facts that sound bad. End of article. But let's look at Demand, my area of understanding: )

In a given year, for example, there was a quantity of oil produced and consumed. Relative to this amount, changes in oil stored are very very small. So the amount made and used is almost exactly identical. This was the intersection of the supply CURVE and the demand CURVE, which gives us the the market clearing equilibrium quantity. So, if that quantity was 100 in 1950, it is accurate but makes very little sense to say "quantity-demanded" was 100 in 1950 - because we also can say quantity-supplied was 100 and we can also just say quantity produced and consumed was 100. Even worse, it makes little sense AND is just plain incorrect to say "demanded" for oil was 100 in 1950. Please see Demand to see why it's wrong. This article makes these mistakes like crazy, especially in the rant section about Oil Demand. e.g. "The EIA now expects global oil demand to increase by about 1,600,000 barrels per day (250,000 m3/d) in 2010." The section "demand for oil" should be scrapped, and so should most of the article. May I do so? It just keeps saying increasing market-clearing quantity is "demand" going up and up. In fact, I had to point-out that crude prices plummeted to less than half in 2008, because the article said they went up in 2008.

The article is without a coherent point and just implies "you should worry". There will, by definition, be a year that has the peak production (and hence consumption) of oil in the world's history. But this "analysis" adds nothing. Yes it quotes sources for the numbers, but actually says almost nothing, and the little is actually says is original research. The section being called "Demand for oil" made me think there would be analysis of shifting and projected demand curves, including price elasticity of demand etc., maybe technology. It just calls amount sold "Demand" (incorrectly) and rants. No analysis of demand at all. The rest of the article is not much better.

So, the article says that King Hubbert predicted oil would hit some year with it's peak production, and that the year would be 1967 or 1968. Then he said 1995 for the world. Then he said 2000. Now the IEA thinks around 2035. And you should be very afraid. And here are many many facts, most of which aren't part of a coherent story, but most of which just sound vaguely "bad". Did I miss anything? Artman772000 (talk) 09:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you that it is a great error to write about "demand" as an independent constant, unrelated to supply and price. The version of peak oil expounded by Hubbert (although his views shifted somewhat over time) and his successors predicts that oil production will follow a predictable curve up to that peak, and then back down. The theory is highly influential, and needs to be covered by Wikipedia. That there have been failed predictions in the past provides needed perspective for readers judging the reliability of current peak predictions. As for the dire consequences predictions, as long as they are properly sourced from someone with expertise in the field, and not OR or a blog, they should stay. Documented contrary views of a painless transition to a post-oil world are, of course, welcome. Plazak (talk) 13:22, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to put this article in perspective. There have been many editors who have not understood the basic premise, let alone the economics of the oil industry. Combined with editors seeking to share the vast amounts of misinformation found on-line, the article has become loaded with details that may or may not be relevant. It was a "good article" at one point (two points actually), and it would be nice to see it fixed back up to that level.

Can you propose a way to write a section on the price elasticity of oil and the way that could affect the timing of the peak? Seems Hubbert kept it pretty simple, saying that past discoveries and current consumption trends help predict future supply. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 18:15, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The criticism in the original post is accurate but it doesn't go far enough. Hubbert's thesis was more than "oil production will one-day peak and then decline"- it was that oil production will decline because of reserve depletion (or if you like, depletion of reserves that are available at reasonable cost). That remains a possibility, but there are other possibilities, e.g.

1. a plateauing of oil production & then decline due to resource depletion (i.e. that Peak Oil's broad thesis is right, but Hubbert's curve was wrong)

2. a decline of oil production due to a demand decrease (or if you prefer to view it that way, a strong movement of the demand curve to the left): i.e. Peak Oil is bollocks

The main problem of the article and most of the contributions is that it and they make the assumption that there is only one way the use of a finite resource can end- with mankind driving off a cliff- and they ignore 1. & 2. above.

The result is the intellectually confused article that we have today.

Trying to be constructive with this mess, the structure of the article should be that Hubbert had a theory, it matched some geographies and timescales, and failed in other geographies and particularly on longer timescales (so far). At this point then individuals can choose to believe or not that the theory will have some traction on a global scale and a long timescale.

Gravuritas (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

To help us understand the position you are stating, can you point to some sources which discuss this in more detail? 108.242.176.37 (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Here you go. [1] (Periander6 (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC))

Weird; they claim that demand for regular crude will drop in the short term, but that demand for "unconventional liquids" will not. I think they meant supply, but watevs. Anyway, I think price-related demand shifts are built into the Hubbert curves, so it should be discussed as such. However, I also think this article should mirror the consensus of how scientists and policy makers discuss the topic. Here's a sampling of journal articles from 2013/14:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151300342X

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113011617

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328713001031

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120319.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113006054

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120448.short

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-02940-5_6#page-1

(argues that the way to get demand to go down is to artificially raise price)

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120491.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913003819

Let me know what you think. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 04:59, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

They virtually all seem to be subscription only. However, the second source cited says "In other words, while the IEA now suggests that global crude oil production is past its peak, it does not anticipate a significant decline before 2035 and it foresees no peak in conventional, all-oil or all-liquids production before that date." Without necessarily accepting the IEA as the only arbiter in this, it is very clear that all references to peak oil need to be extremely clear about what exactly is meant by 'oil'. The second source you cite seems to have made considerable efforts to define what the different types of oil are- but this WP article blathers on about peak oil for an age before we get to any discussion or definition of 'oil'. I have tried to make this point- i.e. the need for precision as to what precisely peak oil means- both in this talk page and via some small edits. In short, if you compare the WP Peak Oil article with your second source, which "...summarizes the main concepts, terms, issues and evidence that are necessary to understand the ‘peak oil’ debate" (i.e. what the WP article should be trying to do, albeit at greater length) a fair observer would say that the WP article is piss-poor.

Shall we try to fix this together?

Gravuritas (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

1) "virtually all seem to be subscription only" is not a valid discussion point. I did a search at Google Scholar for "Peak Oil" since 2013, and brought the relevant results from the first page or two.

2) This thread originally proposes that the topic of this article should be viewed from a demand perspective and not a supply perspective. I provided lots of evidence that the way the scientific community and policy makers discuss and and analyze the topic is indeed from a supply perspective.

3) You stated "Trying to be constructive with this mess, the structure of the article should be that Hubbert had a theory, it matched some geographies and timescales, and failed in other geographies and particularly on longer timescales (so far)." I asked for some sources that would help me understand what you are even talking about, and you maintained radio silence for over a month.

I can only assume that you have no RS sources which will help us understand your position. In fact, you even state "individuals can choose to believe or not that the theory will have some traction on a global scale and a long timescale". If this is how you understand the collaborative, reliable-source-driven editing process used on this site, you have come to an incorrect assumption. This area is not for discussing your opinions on the topic of Peak Oil. It is for discussing what the consensus of experts (even those you disagree with) have to say about the topic. I am starting to see why RMG is saying the things about you that he has said. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 22:55, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Conventional vs non-conventional oil

So both RMG & Plazak's comments above refer to specific types of oil as being in or out of certain predictions. The second reference in the long list supplied much higher up this page made it clear very early on that the analyses and predictions for future oil supplies depend crucially on what is meant by 'oil'. I think the lack of that clarity, especially early on in the WP article, is a failing, and e.g. if RMG is now prepared to concede that D & S are non-experts in non-conventional oil, then I'm prepared to concede that they are /were expert in conventional oil. But the para which mentions their expertise should explicitly refer to this subset of possible 'oils', and it doesn't. I don't want to make this point specifically about these two chaps: I'm trying to make a general point about the lack of precision which I think is contributing to the 'heat not light' of some of the discussions. Gravuritas (talk) 01:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Deffeyes is about 83 years old now and retired, while both Simmons and Hubbert are dead, so obviously they are not current on the technology. As I have said elsewhere, I think that the Hubbert curve only applies to conventional oil, but for conventional oil it is rather accurate compared to other methods. Non-conventional oil is a whole other ball of wax. My own current working hypothesis is that current oil production is the sum of two independent curves, the conventional curve which the Hubbert theory describes fairly well, and the non-conventional curve which few people know enough about to predict. The real question is whether non-conventional production can rise fast enough to offset the decline in conventional production, and my feeling is that in the long term it cannot. So the peak oil theory is not incorrect, it is just overly pessimistic. Most likely we will see a peak, delayed a decade or so from the expected Hubbert peak, and a much more gentle decline than predicted as a result of non-conventional oil. It still won't be a lot of fun for consumers because non-conventional production will be very expensive. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I think your second and third sentences more or less are a reasonable summary of what the WP article should be based on. So to improve the currently-confused WP article, the flow needs to be, say, define conventional oil; show that conventional oil production has generally followed certain patterns, some of which were accurately predicted by Hubbert et al; and that various alternative oils or energy sources are available or potentially available. The prognosis for each of these in terms of costs, time & volume availability can then be discussed and then the range of futures for oil supply for the world can then be set out reasonably with due allowances for the uncertainties in the forgoing stuff. The building blocks will then be reasonably constant through time; we won't need to keep modifying chunks all over the article as predictions fail; and the rapidly-changing controversial stuff will then be less controversial as the prices- low or high- and volumes-adequate or not- of alternatives become clearer.

Gravuritas (talk) 14:19, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

As long as you're not still harbouring the belief that [peak oil is as exciting as peak horse-shoes] (for which I still haven't seen any good evidence), then this might be a breakthrough in our discussions here. Of course, we'll need some sources to help back up this line of organizing the article and defining the terms. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 19:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

By the way, you mentioned the source above (second source in the "long list of sources"), which is "The future of oil supply" by Miller and Sorrell[2]. I don't think your characterization of their bottom line is accurate. They explain that the best way of predicting oil supply in the future (in their minds) is to do Hubbert style analysis of individual areas and then aggregate that "bottom-up" in a complex model, which they explain often fails because of poor data from individual areas. But, they point out, ultimately,

"The same mechanisms that lead to peaks and declines in regional oil production should ultimately lead to a peak and decline in global production. This inevitability was first pointed out by Hubbert in the mid-1950s, but the multiple forecasts of regional and global peaks that have been made since that date have frequently proved premature. More optimistic forecasts have often proved equally incorrect, but it takes longer for their errors to become evident."

The issues they point out are many, and the interactions of these issues are complex. This source does not seem to support your characterization of the issues. Their conclusion is that

"Most authors accept that conventional oil resources are at an advanced stage of depletion and that liquid fuels will become more expensive and increasingly scarce. The tight oil ‘revolution’ has provided some short-term relief, but seems unlikely to make a significant difference in the longer term. ... At present, rising oil prices are incentivizing the development of supply-side options whose large-scale pursuit would guarantee dangerous climate change (box 3). Avoiding this outcome requires instead the prioritizing of demand-side options and far-reaching changes in global transport systems. Climate-friendly solutions to ‘peak oil’ are available, but they will not be easy, they will not be quick and they appear unlikely to allow the majority of the world’s population to achieve the levels of mobility currently enjoyed in the West. Lower mobility, in turn, implies a very different direction for future economic development. In sum, adapting rapidly and peacefully to oil scarcity in a manner that does not destroy the global environment provides humanity with a formidable challenge."

108.242.176.37 (talk) 19:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The source "The future of oil supply" by Miller and Sorrell is actually a pretty good reference, although I wouldn't agree with everything it says. It is true that you can do a bottom-up analysis if you have enough data. I used to do this for oil companies, where I had access to all the company databases. Combine all the current well production data and their decline curves with all the reservoir engineering data, add in the proposed capital budget with all the future developments including probable production, and bingo! you have a very accurate curve of future production. For a place like Saudi Arabia where all this information is a state secret and people can be put in jail for revealing it, it doesn't work as well.

I don't agree with their differentiation between "extra-heavy oil" (Venezuela) and "oil sands" (Canada). As far as I am concerned, it is all oil sands - extra-heavy oil or bitumen (both<10°API) in unconsolidated sandstone. The main difference is in viscosity, and that depends on temperature. It's the difference between molasses in the tropics or molasses in the sub-arctic. For a better comparison of Venezuelan and Canadian oil sands, see Comparing Venezuelan and Canadian Heavy Oil and Tar Sands by M.B. Desault[3]. It says:

It is reasonable to expect that 20-30% of the oil in place in both countries will eventually be produced, an amount that is approximately equal to all the oil that has been consumed in the world to date, and sufficient for about 35-40 years consumption at current rates.

Which could mess up the Hubbert curve rather badly. However, it could be more extreme than that. Most new production in Canada uses steam injection with the dual well SAGD method, which can achieve recovery rates closer to 60%. It would also work in Venezuela, but Venezuela doesn't have the technology, yet. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 02:25, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Whoa, that's pretty interesting stuff. Are you aware of any good sources that discuss the prices (of refined oil per barrel) at which these techniques are economically viable? What about discussion of production curves (peak oil sands, perhaps)? I'm sure those curves depend on the market price of their product and what replacement technologies exist, but it seems like an interesting conversation to cover. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 03:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Probably the best source for pricing data is the Canadian National Energy Board. Its document Canada’s Energy Future 2013 - Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2035 - An Energy Market Assessment [4] discusses production and marketing of Canadian energy (of all types) in great detail. On page 40 there is a table 5.2 that gives estimated costs of production for new oil sands projects. New mining projects need a WTI price of $80-100 per barrel to be viable, but new SAGD projects only need $50-80/bbl, and with the WTI price currently at over $100/bbl, they are very lucrative. It also discusses shale oil, natural gas and numerous other topics, but all from a Canadian perspective. Like the US, Canada does have shale oil resources, but the oil sands are much bigger and probably cheaper to produce. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 14:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Do you know if those numbers include subsidies? 108.242.176.37 (talk) 02:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Association [5] there are no longer any subsidies to the Canadian oil industry. The Alberta government spent about $1 billion in research money to develop the SAGD process of producing oil sands, but since then, it has been all gravy - it now levies a royalty on oil sands production ranging from 2% before payout to 25% after payout of capital costs, plus a corporate income tax on profits. The federal government got screwed by subsidy losses to oil companies during the 80's and after that abolished them all. It now levies a 5% GST (goods and services tax) on all costs and sales, plus an additional corporate income tax on profits. Canada now exports most of its oil production to the US so Canadian governments now view it as a major revenue source. This is quite different from the US where the oil industry is still heavily subsidized. Company tax and royalty costs are included in the NEB cost estimates. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Hypothesis not fact- making future editing easier

Peak oil is not a fact, it's a hypothesis resulting in a prediction, and ought to be consistently written about as such in this article. The NPOV seems to be missing, and if the global peak oil date continues to be pushed further and further into the future then a series of corrections will need to be made to the article. I suggest a more neutral tone would result in fewer back-tracks and corrections. Gravuritas (talk) 09:41, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Since perpetual growth in production of a finite resource such as oil is impossible, peak oil is by default a fact. The date being pushed forward 1, 10 or 1000 years doesn't change the basic premise. Without any specifics it's hard to say whether the corrections you suggest would be a good idea or not.--WANAX (talk) 12:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Since the possibility of synthetics is at least mentioned in the article, the assumption of the finiteness of the resource fails. The 'reserves'; 'concerns over reserves'; and 'unconventional sources' sections are now looking horribly out of date, to put it at its politest. The intro mentions the possibility of peak oil being reached due to _either_ demand _or_ supply issues, but if oil production eventually were to start falling due to reduced demand, then most of this article on peak oil would look ridiculous. The 'production' section, for instance, is clearly based on the thought that peak oil will be reached due to supply shortages, but does not even state that this is an assumption.

To take a specific: "Some believe that when oil production decreases, human culture, and modern technological society will be forced to change drastically" The use of 'when' is an illustration of my point. Even with the weasel words 'some believe', then if the writer had had the humility to put _if_ instead of _when_, and add a caveat that a demand-led decline would not lead to drastic problems, then the sentence could still stand today. However, in the light of developments in the last 10 years that have already generated rising production of oil and gas in the USA, and the technological improvements giving us other energy sources, then the sentence I quote is already looking shaky and may shortly become ludicrous.

Gravuritas (talk) 13:47, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

"Peak Oil" is about "conventional oil" (variously defined). It was long known that there could be substitute products such as natural gas liquids and synthetic crudes made from coal (as in WWII), bitumen ("tar sands"), kerogen ("oil shales") as well as renewables such as ethanol and biodiesel. Other energy sources such as nuclear, solar and wind were also anticipated. The issue is, when conventional oil inevitably peaks and goes into decline, will the alternatives be available in sufficient quantity and at acceptable cost?

What does "demand-led" mean? Citation needed. Keith McClary (talk) 04:10, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I still cannot find a pertinent definition of "demand-led". Keith McClary (talk) 01:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

No, the issue is not as you define it above. If alternatives to oil (or 'conventional' oil, if you wish to move the goalposts) develop in sufficient quantity and at acceptable cost before a hard crunch happens, then oil/ conventional oil may peak and decline, but so what? It would not have been inevitable (i.e. the timing and rate of decline will not have been inevitable) and peak oil/ conventional oil may then be greeted with the same lack of interest as peak horseshoes was. On this subject, for clarity, would you like to propose a name change for the article from 'Peak oil' to 'Peak conventional oil'? That would take a lot of drama out of the topic immediately.

Gravuritas (talk) 18:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The phrase "Peak Oil" has had an accepted meaning for decades. It does not refer to salad oil. We do not concoct new meanings in Wikipedia to make topics more or less dramatic. (The definition should be in the introductory paragraph.) Keith McClary (talk) 01:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

"The date being pushed forward 1, 10 or 1000 years doesn't change the basic premise" It reeeeeeally does. Especially when the "basic premise" is based on a close date. In fact the very fact we could produce synthetics, as the other user points out, refutes the claims of this article. And replying with "well, uh, the universe will eventually end so therefore: peak oil is fact" isn't an argument either. Peak oil is a hypothesis and it is not even remotely a fact. 124.169.86.57 (talk) 08:20, 24 September 2013 (UTC) Sutter Cane

If you look below, you can see I think this article is just terribly written for wikipedia. Also, I agree that the tone makes it sound like we know what the next few years will bring (bad bad stuff), and we should edit that. However, I think it's okay to discuss a peak year like it's a fact. This planet WILL have some year in which it refines and sells it's maximum amount of crude oil. Every finite population has a max. A finite number of years will have a year that is highest. Even if there is Armageddon, or some truly innovative technology that makes oil obsolete, or not, there will still be a year of maximum production.

Artman772000 (talk) 09:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Artman772000 (talk • contribs) 09:16, 2 February 2014 (UTC) 

There are a couple of problems in discussing peak oil as if it's a fact. One is that that within the article we need to be very clear as to what precisely is the 'oil' that is going to peak. If you define it narrowly and unconventional oil takes over, it's a big yawn. If you define it less narrowly then we may never reach a peak, because of synthetics or renewables, and there's nothing for anyone to get their knickers in a twist about. Make your mind up- ecodooms have a very poor predictive record. The second is that various editors can't distinguish between the various possible scenarios that result in a peak and decline. Peak cadmium was reached 50 years ago. Did you notice?

Gravuritas (talk) 18:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Peak oil is a theory. People get obsessed by the fact that something is not a "fact" without realizing that "facts" are limited in their predictive capacity. "Facts" just lie there and don't do anything. They don't predict anything. A theory predicts that something will occur in the future, and that is its strength. Facts lie in the past, theories predict the future, and the future is what we have to worry about because we can't do anything about the past. Theories are often superseded by other, better theories, for instance, Newton's Law of Gravity was superseded by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The former just predicts what a dropped object will do under local Earth conditions, whereas the latter predicts a lot about the origins and future of the universe. Theories are much more powerful than facts or laws, although they can always be superseded by more powerful theories. "Peak oil" predicts that world oil production will peak at some point in the future, although we can't exactly say when. It will become a "fact" about 50 years after it happens and everyone realizes that it occurred. That's far too late for most people. We want to know what is going to happen in time to do something about it. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You'll find that this section started with a post from me stating that peak oil is a hypothesis (a theory, if you like) so there's no dispute about that from me. However, 'Theories are much more powerful than facts..' is moonshine, sunshine. There are a range of theories, some being just drivel. One of the ways of judging a theory is its predictive capacity, which you allude to. Hubbert's law was quite precise in its predictions, and hence initially impressive, but the inconvenient facts have shown it to be incorrect for e.g. world oil production. Peak oil, as you mention, predicts only that oil production will peak '...at some time in the future...' which makes it a fairly pathetic runt of a theory, subject to people predicting the peak is upon us, which is then disproved by the facts, and then a new set of predictions (sometimes from the same people) claim the peak is upon us, again. Popper wrote that the test of science is falsifiability: any theory needs some possible sets of facts which would falsify it, otherwise it is non-science. What hypothetical set facts would you accept as disproving peak oil?

Gravuritas (talk) 05:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You're unclear about the difference between an hypothesis, a theory, and a fact in science. I'll summarize from the Wikipedia articles:

• A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories....
• In contrast, a scientific theory has undergone extensive testing and is generally accepted to be the accurate explanation behind an observation.
• A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research.
• A fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable experiments.

Now, in this case, M. King Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell Oil in Houston, noticed that oil production in the US was not matching the current theories in the 1950s, so he proposed his own. This was basically a working hypothesis, since it was only partially formulated but matched the observed facts and made testable predictions. He predicted, based on the observed data, that US oil production would peak and start to decline somewhere around 1970. As a matter of observed fact US oil production did peak in 1970 and started to decline. Since nobody else's theory predicted that (and it came as a huge shock to most oilmen - I was around to see the look of horror on their faces when they drilled all their best prospects and they came up dry), his hypothesis became accepted among geoscientists as a valid theory. He didn't actually predict world oil production because he said he didn't have enough data for the rest of the world. In fact we still don't have enough data to predict oil production for many of the biggest producers so it involves a lot of guessing.

As it happens, the Peak Oil theory is falsifiable. US oil production peaked in 1970 at 9.6 million barrels per day, and by 2008 it had declined to 5.0 Mbpd. However, it then started rising again, and in 2013 reached 7.4 Mbpd. The key fact, however, is that this is still much less than 9.6 Mbpd, so the theory has not been invalidated yet and still stands. This is the key point people have missed - they are basing their objections on their own hypotheses and not on observed facts, which have not occurred yet. Peak Oil for the US would be invalidated if production again reached 9.6 Mbpd and kept rising from that point, but that hasn't happened yet. Most likely (and this is based on my own working hypotheses, which of course are original research and not to be repeated here) it will never happen. We remain waiting for the test results to come in.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:07, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

[inserted out of sequence] By your definition of falsifiability, can we take the following graph as evidence that peak oil is falsified for world oil production? http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2012/06/25/how-much-oil-does-the-world-produce/

Gravuritas (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I have to quibble with a couple of points above. First, Hubbert did, in fact, at various times predict that world oil (see Predicting the timing of peak oil) would peak between 1991 and 2000 (erroneously, as it turned out). The (so far) repeated failures of Hubbert and his many followers in predicting peak world oil testify to the difficulty of translating his theory to accurate prediction. Second, Hubbert predicted not only the timing of peak US oil, but also the post-peak decline, following his logistic curve. His remarkable achievement in predicting the timing of peak US oil (a validation of that aspect of his theory) should not blind us to the deviation from his predicted post-peak logistic curve of US oil, which predicts that current US oil production should be only a fraction of what it actually is. Likewise, Hubbert fairly accurately predicted the timing of a peak in US natural gas, but its post-peak behavior was more of a plateau than a decline, and it has since risen to new peaks. Hubbert, and to a greater degree some of his followers, embraced a mathematical fatalism that once a decline set in, production would decline as rapidly as it rose, and the decline could not be reversed; this post-peak part of his theory is contrary to current observation. Regards. Plazak (talk) 13:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll do more than quibble. I'm perfectly clear about the differences between hypotheses, theories, scientific theories, and facts. Underneath the lecturette, RMG is claiming that Peak Oil is a scientific theory- that it "has undergone extensive testing and is generally accepted to be the accurate explanation behind an observation". Phooey. What testing, what explanation, which observations? Peak oil is at best merely a hypothesis. I'll grant it 'theory' status only in the common use of the word (i.e. it's not a fact), not as defined by RMG and WP's definition of a scientific theory. Given that Hubbert's law has been disproved in the world and long-term arenas (though it was pretty impressive on shorter timescales and smaller geographies), what exactly does peak oil amount to? That oil production & use, (that's oil defined according to definitions which seem to slither around), will peak one day and we'll realize it decades later? Is that it? So returning to the topic, is the leader correct?

Gravuritas (talk) 00:45, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Gravuritas, what do you make of this [6]? I think the evidence points to your statement "Phooey [etc]" to be invalid. Also, there's a 2009 article called Testing Hubbert that you might be interested in. Curious to see what reliable sources you can provide to help us discuss the consensus. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I did extensive testing of Hubbert curves back when I was a business analyst in the oil industry. However, putting it in an article violates the Wiki "no orginal research" rule and also the NDA's I signed. Most real oil experts will be in the same position. Hubbert's theory worked pretty well to describe most cases, eg the US decline, the current North Sea decline, and many others, including the production declines of oil companies I worked for which no longer exist. If you apply it against global production, you do see a decline coming, but not when - There is not enough valid data available to predict when. However, my interest was in the Exception that proves the rule. I was working in the Canadian industry trying to find those exceptions, and working to invalidate Hubbert's theory. Hubbert's theory only applies to conventional oil. Canadian conventional production peaked in 1973, but Canadian production bottomed out around 1980 and has been rising ever since with no end in sight. Most Canadian production is now non-conventional - oil sands, aka tar sands, and US imports of Canadian oil now exceed all OPEC countries combined, unbeknownst to most Americans including apparently Obama. Hubbert's theory also does not apply to natural gas because of all of the non-conventional so-called shale gas lurking out there. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 15:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Overlapping

There is overlapping of 'The following are considered Unconventional oil sources' and 'Unconventional sources' subsections. They should be merged, cleaned-up and trimmed. Beagel (talk) 08:02, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The coverage here of conventional vs. unconventional should also be connected to the subject of the article. For instance, Hubbert and most later peak oil theorists dealt only with naturally occurring crude oil, and not with fuels manufactured from crops, coal, or kerogen shale. All these sources have long been known, but were usually excluded, sometimes explicitly, from peak calculations; this should be noted. However, many other classes listed here as "unconventional" are the most recent examples of the technological improvements that have been taking place since the Drake well. These technological improvements may have been unanticipated (I suppose that, by their nature, most new technologies are unanticipated), but most peak theorists (starting with Hubbert) assumed that technological improvements would continue, and explicitly or implicitly included them within their forecasts. Plazak (talk) 19:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This article should be on fossil Oil.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 15:14, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the article should make clear what is taken into account while talking about peak oil (conventional vs. unconventional). However, the problem is that unconventional sources are described in two separate subsections with some overlapping. This is an issue about the article's structure. Concerning fossil oil—actually also most of unconventional oils (excluding biofuel) are fossil fuels. Beagel (talk) 16:27, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The difference between "fossil fuels" and "biofuels" is that for the former, the organisms responsible died a long time ago, and for the latter, they died more recently....

The distinction between "conventional" and "unconventional" oil exists mostly in the eye of the beholder. As technology advances, "unconventional" production becomes "conventional" production. I worked in the Canadian oil industry for decades, and by these definitions, there is very little "conventional" oil produced in Canada any more. The vast majority is from oil sands, heavy oil, deep water oil, or polar oil. I don't like "polar oil" since I don't think we're going to find any that's producible inside the Antarctic Circle since it's mostly covered by miles of ice. It should be called "Arctic oil" since all of of it will be inside the Arctic circle. And even then it won't be that much - we totally drilled up the Canadian Sector of the Arctic and found a lot of of gas but not much oil. However, since I've been working on the "oil sands" article, I tuned up the definitions of "oil shale", "oil sands", and "heavy oil" to make them more accurate and less far out there.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:04, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I repeat my original proposal that 'Unconventional oil sources' and 'Unconventional sources' sections should be merged, the unsourced information in the list should be sourced and presented as prose, and it should be decided where exactly it should be included (right now it is under 'Definition' and *Reserves' subsections). Beagel (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Reassessment?

Taking account what was said in the section above, should we take this article into WP:GA/R for reassessment? Or would somebody try to fix these problems? Beagel (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

How much has it really changed since the 2009 assessment? LeadSongDog come howl! 20:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

"Demand" and "Supply" sections expanded a lot (even as some material was moved to different sections). The "timing of peak oil" section was significantly shortened and what remains mostly makes Hubbert out to be a bad predictor. Besides Hubbert's '74 prediction, the only other one mentioned is the IEA saying the peak will come in 2035. "Possible consequences" section completely changed. "Peak oil for individual nations" and "Historical understanding of world oil supply limits" sections completely removed. Also, the lead and "criticisms" sections were edited a bunch, but I did that and I think I did a good job :) 108.242.176.37 (talk) 05:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

What it illustrates is that price has a major effect on oil supply and demand. The price bottomed at about $10/bbl in 1998, creating a supply deficiency. The supply shortfall caused it to peak at $140/bbl in 2008, creating a major economic collapse. Demand destruction from the resulting banking crisis caused the price to crash to $30/bbl later in 2008. After that it rebounded to over $100 in 2011 and has oscillated around that value ever since. The price of $100/bbl is enough to pull a lot of very expensive shale oil onto the market and cause a tertiary peak in US production. The trouble is that the peak in production in the early 1970s was the highest. The secondary peak from expensive Alaska production coming on stream was lower, and odds are the tertiary peak from shale oil production will probably be lower yet. There is not enough shale oil producible at $100/bbl to keep production growing for long. At $200/bbl there could be enough oil to meet demand for a while, but that's a different world involving a lot less driving.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 14:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I listed it for re-assessment. Beagel (talk) 20:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Timing of peak oil rewrite

Given the enthusiasm of this rewrite for the output of peak oil analysts now, some balance might be restored if the fallacious prediction record to date by equivalent analysts had been covered, but past predictions no longer appear in this section. If peak oil is due to occur between 2010 and 2030, why does the nearby graph show a rising output continuing at least into 2013? Are these analysts not awake? What sort of oil is going to peak in 2010-2030? I give up. Gravuritas (talk) 23:01, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

The section should include some of the many failed predictions, to provide some historical perspective, and to illustrate that peak oil is very difficult to predict. Also, given the different definitions of the terms "conventional" and "unconventional" oil, more precise and descriptive wording should be used instead. Also, I question the relevance to the subject of noting that "major oil companies hit peak production in 2005." While this may signal a shift in industry structure away from the majors, it has obviously not brought on peak oil. Plazak (talk) 02:07, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

It might be fun to get a graph of EIA predictions over time. Or of some of the energy think tanks. 108.242.176.37 (talk) 02:49, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

" If peak oil is due to occur between 2010 and 2030, why does the nearby graph show a rising output continuing at least into 2013?" Do you know what peak oil means? Shii (tock) 01:43, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

US already had peak oil in 1970. So there's a little uptick due to unconventional oil (tar sands, shale oil, etc.). The unconventional oil will also peak and it's production rate will never reach that of the conventional oil.  kgrr ^talk 07:20, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Well that's all done and dusted then. Dunno what all the fuss was about.

Gravuritas (talk) 21:45, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

The absence of EROEI in this article

Although I know that there is an article about EROEI in Wikipedia, I also noticed that this article (Peak oil) discusses also alternate and unconventional oil sources. That is a good reason to mention EROEI, because differences in EROEI estimates between conventional and unconventional sources are great and they also change. It would be quite difficult to get the whole picture of peak oil without understanding EROEI. –Nikolas Ojala (talk) 10:41, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Timing of peak oil- 2013 data

The statement I deleted referred to "American shale oil" but the source refers to both shale oil and tar sands as being the causes of the expansion in oil production in 2013. Further, to have a statement of the form "Production declined, except for..." is WP:Weasel. Gravuritas (talk) 22:06, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The absence of nuclear energy in this article

M. King Hubbert's original paper was titled "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels". He uses the first 38 pages to state his case that fossil fuels will peak production at some point, but then uses the last 19 pages to discuss dealing with peak oil by switching to nuclear breeder reactors. Considering all of the fear mongering related to peak oil, it is important to balance with the fact that the original promoter of the idea didn't believe it was going to destroy industrial society.

68.48.193.224 (talk) 22:51, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

World Oil Production

World oil production is at record levels and continuing to climb. Go look at the EIA figures if you don't believe it. [7] There is an actual supply glut going on, and prices have fallen sharply. Prediction that the peak would occur in the 2005-2011 time period are proven false and should be noted as such. Periander6 (talk) 21:22, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The EIA data indicates that the growth in world oil production in the last two years has been entirely due to increases US shale oil production, while non-US production declined. This is great for the US, but not so much for the rest of the world. Canadian production also increased somewhat, but most Canadian production is now from its vast oil sands since its conventional oil production is declining. North America appears to be secure, as long as companies keep fracking shale and producing more bitumen from oil sands, the rest of the world not so much so. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 00:46, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd be broke IF I stopped working....what's your point? World oil production is at record levels, who cares where it is coming from? Defending Peak Oil, while a legitimate observation, does not answer the important question. Will we ever get to the point where oil is so expensive as to destroy our economy. Optimistics will answer "No, we will find better alternatives way before that happens" while pessimists believe the game is already over. For the negative thinkers among us, see the following: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html DannyJohansson (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

You would be broke IF you stopped working, and the world would run out of oil IF oil companies stopped drilling. That's the point. Will the oil companies stop drilling for oil if world oil prices fall too low? Probably, so there is a negative feedback loop. If prices fall too low, companies will stop drilling; if they stop drilling, reserves will be exhausted; if reserves are exhausted, production will fall; if production falls, prices will rise; if prices rise companies will start drilling again and reserves will increase. Rinse and repeat. It's a cycle that goes on and on and results in periodic oil crises. Where oil is coming from is important because oil is a strategic resource. The new production is landlocked and going into the mid-Continent area of the North America, and from there dribbling out to the edges. This gives Americans a distorted and overconfident view of the world oil market, whereas the rest of the world is increasingly dependent on the politically unstable Mid-East and Russia. But to get back to the article at hand, if I wanted to violate the Wikipedia:No original research guidelines, I could theorize that world oil production is the sum of two curves - one for conventional oil and another for non-conventional oil. The question about the combined curve is whether non-conventional oil can increase faster than conventional oil declines? In the past few years it has, but I don't know if it can continue to do so. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:50, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

If oil companies stopped drilling, we would not "run out of oil". True, if the supply was less, prices would go up, but that just describes economics in a nutshell. This would be true for anything that we consume, IPods to apples. Obviously, this discussion is significant but it still does nothing to answer the question of the validity of Peak Oil. Currently the only shale oil you hear discussed is in North America, but there's lots of shale all over the world. It's obviously more expensive to get out of the ground, but the point remains: how confident should anyone be that we know enough about recoverable oil to state that we are using it faster than we'll find it? Lastly, and this is probably most significant, if and when an alternative fuel source is discovered that renders fossil fuel obsolete, oil producers will be very disappointed they didn't sell their crude when they had the chance. (ps who has a more distorted view of the world oil market: Americans or Venezuelans?) DannyJohansson (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Holly geeze! Why are we reviving this again Periander? The quote you removed is only about crude, but you've conflated it with non-conventionals... again! 108.91.175.42 (talk) 20:34, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The quote you keep adding states "crude oil production for the world has already peaked in 2006" making no distinction between conventional and non-conventional. Crude oil production includes both conventional and non-conventional crude oil production and has not peaked. The prediction was wrong and has no business in this article. Periander6 (talk) 03:08, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Leader- Peak and inexorable decline?- see production graph.

Old leader talking about accurate prediction of a peak around 1970 is made ludicrous by latest production graphs. I've now tried for the second time to reduce the ludicrosity, and it seems to run into opposition. If someone wants to wait until a source is dug out that says in words "the supposed inexorable decline stopped in yadyada year and Hubbert's prediction is now clearly wrong" go ahead. I think the message of the graph is entirely clear. Gravuritas (talk) 11:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about, but I think you are saying that you see production in the US rising above 1970 levels. You'll have to provide a citation for this, as every reasonable source out there currently says the opposite. As you know, we are bound to the sources. I provided plenty of journal articles that people could choose from, but I don't see you making any moves in that direction. Currently you are engaging in edit warring and original research. 108.91.175.42 (talk) 08:24, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Here are some sources that I came up with earlier in the year. Let me know if you need help finding more:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151300342X

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113011617

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328713001031

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120319.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113006054

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120448.short

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-02940-5_6#page-1

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120491.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913003819

108.91.175.42 (talk) 08:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

See original source quoted for the prediction in full. Selecting part of the prediction to claim it was accurate is not very encyclopaedic. He was not predicting a local peak, he was talking about inexorable decline after the peak ...at a rate comparable to its expansion.... The production graph, despite the fact that it has not gone higher the peak (yet?) renders his prediction as a whole incorrect.

Gravuritas (talk) 12:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

His ultimate prediction says only "approximately 1970", which is pretty awesome considering he said that in 1956 and he missed by a year (I'd say that fits the definition of approximate). Also, he's only talking about a certain type of crude. Once again, definitions are quite important. 108.91.175.42 (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Get your reading glasses on straight. He said 1965, then under what he considered to be a very optimistic assumption, 1970, for US crude oil production. Your "approx. 1970" is a misquote. Secondly, your edit comment when you reverted my edit was that Hubbert referred to west Texas: Texas was in the article but the specific point under discussion, and the text in the WP article, refers to US crude oil production, sunshine. Fig 22 in the Hubbert source is ultimate US crude oil production: read the few pages around there. And your reference to support the 'accurate' prediction is from 2002: is the production graph since then not germane to this discussion? The further point about his prediction was that it was not simply about the peak year: he predicted that production "must decline at a rate similar to.." its rate of increase. That's turned out to be incorrect, unless you want to shelter behind some sort of limited definition of crude oil. I'm not clear from his article what precisely he is talking about: he differentiates "petroleum and gas" from tar sands and oil shales, but I can't immediately see which of these categories he intended to be included in his prediction of the peak of crude oil. As you seem to be his appointed representative on earth, please give me a page reference for your assertion that "he's only talking about a certain type of crude.", as I haven't found it. While we're on about his predictions, the one on nukes is looking a bit shaky too. This is not to say that he didn't produce some fascinating insights: but as many others have found, prediction is difficult, especially about the future.

Gravuritas (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

As you say, prediction IS difficult, particularly about the future, but Hubbert did pretty well within the constraints of his knowledge base. He was talking about United States, Lower 48, conventional oil, which is what he knew as an American geologist. He estimated the peak almost exactly, which was impressive since since everybody else's predictions at the time turned out to come from Uranus or someone else's anus. Note that his predictions did not include non-conventional oil like oil sands, or what the media like to call "shale oil", produced by non-conventional hydraulic fracturing, for which the media invented the new word "fracking" because it excited the paranoia of the unwashed masses of semi-literate readers and scientifically illiterate reporters.

So, he was indeed using a limited definition of oil that did not include oil sands, oil shale, shale oil, "fracking", and all the other things that are possible, but latter-day luddites do not consider to be morally producible oil since it was not like what cave men used in their cars. If you violate his assumptions, you end up with some other sort of curve that takes better mathematics to handle. It doesn't violate his basic premise that non-renewable resources will run out, eventually, on some sort of bell-shaped or other shaped curve. The best thing to do is to predict WHEN that will happen so you can do something else when it does. That's the hard part. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 22:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Hubbert specifically excluded oil sands and oil shale, but did not exclude hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing was common in the 1950s when Hubbert was making his predictions, although massive hydraulic fracturing was not introduced until the 1970s. I don't recall that he ever used the terms "conventional oil" or "unconventional oil". Plazak (talk) 23:34, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

To expand on the above, Hubbert specifically noted that oil shales and tar sands were outside his analysis of peak petroleum; only to that extent he excluded unconventionals. But it is untrue that his analysis excluded what is now called “unconventional” petroleum recovered by new technology (such as massive hydraulic fracturing). It is true that in his 1956 publication (“Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels”) he wrote that his analysis included only oil “producible by methods now in use” (p14), but he discussed the potential for improvements in secondary recovery, and judged that future improvements would only reduce the post-peak rate of decline (p.24). In later publications, however, he asserted that his method incorporated future technologies. For example in 1962 (“Energy Resources”) he wrote that his historical curves included more than a hundred years of new technologies, and his future projections assumed that new technologies would continue into the future (p.60). Again in 1967 (AAPG Bulletin, “Degree of advancement of petroleum exploration in United States”) he wrote: “It also should be emphasized that the present analysis is not based on assumptions of static technology.” So contrary to excluding unconventional petroleum (except for tar sands and oil shale), he emphasized that his method included petroleum recoverable by future technologies. Plazak (talk) 15:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

What you say is true. Hubble did underestimate the effect of disruptive innovation on oil production, and he also did not consider the economic changes caused by rising oil prices and more efficient techniques. The thing about disruptive innovation is that it is inherently unpredictable because you don't know when someone is going to make an unexpected breakthrough. Hydraulic fracturing was a disruptive innovation and unconventional when it was introduced in the 1950's. However, what is "unconventional" when new becomes "conventional" when it becomes a routine practice.

Recent improvements in multistage hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling is another disruptive innovation, not because the techniques are new but because they have been combined and can be done at lower cost, while prices are higher. It turned uneconomic formations into economic oil fields. Hubbert didn't predict that this would happen. However, I think this just adds another Hubbert curve stacked on the older ones - The US production curve shows a primary peak for Lower 48 production, a second peak for Alaska production, and is heading toward a third peak for tight oil production. The result is a curve with three bumps. They all have different timing, but the question is whether the third peak will be higher than the first two. I think it will have a steeper downside because all these new tight oil wells have very high decline rates, and eventually companies will run of of good locations to drill them.

The Canadian oil sands required some serious new technology to produce. The SAGD process cost the Alberta government over $1 billion to develop, but allowed it to rerun its reserve calculations and come up with 170 billion barrels more oil. That somewhat freaked out the international oil community, but now is generally accepted. Hubbert didn't factor that into his calculations, but it doesn't change the global picture much. Canada can't bring new oil sands production on line fast enough to make much difference to the rest of the world (except the US, which is becoming heavily dependent on it). The production curve is much flatter than for conventional oil because the projects don't have a real decline rate. Companies just produce at the same rate for 40 years, then shift the equipment over to the next lease and keep on producing. The result is a Hubbert curve that is very flat and very long. It just lengthens the global curve and makes it a bit higher. Right now it looks like more of an undulating plateau than a peak. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Although Hubbert recognized the potential of breakthrough technologies to create multiple peaks (he discussed the multi-peak case of Illinois in his 1956 paper), he believed that the US as a whole would follow a single-peak model. As for the "Hubbert curve," some of his followers seem to worship the logistic curve, but Hubbert himself did not. Although he used the logistic curve, which is symmetrical about the peak, he recognized that other, possibly asymmetrical models, were possible. For instance, he qualified the conclusions in his 1967 AAPG article with the proviso: "Assuming that peaks in the rates of proved discovery and of production of crude oil occur near the half-way point to the ultimate discovery and production, ..." The only hard-and-fast description of the post-peak production curve he insisted on was that at some time in the future it ends with production asymptotically approaching zero. Hubbert appears not to have taken economics into account at all. Plazak (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

IHS(CERA): "Global conventional oil and gas discovery volumes have decreased since 2010 and 2013 marked the lowest volume of annual oil discoveries since1952. Through October 2014, the number of discoveries, oil discovery volumes and total Boe volumes trail 2013. Without a surge in year-end discoveries, 2014 will set a new low mark for post 1952 annual oil discovery volumes - perhaps as little as 4.5 billion barrels. Outside of North America, conventional exploration and appraisal drilling activity has averaged more than 5,000 wells per year since 2009 but the number of discoveries of any size has decreased by almost 50%."

http://www.rmag.org/files/Luncheons/2015%20Luncheons/Stak%20Abstract_RMAG%20January%202015%20Luncheon.pdf

Keith McClary (talk) 06:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Undue emphasis on Hubbert's methods and predictions.

WP does not say "Gravity, based on Einstein's theory" or "Continental drift, based on Ortelius' theory". Why do we say "Peak oil, based on M. King Hubbert's theory"?

We may speak of Einstein's theory of Gravity (or Newton's) but we do not say that Gravity is a theory. It makes as little sense to say that the phenomenon of Peak Oil is a "theory". (What does "Opponents to the theory of peak oil" mean, exactly?)

Hubbert was not the first person to realise that oil is a finite resource and that production must inevitably decline. The article implies that Hubbert's work is THE theory of Peak Oil. As noted in http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20130179#sec-11 Hubbert's is just one of several methods used to estimate future production, including econometrics, systems dynamic models, "bottom-up" calculations and the "megaproject" approach.

The undue focus on Hubbert's 1956 methodology and specific predictions is what makes the article controversial. I don't think there is any controversy about Peak Oil as such. There may disagreements over the timing and consequences, but the article should treat these on their scientific merits.

Keith McClary (talk) 19:04, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

"The same mechanisms that lead to peaks and declines in regional oil production should ultimately lead to a peak and decline in global production. This inevitability was first pointed out by Hubbert in the mid-1950s, but the multiple forecasts of regional and global peaks that have been made since that date have frequently proved premature" -- RoyalPublishing.org

Clearly even your source acknowledges that Hubbert was the first to point-out the inevitable of peak oil.  kgrr ^talk 16:13, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

No, he was the first with the regional-->global idea. Keith McClary (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The following sourced quotes are from Predicting the timing of peak oil:

"... the peak of production will soon be passed, possibly within 3 years. ... There are many well-informed geologists and engineers who believe that the peak in the production of natural petroleum in this country will be reached by 1921 and who present impressive evidence that it may come even before 1920."

- David White, chief geologist, United States Geological Survey (1919) (David White, "The unmined supply of petroleum in the United States," Transactions of the Society of Automotive Engineers, 1919, v.14, part 1, p.227.)

“The average middle-aged man of today will live to see the virtual exhaustion of the world’s supply of oil from wells,”

- Victor C. Anderson, president of the Colorado School of Mines (1921)(“The present status of the oil shale industry" 1921, Colorado School of Mines Quarterly, Apr. 1921, v.16 n.2 p.12.)

Note that the first quote even uses the term "peak". Many more such quotes could be found from that period, well before Hubbert's 1956 publication. Those who assert that Hubbert was the first to recognize that a peak was inevitable are obviously mistaken. The widespread pre-Hubbert recognition that an oil peak will happen sooner or later might be called the "weak" peak theory. The "weak" peak theory is not very controversial, but neither is it very useful, because it says nothing about the shape of the production curve, and the true peak is known only in retrospect, and then not until the resource is exhausted. What Hubbert did was to tie discoveries, reserves, and production into a consistent mathematical model following logistic curves. Hubbert's logistic curves might be called a "strong" peak theory. The advantage of Hubbert's model was it enabled predictions of timing of future peaks. The weakness was that not all such predictions turned out to be accurate. Of course, anyone is welcome to add sourced material on any other peak models that might be out there. Regards. Plazak (talk) 19:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

"an event based on M. King Hubbert's theory": How can an event be based on a theory? Source please. Keith McClary (talk) 03:18, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Fair point. How about "An event predicted by" Hubbert's theory? Plazak (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Optimistic / Pessimistic

What is 'optimistic' and 'pessimistic'? This is a problem! Predicting earlier oil peak is optimistic because it results in less environmental destruction. It is also optimistic because maybe humans organise society so well that they can switch to sustainable technologies earlier. Predicting a later oil peak is optimistic because it will let humans develop alternatives, resulting in less disruption when the peak is hit. Which one is the sense of 'optimism' and 'pessimism' in this article? I think we should remove the terms entirely because they seem to imply a moral statement about whether 'oil is good', but I predict this will not be popular. As an alternative, can we at least get an explanation for what they mean in the article? 173.75.242.147 (talk) 00:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Optimistic/pessimistic here is used, not in the general sense of the word, but in terms of the probability of achieving levels of production. Production scenarios are usually divided into optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic. Realistic is most likely, and optimistic (higher production) and pessimistic (lower production) are lower probability scenarios. It is like an error range for prediction. There are many examples of this usage and it is generally accepted as correct. I hope this clarifies this issue.Blandx (talk) 09:26, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

All charts woefully out of date

Virtually every chart in this article is out of date by two to three years, especially in regards to U.S.A. domestic production, which has now surpassed 11 million barrels per day. Domestic US production is expected to top 13M barrels per day in 2019. There isn't a single chart in this article that indicates current, factual production, nor scientifically based projections of production in the USA.

The U.S. is has already surpassed the "peak" production in the 1970s by ten percent. It's pretty obvious that the charts in this article need to be addressed with the re-write of this article. Science is about adjusting your theories when data contradicts them. In the case of the peak oil theory, it's obviously been shown to be riddled with problems. The entire article should probably be re-written from the established standpoint that the original Peak Oil Theory was basically wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.168.74 (talk) 22:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you're getting ahead of yourself. The latest US Energy Information Agency show crude oil and product output for the US was 9.1 million barrels per day the week of Dec 12, 2014, while the historic peak was 10 million barrels per day back in October 1970. The US is still 0.9 million bpd short of the all-time peak.

I don't know where you got your numbers from, but a lot of self-appointed oil experts seem to start off talking about "American" oil production in the first paragraph, then switch the topic to "North American" production in the second without signalling the turn. The US imported 9.4 million bpd of oil and products the week of Dec 12, so "American energy independence" is not close to being here. Yes, if you include the 3.5 million bpd of oil and products the US is importing from Canada, it is a "North American production peak" - mostly because Canadian oil production and exports to the US are at an all-time high because of high cost oil sands production, and Texas and North Dakota oil men are drilling high cost wells into old oil fields they couldn't afford to drill at less than $70/bbl, or without "fracking" as the media like to call it. With the price of oil falling, watch out for fallout.

Most of the new oil is mostly US tight oil and Canadian oil sands bitumen coming south on old pipelines, or railway tank cars, or barges, in the absence of the Keystone XL pipeline. A lot of what the media call "shale oil" is really natural gas condensate, too light for US refineries, so it is being shipped north to Canada, blended with bitumen to produce "dilbit", and coming back south to be refined in the US. Most of the new North Dakota production is moving by rail because ND has to rely on Canadian pipelines to get its oil to market, and Keystone XL hasn't been built. Someone tell Obama because I think he's oblivious to all of this.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:45, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is a chart of world liquids supply (probably not free to use in WP)

http://peakoil.com/forums/resources/image/845

from The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 - ExxonMobil 2015

http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/energy/energy-outlook/download-the-report/download-the-outlook-for-energy-reports

showing conventional C&C peaked in 2006. Note the large contribution of NGLs (natural gas liquids) which aren't even mentioned in this article.

Keith McClary (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

If you find newer data from a credible source, you are most welcome to make the charts (e.g. using Excel and capturing the image as a .png) and update them.  kgrr ^talk 17:22, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that many of the graphs on this page are out of date. I would like to make new graphs with the latest data such as from BP, International Energy Agency (IEA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA).Blandx (talk) 10:23, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Supply Definitions section needs work

There has been some effort to improve consistency of definitions of types of oil. However, I believe this section still needs some work. Firstly, the section launches straight into a discussion of conventional versus unconventional oil without defining it first. It makes use of outdated references in this area. Also, it suggests conventional and unconventional oils are defined by their inclusion in a "peak model." This is inaccurate. It also refers to "peak oil literature" which is an inaccurate term. "Oil production forecast" is more neutral. Secondly, unconventional oil is described in detail in a subsection further below, but there is little detail in the definition of conventional oil. Overall, the section reads poorly and lacks logical flow. I would like to expand on the definition of conventional oil, perhaps with a short subsection using reliable EIA and IEA sources. This will be followed by a discussion on the appropriateness (or otherwise) of using these types of oils in production forecasts. Blandx (talk) 08:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Article is out of date

There's a lot of this article which is pretty woefully out of date, resembling stuff written in 2007-2010 or so, and often citing said dates as if they were recent. It is pretty clear at this point that the single peak vision of "peak oil" is mostly wrong, and that the "undulating plateau" model is far more likely to resemble real-world production. Added to that is global decline in need for oil, particularly in the US. There's a lot of stuff that hasn't really been mentioned here which is pretty important to understanding peak oil. Does anyone have some good new, recent sources in regards to peak oil so we can update these sections? I'm afraid this is not an area I have been keeping up with so much in the last few years since the fracking boom started. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Here are the most relevant sources from scholar.google.com (searched for 'peak oil' since 2013). They are cherry picked only in that I choose the stories which were relevant to your question and in the top 30 results. There was one result which supported what you say above outright, but it was an opinion piece from the CATO institute, and actually published in 2007, so I didn't include it.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151300342X

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113011617

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328713001031

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120448.short

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20120491.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913003819

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421515001160

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213009420

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207014000569

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20130126.short

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2006/20130179.short

108.91.175.42 (talk) 03:22, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Was just reading through these, and... they didn't seem to actually agree all that much amongst themselves. Some of them seemed to suggest that the undulating plateau was correct, others that older models were right, and several mentioned that demand may well end up being more important than actual physical constraints on oil production as demand may well have peaked. Was interesting reading, though. I'll have to come back to this article and work on it, but I'm busy today. Titanium Dragon (talk) 17:07, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome! I'm glad someone has finally bothered to read the sources. In the past people have started threads identical to this one and then bounced as soon as sources were provided. I recommend checking out comments by RockyMtnGuy. He seems to have a level head and solid grasp of how the industry works.108.91.175.42 (talk) 07:50, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The Peak Oil theory is based on conventional oil production (nodding donkeys), and reducing new discoveries and a sustained level of demand. Therefore it is somewhat off in its predictions. Other articles on this topic are out dated, for example List of countries by oil consumption. What are the best sources to get up to date figures from? Jonpatterns (talk) 09:59, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Look at the US EIA International Energy Statistics. Plazak (talk) 19:51, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

"Total Oil Supply includes the production of crude oil (including lease condensate), natural gas plant liquids, and other liquids, and refinery processing gain. Other Liquids includes biodiesel, ethanol, liquids produced from coal, gas, and oil shale, Orimulsion, and other hydrocarbons. Crude Oil data for Canada include oil processed from Alberta oil sands."

Peak oil theory is that the peak can be calculated based on knowledge of discoveries, economics, and technology. Understanding the limits of our knowledge at any given moment helps calculate the value of the predictions. 108.91.175.42 (talk) 07:50, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that much of the page is outdated. As well as the graphs, which mostly have data prior to 2010, the content seems to have missed the developments in unconventional oil (e.g. tight oil) in the last few years or so. The 2014 oil price drop and its effect on US production aren’t mentioned. The word “recent“ is used frequently, which is annoying because it is apparent that the author is referring to what is now an historical time-point. The article doesn’t flow well, and reads like a series of points in places. The article needs a major re-write, updating data and writing with a consistent style and approach. Unless anyone has any objections, I would like to update the content.Blandx (talk) 10:29, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

"The 2014 oil price drop and its effect on US production aren’t mentioned." If you just want to add more short-term, US-centric material that is peripheral to PO I would not support you. I would ruthlessly slash it by about 75%. (The same goes for many WP articles.) Keith McClary (talk) 03:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree to "ruthlessly slash" what is there now. But equally important, I think the viewpoint should be changed to an historical account of an idea that just turned out to be correct but for a completely different reason than originally proposed. I think the just-revised article carbon bubble contains a good set of modern references to support that viewpoint. I think most of the sources explaining the modern understanding of peak oil do not mention the term because the original reasoning was wrong, so searching for the term may not be adequate. (For a small starting slash, I removed the "hydrocarbons from seawater" nonsense.) Layzeeboi (talk) 02:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)