Friday, April 26, 2019

World Oil Production - No Hubbert Peak (Yet?)



Data sources: oil, population.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. Right around ~2005, you heard various peak oil cheerleaders (Deffeyes, The Oil Drum commenters, etc.) start saying that we had hit peak. See the stall at ~2005. Over the years, peak oilers have been incredibly quick to call a peak whenever there is a short stall or drop. You see this every winter regarding North Dakota (which has a known seasonal slowdown from climate).

2. From 2005-2008 or so (maybe to 2010), the trend had a short stall and peakers took to calling this the bumpy plateau. These were actually the more reasonable peakers like Stuart Staniford. Slightly annoying the more ardent peak callers.

3. Of course, the trend continued up. This is just human nature to try to read too much into short trends. I see it all the time in stock charts, sports statistics, etc. Another example is global warming where skeptics like to hoot about periods of slowdown in growth rather than looking at meta trend. (Same issue in reverse for more ardent AGW crowd to try to tout individual years as records.)

The key thing is the trend, the trend, the trend. It has more statistical meaning than snippets. Yes, of course it is possible to have turning points and to want to look for them. However, one must have a self skepticism. Because looking at the trend we can see other periods of slowdown and then resumption. A much more reasonable Bayesian interpretation is that the trend will continue quite a while, just based on population growth and industrialization. (Same with AGW, it will continue quite a while too.) Of course eventually limits can take place. But we need to be suspicious of thinking a peak has occurred when it is just a noise jitter in the trend.

P.s. I'm sure some people will fuss at you for listing total liquids and calling it oil (includes NGLs like propane, is not just crude and lease condensate). However, the story is basically the same (trendline similar stall 2005-2010 and then resumption) if you look at C&C. Slightly lower overall slope but almost exact same shape/story.