Talk: Hubbert peak

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The lengthy Athabasca discussion was archived to Talk:Hubbert_Peak/archive1 at 18:14, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Someone Else's General Comment

I just did some grammatical and punctuation clean-up, but you may find my opinion useful since I knew very little about the Hubbert theory -- I just came here looking for more information about it after reading Exit Mundi's fun yet frightening bit on it.

The good thing about a heavy grammatical and punctuation clean-up is that it causes you to read very carefully the entry's structure and content. I don't mean to offend anybody by what I'm about to say, but after such examiantion, I would like to respectively suggest that this article may need a bit more work than I'm willing to invest, with respect to a few points.

First, someone who knows this subject well needs to go through and start consolidating text together, removing duplication. There is a lot of areas where stuff is talked about multiple times. I am relatively certain hydrogen is introduced as an alternative several times within the article, for example. And the "The Theory" subsection seems to repeat a lot of the information contained in the first couple of paragraphs.

Second, I'm concerned that the article overreaches. Although the subjects it delves into are extremely fascinating, this strikes me a huge essay that does not solely deal with the Hubbert peak, but goes on to talk about the potential energy crisis, ways to solve the potential energy crisis, ways to live in a crisis-stricken world, and the accompanying social implications. I would suggest that the large scope of the article means either that it needs to be split up into different entries (perhaps with a parent 'root' entry that joins them together), or that it needs to be renamed.

Finally, I'm concerned either that the article itself delves into POV, or that, at the very least, it sometimes falls victim to POV language. A good example is, "Thermal depolymerization and biodiesel are interesting, since they provide energy in a form that can be easily be stored and used as transportation fuel."

So, anyway, that's an outsider's perspective, coming fresh to the article. Hope it's useful to some of you.

WCityMike 02:31, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, the article ballooned in size relatively recently when the "alternatives to oil" section was added, probably also when the POV phrase crept in too, I will fix that. There is a proposal on the table to move or vastly reduce the alternatives to oil section into a new article or appropriate pre-existing one. zen master 02:38, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

General Comment

IMHO this article has become rather bloated and has somewhat strayed from the main subject of the article to cover the much broader topic of global energy options going forward. There's some great stuff here but the article is too dense and detailed in places. I think serious consideration has to be given to referencing other articles and moving some of the content from this page to new or existing articles. Do others agreee? Nick Fraser 07:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See split proposal way below. zen master 08:27, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Until somebody comes up with a good split plan, one article is ok. There are several tangents that could be moved to other articles however. See discussion under the "rm 'Other'" heading for one example. Another is the section on hydrogen which doesn't do much for this article. This information really should be in places like Hydrogen fuel, Hydrogen car and Hydrogen Economy. This would help keep the article on topic and allow readers to pursue information they find most relevant.Amadeust 17:41, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How about the article Energy development as mentioned below that chronicles humanity's development of evolving energy exploitation regimes and culimnates with current status and trends? Tom - Talk 22:14, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Capital intensive

Zen Master,

Renewable energy is more capital intensive. That's why it hasn't been built out yet.

The largest 3.4 MW GE wind turbines are currently just over $1/rated watt installed on easy land. Natural gas fired turbines are about $0.22/watt, installed. The wind turbine will deliver an average of 25 - 40% of it's rated power, and will require some kind of load balancing. If the load balancing is pumped storage (reversible turbines at the bottom of a dam), figure another $0.30/delivered watt, for a total of somewhere around $3.50 per delivered watt. That's a capital cost more than 10x the cost of the gas-fired turbine.

Does $0.22/watt also take into account the costs of exploration & exploitation of gas reserves? Jonathan 8 Nov 2004

The cost of exploration and exploitation (usually called extraction) is contained in the cost of the gas, built into the marginal cost of operating the gas turbine. And as I point out in the next paragraph, the marginal cost of a wind plant is already lower than a gas turbine. (Of course, so is hydro and coal, which is why gas is used as a peaking resource.)

The marginal cost of operating the wind plant is already much less than the gas turbine, because the gas turbine burns natural gas. At some point, gas prices will be predictably high enough that the lower marginal cost will matter. But right now, it's close, and the gas turbine is the safer investment (if you are just thinking about money).

One of the reasons windmills are more capital intensive is their low duty cycle. Another is that wind is a much more diffuse energy source (J/m^3) than methane, so you need way more physical stuff to interact with, extract, and collect that energy.

I agree, though, that wind seems to be where its going right now. There is an interesting game of chicken going on. As fuel prices rise, a wind power build out rises in cost as well. Build the wind plants too early and you lose money on the underperforming plant, until energy prices pick up, which takes more time because the wind plant pushes out the Hubbert Peak. Build the wind plant too late and you spend avoidable money on embodied energy.

The U.S. "wasted" the investment in the Hoover and Grand Coulee dams in the 1930s. When they came on line there was little need for all that power. But it's really nice to have a domestic asset like that in your pocket when a war comes -- power from the Grand Coulee smelted 90% of the aluminum flying combat over Germany during WWII.

The "investment" was more in the economy via Keynesianism rather than in building the dams themselves. With respect to short term economic effect it didn't really matter if the workers dug holes and filled them in again. The point was that it was a way for the government to fill the unemployment gap and distribute income to people who were going to spend it and therefore spur the economy. Today, Military Keynesianism is practiced instead. This has the long term effect of granting the US access to foreign energy resources through the direct deployment of force.

I think you are sort of right. Military spending is being used, to some extent, to inject a stimulus into the U.S. economy. I suspect that dams are a better investment that tanks and guns, because during periods of peace you actually get to use them, and they increase productivity in other parts of the economy. Military spending does that too (I don't have to hire someone to watch over my house when I go to work each day), but I think dams and roads are more effective, on a marginal basis from our current baseline. Right now I think windmills might be pretty effective. Of course, I also think we've got to chase down a bunch of scary enriched uranium, but instead we're trying to force democracy down the throats of people terrified of tribal warfare with modern weapons.

On a different topic, does anyone know who placed the Fischer-Tropsch information on this page? I am interested in similar processed and would like to learn of more sources on this topic. Thanks Amadeust 22:11, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It was I that added the Fischer-Tropsch comment to the page (I was new to the Wiki ways). I have done a reasonable amount of internet searching on the topic and have a collection of PDFs from various places. It's a personal interest of mine, since I think it will probably have a significant impact on the fossil fuel industry in the nearish future. Jonathan 17:11, 4 Dec 2004 (AEDT)

A $100B/year wind plant build out would be a really cool jobs program in the U.S., but it would leave the Dakotas looking pretty ugly. It would cost less than the Iraq war and employ 1M Americans, though. Five years of that kind of investment and we'd see real changes in our balance of trade.

Thanks for the info. But I believe your analysis is missing the additional "cost" of greater pollution from fossil fuels compared with renewable energy? This is even more a factor when discussing the expected exponential rise of non conventional oil production which has an even larger environmental impact. Also, the "cost" you mention does not point out the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves, whereas renewable energy only suffers from a finite energy flow. On a short term basis looking at things from just an investors' perspective renewable energy is more capital intesive yes, but are you arguing that the hubbert peak page should only describe the short term perspective? Long term renewable energy infrastrucutre is a good investment, what is the value of oil production infrastructure after we start to run out of oil? Zen Master 18:14, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The environmental "cost" of burning fossil fuels isn't known, and is external to the people making investment decisions. My sense is that the national security costs of fossil fuels are larger than the environmental costs, and are also more easily estimated.

30-year treasuries are yielding 5.375%. That means that the state of a powerplant 30 years from now is just 21% of its present value. Basically, the business guys can't see past the end of the Hubbert Peak because it's too far away.

The business community is in denial or is ignorant about resource depletion. If, as some Peak Oil proponents predict, we are at the peak (or on the plateau), then the significant business risk associated with divergent fossil fuel supply-demand dynamics should leave an investor a wee bit concerned. However, no matter how 'efficient' the market economy is, it certainly isn't pro-active. It achieves its equilibrium after some wild swings to the extremes. I cannot bring to mind any instance where the market economy is pro-active about a looming structural change. A market economy would most certainly have not built anything like the Hoover or Grand Coulee dams. Jonathan 9 Nov 2004

Oil companies will profit from resource depletion. As the commodity gets more rare, the price skyrockets and their tax on the flow does too.

And as you say, the market is not going to engineer a soft transition. Soft transitions are an extremely hard way to make money. Individual investors (or at least, the winners) benefit from wild gyrations in the economy. And the winners tend to be the ones who write the rules.

The crucial point is that maximal return on equity is often not in the interests of the vast majority of people, who cannot practically lower their market exposure. Basically, we can't all switch from cars to bikes because our homes, businesses, and commute patterns aren't set up to handle that.

So the role of government is to engineer the soft transition. That's only going to happen when the governed believe it is a priority. It happened in France: in the 1970s, they realized they had no domestic oil production and total dependency on foreign oil and gas left them wide open to the vagaries of the outside world. They converted their entire electrical generation system to nuclear (base load) and hydroelectric (peaking) over the course of twenty years. Bam. Done. They actually overbuilt slightly, and export a fairly large amount of electricity these days, which is a small hedge against oil and gas in other sectors. But the next step for them is harder: replacing the oil burned in cars. Once again, the easiest way is to get people out of cars and into technology that already works that uses electricity: trains. What do we see in France? Lots of trains, trams, and high gas taxes. Many other countries in Europe are heading down the same path.

Meanwhile the U.S. spends billions on "smart coal". The basic problem is that graphite has a higher melting point than every metal, and so gas and liquid phase chemistry is not going to reform it into anything else, and solid phase chemistry isn't going to use recoverable catalysts to do anything useful with it. Maybe Yucca Mountain is the first little step to our transition.

I was working on putting the French example into the article, but Zen Master deleted it. Hmph.

Iain McClatchie 17:42, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You keep talking about the cost from an investor's viewpoint as if there is another viewpoint. So long as the government expects private industry to provide power, there isn't. If governments want private industry to factor in externalized costs like national security or environmental damage, governments have to make those things part of the cost structure. That's how things work. The U.S. government is justly afraid to raise gas taxes because they worry about sharp economic dislocations. These are tough problems.

Well, Governments are the ones that ultimately bear the cost of pollution so wouldn't it make sense for them to factor that into any energy equation? Isn't the point and/or implications of Hubbert Peak theory to be thinking longer and differently than an investor does? Certainly the consumer's view is another valid viewpoint since they are the one really paying? Is it possible renewable energy actually makes sense but not to an investor or oil company because there are little if any profits to be had? Do investors potentially underestimate what a consumer wants environmental protection wise? Just because the environmental "cost" is unknown with precision does not mean it should be completely discounted as if it were 0.

Governments don't pay for anything. Taxpayers do. One way or another, we or our children will pay the externalized costs of everything we do.

The energy price spike predicted by the Hubbert Peak theory is a business opportunity. To make money off that opportunity, the price spike has to happen, shifting money from those who didn't prepare for the spike to those who did. But this spike and money shift are not in the interests of most people. The job of the government is to intervene in cases like this where market forces do not act in the interest of most people. I think the way to do the intervention is to price some of the externalized cost of fossil fuels into their consumption, and I have ideas about how to do that, blah blah blah.

But we're talking about public policy, and this Wikipedia article should be about facts. What makes this article poor right now is that it has far too much opinion and not enough fact. The article should present the basic theory, present the facts leading to particular predictions, report predictions made by reputable people (and who made which predictions), and that's it. Talk about the consequences of declining energy consumption per capita is just talk, not facts. Talk about our ideas for public policy is just talk. It's all got to be excised from this article.

The way I think about Wikipedia articles is this: Imagine a newspaper reporter who knows nothing and is assigned to write a story about Peak Oil. He or she should be able to find this article in Wikipedia, read it, and have a good overall idea of what the story is and good leads to learn more about the issue. Whining about big bad business has no place here. Facts about how different countries are intervening in their own markets to attempt to buffer their economies from the Peak is what should be here. Iain McClatchie 00:59, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Tax payers then should have more influence on the Government than oil companies? As pointed out in the article the problem historically has been the mistake of economists seeing everything in terms of prices and money. Economics and energy production does not violate the First law of thermodynamics. Energy is unlike any other commodity. If oil extraction and production ever require more energy than is contained in what is extracted then we suffer from a net energy loss, this is true regardless of the price of oil. This point could be reached with billions of barrels of oil or equivalents still in the ground. Also, markets require a steadily expanding economy to be successful, not easy to do in an environment of dwindling oil supply.

You seem to be saying wikipedia articles should never deal with the future? As long as all reasonable or possible future scenarios for a given situation are presented what is wrong with that?

As to your reporter analogy, neutral point of view, which is the mantra of wikipedia, does not mean absence of POV, it means a balance of point of view I believe. If you are serious about this complaint we can refer to wikipedia's neutral point of view guidlines, I haven't read them fully. The key for wikipedia is encyclopedic not journalistic as I understand it.

Please point out places in the actual Hubbert Peak article where there is "whining about big business"? I reserve my opinion for talk pages where it is fair game I believe. All the opinion in the article you seem to be referring to is in the "effects" or related sections, though it's not really opinion to describe the different possible scenarios were we to run out of oil. Are you saying wikipedia should have no article or content that ever describes anything having to do with "fuel shortages"? It may be ok to move the effects and running out of oil scenario sections to a new article titled something to the effect of "here are some possible scenarios if we run out of oil". However, the theory that is the accurate model for predicting the rate and date of future oil depletion seems like as good a place to put such info as anywhere else, why decouple cause and effect so needlessly? If you believe the article is in any way too "doomsday" in nature feel free to add your own adjectives and/or expand the "market solution" section or otherwise clean up the page, I myself have removed doomsday nomenclature. Zen Master 04:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean about the national security costs of fossil fuels exactly? I honestly believe all economic considerations (including oil) should be completely decoupled from US foreign (military) policy, if we are in Iraq to spread freedom we should only do that, any oil we get from Iraq should come after the natural process of spreading freedom. We've put the cart before the horse, which is why it isn't working.

Zen Master 20:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I believe that significant dip in the worldwide oil supply (say, -10%) would cause large-scale unemployment in the U.S. I think that all recent administrations have acted as if they felt the same way. We are willing to go to war to protect our energy supplies, and by extension the industrial base that energy feeds which keeps us the world's lone superpower. This is a terrible situation to be in, for us and most everyone else, and the (partial) solution is energy independence. It's a very long way off, and I'm concerned the U.S. may end up doing what Japan did in the late 1930s instead. But like I said, that's opinion, doesn't belong in the article. Iain McClatchie 00:59, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Our" oil supplies? You must mean someone else's oil reserve. Going to war for oil is such a waste because it compounds pre-existing inefficiencies. If the world is running out of oil the most efficient solution is investment in renewable energy infrastructure. Grabbing all the oil for use now only makes the depletion curve steeper when it happens. Absent a replacement for oil it will happen, someday. Zen Master 04:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to be sneaky.

I just thought the line that said "Due to complex political, economic, and wildly varying demand factors, oil production on a global scale does not closely resemble a Hubbert curve and is generally asymetrical" explained why global oil didn't peak in 1995.

The way I understand it, the oil shocks of the 70's helped delay a global peak. He could be right and global oil has already peaked in 2000 and we're now on the oil plateau. For the sake of accuracy I added that to show he was incorrect in his second prediction, which I think is important regardless of whether it can be explained or not.

Ok, sorry. It seemed like your comment was trying to discredit Hubbert the man and the theory indirectly as being "totally wrong" or "unapplicable". To me a "minor" edit is one that corrects spelling or punctuation. As you hinted at above, Hubbert in 1971 actually gave a range of between 1995 and 2000 for the peak in global oil production based on the low and high estimates of global oil reserves available at that time, we should update the article with that info. http://www.oilcrisis.com/hubbert/ Question: if the peak was delayed a few years by less demand/curtailed supply how less steep does that make the depletion curve considering just conventional oil? Giving society more time to adjust to dwindling oil supply by slowing the rate of depletion seems like a good thing. We should add many charts to the Hubbert Peak article, including charting the rate of demand. How much oil is coming from non-conventional oil sources, that needs a chart too. If 2000 is the peak then depletion is happening now unless something is making up the difference? And all this while global oil demand/usage is increasing according to recent figures, that doesn't jive. Apparently, we really do need to hope sites like Athabasca come through with an exponential increase in oil production. What would be the first signs that depletion is happening, just waiting for production figures to be less and less?

Zen Master 06:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Peak Oil proponents pretty much all make the point that the peak will never be known until we are well and truely on the slide down the other side. Jonathan 8 Nov 2004

Guide to Diffs on Merged Versions of Hubbert peak and Hubbert Peak

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Former History of Hubbert Peak

2004 Nov revisions

10:00, 2004 Nov 30 horos (added section on fast breeder reactors and sstars to nuclear energy section)
01:33, 2004 Nov 21 WpZurp m (if going to use non-conventional in one place, then might as well use univformly everywhere)
00:03, 2004 Nov 21 Michael Hardy (Lately I've frequently seen this: treating "non" as a word rather than as a prefix. Is it something that prevails only among people under 25? That's my guess.)
00:01, 2004 Nov 21 Michael Hardy
19:42, 2004 Nov 19 Zen-master (rv, please cite your claim of 2050, I believe that is an old claim)
16:54, 2004 Nov 19 198.136.250.65 (add Deptartment of Energy viewpoint to peak oil analysis)
02:17, 2004 Nov 19 WpZurp m (add wp-links)
21:38, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (tease out reason for better jobs)
21:34, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (factor in another economic consideration)
21:21, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (add wp-links)
21:14, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (discuss higher level social benefits/disadvantages of the voluntary simplicity approach)
20:48, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (clarify voluntary simplicity arguments a bit more -- am trying to connect with lower resource use)
20:41, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (give more explicit resource savings)
20:32, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (hydrogen from GMOs)
20:27, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (dereference wp link)
20:24, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (draw out argument a bit more)
20:16, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (voluntary simplicity)
20:04, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (include a bit of common sense in with the predictions of famine)
19:27, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (include Orinoco tar sands to bump up reserves to two-thirds)
19:26, 2004 Nov 18 WpZurp m (include Orinoco tar sands to bump up reserves to two-thirds)
06:22, 2004 Nov 17 219.89.176.245 (Non conventional oil - 1/3rd -> third)
01:45, 2004 Nov 17 Sam Hocevar m (asymetrical -> asymmetrical)
05:14, 2004 Nov 12 138.23.203.216 (Hydrogen)
05:09, 2004 Nov 12 138.23.203.216 (Nuclear Power)
05:08, 2004 Nov 12 138.23.203.216 (Nuclear Power)
01:59, 2004 Nov 10 Zen-master (Market solution)
00:35, 2004 Nov 5 EZ m (book added)
23:58, 2004 Nov 4 EZ m (link added)
22:36, 2004 Nov 4 Zen-master (Renewable energy cleanup)
22:28, 2004 Nov 4 Zen-master (Effects of a world peak)
22:13, 2004 Nov 4 Zen-master (partially reverted, POV clean up, you seemed to be commingling statements about the U.S. with usage data from France?)
21:17, 2004 Nov 4 EZ m (German reference added)
20:53, 2004 Nov 4 Iain.mcclatchie (Nuclear Power -- more facts, pointers)
19:05, 2004 Nov 4 Zen-master (clarified hubbert's global oil prediction)
01:16, 2004 Nov 4 Zen-master (coalesced into paragraph Fischer-Tropsch Processes - This could use it's own article and a link perhaps?)
00:54, 2004 Nov 4 61.95.12.82 (Alternatives to oil)
00:30, 2004 Nov 4 61.95.12.82 (Hydrogen)
04:26, 2004 Nov 2 Meggar (Non conventional oil)
05:06, 2004 Nov 1 Zen-master (cleaned up a sneaky non-minor edit. Remember, the model is accurate, it's the data fed into the model that produces different results)

2004 Oct revisions

15:31, 2004 Oct 31 Richard Cane m (Added global oil production peak prediction)
19:48, 2004 Oct 29 Iain.mcclatchie m (Hydrogen - Wordsmithing)
17:22, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - oil reserves)
17:17, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - As of 2004)
17:16, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - -> h3)
17:11, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - it would be reasonable to expect ... political and economic tension)
17:10, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - final?)
17:02, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications - Others view this as a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.)
17:01, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (Political implications)
16:58, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (==Political implications==)
16:41, 2004 Oct 29 Iain.mcclatchie (Alternatives to oil -- move hydrogen)
16:38, 2004 Oct 29 The Anome (The theory - spelling.)
16:23, 2004 Oct 29 Iain.mcclatchie m (Market solution)
19:19, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (moved image next to TOC, saves space)
18:47, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (clean up and copy edit of Non conventional oil)
18:40, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (added Increased fuel efficiency section to Effects of a world peak)
13:51, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (copy edit of recent Market solution changes)
13:50, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (copy edit previous cleanup in Renewable energy)
13:36, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (follow on to previous clean up, moved two sentences to market solution section)
13:29, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (Watch your POV word choices, "market solution" should == "renewable energy". Renewable energy is not more "capital intensive". Do you work for an oil company? We need fuel efficiency section also.)
06:29, 2004 Oct 28 Iain.mcclatchie (Renewable energy is capital intensive)
02:29, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (more cleanup, added sections, added info including one sentence mention of Athabasca, Renewable Energy section needs a lot more info)
01:27, 2004 Oct 28 Zen-master (started small but turned into a big cleanup)
18:47, 2004 Oct 27 GuloGuloGulo (Reworked the Introduction)
00:09, 2004 Oct 27 Iain.mcclatchie m (fix sense -- curve obviously does not dictate actions in the physical world.)
22:58, 2004 Oct 26 The Anome (The theory - The rate of oil extraction at any given time would then be given by the rate of change of the logistic curve)
22:41, 2004 Oct 26 The Anome (The theory - which follows a bell-shaped curve)
22:41, 2004 Oct 26 The Anome (The theory - The rate of oil extraction at any given time, according to this model,)
22:40, 2004 Oct 26 The Anome (The theory - In 1956, Hubbert created a mathematical model of petroleum extraction which predicted that the total amount of oil extracted over time would follow a logistic curve. The r)
17:13, 2004 Oct 26 Alan Oldfield
19:52, 2004 Oct 23 The Anome (External links - Category:Futurology)
13:05, 2004 Oct 19 Quadell m (move interlang links to bottom)
06:56, 2004 Oct 19 81.56.65.90
22:11, 2004 Oct 17 Meelar (writing, wiki)
16:03, 2004 Oct 16 Quadell (+pic of oil prices)
13:36, 2004 Oct 15 203.113.210.57 (Effects of a world peak)
13:26, 2004 Oct 15 203.113.210.57 (Effects of a world peak)
06:13, 2004 Oct 13 207.172.83.26 (re-reverted, wikipedia is not an advertisement for the oil shale industry. after discussion is completed it perhaps can be added back with modifications. (discussion should take place before added))
11:20, 2004 Oct 12 141.20.25.44
10:44, 2004 Oct 12 One Salient Oversight (Reverted - see discussion page)
07:14, 2004 Oct 12 207.172.83.26 (Removed redundant not applicable info, it's mentioned already and there was no mention of how it currently requires more fuel to process than is produced and the extremely large environmental impact)
17:08, 2004 Oct 11 204.212.175.30 (The theory)
06:19, 2004 Oct 11 One Salient Oversight m (Effects of a world peak)
04:59, 2004 Oct 11 One Salient Oversight (Effects of a world peak -Details on Athabasca Tar Sands)
04:35, 2004 Oct 11 One Salient Oversight m (See also)
01:49, 2004 Oct 10 24.19.45.139 (Wider applications)
15:33, 2004 Oct 9 207.172.83.26 (should have been plural, sentence shortened instead)
14:33, 2004 Oct 5 80.176.216.242 (The theory)
14:20, 2004 Oct 5 80.176.216.242 (The theory)
15:06, 2004 Oct 1 213.203.153.60 (grammar fix)

2004 Sep revisions

19:41, 2004 Sep 28 207.172.83.26 (Effects of a world peak - fixed typo, added key word link)
19:31, 2004 Sep 28 207.172.83.26 (cleaned up, added info, there is no/little disagreement on the concept just on when it will happen)
18:37, 2004 Sep 28 207.172.83.26 (The theory - added more info)
17:47, 2004 Sep 28 207.172.83.26 (Effects of a world peak - added info and worded better)
16:53, 2004 Sep 28 207.172.83.26 (Wider applications - oil is finite)
16:09, 2004 Sep 28 Roadrunner (Effects of a world peak - NPOV)
16:08, 2004 Sep 28 Roadrunner (Wider applications)
16:04, 2004 Sep 28 Roadrunner (Wider applications)
15:55, 2004 Sep 28 Dbenbenn m (The theory)
14:17, 2004 Sep 28 24.58.8.75 (Effects of a world peak)
13:23, 2004 Sep 28 146.145.27.99 (The theory)
11:47, 2004 Sep 28 194.222.36.69 (fix trivial typo - Wider applications)
11:21, 2004 Sep 28 80.58.23.44 (External links)
09:53, 2004 Sep 28 81.56.239.42 (added link for French version of article)
08:07, 2004 Sep 28 81.218.215.243 (Effects of a world peak)
22:12, 2004 Sep 23 207.111.236.2 (The theory)
07:34, 2004 Sep 23 207.172.83.26 (more clean up and better wordage)
12:23, 2004 Sep 22 Drowstar m (typos)
07:36, 2004 Sep 21 207.172.83.26 (re-worded, added more info, cleaned up)
22:41, 2004 Sep 18 Tregoweth (Further reading - cleaning up, rm Amazon links)
02:06, 2004 Sep 13 200.40.166.42 (Wider applications - peak -> peaked)
02:05, 2004 Sep 13 200.40.166.42 (Wider applications - minor syntax)
20:38, 2004 Sep 7 Michel32Nl (fixed typo)
00:20, 2004 Sep 6 Roadrunner
00:17, 2004 Sep 6 Roadrunner (Effects of a world peak)
00:15, 2004 Sep 6 Roadrunner (Wider applications)

2004 Jul-Aug revisions

03:58, 2004 Aug 25 Hawstom (Effects of a world peak)
12:28, 2004 Aug 16 Quadell m (minor formatting, one sentence)
11:42, 2004 Aug 16 Dissident
07:41, 2004 Aug 10 62.252.0.4 (External links)
07:17, 2004 Aug 10 62.252.0.4 (External links)
07:13, 2004 Aug 10 62.252.0.4 (External links)
13:12, 2004 Jul 29 Quadell (caption)
05:49, 2004 Jul 23 209.237.26.150 (Correct a couple misspellings/typos)
13:54, 2004 Jul 22 The Anome (Effects of a world peak - Others believe that the rise in oil prices world drive the replacement of oil with other power sources, such as nuclear energy, with the possible introduction of a [[)
13:36, 2004 Jul 22 The Anome (See also - rm self-link)
13:34, 2004 Jul 22 The Anome (fmt)
13:34, 2004 Jul 22 The Anome (The '''Hubbert Peak''' theory, also known as the '''oil peak''' or '''peak oil'' theory,)
19:34, 2004 Jul 21 Quadell (Merged with Hubbert Peak and added mucho info)
19:00, 2004 Jul 16 Milk m (fixed oil crash link)
11:24, 2004 Jul 9 Prichardson m (added major peak oil site)

2004 Apr-Jun revisions

20:52, 2004 Jun 20 66.125.91.157 (External links)
03:49, 2004 Jun 19 168.103.227.223
04:49, 2004 Jun 4 Template namespace initialisation script
08:14, 2004 Jun 2 Yath (link to abiotic petroleum)
20:46, 2004 May 24 Sekicho m (moved ToC down)
18:30, 2004 May 20 Dissident m ({{msg:merge}} Hubbert peak)
18:56, 2004 May 17 ElBenevolente (remove references from see also already wikified)
18:54, 2004 May 17 ElBenevolente (reinsert discussion of abiotic petroleum with caveat)
12:20, 2004 May 17 Topbanana (Removed links to the very speculative theory of 'abiotic oil')
18:32, 2004 May 10 66.68.46.220
01:50, 2004 May 6 Alan Liefting m
01:30, 2004 May 6 Alan Liefting m
10:17, 2004 May 5 81.168.40.2
10:15, 2004 May 5 81.168.40.2
23:32, 2004 Apr 20 61.88.104.161
12:04, 2004 Apr 20 Timwi m (proper see also section)
11:07, 2004 Apr 20 Oliver Crow (editing)
11:01, 2004 Apr 20 Oliver Crow m (spelling: phenomenon)
08:40, 2004 Apr 20 Gonvaled (Another way of looking at Hubbert Peak)
04:40, 2004 Apr 17 ElBenevolente (redirect Hubbert peak)

Former History of Hubbert peak

13:32, 2004 Jul 22 . . The Anome (#Redirect Hubbert Peak)
19:34, 2004 Jul 21 . . Quadell (Merged with [Peak oil]] and made into a rd there.)
11:00, 2004 Jul 20 . . Gonvaled (Added link to peak oil)
22:13, 2004 Jul 13 . . 62.235.102.64 (/* Oil Peak Books */)
17:34, 2004 Jul 13 . . 4.65.89.174 (Style and grammatic fixes)
02:45, 2004 Jul 11 . . Giftlite (/* See also */)
09:28, 2004 Jun 26 . . Bobblewik (added metric values using google converter)
20:53, 2004 Jun 20 . . 66.125.91.157 (/* External links */)
03:51, 2004 Jun 19 . . 168.103.227.223 (/* External links */)
15:43, 2004 Jun 5 . . Jeffq (Spelling fix.)
02:32, 2004 Jun 3 . . Bryan Derksen ()
08:24, 2004 Jun 1 . . 209.103.204.193 ()
07:55, 2004 Jun 1 . . 209.103.204.193 (/* External links */)
19:51, 2004 May 15 . . BozMo ()
22:30, 2004 May 8 . . The Anome (increased energy conservation)
22:28, 2004 May 8 . . Wik ()
02:34, 2004 May 2 . . 24.205.142.131 (Added External links to PeakOilAction.org and OilAwareness.meetup.com)
17:00, 2004 Apr 24 . . 209.103.204.195 (Added two more links.)
06:08, 2004 Apr 19 . . Evil saltine (Reverted edits by 65.31.28.135 to last version by 24.19.45.139)
06:07, 2004 Apr 19 . . 65.31.28.135 ()
18:49, 2004 Apr 11 . . 24.19.45.139 ()
18:27, 2004 Apr 11 . . 24.19.45.139 ()
16:23, 2004 Apr 11 . . 209.103.204.207 ()
06:11, 2004 Apr 6 . . 209.103.204.236 ()
01:14, 2004 Apr 6 . . 209.103.204.237 ()
01:06, 2004 Apr 6 . . 209.103.204.237 ()
00:47, 2004 Apr 6 . . The Anome (=See also= * Ehrlich-Simon bet)
00:16, 2004 Apr 6 . . The Anome (getting verbs right)
00:15, 2004 Apr 6 . . The Anome (fdmtr)
00:14, 2004 Apr 6 . . The Anome (reference)
00:08, 2004 Apr 6 . . Roadrunner ()
00:07, 2004 Apr 6 . . Roadrunner ()
00:06, 2004 Apr 6 . . Roadrunner ()
00:01, 2004 Apr 6 . . The Anome (This behavior has the form of a Hubbert curve; see that article for mathematical details.)
23:59, 2004 Apr 5 . . The Anome (rm even more math to avoid duplication)
23:58, 2004 Apr 5 . . The Anome (rm math (has its own article), floated the image)
23:57, 2004 Apr 5 . . The Anome (merging)
23:54, 2004 Apr 5 . . The Anome (more)
23:52, 2004 Apr 5 . . The Anome (The theory of the '''Hubbert peak''' or '''oil peak''' is due to the geologist M. King Hubbert.)
22:28, 2004 Feb 4 . . Karada (#REDIRECT M. King Hubbert)
01:07, 2002 Sep 13 . . The Anome (#REDIRECT Hubbert curve)

Chart removal

This chart is irrelevant/misleading

It has nothing to do with the Hubbert peak. It really has nothing to do with the long term price of oil. If you plot the prices from 1973 to 2004, it looks really different. Roadrunner 07:53, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please indicate what is wrong with it, what is misleading about it? Zen Master 23:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See here. [[1]]. If you plot the prices from 1973 to 2004 in real dollars, the long term trend is downward.

I think that if you do keep this graph in the article (I personally would like to see it removed) it should at least be updated to show what oil prices are currently, what about $44 a barrel? It seems to be trying to give readers the impression that a huge oil crunch is at hand, which really isn't true. Matthias5 23:16, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chart is misleading. This is a no-spin zone. I am a believer in an impending oil price crunch and that oil prices have already begun the upward climb. But chart is useless. Put in an annotated historic adjusted 3-year moving average price chart or something like that. Prices are still lower than the 70's peak. Tom - Talk 23:30, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Hubbert peak sentence needs clarification

I'm not sure this is true:

The Hubbert model most closely resembles the rate of fastest possible oil extraction, if demand is less than expected or supply is curtailed then actual production rates would not match the Hubbert peak model. Roadrunner 07:57, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That was added to clarify against the errant claim that the Hubbert model is "wrong", the model is accurate, the disagerements are over wildly varying production data fed into the model I believe. Please cite recent claims by an "economist" that the hubbert peak model is flat out wrong? The sentence was added to further explain how and why oil production on a global scale does not closely mirror the hubbert peak model. Zen Master 23:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here are two ....

http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.dir/lynch/worldoil.html

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=842272

Oil in terms of price vs oil in terms of energy efficiency

This also isn't true....

This is true regardless of the price of oil.

Most fields are abandoned because of economic issues. People literally turn on and off oil pumps in response to the price of oil. The amount of energy needed to recover oil changes with technology. Roadrunner 08:10, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You may be missing the point on this one. The point here is that old school economists have been thinking of oil only in terms of price, oil is not like any ohter comodity. The sentence is just saying that the way we should look at the situation is ratio of extracted energy over energy used in the extraction process. They need technology that violates the first law of thermodynamics, not possible. Technology may help us extract non-conventional oil like tar sands more efficiently but I believe technology has done almost all it can in terms of extracting convetional oil. Some seem to believe if oil was $1,000 a barrel that would spur immediate investement in oil extraction technologies, but it can't work if it takes more energy to extract the oil than is contained in the actual oil. I changed the sentence to, "Hubbert peak proponents claim this is true regardless of the price of oil" or something like that, I removed the bold around price. comments? Zen Master 23:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can you have a reference to someone who argues this? If there is someone who argues this, then we should include this with references and counterarguments. If you can't then it is advocacy/personal research and doesn't belong in the article. And it's also wrong. It is irrelevant if it takes more energy to extract than it produces. You can imagine a situation where you use things like energy from coal to generate energy to produce oil which is more valuable because you can't use coal directly for things like transportation. Roadrunner 02:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd second roadrunner on this one. As per the economist article, presently about 30-35% of the oil in an oilfield is recoverable. Oil industry types expect that to go up to 50-60%. I don't have proof that this will happen, obviously, but if you look at the historical record, I think you see a clear pattern of technology constantly improving. Do you have any references that claim that there is a physical law that prevents more than 30-35% of the oil in an oil field from being recovered? I agree that in most cases it will never make sense to extract oil when it costs more energy to get the oil than the oil is worth, but technology improvements will lower the amount of energy needed for extraction. The price matters, and it seems hard to envision a time when it won't matter. Matthias5 01:41, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That may be the mistake economists and others have made thinking about oil. The price is irrelevant if it takes more energy to extract than what is contained in what was extracted. It's not just about improved recoverability percentages, it's also about the peak (hence the title of this article), better technology may only prolong the life of a depleting oil field after the peak, not increase the peak, world wide. Things start to get bad at the peak, improved recoverability percentages will help out but may not allow a return to the days before the peak. I remember reading an article on peakoil.net about price vs energy efficiency, will look for it. The issue is that most everything in society requires oil, if the price of oil rises the theory is that would stimulate additional oil production investment, but because everything else is going to also cost more, that investement could be completely a waste. It takes oil/energy to extract oil/energy. Even the plant that makes wind generators needs oil. zen master 02:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

First of all, I agree that it doesn't make sense to use more energy to make something than you get out of the energy source. But not everything in the world makes sense. Think ethanol, for example. Second, if oil becomes more expensive, then people will use less of it. People will demand more fuel-efficient cars. Automakers will happily oblige. If plastics become more expensive, the market price will rise and consumers will switch to non-plastic items, depending on the elasticity of demand. As the price of oil rises, renewables will begin to look more attractive. Plus there will be more effort going into exploration. I'm not happy about oil companies exploring Alaska and Antartica, but if there's an oil crunch, you can bet that they will, with full political support.

I haven't seen this argument made yet, but it seems to me that the reason that US oil production peaked (I'm still not clear: was it *all* US production, or only the lower 48?) was because the *world* oil price was stable/declining. New markets opened up and companies looked for oil where it was cheapest. Suppose that the US had not been able to import oil. Companies would have scoured the US for more oil, and found some. At the same time, with prices rising rapidly, there would have been huge incentives for conservation. All of these factors would have acted to moderate the supply of oil.

Oil will eventually run out, I completely agree with you. I just think that the sharp soaring price that peak oil proponents predict (along with global chaos) seems unlikely. I would trust the market to address these issues. All this said, I still think that our govt should be doing all that it can to promote energy efficiency. I think that a casuality of our oil dependence will be more conflict and definitely more environmental degradation. But I don't predict the 'end of civilization as we know it'. sorry I forgot to sign in. 68.50.226.226 04:14, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But what of the potentially dramatic effects of having increasingly less oil to use? Oil/energy is the ability to do work, so I guess we will just have to make do with less work at some point when we start running out of oil. More fuel-efficient vehicles may not be beneficial if we are steadily going to have less and less oil after the peak is reached, though, don't get me wrong, fuel efficient cars will save some oil and spread out oil reserves over a longer time period, but are you claiming increasing fuel efficiency can keep pace with the rate of oil depletion year after year? The problem is not that oil will become a seller's market, the problem is that increasingly it will become an inefficient market. How much more fuel efficient can all vehicles (especially trucks used in food transportation) be 5 years from now? How about 10 years from now? Also, modern global economics may rely on steady expansion, the mere notion of an economic retreat and the house of cards collapses perhaps. Renewable sources of energy will become more attractive yes, but they do not currently have the potential to return us to the days of super high ratios of extracted energy over energy consumed in the extraction and refining processes. What energy we get from renewable sources will require a much larger investement (energy investment, not just price) than conventional oil, so there will be less work/energy available to do the other things that society needs. Also, the increasing price of oil will have a feedback loop for even those very alternative sources of energy that will become more attractive. So when you say these alternative sources will become more "attractive" at exactly the same time they also become more "expensive" (from both a price and energy efficiency perspective), because now the ability to do work (oil) at say the wind generator factory costs more. At least one peak oil proponent propsed that "prices" should really be set in terms of energy, not money, basically because oil does all the work, not money. We should save all remaining oil reserves like Alaska and the artic for when we are much more efficient and can use the spare energy more wisely in my opinion, at best it delays the peak a few more years I believe. I disagree with your US-48 analysis, it could be argued that the dominance of the USA the last 50 years or so is only because we figured out how to use our spare or free energy (oil) and then conspired to keep global prices low when we ran out, but now the world is starting to run out. It's starting to dawn on us that we should have used the spare energy more wisely. There may be little or no cheap oil (cheap from an energy perspective) left. Because of oil's cheap abundance for so long economists were tricked into thinking the First law of thermodynamics didn't apply, but it does, we can't cheat the laws of nature. The "energy" contained in oil was not "created" by the extraction or refining process, it was there builing up underground for millions of years. There is also the issue of world population increase during a time of steadily decreasing energy supplies, more and more people will have to make do with less and less work? Saudi Arabia, maybe Iran, and a small handful of others are the only countries left that export significantly more oil than they consume (and have the reserves to continue to do so for a while). zen master 05:55, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hubbert developed his curve based on evidence during a time when the price of oil was fairly stable, but it isn't a law. Given that the price of oil doesn't change much, then the production of oil will look like the curve Hubbert described. If the price of oil is infinitely flexible, in other words we're willing to do whatever it takes to extract it, then it would still peak but the curve would be exponential right up until the very last drop at which point it would go to zero. If the price of oil started rising as consumption rose, then the exponential portion would cease and we'd get into more of a plateau. The point of the Hubbert peak is that it predicts the end of cheap oil. Most people shrug this off as no big deal, but it's a huge deal, especially to the US which has effectively tied its currency to oil. I believe that the oil peak will see industrialized nations switch to coal at ludicrous speed to prevent an Olduvai Theory scenario. You'll see all sorts of community, health and environmental standards cast aside in the race to make up the difference. This will naturally pull transportation towards electricity. But we're already past the peak energy use per capita and with population peaking somewhere between 8 and 12 billion, all but the most wealthy will become very uncomfortable this century. Anyway, I digress. My point is that a long term oil price trend should be available as it plays an integral part in shaping the Hubbert curve. I would be in favor of substituting this for the current short term graph. Amadeust 17:35, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree a predicted oil price trend chart is potentially very informative, though I suspect people would claim it violates neutral point of view, and there are too many variables like oil market manipulation, government price controls, demand shrinkage directly because of price, demand shrinkage because of global economic recession etc. I think putting the following oil production image from this URL on the page could be useful, but i don't think this content is licensed under the GFDL: http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/Default.htm

Also, it may not be possible to continously increase oil production as much as you describe, it certainly would be a waste of energy to use it to extract our remaining oil reserves faster. Oil companies have already figured out they are better off letting oil deplete at the rate it does, rather than expend energy to extract a higher rate of oil, since that is a waste. zen master 18:10, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oil prices from 1860-1999 in dollars of 1999, source: DOE

Actually, i was thinking of something along the lines of what is already available at the petroleum article. Also, i only described the exponential peak with a hard drop to zero as an extreme possibility and did not mean to imply that this is where we are headed. It was just an example of how the peak can differ from the one proposed by Hubbert. I've put together a basics presentation on this if you're interested just to demonstrate the ideas behind price/shape relationships. I disagree that a price trend adds POV. It does nothing to support or undermine Hubbert but simply shows the conditions under which the theory was developed. Whether you agree or disagree with Hubbert's conclusions, the fact that Hubbert's data was influenced by those prices still remains. Please keep in mind that many regional and national Hubbert peaks have already been established. They're the basis of this theory. Only the global Hubbert peak is disputed. Amadeust 18:29, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've put my references

ZenMaster. I've changed the first paragraphs with my references to cite that there is a controversy (including mentioning Colin Campbell who is one of the more forceful proponents of the Hubbert peak). Can you go through and reference the claims in the rest of the article? I've changed the first section to put the USGS World Petroleum Assessment as the "middle ground" with Campbell at one end and Lynch at the other, which I think is a fair description of the consensus among people in the field. Roadrunner 02:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I cited a recent article by Lynch which he argues that the Hubbert model is just plain wrong. If you still don't think that he argues this, we can e-mail him and ask him what he believes. Roadrunner 03:45, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, please email him, I believe the recent 2004 fact that the Saudi Arabian oil fields have not be able to increase production has changed everything. The URL you cite is pure criticism of Campbell, please cite a counter prediction of Lynch's. In fact, the article you cite only talks about Campbells use of data, nowhere does he dispute the Hubbert model except to say the model doesn't have to be a curve, note: this article is titled "peak". Also, "worthless" is rather POV don't you think? Zen Master 04:02, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

rm "Other"

Pardon the ip 66.248.120.156, but i lost my dialup as i was saving the change. None of the energy "sources" mentioned in this section are currently available or net energy positive. The problem with having them is that it opens up the possibility to listing a whole host of Sci-Fi energy sources.

They should be listed in NPOV since many people are thinking about them. Objections should be stated in the article dealing

with the actual power source. They could quickly become feasible with new techonology, for example a space elevator which

some think could be constructed this decade.

The problem is that these are being singled out. If you expand the sphere to highly speculative sources then there are huge gaps in the list like thermal depolymerization of garbage waste or human remains which exists and is known to be net energy positive. Even with a space elevator, it is still not known whether methane from Titan is net energy positive (how do you get it off that moon?) and why is that listed when say farm animal methane is not. I have particular issue with a Dyson sphere because while it seemingly makes sense it is not known if such a structure could recover more energy than it takes to put up and now you're talking about energy scales on the order of solar systems when the Hubbert peak is talking about fossil fuel depletion on earth. Finally, the time scale to implement these projects is so long that it wouldn't fit into the most optimistic projections for an energy dearth on earth. I don't see how these support the Hubbert article at all with or without qualifying statements like "these are very speculative". Amadeust 15:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with a list of speculative energy sources. Is already mentioned that they are "very speculative". That the oil peak will take this place this decade is speculative. Importantly, these energy sources are often mentioned in connection with the oil peak. So they should certainly be mentioned here also if the article is supposed to present all points of view. A Dyson sphere is actually not a sphere bur rather a collection of satellites around the sun that can be built one at a time. So they are not that far away. But it is also important to broaden the view, some people think that we are for all time doomed to be dependent on the energy available on Earth and that society must be built assuming a long-term energy consumption at most equal to that from sunlight on Earth. Thanks for pointint out thermal depolymerization, I had forgotten that. It doesn't fit in the "very speculative" category. There is an existing plant with plans for many more worldwide.

These energy sources are extra-terrestrial. Hydrocarbons on earth are not being extracted because they are not feasible (remote natural gas fields for example). Meanwhile several layers of technology would have to be developed first before any of these would be even on par with where fusion is today. Fusion itself is not going to appear before the peak let alone make up the difference. ITER projects first demo reactors providing energy in TWO decades and ramp up of energy production in the following THREE decades. This is well beyond the most optimistic projections for peak oil. Again, what is the value of these other energy sources to the article and why have these been selected over an innumerable list which anyone with a dime's worth of imagination can come up? You haven't even attempted to answer the most basic question of why this is good for the article.

I think criticisms of the other section are valid, however, perhaps it's ok if we make it clear this info is a far in the future possibility and including the point most are not yet net energy positive is a good thing to do. We could have a "Future energy sources" section for 2020 and beyond? Zen Master 20:59, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unless sources of energy could contribute to a transition from oil, then i don't see how they belong in this article. I'm not arguing against these ideas. In fact, i think they're creative ideas worth reading about. I simply think they belong in articles like Energy development instead. Amadeust 22:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

1. All of these enery sources are not extra-terrestrial, like methrane clathrate. 2. That peak oil will happen before fusion is very POV, see for example http://www.gasresources.net/Lynch(Hubbert-Deffeyes).htm or United States Geological Survey. 3. And there is no requirements that all solution must applied before the exact peak. 4. Theories like abiogenic oil certainly belong in an article about peak oil since it directly contradict the theory. 5. Solar power satellites could be made with existing technologies provided a space elevator and they are seen as a solution to peak oil by space elevator advocates. Who claim it could be built this decade. 6. These theories are are often advocated as solutions to peak oil. Thus they should be mentioned here and evidence could be provided that they do not work. But they should not be censored. Even the peak-oil websites often mention abiogenic oil and methane clathrates, even if only to dismiss them. So why not Wikipedia? 7. If there are more potential technologies that you can think of, why not list them also? This is supposed to present all points of view. Not just that of those advocating peak-oil-this-decade-and-there-is-no-solution. In light of these points, I will restore the category with some modifictions.

After reading more about methane clathrate, i will concede that it is a possible substitute but still highly speculative. I still hold that the others are not viable as replacements for oil and therefore irrelevant with respect to the subject of the Hubbert peak. It is not that this energy needs to come online before the peak but rather it needs to come online before the serious downslope. At best that means the energy needs to be net energy positive and commercially viable within this century (even given the most optimistic POV). Any source acquired extraterrestrially (earth based solar excluded of course) will have an enormous up front energy cost which is unlikely to make the source viable until huge leaps in technology are able to mitigate this. Amadeust 01:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many others have different views than you. For example some geologists regarding abiogenic oil or space engineers regarding solar power satellites. As I said, make the arguments in this article or in those linked. But do not censor without argument.

The famous "some people say" argument. Who are these people? Please provide references. Amadeust 22:48, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rename vs Split vs Status Quo

Any objections to renaming the article "peak oil" rather than "Hubbert peak". The problem with the name Hubbert peak is that it refers to a particular model of peak oil which is not the only one out there. One can reject the Hubbert model without rejecting the concept of peak oil, and one can also accept the Hubbert model as a model for a given oil field (as most geologists do in fact), without accepting peak oil. Roadrunner 19:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Another option is to split the article into "Peak oil" and "Hubbert theory". Stuff having to do with the implications of running out of oil and alternatives etc can go into peak oil, hubbert's theory would just be specific and criticisms. But for now I think one article is ok, what do others think? Zen Master 20:24, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To anon IP that posted huge criticisms content

I removed most of what you added because it was way too verbose, redundant to what was in the article below and was written in essay form (you said "generally agreed" like 5 times in the section supposed to be listing criticisms). I believe I have very concisely captured some good points you made, if I missed anything, or for any other reason, feel free to create a new "Criticisms of Hubbert peak" article or you could perhaps create an article detailing Lynch's arguments against hubbert peak theory. But generally, such verbosity severely detracts from overall article quality. zen master 05:13, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Corrected some things. 1. Nuclear power is not due to the sun. 2. Those criticzing the oil peak theory is not comparing oil to stone. 3. Limited oil refinement capacity is only applicable to the US, not the rest of the world. 4. The UN population model think world populatio will stabilize around 2075. http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm /Xip

Alternatives to oil migration?

The section Alternatives to oil overlaps with Current State and Goals under Energy development. It has been proposed there that Alternatives to oil be moved there as it is the more general discussion. I would be in favor of that since it would tidy this article up a lot as well as removing reduncancy and possible contradiction on the same topic by having a single place for this info. Amadeust 21:26, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the sections should entirely move, but the current entries can be substantially edited down for size. zen master 21:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Are you proposing something similar to what's been done with the Non-conventional oil section? Will that paragraph be peared down to only include Hubbert Peak to Non-conventional oil info? If that's the case, then i'm all for it. As it stands, i don't think there's enough relevant information to keep the paragraph around in light of the other article. So, unless significant non-Hubbert related chunks could be migrated, then Energy development might as well reference this section instead even though that's backwards. Thanks for breaking this out by the way. Amadeust 22:10, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's my take. Controversial topics tend to generate the energy upon which Wikipedia is built. Therefore this article gets a lot of good development and effort. From that perspective, it is great that all this content has been developed here. Unfortunately, this is a rather out-of-the-way place for all that good information. Energy development, on the other extreme, is a boring article that gets very little effort and attention. But it is exactly the kind article to be someday a Featured Article. I think it would be an ingenious exploitation of the Wikipedia's model to let developement occur at these controversial places, and then cheerfully move it occasionally to less controversial and more visible places. Who knows, maybe the boring articles will become interesting enough to get some attention. Of course discussions of energy alternatives are marginally ancillary to Hubbart's Peak. Any of them that are highly advanced and commendable, I say let's move! Tom - Talk 22:23, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

I would be in favor of everything from 'alternatives to conventional oil' down being moved somewhere else. It really would help clean up the article and keep it more tightly focused on Hubbart's Peak. You could definitely put in a link to the new article so that people can still find it. Matthias5 23:33, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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