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Bp Says We'Ve Already Reached Peak Oil:
BP is saying the quiet part loud: In the 2020 Energy Outlook report the energy giant published this week, it said that the world may have reached peak oil.
The covid-19 pandemic has done a serious number on the oil industry, with demand falling to historic lows amid lockdowns and prices falling into negative territory. In a report on Tuesday, the International Energy Agency warned that for the oil industry, the "path ahead is treacherous," reducing its forecast for global oil demand in 2020 by 200,000 barrels per day. And on Monday, OPEC lowered its predictions of demand in 2020 by 400,000 barrels per day.
In BP's new report, analysts said the market may never recover from this damage. The authors lay out three possible scenarios for the world's energy usage between now and 2050, which illustrate a rapid, moderate, and slow transition to renewables. The first two scenarios show demand for oil steeply falling over the next three decades. But even under the firm's most "optimistic" scenario for Big Oil where climate action doesn't accelerate, oil demand will plateau at 2019 levels before declining in 2035.
This is a vastly different picture from the one the firm sketched in its last outlook report just one year ago, which predicted oil consumption would continue to grow over the next decade, peaking sometime in the 2030s.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by diaz on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:55AM (16 children)
I'm pretty sure "peak oil" means we've reached the peak of what can be produced. This article says that we've reached the maximum demand. It's reasonable that the supply and production capacity are still there and we're just not using it all.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:00PM
The availability of oil unlocked by the fracking revolution pushed the peak oil curve out by many decades. The USA has been the world's biggest producer since 2013 !
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/worlds-top-oil-producers/ [investopedia.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:01PM (3 children)
Peak oil (supply) means maximum oil that can be produced irrespective of the price. At least that's what it means originally - oil running out. You are correct here that this is peak demand and has little to do with the original notion of supply.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:15PM (2 children)
As a practical matter, 'irrespective or price' is just a theoretical idea.
Oil will never completely run out.
It will just get so expensive to find that fewer and fewer use it.
So as a practical matter, peak oil means when is is so hard to find that it is no longer in general use.
The situation BP is talking about, oil is cheap but still nobody wants it. A bogus use of 'peak oil' to grab attention.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aegis on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:39PM (1 child)
There are many way to make something too expensive to be worth using. Competition from cheaper energy sources, for example, can make the oil too cheap to extract. Or, demand could drop to the point where the oil is too cheap to extract.
"Peak Oil" doesn't need to follow your preconceived notions of oil valuation.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:26PM
The term has a specific meaning and it has nothing to do with renewables -- it references the maximum extraction rate. It also doesn't mean the end of oil extraction -- just the peak of extraction. For practical reasons (people go for the easy and cheap extraction first), extraction after peak is progressively more costly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:01PM (4 children)
Exactly.
This is bull. There will be no peak oil until oil is available. That's unless we'll make a revolution - disband our capitalist system.
The US cut all the trees before starting new technologies. The US killed all the wales before switching to ground oil. The US killed all the fish... I can continue on and on. Why is that? Because if we are not, others will defeat us, or so the doctrine says.
The change required to stop using oil is orders of magnitude bigger that the silly oil climate issues. It'll not happen until we seriously undeniably damage the environment. I mean people dying if left alone outside level.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:32PM (1 child)
So what better course of action than to deny our defeat to others and defeat ourselves instead, right? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:01PM
I do not know. Consider a doctrine. One day space aliens will come to get us. What is more important - environment protection or our ability to defeat them? Perhaps we have to force technology no matter the costs.
Note that it was exactly how our planet evolved. For example, China decided to stay local. They destroyed all their mighty ships and just developed local economy on a sustainable basis. What happened? British cave dwellers evolved and came to China and almost destroyed it. Did Chinese learned the lesson? I bet they did.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:17PM
Do not worry. They'll migrate en masse to your neighborhood before conditions like that become much more common.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:05PM
Troll, aha. That was kangaroo who can't face issues. Yeah, put your head deeper into the sand and stay there. Make sure your arsehole is way up.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aegis on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:12PM (5 children)
Make a graph of production.
The peak is just what is sounds like, the top of that graph.
Doesn't matter what cause the production to start dropping on the downward slope. BP is just saying they think it will keep dropping.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bussdriver on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:31PM (3 children)
WHAT chart decides the peak; for BP they are now admitting it for their kind of production.
For CHEAP easy oil, we peaked quite a while ago. We've been employing expensive, risky, and shady tactics (BP spills, dangerously polluting types of oil, fracking) to keep expensive oil costs down. We can still produce record shattering amounts of oil if COST does not matter. Tar Sands oil is plentiful but it costs a crazy amount to extract even when you ignore the environmental aspects. Saudi Arabia has been off shore drilling for a while now; which is odd if they have as much easy oil as they claim to have...
At some point, it will cost more $ than the oil is worth to produce it... but then it'll be rare enough that demand will drive up the price... eventually the price will be so high nobody will be willing to pay except some wealthy elite who will find some way to use it as a status symbol like owning a $1 million car.
Yes, the USA just forced those sitting on oil rights to drill or lose those rights (back during Obama) which has the USA producing a lot plus it's barely regulated fracking industry so it has some cheap oil for a while. That hasn't peaked yet... although the waste and lack of pollution controls makes me think they are not close to peaking (or not thinking ahead... they certainly don't like how Obama lowered prices on them and made them drill what they would make more sitting on.)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:59PM (2 children)
Fracking IS cheap and easy oil.
But that just moved the peak. It's a mathematical inevitability that at some point a peak will be reached (or has already been reached).
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:57PM
Fracking is not all that cheap. Many firms were barely breaking even before prices collapsed and now they are going bankrupt https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-bankrupt-2646407003.html [ecowatch.com]
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Friday October 02 2020, @07:44PM
Fracking isn't paying for all the damage they are causing and I'm not talking about the irreplaceable damage to the water supplies. They'd not be cheap with that overhead... plus I've heard they have not been doing well even with all the loopholes they have been using.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:23PM
I think BP is just politely suggesting that the price will go up. A lot. Forever ever up.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.