[extropy-chat] Debate on Peak Oil

[David]

> This is why I say that Peak Oil sites provide biased news.  They search
> the press for all the bad things, but won't reprint good news (that
> is, news which goes against their theories).  Unfortunately I have not
> found a site which focuses on good news on this topic, so it is hard to
> acquire a balanced picture.  I did order the book by Huber but it would
> be nice to see a blog or some other source that discusses topics on a
> day to day basis.  Of course an unbiased site would be best, but I've
> given up hope in that regard!  At this point I just try to find a mix
> of information sources.
> 
> Hal

You weren't kidding about the websites being biased.
The sites from both sides read like they were
written by paranoid conspiracy theorists on a binge.

However, occasionally they do make testable claims,
eg. from http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html

"In 1970 the Russians started drilling Kola SG-3, an exploration
well which finally reached a staggering world record depth of
40,230 feet. Since then,  Russian oil majors including Yukos have
quietly drilled more than 310 successful super-deep oil wells, and
put them into production. Last Year Russia overtook Saudi Arabia
as the world's biggest single oil producer"

It seems the truth is probably somewhere in the middle - most
reports claim that Kola SG-3 was not intended as an oil well,
but was for research into the Earth'c crust - however the
Russians apparently do have a large number of productive
deep wells that shouldn't be productive according to western
oil theories.

It is difficult to check either side's claims online, as all
the links seem to run around the same few unsubstantiated
articles, which all cite each other as evidence.

The latest figures I could find said that in 2001 Russia was
second in production and http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html
says they are expected to continue increasing production.

Even disregarding the abiotic theories we don't seem to have
a problem. www.eia.doe.gov seems to be one of the more balanced
sites, and they give production, reserve, and growth figures
that say peak oil is not going to be a problem for many decades.

-David