Critical Thinking in Global Challenges

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Critical thinking is a skill that's important for all of us to continually develop. 

Luckily, the educational platform Coursera is offering their free course "Critical Thinking in Global Challenges" beginning on January 19, 2015. You can register on the course site. 

Here is the course overview:

"Critical thinking is the ability to gather and assess information and evidence in a balanced and reflective way to reach conclusions that are justified by reasoned argument based on the available evidence. Critical thinking is a key skill in the information age, valuable in all disciplines and professions. 

This introductory course will give you the opportunity to better understand what critical thinking is, and to practice and enhance your critical thinking skills. To do so, we will use the context of some important global challenges that affect us all, and to which we have no clear “correct” solutions: for example, the risk and spread of serious infectious diseases in epidemics in modern societies, the implications of increasing human population on global resources, energy, environment and climate, and the challenges of human health and wellbeing in the modern world. Possible solutions to global issues such as these are hotly debated, and give the perfect setting to practice recognizing and evaluating facts, ideas, opinions and arguments." 

Also of interest is the Coursera course: "Introduction to Sustainability" beginning in April 2015. This course "introduces the academic discipline of sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations." And it should provide a good overview of population, climate change, Peak Oil, agriculture, water depletion, and everything in between.

The Steady Degradation of Our Prospects→

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“One of my pet peeves actually is that people talk about policy as if, as long as you’ve avoided a hot crisis, things are okay even when they’re obviously not. The pet peeve that affects me personally is the cancellation of the Hudson Rail Tunnel in New York City, and it’s kind of perfect. Essentially, because of political partisanship, we still have the world’s greatest city totally dependent on a tunnel completed in 1910 for all public transit linkage to the west. That doesn’t show up in an abrupt collapse, but those sorts of things show up in a steady degradation of our prospects.”
— Paul Krugman

This is from part of a longer interview of Paul Krugman from Ezra Klein that's well worth reading. And it mirrors my thinking as well. Sometimes analysts act like there are only the two extremes of "everything is awesome" and "the world is ending," when neither are ever true. In energy, climate, infrastructure, and many other areas, there's plenty of room in the middle for situations that look just fine on the surface, but are slowly deteriorating over a time period longer than our attention spans.

Ebola Didn't Disappear, They Just Stopped Talking About It

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Ebola Didn't Disappear, They Just Stopped Talking About It

As the President provided an update on Ebola from the National Institutes of Health the other day, few noticed because the media barely reported on it. While at the same time, a meme floated around social media wondering what happened to the Ebola threat in the first place. It's telling on two fronts, the lack of appreciation of the US Ebola response, and the amazing way we pretend that Ebola isn't an issue even though it's still a major problem...

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When did breakeven price become the pinnacle of shale success?

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When did breakeven price become the pinnacle of shale success?

Falling oil prices have brought more and more discussion of the breakeven costs for US shale oil production. We know that unconventional oil is much much more expensive than conventional oil production, but the question has been how much more expensive and have those costs come down over time. 

From a Peak Oil and daily rate of production point of view this is important because you start to wonder when (and how severely) low oil prices will start to affect production...

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Drilling Deeper

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Drilling Deeper

This week the Post Carbon Institute released their newest report "Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom" 

They write: "Over the short term, U.S. production of both shale gas and tight oil is projected to be robust-but a thorough review of production data from the major plays indicates that this will not be sustainable in the long term. These findings have clear implications for medium and long term supply, and hence current domestic and foreign policy discussions, which generally assume decades of U.S. oil and gas abundance."

That's not a message that sits well with industry group Energy in Depth (EID), and they put together a hurried critical response:

I'll leave it to the Post Carbon Institute and lead report author, David Hughes, to provide a technical data-driven response. But you may recall that I had so much fun responding to EID when they attacked FiveThirtyEight journalist Ben Casselman - that I just couldn't help examining a few lines from EID's latest:

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Thanks Everyone

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Just a quick word of thanks for all the nice words, feedback, and constructive criticism for my article "In Search of Oil Realism." I appreciate all of you.

And a big thanks to Scott Barkow for mentioning the article in the Globe and Mail:

"Energy industry expert D. Ray Long presents a wonderfully even-handed review of the peak oil debate that rightly dismisses the exaggerations and hyperbole on both sides."

The Peak is the Maximum Rate

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Mark Perry can always be counted on to gleefully make a new chart for every new uptick in oil production over on his Carpe Diem blog for the American Enterprise Institute (like this and this and this). 

But in this case he took the chart on the left from the Wall Street Journal article I discussed recently (I also discussed the fact that the chart would look very different if "natural-gas liquids" were not included). 

I'm always reminded of an anecdote from Matt Simmons where he recalled magazines from 1970 where writers smugly observed that US oil production was at historic highs, while teasing M. King Hubbert for his predictions of early 1970s oil production peak. 

Of course, the ironic part about all of this is that the peak of production, by definition, occurs at the point of highest production.

The debate isn't about how oil production looks right now, the debate is about providing evidence for sustainable oil production growth in the future.

1970 was a long time ago, but it's important to remember those who assumed US oil production would continue skyward in those days, and the rude awakening in the years that followed.

In Search of Oil Realism

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In Search of Oil Realism

Russell Gold's Wall Street Journal article "Why Peak-Oil Predictions Haven't Come True" hit the web yesterday. And given Gold's position as senior energy reporter for the Journal, this is likely the highest profile Peak Oil article of the year. You may also remember Gold from the great video interviews filmed as part of his book tour for his latest work "The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World." 

Gold's article comes from a very optimistic side of the Peak Oil Debate, but the pessimistic position isn't as weak as Gold suggests.

Let's jump in to examine the truth about past oil predictions, why the rate of oil production is the only correct metric for these debates, why these discussions should be grounded on present-day events, and why realistic estimates of our energy future should be our ultimate goal...

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The Benefits of Connected Cars

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In late August, I had the pleasure of attending the "Accelerating Sustainability: Demonstrating the Benefits of Connected Cars" event here in Washington DC (I'm a little hard to miss in the video below). 

Years ago, I remember giving a talk about self-driving cars and one of my statements was that "the magic isn't that the car is driving itself, the magic is that every car knows - with 100% certainty - everything all the other cars know as well."

I know that sounds a little "woo woo" and out there with the car chase scene from Minority Report, but it's true - once you remove that uncertainty of what all the other vehicles on the road are going to do from one moment to the next, then traffic and transportation as we know it completely changes. 

But even before you get to that far future scenario, many technologies in the near future will have an effect on cutting oil consumption and GHG emissions. From the description of the event:

"ITS America President Scott Belcher and Analyst Anthony Shaw will describe their new report, followed by a panel discussion of leading experts on the role of policy and innovation in ensuring that such technologies are unleashed to reduce our current annual average of over 6 billion barrels of oil used, roughly 1.7 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions emitted, and billions of hours wasted on US roads."

You can read the report here and video of the panel is on the right.


History of Energy in 10 Minutes

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Charlie Hall recently shared the link to the nice video below via his email blast. He even appears himself in the section on Energy Return On Investment (EROI). The description of the video: 

"All forms of economic production and exchange involve the transformation of materials, which in turn requires energy. Until recently cheap and seemingly limitless fossil energy has allowed many to ignore the important contributions from the biophysical world to the economic process and potential limits to growth.

The video that follows, commissioned by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) and developed by the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) and Next Generation Energy Initiative (NGEI), examines the energy used by modern economies over time. This work centers on assessing the relation of energy costs of modern day society and its connection to the quality of human life. A focus of this video is energy return on investment (EROI) and some important characteristics of our major energy sources over time."


Geology is Crushing Technology→

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In July, I highlighted James Hamilton's paper "The Changing Face of World Oil Markets," as well as the critical response from Reuters writer John Kemp. But I didn't circle back to also highlight Steven Kopits reply to Kemp that appeared in Platts: "Hamilton has it right on oil." 

You should definitely read the entire thing, but here's a short quote below on Capex. Kopits discussed the capex issue in great detail in his Columbia University presentation earlier this year (and if you haven't seen that, then go watch it immediately). But the short and simple version: Oil companies are spending more money, while gaining less production. Here's Kopits:

"...productivity of capital has deteriorated by a factor of four, from $5,300 capex b/d of oil production in 2004 to $21,400 in 2013. This deterioration is net of technology improvements. Geology is not only winning, it is crushing technology.

Hamilton’s graph testifies to the grizzly unraveling of the economics underpinning oil production since 2005.  For the oil business as a whole, productivity has imploded, not improved."

Senator Tom Udall on Peak Oil

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When most of us think of Peak Oil and the US Congress, our thoughts immediately turn to former Rep. Roscoe Bartlett who, starting in March 2005, stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to give the first of over 50 hour-long talks on Peak Oil. (I highlighted the story in my tribute to Bartlett in 2012, and you can read more about it in Neil King's 2008 Wall Street Journal article "Cries in the Dark").

But it's worth remembering that Bartlett was far from the only politician discussing the issue. Rep. Tom Udall of New Mexico joined with Bartlett to create the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus. Below is a link to an almost unknown video from then Rep. Udall giving a 5-minute speech on Peak Oil in December 2005. 

Today Tom Udall is the senior senator from New Mexico. And if the name sounds familiar, he is part of the famous Udall political family. Tom's cousin is Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, and Mark Udall's brother was Randy Udall, co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas - USA.

“Peak Oil is a fact, not a theory. Oil production has now peaked in 33 of the world’s largest 48 oil producing nations.”
— Rep. Tom Udall, December 8, 2005

The Oversupply Narrative→

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Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE) pushes back on the oversupply narrative in a new blog post today. Here's a key quote: "...the United States is one of the only sources of oil production growth in the global market right now. It has worked out well so far, but near-singlehandedly stabilizing the global market is a big job. It will take supply growth from far more participants in the longer term to actually meet long-term demand forecasts."

Remember, people can hype US growth all they want; however, US supply is and remains a small part of a much larger oil pie. You can't out-hype math.

About the Other 44 States

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It's definitely easier to make infographics on the optimistic side of the US oil argument. EID's latest highlights increasing production from shale development, but also makes it pretty easy to notice that they're talking about just six states.

You could almost imagine the exact opposite infographic titled "Oil and Gas Development Sinks Across the Nation" highlighting the other 44 states that go unmentioned in EID's graphic. 

Many would argue that these six states are simply more important for oil and gas production than the other 44, and I don't disagree with that. But it's important to remember that production is a combination of additions and subtractions. If all you do is discuss the additions and never mention declining conventional oil production, then you'll never have a full view of the current state and potential futures of oil production. The full story in US oil production is both the story of the recent tight oil boom, but it's also the story of domestic conventional production and its consistent decline over the past 40 years. That perspective will allow you to understand just how MUCH we're going to ask out of US tight oil production over the next decade, not only to make it for its own dramatic production declines, but - the bigger challenge - to continue to make up for conventional oil's declines.

Why I Loved Jamie Webster's EIA Presentation

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The annual EIA conference has increasingly become more optimistic in recent years since Adam Sieminski took over as administrator in 2012. Long gone are the days where 600 people showed up for a Peak Oil session at the 2008 EIA conference - a session the EIA felt complelled to hold as a response to the 2007 GAO report: "Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production"

And in an already optimistic conference, Jamie Webster of IHS had the single most optimistic presentation: "Going Global: Tight Oil Production"

I don't agree with Webster's talk, but I'm thrilled that he made it. Optimists in the Peak Oil Debate frequently employ misinformation and strawmen or other tricks to dance around and avoid discussing the only issue at hand: the future rate of oil production. 

Long-story short, if you're an optimist in the Peak Oil Debate then your position is that the rate of worldwide oil production will at worst continue on a plateau and at best continue to increase. 

So they are making one or more of the following three (or four) arguments:

  1. Conventional oil production will stop declining or increase. While growth in unconventional oil gets all the press, conventional oil has been a disaster worldwide. Making a call for conventional oil growth is a very tough argument to make and not many do. But if they refuse to hang their hat on this point, then they are asking unconventional oil to not only increase tremendously, but increase so much that it also covers the continued decline in conventional production.
     
  2. The U.S. tight oil boom will continue its remarkable pace. Many predict that - due to steep decline rates and financial challenges - the wheels will start to come off of the U.S. boom in a couple of years. Growth will slow, production will reach a peak and then decline. That's not exactly a radical position. But the true optimists have to believe that this inevitable peak is many years in the future as opposed to just a couple of years.
     
  3. Global tight oil production will follow the U.S. template. This is a big one, and the main point of Webster's talk. An optimist has to believe that the "U.S. oil miracle" can be easily and quickly cut-and-pasted to countries around the world. This is much easier said than done. And many doubt it will happen. Even Leonardo Maugeri doubts this possibility in his paper "The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon," where Maugeri argues that drilling challenges, combined with geologic and legal challenges make it difficult to replicate the U.S. boom globally.
     
  4. A potential fourth argument might be "Peak Oil Demand." Where the optimist admits that the rate of oil production will peak and decline, but this won't matter as much for a variety of reasons.

An optimist in oil must boldly make one or more of those arguments. And if they are busy telling you that the Peak Oil pessimists are wrong, while NOT talking about the future rate of oil production - then this is a problem and you need to hold their feet to the fire until they do. 

But Webster absolutely sticks his neck out in his talk. And that takes courage and conviction. He might be right, he might be wrong, but at least he directly tells you where he stands, something of an unfortunate rarity in these discussions.

Of All the Pretend Arguments, "Google Trends" Remains the Dumbest

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Mark Perry sure does like riding this one. The "Google Trends" issue popped up around this time last year when the Oil Drum website shut down. And sadly we had to spend a lot of time (here, here, and here) reminding everyone of the obvious: the only true measure of Peak Oil is rate of oil production. We don't measure the importance of things in internet popularity.

This isn't fourth grade.

Judging by google trends, we should spend more time talking about fracking than climate change. Heck, judging by google trends, we should really just cease all talk of energy, ISIS, Ukraine and others - and just spend all our time talking about Justin Bieber and Beyoncé.

There are three concrete reasons why Peak Oil searches have fallen in recent years, but none of them suggest that Peak Oil has become less important of an issue (also see Ian Chapman's excellent article "The End of Peak Oil? Why this topic is still relevant despite recent denials."):

  1. Oil price volatility has calmed in recent years. History has shown that one thing that gets people talking about Peak Oil are large swings in the price of oil. However, volatility has decreased in recent years due to calmer foreign markets and the dramatic increase in U.S. production. This is great news overall. But lack of volatility doesn't mean the price is not still high and can cause economic damage.

    Recall the old "boil a frog" analogy from An Inconvenient Truth. Throw a frog into boiling water and he'll jump out immediately. But place him in room temperature water and slowly increase the temperature and he'll just cook there to his doom. The Peak Oil and resource depletion series "How to Boil a Frog" takes its name from this. And it means that low oil volatility is both great for the economy, but can also lull us into complacency as rising prices slowly "cook" us. One of the great fears in Peak Oil and Climate Change circles: what if we NEVER get that big spark, that giant motivating event that compels society into massive action. Large price spikes get people more interested in oil markets, and by extension Peak Oil, but the lack of price spikes does not mean the problems have vanished.
     
  2. Attacks by opponents. Quite simply, the Peak Oil misinformation campaign has been in full force ever since the price spike of 2008, and has been quite successful. At every turn, many voices seek to confuse and mislead the public about Peak Oil and those who discuss it.
     
  3. Decline in use by advocates. Partially because of #2, many voices that understand Peak Oil and what it means, have chosen to talk around it. I call it, "talking about Peak Oil without talking about Peak Oil." Steven Kopits and Robert Rapier come immediately to mind as two well-known writers in Peak Oil circles who have publicly said that they try to avoid the term. Others like Chris Nelder have expressed a growing reluctance to re-fight the same battles repeatedly (which also is one of the reasons the Oil Drum website shut down). Here in Washington DC, the organization Secure America's Future Energy discusses the implications of Peak Oil all the time, but they never actually use the term. 

    Personally, I disagree with this route, but I absolutely understand why they do it. Talking about Peak Oil means spending a lot of time dealing with pre-existing baggage, correcting misunderstandings, and providing proper background information, and you have to do it over and over and over again. Simply not mentioning the term saves an author a lot of time, and allows them to immediately get to the core of what they want to discuss: the future of oil & gas production.

    My view is that I don't believe everyone has to use the term "Peak Oil" but that SOMEONE must. Someone or some organization has to be the entity to hold the line, to steadfastly stand against misinformation and ensure that the public and policy makers have a correct understanding of our energy past and our energy future.

 

Full Funding for "The Frack Lab"

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“The U.S. “shale revolution” has taken off in recent years. But journalists are largely avoiding one crucial, tough question: How long will the boom last?”
— Mason Inman

Congratulations to Mason Inman for raising a huge $10,000 to fund his project "The Frack Lab." Anyone involved in energy should check out his new venture. Inman will now produce one article a week to dig deeply into the data of the shale revolution. This is critical work that many journalists simply aren't covering. For example, one of Mason's charts, on the right, shows that shale gas now makes up half of U.S. natural gas production. Both due to the explosion of shale production, but also due to the deep decline of conventional gas production since 2008.

When this is the world we're living in - and considering that the decline rates of shale wells are much more dramatic than conventional production - it's sort of important to understand the data of fracking so we can accurately predict what to expect going forward. 

Some of the questions Inman plans on examining:

  • "Some shale regions, including Texas’s Barnett and Louisiana’s Haynesville, have seen significant declines in production. The EIA forecasts these will both see significant revivals—but how likely is this?"
     
  • "In North Dakota’s Bakken shale, companies are trying to pack wells in much tighter, running pilot projects for 'downspacing.' How are those wells performing?"
     
  • "How does the U.S. Energy Information Administration generate its resource estimates and forecasts for shale gas and shale oil? Have they built in optimistic assumptions?"

Industry is Pushing Back on Shale "Unsustainability" Articles

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Industry is Pushing Back on Shale "Unsustainability" Articles

Pieces questioning the future oil production sustainability of shale development have been making the rounds lately in the media which is something industry-backed group Energy In Depth (EID) really dislikes. So when Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight wrote his latest "North Dakota's Oil Bonanza Is Unsustainable" they felt the need to respond:

Let's take a quick look at statements from the EID response...

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Strawman: No, You Can't Just Pretend That People Hate Fossil Fuels

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In one of those "I can't believe I have to write this posts" - No, energy wonks, you can't just pretend that people hate fossil fuels. It's a strawman and a distortion of views.

What's happening here is a speaker trying to convince the public that the opponent's views are actually some more extreme caricature of their actual views. Sure, there are some small minority of people who want to end fossil fuel use tomorrow, but the vast majority of people have a balanced view and understand both the positive and negative effects fossil fuels have had on society. Acknowledging our societal and personal use of fossil fuels, while advocating a sensible transition away from fossil fuels, is not being a hypocrite - it's having an adult conversation about energy policy.