A very revealing article (ht to Brigitte) appeared on Foreign Policy In Focus (link) on January 10, “The Great Oil Swindle: Scaling the Peak of Fossil Fuel Scarcity,” by Nafeez Masaddeq Ahmed. In very abbreviated summary: (1) a rash of articles dismissing the reality of fossil fuel production peaking is misguided hype based on overstating shale resources and understating the costs of their recovery; (2) some studies projecting future supplies contain highly fudged data; (3) detailed data, some buried at the bottom of overly optimistic reports, show that Peak Oil is already upon us; (4) shale gas is turning out to be much more costly to produce; wells have a sharply dipping rate of productivity, in the range of 40 percent per annum; and (5) therefore a shale bust is developing while all the news is about the shale boom. Anyone following this subject closely should read the story. It is professionally done and full of revealing detail.
A look at shale as a resource, and the technology of its recovery, is presented on this blog here.
No comments:
Post a Comment