Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 05, 2024, 09:53 PMBut I am only wrong from a particular point of view.

I'm game to think of it that way. I would argue that my point of view involved documentation, history and the facts that are on point. I will happily absorb other facts disputing mine of course, as I would learn from that.

Quote from: K-DogThere is no point in looking for conventional oil in old writings because the distinction was not made before fracking became a significant part of production.  There was no distinction before that time.

I can completely agree with that point, although I haven't searched the literature to find out its first use. I hypothesized its origin in my post, because your statement is most likely true.

Quote from: K-DogYou are totally right about fracking tech being around in Hubbert's time.  It was used 100,000 times by then.  Fine.

Fracking for production in the United States began in the early 21st century.

Sorry, you can't say your first sentence and then the second, they are contradictory. Fracking wasn't being done as an experiment 100,000 times before 1956, it was being done for production. Perhaps you mean, "Sure fracking has been around for 75 years but the contribution from the process wasn't noticeable until it began to show results noticeable at the national level". Better?

Quote from: K-DogHowever, it wasn't until around the mid-2000s that fracking technology advanced sufficiently to unlock vast reserves of oil and natural gas from shale formations. The increased production of oil from fracking significantly impacted domestic American production around that time.

Improving fracking technology, in combination with better geologic understanding of the need for areal extensive and generally non-lacustrine brittle shales with a permeability high enough under generation lithostatic pressures to allow oil to escape to surrounding and/or vertically shallower reservoir rocks, and low enough to keep the oil/gas in the source rock after generation pressures mitigated with prior migration.

Throw in horizontal wells and its like liquid nitroglycerine of old well torpedoes!

Quote from: K-DogAnd not before that time.

Not quite. Your perspective originates from the lack of visibility of results in terms of GROWTH, therefore the million frack jobs in the 20th century weren't doing anything. But they were...you just couldn't see it. All the folks doing it could see it of course, but the outsiders couldn't because US crude oil volumes weren't going up. What was actually happening is that underlying decline from all fields and wells in America were being mitigated. During the peak oil heyday early this centry there were people who knew and spoke of these things, some were at peakoil.com talking about exactly what was going on. Because they had done it, knew it was being done, had increased production at the company level, but what was happening was that this new production was mitigating decline. Instead of the US collapsing into a 1 mmbbl/d country by 1980, fracking was happily allowing new oil all over the place...just not enough. Yet.

Think of it like the wind...you can't see it...but it is still there...doing its thing. You are arguing that you only notice wind when it is a hurricane. The folks involved in developement of shale going back to at least the 70's did see it, even if others couldn't. But some early detractors of peak oil certainly did. And some even talked about it over at peakoil.com, because they knew the wind was blowing. Just not hard enough. Yet.

Quote from: "K-Dog"
Fracking used before the 21st century was used to augment and improve conventional wells. 
b]Conventional wells being defined as wells that do not need fracking to produce oil.[/b] 

Shale wells don't need fracking to produce oil. They just didn't produce enough to make them economical without it. And how do you define "fracking"? The "old" wells, did you see my reference where "shooting" a well was a precursor to hydraulic fracturing, and itself is a form of hydrostatic shock to "frack" a well? It just doesn't do it in a measured way, and odds are that Oklahoma well you referenced...it was probably a "shot" well as most of them were. Those old wells wouldn't produce enough to be economic either. Without being hydraulically "shocked" in a less controllable way than the modern version of fracturing the rock. Natural gushers are picturesque, but were early in oil development in the US, and shallow, and by the end of the Civil War hydraulic shock was needed to shove water against the rock to "frack" it.

Shooting the Well: The Petroleum Torpedoes of the Early Oil Fields Almost immediately after we started drilling wells, we started fracturing the rocks underground to increase the flow of fossil fuels.

Would you like to take a stab at defining fracking? Hydrostatic shock is different than hydraulic fracturing, but are doing the same thing though, one being more effective than the other, one a shock, the other a process. Not sure there is a practical difference other than hydraulic fracturing is better.And is younger, having been around for maybe 75 years. Versus 159 years for shooting a well.

Quote from: K-DogConventional was an unnecessary and unused qualification before the  21st century.

Could be true. So a colloquialism was invented to help joe citizen try and figure things out, "where is this oil coming from!". One of those words where everyone nods vigorously and seems to think they understand. Industry didn't call them any of this nonsense, they called them wells "that came in natural", like Spindletop, and "shot holes", involving applying a hydrostatic shock. And then the follow on improvement was hydraulic fracturing. Safer too. Liquid nitro...ouch.

Along the way we got conventional and unconventional. Have to make it easy for those who don't know a kelly bushing from a monkey board.

Quote from: K-DogIf Hubbert was squaking about a peak in oil as early as 1936 good for him.

Indeed. But peakers react poorly to the fact that The Man didn't get it right out of the gate, but was already working on his peak #2 call himself. The belief system needs him to have nailed peak oil in the US to support slapping bell shaped curves on everything.

Quote from: K-DogI don't see what it proves if he was or not.  Hubbert described the mathematics of oil depletion.

No he did not. He described CYCLES of oil development. Bell shaped curves don't exist to describe well decline, project decline, or field decline. If you stylise them....eh....still severely lacking. But they SOMETIMES can describe one cycle of development flowing to another and another, as discovery and economics and increasing demand needing more supply all play out. The US just happening to be the best example of these sequences of economics and growth and discovery and better technology and moving to off shore drilling and so on and so forth. Best example on the planet. Until it wasn't.

Here is an example of how experts who know all this model it. Certainly curves and whatnot, but flat on the top, long declines afterwards, and all the math and explanations anyone might ever want. They appear to know more about this than any peaker book/article/youtube video I've ever seen.oil and Gas Supply Model

Quote from: K-DogThe mathematics he described is essentially correct.  If the math were wrong, Hubbert would be a Bozo and we would not even be talking about him.

Hubbert's math is on Page 10, here.

If by "essentially" you can configure his equations on Page 10 to make multiple peaks in sequence then fine. I'm not a mathematician, but maybe you've had advance training in the field. 

Quote from: K-DogAll that matters is if Hubbert correctly described the math or not.  He did.

See above, and let us know when you can get two maxima out of his equations, the second larger than the first. I can't do it.

Quote from: K-DogInteresting tidbit about 1936.  You wonder if peak oilers know about his earlier claim.

I do. Mason Inman does. The person I learned it from did. But really, if a peak oiler had found out, did they instantly mentally misfire from the overwhelming cognitive dissonance, and instantly forget it because it didn't fit within the belief system?

Quote from: K-DogI wonder if the climate collapse crowd knows about Guy Mcphearson's mud hut days.  Before he decided to exaggerate the danger of the arctic methane deposits way beyond any reasonable credibility, Guy was hard core peak oil.  With a doomstead in Arizona.

I'll bet real climate scientists know about Guy. He was hard core peak oil. Just as Kuntsler started with Y2K, Guy with peak oil. Then Kuntsler jumps to peak oil, Guy jumps to climate. Guy migrated to Belize. Then it turns out it was hot, and he sold the place and moved to upstate New England somewhere. Vermont maybe? Somewhere up there. Was disavowed by regular people for..well... claims of a sexual nature.

Quote from: K-DogBut that switcheroo can't compare to Hubbert because your claim is that Hubbert was humming the same tune earlier.

In 1936 he also claimed there might be multiple peaks along the way to the peak in 1950.  ;D

Hubbert was brilliant, and did seminal work in hydrology, rock mechanics and geophysical everything, reserve growth in existing fields, and the development of an idea that bears his name.
His first call was wrong, he would have known that in 1956. And his response was a beautiful genius science mind at work. He learned from just claiming the idea in 1936, knew it was wrong, and in Round #2 he decided to prove it, with what he knew in the day. With examples, with argument, with data on resources, with math and graphics.

The quality of his work wasn't discredited by it ultimately being wrong, it was validated because of how long it actually held up before folks could honestly question it. And under the conditions it was built with...it held up. The first clue validating and making him more famous it was the US peak, and he didn't live to see his world prediction discredited. So he could take his 30+ year accomplishment to his grave.

He was wrong, we know this in hindsight, but we also know why. He only had 2 of the 3 parts of the puzzle. One additional field of science was needed to close the loop. Economics. Geology, technology/engineering, and economcs, the trifecta needed to solve peak oil. Combine the three of those, adn you're golden.