Hubbertís Peak
by Kenneth Deffeyes
Book Read on 25 / 7 / 2003
This book is about the impending world oil cries. It was interesting and very well written, even funny at parts. More interesting than the crisis, which to be honest he didnít talk about that much, were the notes and observations on oil, drilling and extraction.
(The title could be made something similar to: Oil, how cool it is, and how we are running out.)
Basically oil is in the family of Hydro-Carbons. I think that HCH is methane, and the others follow a similar path, octane is a 8 carbon chain. What else? Oil is created from when organic rich source rock, is pushed below 7500 feet. The temperature and pressure at this level cause it to ìcrackî. Then if pushed below 15000 feet then the oil cracks into natural gas.
/0\ This is an anticline. The O is oil, the \ / rocks.
The global oil peak will be between 2004 ñ 2008.
Oil drilling only pulls about half the total reserves out of the ground, then they have to use other methods. When the oil crises starts it would be best to invest in the Other Method Co.ís because the rising price for oil will make the margins more attractive for other oil extraction methods.
Zipfís Law: If you multiply a city by itís ranking you get roughly the same number.
Some 50 years ago, a Standard of New Jersey Senior Geologist said that the only future was giant oil fields.
1./2 the worldís oil is in the 100 largest fields.
I suppose there is a continuum, between the cost of oil and the minimum size of an oil field. But at some point it will become too expensive to burn,.
He seems to think that the stigma about nuclear is overblown and that solar and wind are too inefficient.
He also said beware of two people, one the salesman peddling just one brand of snake oil. (Some con artists convince themselves before they turn on us.)
Two, beware the person selling too many brands of snake oil.
Other reading:
Carmalt S and B. St. John (1986) ìGiant Oil and Gas Fieldsî, American Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 40 pp 11-52
Pitzer KS and L. Brewer ìThermodynamicsî New York: McGrawHill a revision of a classic by GN Lewis and Merle Randall. ìThermo is never easy, but this book is straightforward.
International atomic Energy Agency (1975), Le Phenomene díOklo, Vienna: Agence Internaionale de Líenergie Atomique (safe and natural nuclear reactor).
Reviewer: William Koplitz
5 out of 5