(This article is based on a post that previously appeared on my blog: http://aeldric.blogspot.com/)
The Peak Oil argument focuses on the question "How much oil?" We spend a lot of time discussing the exact inputs for Hubbert Linearization and projections of URR, in order to calculate the moment of Peak Oil. Sadly, the question of “How much oil?" is a lot more complicated than it seems.
As I have said previously, theoretical discussions about oil reserves are pointless. In theory, the amount of oil available is an arbitrary number. Oil can be made from any organic source: coal, NG, biomass, or whatever. If enough energy is available, it can be made from CO2 and water.
This applies to ALL resources. Minerals can be extracted from sea water if access to energy is unconstrained.
Low quality is what is killing us, not low quantity. Alternately, we could argue that the constraint is low energy. If energy was cheap and unlimited, then recoverable resources would be unlimited. So we need to look at the availability of oil within a networked resource/energy extraction system, not just as an isolated resource.
Here is my first point in what I will call a “thought bite”:
Resource constraints are about reserve QUALITY not reserve QUANTITY. The issue of quality exists within the context of an interconnected resource profit/loss system.
Liquids.
The fact that the word "liquids" is now being used instead of oil is frankly inconvenient to people who fly the Peak Oil banner. We typically conflate the two words by issuing a hand-waving argument that amounts to "When oil peaks, liquids will peak". But frankly this argument represents a chink in our armour - “unconventional oil" and all sorts of other non-oil liquids are now counted under the broad category of "liquids".
Synthetic and other manufactured liquids don't fit neatly into our Hubbert Linearization model. In fact, they will invalidate the model until such time as we can prove (not deliver hand-waving argument, PROVE) that production of these liquids is limited, irrelevant, or correlated with oil production. What we need to prove is that there is a practical limit to production of synthetic "liquids".
Many factors impact on this practical limit. In my last post at TOD I looked at the interactions that would ultimately limit production. I'm not sure I can put a provable numeric limit on production. Nor can I put a provable date on the Production Peak for liquids. But I can show that we have evidence that these points are either close or past.