Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Drilling Faster Just To Stay Still: A Proposal To Use ‘Production Per Unit Effort’ (PPUE) As An Indicator Of Peak Oil

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Drilling Faster Just To Stay Still: A Proposal To Use ‘Production Per Unit Effort’ (PPUE) As An Indicator Of Peak Oil

Click here to access article by Andrew McKay from The Oil Drum.

The author provides an excellent way of assessing peak oil, and the results do not look good.

We can hypothesise that when peak oil occurs we would expect to see PPUE [production per unit effort] decline for all these factors. As rig numbers increased the amount of production would decrease, as footage drilled increased the amount of production would decrease and as the money invested increased the amount of production would decrease.