Peak Oil Stumbles, Soon to Bite the Dust

Brian Wang presents convincing reasons for the significant and sustained uptick in natural gas production in the US and Canada. Peak oil pundits are stumbling over themselves--in the face of falling oil prices and rising natural gas supplies.

Natural Gas production is going up by a lot in the United States. This was noted at Peak Oil Debunked about a month ago.

The peak oil people such as Mike Ruppert and Matt Simmons were saying in 2003 and since then that natural gas production was heading for a sharp decline.

Now even some peak oil people are changing their tune. Gail at the oildrum has agreed that natural gas production will increase in the USA.

....
The U.S. has enough natural gas resources to last up to 118 years, or 2,247 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), according to the study by Navigant Consulting for the American Clean Skies Foundation based on a mid-2008 estimates.

...In Canada, The Horn River basin as 500 trillion cubic feet in place....B.C.'s Horn River Basin, near the Northwest Territories, has generated early estimates upwards of 28 tcf (trillion cubic feet) in potential shale gas reserves. To the south lies the Montney sand, shale and siltstone tight gas play, which the B.C. government pegs at 80 tcf of tight gas in place.

In the Saint Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, Forest Oil Corp. compares its Utica shale gas discovery (estimated four tcf potential) to the legendary Barnett shale in Texas. On the East Coast, wildcatters are testing the potential of the Frederick Brook shale formation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

In a February report, Raymond James Ltd. calculated that a move from vertical wells to horizontal improved Montney economics from break-even to a 27% expected internal rate of return.

....In the Mackenzie Delta, three natural gas discoveries total 5.8 tcf. Further north in the Arctic islands, 16 gas discoveries amount to a further 17 tcf. Benoit Beauchamp, executive director of the University of Calgary's Arctic Institute of North America and a former Geological Survey of Canada field geologist in the Far North, estimates the remote region's potential at 117 tcf of gas plus nearly four billion barrels of oil.

Canada's oilsands motherlode - Alberta estimates that its buried treasure totals 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen in place......

FURTHER READING
Shale Gas at wikipedia _NextBigFuture

This supports information provided earlier at this blog and at Al Fin Energy. And since gas can be burned in transportation vehicles--or converted to liquid fuels--it really is a big deal. The problem with peak oil junkies is that they are addicted to doom, and are willing to cut corners to remain convinced that doom is coming. Reality is not in it, as far as they are concerned.

Planet Earth has barely been explored, up until tomorrow, for fosssil fuel reserves and other strategic materials. Even the rich Persian Gulf area (including Saudi Arabia) has had less than 1% the number of exploratory wells drilled than has North America. The reason for that is that there is so much oil flowing now--more than they want to supply actually, that they do not want to undergo the expense of drilling new exploration wells when there is no current need.

Reality bites, when you believe something so strongly as peak oil or climate catastrophe, but without evidence.

Update: Be sure to read this intriguing National Post article on how Canada's oil sands can counter Russia's belligerent neo-imperialist international trouble-making. Europeans in particular should pay attention to developments in energy resources, since it is their fat in the fire.