As seen, there is some disparity in the specific date of peak oil production (understood here as al

Dear readers, The problem with the availability of energy is becoming more evident and that makes menudee more public discussion of this problem in all kinds of areas, which includes comments from the news of the day but also electronic forums moto web pages of the most diverse, ranging from the regular to the cars until the Spanish denouncing successive financial bubbles, from ecologists moto and environmentalists web pages to those of basketball fans. Yet too often misconceptions that are also recurrent in the public discussion, such as identifying energy electricity (when the latter represents only 21% of the final energy in Spain and 10% in the world) or observed confuse resources with reserves or reserves with production. This blog has contributed its bit to notice that these discussions and occasionally quoted this or that article to support some arguments here. Mention this because moto lately I've seen that the positions of those who disclose the problem of shortage of resources is critical, moto in particular the position of this blog, because as our opponents took the worst predictions in regard to the production of oil and other resources. As an example I show a recent comparison between different modeling of oil production in the coming years by various individuals moto and research groups:
As seen, there is some disparity in the specific date of peak oil production (understood here as all petroleum liquids, as crude oil as we know it peaked moto around 2006). moto Whoever takes little time in this business will not notice moto a significant detail: differences between estimated by different groups that try to estimate them dates rigorous methodologies are becoming smaller. Only 5 years ago it was common to find differences up to a few decades (leaving aside technical basis without any grotesque talking centuries obviously not supported by anyone associated with the business). Today the differences are concentrated in about a decade, and most forecasts moto are a few years away from each other. It is obvious that when approaching the date in question (again, again, for all petroleum liquids, as crude oil, which is more than 80% of what is consumed, is now in decline) possible differences decrease and end the only thing left to discuss is the speed of decline. But these differences, as we now explain, are entirely incidental as there are other factors that weigh much more on the action to take events. The first thing you have to understand is that you can not properly model the right of the oil production curve. All models moto always assume rates of decline post-peak quite smooth and progressive, for which always moto needs to assume that another energy source takes over. Think that the availability of energy is essential to produce metals and cement systems that require both own energy production and industry and even households, and that not to mention the energy consumed by the various machines; if you start missing energy and simply to maintenance, the whole society could quickly collapse like a house of cards. But it is unclear moto that any source can take this respite time (except coal) and for a long time (which coal can not do). In fact, the decrease in the TRE - energy efficiency - of the deposits that are left available takes time to occur. This drop in performance is what has caused the big oil companies have launched a mad scramble moto in which their costs increase at a frantic rate but unfortunately the amount of oil they produce is shrinking (as shown in this graph taken from the Wall Street Journal article linked above)
And despite the colossal - and little provechosa- of this investment from the perspective of the International Energy Agency, as reflected in its latest report, there is a problem of lack of investment. In fact, the Agency sends a message to boaters that if the right investments are not made the outlook for oil production is quite black, as shown in the following graph taken from the Annual Report 2013 (WEO 2013): moto
This discourse on the need to increase investment in upstream commits the common mistake of reversing the economy of energy; precisely because energy is more difficult to achieve (in energy terms) is what you need to invest more money to finish taking less oil. The problem,