Wednesday, January 18, 2006

More Songs About Oil and Gas

--Update: A Pilgrim's Progress--
I have several objectives for my approach to modeling fossil fuel depletion, any one of which I don't mind achieving.
  1. Introducing something fundamentally new to the discussion.
  2. Going beyond the heuristics and empirical relationships that I see plastered everywhere, to an approach mathematically-inclined people can understand (the rub).
  3. Resurrecting some old but perhaps forgotten techniques buried in the literature (so far nothing has shown up, or has it?).
  4. Showing analogies to other physical processes, like an RC circuit in electronics or a 1st order damped system in mechanical dynamics.
  5. Using the formulation to historically analyze or make predictions based on current data.
  6. Demonstrate an alternative to and weaknesses of the conventional approaches such as the logistic curve and gaussian (questioning empiricism).
  7. Come up with an open-source modeling environment, where I can make all source code and data available to the public.
And above all, try to make the constituent parts fit together tighter than a litter of suckling piglets. Because therein lies the way to making progress in a purely meritocritous blogosphere.


So this blog entry once again contains categorized oil depletion modeling posts that I have written over the last half-year. By and large, I have proceeded from a micro world view to a macro view, while adding interesting details that help me gain insight into how other mathematically-inclined people understand our current Peak Oil predicament.
A Micro Peak Oil Model
Part 1 | Part 2 -- Stochastic analysis on the small scale

A Macro Peak Oil Model
Part 1 | Part 2 -- Stochastic analysis on the large scale

The Oil Shock Model
Intro | Continuous -- How disturbances affect depletion
RC Circuit (CAD simulation) -- Analogies to other processes
Code -- Generalized oil shock model program source code

And I have several posts which criticize the traditional Logistic curve but use the insight from the macro models as justification.
Issues with the Traditional Hubbert Model
Logistic vs Macro | Logistically Impossible | Logistic Curve Derivation | The Gamma Distribution | Peak Symmetry | Hubbert Linearization | Shock Model Linearization

Interspersed among the posts on mathematical formulation, I have tried my hand at fitting the shock model to historical stimulus and response data.
Fits to shock model using discovery data
Global using ASPO data (follow-up)
USA lower-48 (early Historical Fit)
UK North Sea (followup)
Former Soviet Union
Canada -- Weyburn
New Zealand Natural Gas, cliff
Norway
What ifs?
Can we delay peak by upping the extraction rate?
Calculating TOP (The Overshoot Point)
Monte Carlo Discoveries
Supporting information
Ramp-up data


Finally, some posts on the battles I have had with knowledgeable oil depletion deniers.
Reserve Growth | Creaming Curves | Framing | Desperation