made on the comments to the Washington monthly article

Psylo, the energy cost of oil extraction is NOT limiting.  Nor does Kevin Drum say it is.  Simmons' interview implies that water and electricity might add a few $ per barrel to the cost of oil -- that's rather minor.

This argument is asserted often, on peak oil sites, and it always bothers me.  It is asserted outright as by RedDan on the Drum site.  Or it is supported by bad physics.  I'd love to be directed to a serious discussion of the question.

Well sure if you want to argue that getting to any oil beneath the Marianas Trench or Lake Vostok will be prohibitive -- and use too much energy -- of course that is true.

you are arguing against the kind of argument common amongst peak oil types that using a barrel of oil in energy to extract a barrel is self-defeating.

This kind of argument is basic to them.  Can you explain in more depth.

Most people don't realize how dirt cheap oil is.  This black alien stuff is chockfull of energy and it sells for less than bottled water.  Maybe Simmons is right that Saudi oil is above $10/barrel today, but I guess that if the Saudi fields were in Texas the good-old-American-know-how would be pumping that oil for $1/barrel.

So how can such energy-rich stuff give an energy deficit?  None of the peak oil sites answered this.  So in answer to you, I was inspired to do the simplest calculation.  Just to get the flavor of how much energy is required for oil extraction.  

It takes energy to raise the oil from deep in the ground up to the surface, the peak oil sites note.  OK, how much energy?  I used the energy content of oil to be 38 MJ/liter, one liter weighs .85 kg, and the potential energy equation E = mgh.  A typical deep well is 4000 m.  

Then it shows that to raise 1000 gallons of deep oil, the energy of only one gallon of oil must be expended.  Pretty good odds.

Yes I know this calculation is nonsense, oil is not "raised" from the ground in a well-bucket.  Yes I also know that there are many other energy costs.  To build the infrastructure, to refine the oil, to transport it, etc.  For oil shale f.i. these can be very high.  But those are not intrinsic costs, as better technology will decrease the costs.

Again, I'd love to be directed to a serious discussion of the question.

The debates over peak oil are at the level of anecdotal argument.  "Just imagine how much $7/bd oil will do?"  

I can imagine all kinds of things.  But i don't "know" much at all.  How does actual "knowledge" come into play here.

I'm not saying the engineers are not competent.  Rather, I guess the cultural situation there multiplies the cost of business.  

Most of the economy of Saudi Arabia is an off-shoot of the oil industry, and all incentives are to take any money dedicated for oil service and spread it around as widely as possible.

This is just my guess of course.  Maybe they are very efficient there, for all I know.

I've not seen any Peak Oil advocates say that there is the nascent potential for oil to cost more to extract than would be cost-efficient (i.e., more oil to extract a barrel of oil than oil recovered.)  As any PA aficionado will tell you there is still plenty of oil left in the form of tar sands in Canada, if nowhere else (a boatload, as it were.)  Problem is that these tar sands contain oil that is more difficult to refine and extract by a huge magnitude.

The only point, it seems to me, is that the entire edifice of First World economies runs on cheap oil.  There is no getting around this.  Cheap oil is the sine qua non of modern industrial society.  Even if we instantly adopted a Finnish standard of living with all of its socialistic implications we would still have huge problems.  American culture cannot be changed overnight, yet this is what Peak Oil is telling us is going to happen.  

I simply do not think that any of us - no matter what our political orientation - can really understand the implications of oil that costs two, three, or four times as much as it does today.  If Peak Oil turns out to be real, and not just another 'scare' as the Birch Society people would have us think, his will not be a gradual shift which will give us time to convert to solar energy, bicycles, etc.  The likes of New York City could become unsustainable virtually overnight.  Again, our entire mode of existence is based on 'just in time' delivery and a transportation infrastructure totally dependent on cheap fossil fuels.  

If oil starts to double in price - which would STILL be 'cheap' by overall standards, I think (after all, it would still be cheaper than milk - no small feat when you consider the infrastructure involved!) everything just goes to hell.  Inflation spirals out of control - loans become very difficult to repay - etc.  The American standard of living could very well be halved in the span of a decade or so.

These are not the sort of things that are going to be amenable by more calls for sustainable fuels or "international cooperation."  The future is going to be characterized by nationalism and tribalism.  Don't kid yourselves into thinking otherwise.  

Well DS0rc actually I was responding to the first comment posted on this very thread -- it said just that.  Nevermind, your views and mine seem not too far apart.  I agree that our world runs on cheap oil, and the transision to expensive oil will be rocky and unpredictible and perilous.  We (as a species) might just lose it.

I expect not, though.  You use the example of NYC.  I don't see why NYC couldn't continue quite well on $200/b oil.  After all, it is the most energy efficient place in the US.  And have you ever been to Bloomingdales?  If those New Yorkers started buying their underwear at Walmart rather than Bloomingdales, it'd pay for the entire rise in oil!

Here's my prediction.  Even now, with $50 oil some alternative energy starts to be profitable.  And people drive a little less, and buy fewer SUV's.  Problem is, nobody thinks it's permanent.  As this sinks in, and as the price continues to rise, behaviors on the edge start to change.  We use less oil and that slows the price rise.

The real question is, at what oil price do the alternatives compete?  That will be the long-range price of oil.  Very compilcated of course, and I guess that in 50 years oil will be used only for raw material not for energy.

This guy Simmons hits the entire issue exactly right IMHO.  Have you read these interviews?

Yes of course you are right and there will be lots of turmoil and winners and losers and social upheaval before we get to the post-oil energy world.  Hold on tight!

Those two arguments are not entirely valid, I believe. The energy for extracting oil does not come from oil - there are other sources.

I can imagine a situation where an amount of, say, nuclear energy is used to extract less oil in energy terms. In this respect, nobody would be losing a million dollars on a barrel.

That situation would be plain silly, so there's hoping that by that time some other means of storing and dispensing energy will take over from oil products.

I think that they employ the same engineers in Saudi-Arabia than in Texas.

What comes to energy consumption calculations, I trust on the more pessimistic ones. But that energy can be produced in some countries for example by nuclear power stations.

The energy needed to produce oil is not exactly a limiting factor but indeed a significant cost with interesting properties.

I don't believe in cost reducing technical innovations in such an old industry even if drilling technology in demanding environments improves.

By the way, my diary has an entry on the estimated increasing uselessness of technical innovations.