Peak Oil Barrel

Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 18, 2025

D C

Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please. Thanks.

D C

51 responses to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 18, 2025”

  1. Pops

    Hi all, I’ve been traveling and went through the Williston area. At various wellheads I’ve seen the normal pumpjacks, tanks, pumps. But there is one item I can’t identify. It is rectangular in form, L shaped, maybe 20-40 feet tall, 15 feet long at the base, and 6 feet wide. It has some type of reciprocating belt arrangement. These are seen at completed wells and those with drills still in place. What is it?
    I’ll try to upload an image tho I’ve never been successful…

    1. Longview

      It appears to be a long stroke belt driven unit (pump). See the description for pump type #8 in this link: https://production-technology.org/types-of-rod-pumping-units/

    2. Pops

      Yes that explains it. I couldn’t see the sucker rod attachment as well as in your video. Thanks.

  2. THOMPSON

    My state just made a long-term commitment to coal, it already powers 70% of our electricity, the other 30 being mostly rooftop solar. This is Qld Aust, a small state of only 5.6 million, smaller than a lot of cities around the world now. Alternatives were just panning out as too expensive so the state decided to stay with coal. Rooftop of course gives those of us that have it free power but it doesn’t pay for the grid. The grid is the elephant in the room now. Old and in need of major upgrades.

  3. Doug Leighton

    While the cornucopians babble on about EVs wildfires continue pumping CO2 into atmosphere

    CANADA WILDFIRES BURN AT NEAR RECORD LEVELS

    “Canada’s wildfires have burned more than 13.6 million acres (5.5 million hectares) this year, an area roughly the size of Croatia, officials said Friday as the country endures one of its most destructive fire seasons.”

    https://phys.org/news/2025-07-canada-wildfires-area-size-croatia.html

    1. Doug Leighton

      Meanwhile,

      TRUMP FOSSIL-FUEL PUSH SETTING BACK GREEN PROGRESS DECADES

      “Ever since Donald Trump began his second presidency, he has used an “invented” national energy emergency to help justify expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy – despite years of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change, say scholars and watchdogs.”

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/20/trump-energy-environment-agenda

    2. Huntingtonbeach

      If you build it, they will come

      Did your lifestyle burn less fossil fuel last year than the previous year ? or are we pointing the finger at someone else ?

      “Canadian oil sands production is a major part of the country’s energy sector, making Canada the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and a top exporter to the United States. Alberta, specifically the Athabasca region, is the primary area of oil sands development. Production is expected to continue to grow, with projections reaching 3.5 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2025 and potentially 3.9 million b/d by 2030. ”

      “California is actively restricting oil production through various measures, including setback requirements near sensitive areas, restrictions on new drilling permits, and requirements for plugging idle wells. These restrictions are part of a broader effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and mitigate the environmental and health impacts of oil extraction.”

    3. Huntingtonbeach

      “While the cornucopians babble”

      Speaking of babble, what’s your point ? To alienate those who care. Better yet, what’s your solution? Pointing the finger is easy and doesn’t solve the problem. Dividing the public is just more of the same and is why we are were we are at today. Maybe you should be out fucking raking your forest with the deniers (I don’t believe that).

      We all have a choice. We can be part of the solution, part of the problem or vote third party and pretend to be above it all . Which is it ?

      “The Palisades Fire was a highly destructive wildfire that began burning in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County on January 7, 2025, and grew to destroy large areas of Pacific Palisades, Topanga, and Malibu before it was fully contained on January 31, after 24 days. One of a series of wildfires in Southern California driven by sustained winds from 55 to 60 miles an hour Santa Ana winds, it burned 23,448 acres (9,489 ha; 94.89 km2; 36.638 sq mi), killed 12 people, and destroyed 6,837 structures, making it the tenth-deadliest and third-most destructive California wildfire on record and the most destructive to occur in the history of the city of Los Angeles.[3][4][5]”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades_Fire

      I understand your pain, but if it’s everyman for himself, good luck with that. The next generation will be moving north for relief. California has been on fire for a long time

    4. hightrekker

      “Clearly, conservative beliefs and petro-politics should be considered health hazards.”

    5. Survivalist

      What’s your solution HB, Cornucopian Fallacies?

    6. Huntingtonbeach

      Good morning, good morning, good morning, Third Party,

      Let me, let you in on a little secret here. There is no get out of jail free card. No AAA roadside emergency planet service either. This is all uncharted waters. There is an expiration date. Just like your bucket of survival food. The difference is how you store and care for it. You and I have an expiration date. Clearly you understand your actions are a function of the longavity of that date. I believe the actions of humanity effects it’s longavity.

      Some people choose to drown their liver in alcohol day after day and are blind to the consequences living a shorter life span. Others choose to eat fresh foods, exercise and avoid dangerous experiences with an extended life time. Then there are also those who can’t see the forest for the trees or think all the trees are the same species(Thompson).

      I’ve never seen anyone here at POB say that EV’s are going to save humanity, but there are those who like to pretend the conversation was framed that way. I would include you as one of them. One event in the last 300 years didn’t get humanity in our current situation and one event isn’t going to solve it. What I believe is there are thousands of events that can extend the quality of life and amount of time for humanity. EV’s being one of them.

      Let me add, to improve the current situation humanity is in. One needs to have vision of what is possible and move forward applying current technology of today to advance future technology with caution. Ok, I’m going to say it. You need to some faith in technoloy advancement. But what’s different here compared to religion is that techonolgy has a proven track record of moving forward. No argument here, it can be a double edge sword and has history of being so.

      My solution, step by step humanity needs to have the conversation to right it’s wrongs. This starts with a change in education and the realization that religion is a con that divides us for the rich and powerful. Example, we have the technology of birth control to address the population, but afraid to have the hard conversation of doing anything about it. Here’s another solution, we need to address the waste of energy in which the speed we travel day to day influenced by fossil fuel. It’s killing humanity like an alcoholic, but don’t we love the power of the ego endorphin pedal of our over powered vehicles.

      Thompson, I’m not here to have a conversation with someone who can’t distinguish the difference between black and white.

  4. Andre The Giant

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14887081/dashcam-footage-self-driving-tesla-killed-passenger.html

    Dash cam footage of fatal “self-driving” tesla crash

    1. Survivalist

      pRoGrEsS

    2. JJHMAN

      “Progress” has become my definition of everything that seems to be degrading.
      – Physical objects continue to become more expensive, more complicated, less functional and less reliable.
      -The internet is becoming harder to locate between the ads, Microsoft now requires you to sit through a sea of ads to even find the solitaire game that has been free since the introduction of Windows.
      -Not only is the newspaper becoming irrelevant, the funnies have shrunk to illegibility the paper doesn’t even burn for lighting the barbeque. Is that really paper if it doesn’t burn?
      -There are so many TV channels, most requiring a subscription and different navigating techniques ,as to render them not worth even trying
      -PBS is under assault. Oh well, if it disappears that will save me $100/year and I can avoid the news.
      -At almost 82 years old I’m finding that I just don’t want to learn how to use the latest technological wonder because I know that it, too, will become obsolete or require a subscription as soon as it becomes important.
      -At least I still have a library card. Books seem to be the only place to hide from advertising.

    3. old chemist

      JJH
      Hey, man, cheer up. We have been priveledged to live in the most prosperous time in human history, and in the most prosperous part of the world during that time. We are teetering on an unstable plateau right now (propped up by debts that will never be repaid). But it has been a great party! We are the same age, so we enjoyed the whole thing, and will probably be checking out before the really bad hangover starts.

    4. SaraB

      Remove all the games from the Microsoft Store and go to win7gamesDOTcom to get the previous ones.

      Remember the dude watching TV in Idiocracy? Yeah, it’s all ads now.

    5. Survivalist

      Most of the folks that QC “the latest technical wonder” are neuroatypicals with a hard-on for Elon Musk. That’s why most IT products are so entirely unintuitive. Have you ever met some of the half wits that design these products? It looks like the cast of Fraggle Rock staffing most of the AI outfits.

    6. THOMPSON

      Amen Brother

    7. THOMPSON

      Yeah, it’s a mad mad world. I shut most of it out, haven’t owned a TV in decades, that shocks some people! Never did social media and never joined Google or any other account. If I’m not allowed in I close the webpage and move on.

    8. Survivalist

      I have a TV and a DVD/Blueray player combo along with a lot of awesome DVDs. I love the thrift shops for DVDs; just finished off a few seasons of Hill Street Blues. I haven’t had a cable or satellite service since 2006.

  5. THOMPSON

    “We all have a choice. We can be part of the solution, part of the problem or vote third party and pretend to be above it all”

    If you believe voting for politicians makes one ounce of difference you have not learnt the lesson of the last 400 years. Britain’s armies followed the East india company and life is no better today, corporations call the shots, voting is just a way of keeping the little people believing they have power. All we can do is look after our own personal affairs, move to a cool region, move well above sea level. But in any event all the climate change is already baked in the cake since it takes 1000 years for the CO2 to come out of the atmosphere by natural processes and what we have now is a disaster. We’ll see it in air temps and other major effects once the oceans catch up and once much of the ice is gone.

  6. LeeG

    the DOGE effect

    https://www.eenews.net/articles/pipeline-enforcement-plunges-in-trumps-first-months/

  7. Ron Patterson

    Analyzing Russia’s Massive Failures at Everything

    The above linked video is alarming, not just for Russia but for the world.

    Beginning at about 13 minutes into the video they report on the melting of the permafrost and the massive methane release it causes.

    Across Siberia the permafrost is melting at a rate that’s shocking to even climate scientist. It affects 77% of Russian territory. That’s an area larger than the United States and Europe combined. Russia is warming two- and one-half times faster than the global average.

    Then they explain the massive methane blowholes. The largest one discovered just last year is 50 meters wide and 3o meters deep. When these massive holes were first reported, about 12 years ago, there were 17 of them, now there are over 200.

    1. Doug Leighton

      Ron,
      Interesting video, thanks.

  8. Doug Leighton

    Time’s running out lads

    ONLY 3 YEARS LEFT – NEW STUDY WARNS THE WORLD IS RUNNING OUT OF TIME TO AVOID THE WORST IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

    https://theconversation.com/only-3-years-left-new-study-warns-the-world-is-running-out-of-time-to-avoid-the-worst-impacts-of-climate-change-261229

    1. Survivalist

      The hilarious thing about techo-cornucopian wind socks is watching them demand everyone facilitate their non-existent comprehension of the obvious. Like the world is their personal care-home.

    2. THOMPSON

      I know I know. I watched the whole Greta thunberg circus as it made it’s way around the world. The great distraction I called it, look, we are doing something about it. All the faithful cheered, the school kids took the day off and got mum to drive them to rallies in air conditioned cars, from air conditioned homes, and then had a Victory lunch at a burger joint on the way home. Mission accomplished, now I can grow up and get a boyfriend and buy a car.

    3. Sheng Wu

      my kid was following Greta and begged me to stop killing mother earth.

  9. hightrekker

    “Congratulations on being one of our top readers globally – you’ve read 431 articles in the last year”

    I need to get out more—–

  10. THOMPSON

    In 2010, we only had only a short time left. In 2015, time was running out and all the leaders of the world agreed to burning unlimited coal in China to achieve net zero elsewhere, 10 years later time is still running out and the elected leaders are abandoning the EV and Wind power because they don’t make economic sense. Then on an obscure corner of the webs someone on a bulletin board tells me time is running out and we need a third party and need to vote our way out?

    I haven’t voted in 40 years and don’t intend to start now. For those who believe voting controls the destiny of the human race, you’re to blame for this mess not me, because I didn’t vote the perpetrators of it in, You did.

    1. Sheng Wu

      in 2010, China dictatorship already knew the Climate change was a game by the suicidal west government.
      The dictatorship did not have a solution then, but the western suicidal governments handed over the solar panels and EV/batteries.

    2. Dan

      Your logic makes no sense at all. Or, wait, if just one man votes he can elect himself, or herself. If you wait long enough anything can happen. LOL

    3. THOMPSON

      voting is meaningless. it’s a system of control, like the church system was in the days of feudal kingdoms. You don’t honestly think they just gave up all that power a couple of hundred years ago because some peasants demanded a better deal? Two major parties, always two, and both are bought and paid for. All the evidence is there if you look with an open mind.

    4. hightrekker

      ‘Lifestyles of Rich and Shameless’ ?

    5. Huntingtonbeach

      What Makes Trump & MAGA So Cruel? A Psychiatrist Explains

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8jF8BEeCM

      @Sungazerglass
      The problem is, the people who need to watch this, don’t understand this.

      @goaway7346
      Anger makes them cruel.
      Fear makes them angry.
      The Republican party makes them afraid.

  11. Doug Leighton

    Provided by American Geophysical Union, a really solid group.

    ABRUPT CLIMATE SHIFTS LIKELY AS GLOBAL TEMPERATURES KEEP RISING

    “As temperatures, biodiversity losses, and sea levels rise globally, scientists are concerned about the likelihood of abrupt climatic shifts occurring, particularly within sensitive subsystems of the climate system such as the Amazon rainforest, Antarctic sea ice, and the Tibetan Plateau. Abrupt shifts can manifest as, for example, large and sudden changes in the rate of precipitation in a monsoon system, ice melt in Antarctica, or permafrost thaw in the Northern Hemisphere.”

    https://phys.org/news/2025-07-abrupt-climate-shifts-global-temperatures.html

    1. THOMPSON

      Yes, and nothing to be done for it now but personal mitigation, a home in a temperate climate well above sea level. I can’t see world killing temperature rises before most of the ice melts, it draws the heat away from the earth’s other regions, heating up to three times faster than lower latitudes by the data. Air and sea currents, north and south. I remember the big controversy in the 2010’s about how air temps across the globe were a lot lower than predicted under modeling, then some bright spark looked at the ocean temp data, the top 200m from memory, and they realized that the heat was going there! Water has an amazing capacity to absorb heat, much much greater than air. But the top layer doesn’t mix easily with the deeper frosty water.

      So we have a buffer, a short reprieve, at least for us in our latter years.
      https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/partner-content/the-arctic-is-still-heating-up-faster-than-the-global-average/427096
      https://www.newscientist.com/article/2465689-surge-in-ocean-heat-is-a-sign-climate-change-is-accelerating/

  12. Andre The Giant

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14926475/Top-secret-hole-desert-Americas-chance-defeating-powerful-enemy.html

    America’s gamble to get off Chinese Rare Earths

    1. THOMPSON

      paywall mate, can’t read.

    2. Andre The Giant

      Not for me.

    3. Jake S

      Plug that link into archive dot is to get around the paywall.

  13. Alimbiquated

    Meanwhile Oracle and Open AI are moving forward with plans to build a data center for AI in Texas that will consume 10 GW.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-oracle-deepen-ai-data-center-push-with-45-gigawatt-stargate-expansion-2025-07-22/

    1. Survivalist

      “IT guy who can’t seem to figure out that wildfire ops isn’t looking to swap out all the hardware in the middle of the fire season is thinking of starting own Artificial Intelligence program”

      These guys IT are dumb as fuck. I can’t wait for the famine.

    2. Andre The Giant

      https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=253675

      Karl is always worth a read on IT issues ( founded an internet company MCSNet ).

      AI doesn’t make you more productive, because you can’t blindly trust the results.

      He thinks these companies are going to get hosed when people figure this out.

    3. Andre The Giant

      Watch the 5 minute video!!!

      AI makes up bullshit when it cant answer the question!!

      That has been my experience with it…you have to fact check it!

    4. Survivalist

      FDA’s artificial intelligence is supposed to revolutionize drug approvals. It’s making up studies

      https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/23/politics/fda-ai-elsa-drug-regulation-makary

    5. Andre The Giant

      If you have ever worked with Neural Networks or Machine Learning ( Linear Regression, Logisitic Regression, Decision Trees, Clustering, etc)

      All of this is very obvious.

      Linear Regression is great until the data becomes Non-Linear….Duh!

      Neural Networks (a more sophisticated form of Regression) are great until the data diverges from the training data.

      Duh!

      Karls point is that the entire Stock Market run is based on people not understanding what I said above!!!!!!

      And I do not agree with Karl’s climate change denialism… he is a very talented programmer and tech guy.

    6. Hickory

      Move 37. A small glimpse of the future capabilities.

  14. Doug Leighton

    Peak oil? Well, not in Guyana.

    BIG OIL’S POWER COUPLE HEADS TO GUYANA

    • Chevron has completed its acquisition of Hess Corporation, gaining a 30% stake in Guyana’s Stabroek offshore block, where ExxonMobil operates with a 45% stake.
    • The acquisition followed a year-long arbitration battle initiated by ExxonMobil, which ultimately ruled in favor of Chevron.
    • Despite previous tensions, ExxonMobil and Chevron must now cooperate as joint venture partners to maximize production and profits from the high-potential Stabroek block.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Big-Oils-Power-Couple-Heads-to-Guyana.html

  15. THOMPSON

    The Bush bubble was war spending, armaments, the Obama bubble was shale oil, The Biden bubble was EV and alt energy, the Trump bubble is AI as he plans to boost artificial intelligence and build data centers across the U.S. I remember his inauguration, in a line together was Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos and another big techy CEO. All the data pigs at the trough for the next round of giveaways. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

  16. D C

    New posts are up

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/short-term-energy-outlook-july-2025/

    and

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-26-2025/

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