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New York Times Debunks Peak Oil
The Times published a great article yesterday debunking the notion that the peak of world oil production is nigh. To wit:
Within the last decade, technology advances have made it possible to unlock more oil from old fields, and, at the same time, higher oil prices have made it economical for companies to go after reserves that are harder to reach. With plenty of oil still left in familiar locations, forecasts that the world’s reserves are drying out have given way to predictions that more oil can be found than ever before.
In a wide-ranging study published in 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that ultimately recoverable resources of conventional oil totaled about 3.3 trillion barrels, of which a third has already been produced. More recently, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consultant, estimated that the total base of recoverable oil was 4.8 trillion barrels. That higher estimate — which Cambridge Energy says is likely to grow — reflects how new technology can tap into more resources.
Of course, refusing to affect false modesty, I will mention that I did tell y'all that peak oil was bunk back in May 2006. The Times does overlook the worrying problem that an "oil crisis" could erupt anyway because of stupid or malicious behavior on the part of corrupt governments that "own" 77 percent of currently known reserves.
In fact, the vile Hugo Chavez has just seized a multibillion dollar oil project from Exxon Mobil and will likely do that to other companies soon. Venezuela's oil production is already falling below its OPEC quota and I predict it will soon get worse given the general effectiveness of socialist management. A point that I made back in May and more recently.
Anyway, whole Times article here.
Disclosure: I'm going to get around to selling those pesky 50 shares of ExxonMobil any day now.
tros|3.6.07 @ 12:12PM|#
Yeah, I never really expected oil production to peak by itself.
I was more hoping that people would wake up and start using
something else before the nuclear holocaust comes.
O yeah, and don't give the nukes to the phramaceutical companies or
lumber companies either, they are just as evil.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 12:20PM|#
AWSOME! Now I can expand the Carbon Credit Card Program.
I am hoping for $0.40 unleaded so that even more people can feel
guilty enough to buy into carbon credit penance.
Too bad you won't be at the gathering on Thursday, I owe you a
drink!
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 12:21PM|#
O yeah, and don't give the nukes to the phramaceutical
companies or lumber companies either, they are just as
evil.
Don't forget big tobacco!
Big hemp is fine though. Nuclear powered bongs I say!
|3.6.07 @ 12:26PM|#
Guy: If you're talking about Reason's happy hour this Thursday, I will be there. BTW, I prefer Lagavulin. Of course, I may have to disclose that you bought me a drink. ;-)
|3.6.07 @ 12:43PM|#
Unnecessary use of scare quotes.
Are slow-down-and-read-more-carefully quotes a subset of scare
quotes, or a different animal entirely?
Bhh|3.6.07 @ 12:48PM|#
NYT debunking Peak Oil means it's time to go long oil stocks on margin. (Ok, maybe not really).
|3.6.07 @ 12:49PM|#
biologist: I use "own" in this context because government's owning stuff generally means that it is treated much worse than when private entities own stuff. Think public parks versus Disneyworld. Or better yet think coral reefs, the Amazon, Filipino, Indosnesian rainforests, most oceanic fisheries, and so forth. Government bureaucrats have much less incentive to protect and make productive a government property than do private owners have to protect and make productive their property. Governments should "own" as little as possible and fiercely guard the rights of private owners. In this case, if Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP actually owned oil fields, the world's energy security would be much greater.
|3.6.07 @ 12:57PM|#
"Government bureaucrats have much less incentive to protect and
make productive a government property than do private owners have
to protect and make productive their property."
That's exactly what happens when the Brazilian government transfers
land to private owners in the Amazon! Exactly!
Make productive use of it? Oh, hell yeah!
tros|3.6.07 @ 12:59PM|#
"own"
Governments do no not own, they steal. Even if they stole it before
you were born, that doesn't make it theirs.
|3.6.07 @ 1:02PM|#
Guy Montag: I'm embarassed for you knowing that you drive a car using unleaded gasoline. The only thing more sissy is one of them battery cars.
|3.6.07 @ 1:26PM|#
A problem with favoring private ownership of resources over
government control is that if the government sells it to private
parties, the government won't necessarily get the full of value of
the property. Think privatization in Russia.
Government control as a sort of corporate ownership with the public
as shareholders works fine as long as the government actually has
the interests of shareholders at heart.
The government can work fine as a landlord assuming that it isn't
too screwy, a la Venezuela.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 1:30PM|#
Guy: If you're talking about Reason's happy hour this
Thursday, I will be there. BTW, I prefer Lagavulin. Of course, I
may have to disclose that you bought me a drink. ;-)
I will know that I have finally made it into the ranks of "Evil
Corp Thuggery" when I see my handle in a disclosure by you Sir!
Perhaps I shall purchase two for you even if this
Lagavulin stuff is something John Kerry drinks with his
Swisscheesesteaks at Pat's.
Lamar, silly man, get it right. It is alternative fuel, non-leaded
hydrogen. C8H18. Must I draw you a picture or do you work for TNR
and pictures only serve to confuse you? :)
Full disclosure: I use synthetic hydrogen instead of engine oil and
transmission fluid. Still debating converting the Jeep to steam
power or free-range bio-train-oil.
tomWright|3.6.07 @ 1:37PM|#
"50 shares of ExxonMobil "
AHA! So you admit to being corrupted and biased by the windfall of
$1.4011 in dividends and BigOil profits!
And you even spread that corruption to the NYT by spending it on
the paper, infecting it with your hydrocarbon hype! Have you no
Shame?!
Now we can not even trust the NYT, you have forcibly forced it to
accept money that has been touched by BigOil!
You evil hearted bastard!
Who can we trust now? Who, I ask you, who!
/end imitation of far-leftist-looney-luddite-rant
tomWright|3.6.07 @ 1:40PM|#
Guy, "John Kerry drinks with his Swisscheesesteaks "
No, if it is John Kerry, they must be Frenchcheesesteaks
|3.6.07 @ 1:44PM|#
Since people don't creat the natural resource, land property rights don't have the same roots as other property rights. Still, governments tend to treat land worse than private owners, because private owners expect to reap the future concequences of what they do to the land. For that reason, I think privately owned land is better than publicly owned land. Privatization is difficult to do fairly, because of corruption, so I'm OK with keeping already public land public. Idealy, the US could turn it's federal parks over to the Native Americans.
|3.6.07 @ 1:45PM|#
Guy: Get a car that runs off of burned copies of the Iraq Study Group Report. One can dream.....
antihostile|3.6.07 @ 1:45PM|#
Not so fast there...
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/15/83857/186
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 1:49PM|#
tomWright,
No, if it is John Kerry, they must be
Frenchcheesesteaks
Swiss
Cheesesteak.
|3.6.07 @ 1:50PM|#
Ron,
Pardon my pedantism.[pours a round for the bar]
The Times does overlook the worrying problem that an "oil
crisis" could erupt anyway because of stupid or malicious behavior
on the part of corrupt governments that "own" 77 percent of
currently known reserves.
In this context, the scare quotes around "oil crisis" are
permitted, because they connote that it is a political crisis and
not an actual oil shortage. However, in this context, the quotes
around "own" are redundant. The connotation that "government's
owning stuff generally means that it is treated much worse than
when private entities own stuff" is expressed directly by "stupid
or malicious behavior on the part of corrupt governments".
The suggestion that a government can't own stuff to begin with, I
don't credit at all. I am completely sympathetic to the argument
that no government should own oil reserves, mineral
rights, and the like. But clearly governments, including our own,
do own all manner of stuff, by any meaningful definition.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 1:51PM|#
Guy: Get a car that runs off of burned copies of the Iraq
Study Group Report. One can dream.....
Well, that is one way to boil water to make steam. I was thinking
coal, since it is organic and renewable.
|3.6.07 @ 2:23PM|#
But clearly governments, including our own, do own all manner of stuff, by any meaningful definition.
Warren, I disagree. Governments may possess stuff, but
they might not really own anything.
Onwership is defined generally as the moral right to control
something. Posession is defined as the physical control of
something.
For example, if I were to take your toothbrush and run off with it,
I would possess your toothbrush, but you would continue to won
it.
Generally people do not consider theft to be a means of acquiring
ownership of something. The Rothbardian ideal is that a person
comes to own something either by taking controll over an unowned
thing or by getting the object's owner to cede ownership through
peaceful means.
Thus much "public" property, having come into government hands not
because it was peacefully acquired, but was siezed through
violence, is not owned by the group calling itself "the
government."
Granted, you could make that same argument to claim that I don't
own my house, since I believe the American Indians who owned the
land were driven off by force.
Perhaps this is what you mean by "meaningful"; since most people
don't care about thefts that occurred more than a few decades ago -
indeed, most legal systems incorporate a statute of limitations for
many disputes over ownership - for all intents and purposes the
object is owned by the person who ultimately bought it from the
thief.
Despite this, I feel it is an important distinction to bear in
mind.
|3.6.07 @ 2:32PM|#
Oh, we'll have Peak Oil alright. Maybe not today, or tomorrow,
or next year, but someday...SOMEDAY! Then you'll be sorry.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 2:39PM|#
Holy crap! I knew when I saw Peak antifreeze that Peak Oil could only be decades away!
Dan T.|3.6.07 @ 2:45PM|#
It's hard to say that government can't own anything when
government is defined as the enitity who decides who owns
what.
Libertarians are not to big on morality and other abstractions
until it comes to property ownership - then we all have a mystical
"right" to control stuff.
Ironically, ownership is anti-libertarian. If you are considered to
be the owner of some land, that means the government will use force
to prevent me from using it myself. So my liberty is
restricted.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 2:50PM|#
Dan T.,
Are you on peak hemp right now?
Ironically, ownership is anti-libertarian. If you are
considered to be the owner of some land, that means the government
will use force to prevent me from using it myself. So my liberty is
restricted.
Your liberty does not include your use of other people's property
without their permission.
|3.6.07 @ 2:51PM|#
Ironically, ownership is anti-libertarian. If you are
considered to be the owner of some land, that means the government
will use force to prevent me from using it myself. So my liberty is
restricted.
That's right. And making murder illegal is also anti-libertarian
because it restricts my liberty to kill you.
fyodor|3.6.07 @ 3:25PM|#
I'll have to come down on the negative side of the great "square
quote" debate.
When we speak of someone owning something, we generally mean in a
legal sense. We may hope and expect that the legality of the matter
coincides with how we view the morality of it, but it is the
legality of the ownership to which we primarily refer. So if a
government's ownership of property is consistent with its own laws,
square quotes qualifying its ownership are not called for, however
immoral one may consider such laws to be. Perhaps if a government
acted contrary to its own laws such that the matter is still open
to challenge, square quotes may be called for. But hell, square
quotes are rarely if ever even used for a slave owner's ownership
of his slave(s), and what can be a more immoral form of ownership
than that!! (I should also note that Bailey himself does not even
use the morality of government ownership in his own defense but
rather just the appropriateness or efficiency of it, a much weaker
argument that I don't see at all!!)
|3.6.07 @ 3:27PM|#
No, no, no. Ownership is very libertarian because you can build
a fence to exclude somebody. They hop the fence, you sic the dogs
on them. They throw a bone to the dogs, you shoot them in the leg,
and so on.
The government got involved because vigilantism is very sloppy and
uncivilized.
|3.6.07 @ 3:27PM|#
Libertarians are not to big on morality and other
abstractions until ... Ironically, ownership is anti-libertarian
...
I, for one, am really glad to have had Dan T. around to help out
with what libertarians are big on, and what
libertarians believe, or even (my all time fav) why
libertarian ideals never work out. But I think it's time for
him to move on. Your work is done here, Dan. There is a
conservative blog out there that needs your empty headed blah-blah
and one line gotchas to straighten them out with that uniquely
ignorant, yet condescending air you have. Godspeed, Dan.
Godspeed.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 3:29PM|#
Lamar,
It was the sloppy vigilantis who gave it a bad rap as
uncivilized.
Gilbert Martin|3.6.07 @ 3:31PM|#
Hey, that's right!
What a wonderful new concept of liberty!
Why that could be applied to everything!
How dare the Federal Reserve Bank post armed guards at it's
locations. That restricts my liberty to walk off with $100 million
in cash.
|3.6.07 @ 3:32PM|#
tarran,
Much of the privately-owned land in the western 2/3 of the United
States was wrested into the possession of its current owners (or
the previous deeded owners on the chain of title) through violence.
So are you saying that the deeds to every house lot in Wyoming are
worthless? Or are you saying that stolen property becomes
legitimate after a period of time?
|3.6.07 @ 3:34PM|#
I wonder, who owns the land under the courthouse where the businessman goes to get an injunction ordering the protestors to get out of his parking lot?
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 3:40PM|#
Amazing absurdity.
One troll posting that his liberty includes taking the property of
another. Another troll posting that taking property that nobody
lays claim to be theft AND claiming that you should have to go to
the court house for paperwork in a situation that some birdshot
would solve quite easily. All in one thread.
|3.6.07 @ 4:09PM|#
Much of the privately-owned land in the western 2/3 of the United States was wrested into the possession of its current owners (or the previous deeded owners on the chain of title) through violence. So are you saying that the deeds to every house lot in Wyoming are worthless? Or are you saying that stolen property becomes legitimate after a period of time?
A bit of both. :)
Morally speaking, I believe many of the titles are, in fact
illegitimate. However, good luck finding someone with a legitimate
title. The original owners are dead. It is unclear whom they would
have transferred their ownership right to. Certainly at this point
in time, there is no way to identify who is the rightful owner of
what.
Also, there is no way to identify which titles are legitimate, and
which are not. Let's say 98% of the land was taken through
violence, and 2% was acquired through legitimate trade. How would
we know which group a parcel of land would fall into? If we
confiscate all the land to give to the putative heirs of the
victim, wouldn't we be robbing those who own the 2%?
Additionally, how do we know that the pre-European inhabitants had
acquired the territory legitimately? The native americans could and
did wage wars of conquest.
The practical solution is to accept claims of ownership, unless
someone can demonstrate a competing claim. Thus the passage of
years, and the death and dispersion of the victims and their
descendants, practically speaking, make those who acquired the land
from the thieves and murderers of the owners.
|3.6.07 @ 4:23PM|#
Dan T
Property rights do not come from governments. If you look at
Iceland c. 1000 AD, where there was no government, no final arbiter
of disputes, you will find a fairly comprehensive system of
commonly accepted property rights.
Imagine that you washed up on a desert island. Wouldn't the shelter
you built be your property even when there was no government to
recognize your claim?
Weren't the Jews whose businesses were confiscated and given to
Aryans in Nazi Germany the victims of theft, despite the fact that
the German government, which was a legitimate government, declared
the Aryans to be the rightful property owners?
Closer to home, did the Japanese who had their homes and businesses
confiscated in the beginning of World War II by the U.S. government
lose their claims on the property?
Governments generally establish themselves as having the final say
in adjudicating disputes in the territory they claim. As such, they
can support or undermine the recognition of property rights.
However, that does not make them the source of property rights any
more than a Catholic priest is the source of Holy Writ.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 4:35PM|#
Actually, I do see an interesting situation coming out of the
absurd assertion that property out west was stolen.
The governments of france and Spain could be forced to pay Indian
tribes the price that they got for that land from the USA, plus
interest.
Imagine the casinos thatou could be built off of that crazy
scheme!
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 4:40PM|#
For the land in the east that the USA got from other powers,
same deal. Force England and Spain to pay the people they "took" it
from.
BTW, how do you take something from someone who does not have any
claim of ownership?
|3.6.07 @ 4:51PM|#
Incidentally, even if your title is bad, under the common law,
you basically own the land after 20 years (or less depending on
state law modifications). It's called adverse possession. You just
have to claim you own the land (and usually believe it), "possess
it" in the sense of actually using it, and do it openly and
notoriously, which means you don't try to hide it. If you put your
house on some land, live their twenty years, it's pretty much
yours. Assuming that the land wasn't federal government land, then
you can't adversely possess it.
Also, you've got it wrong if you think Europeans screwed the
Indians. The Dutch paid 40 guilders for Manhattan. In today's
terms, with a modest 9% return on that, the Indians should have
like $83 trillion dollars. Talk about price gauging for Manhattan.
They could buy all the land in the world for that. Sure, you say,
but they don't have the money anymore. Is it my problem that they
were profligate? No, its time they pay up.
|3.6.07 @ 4:51PM|#
The article doesn't really 'debunk' Peak Oil...it says that it is a moving target.
Dan T.|3.6.07 @ 4:56PM|#
Weren't the Jews whose businesses were confiscated and given
to Aryans in Nazi Germany the victims of theft, despite the fact
that the German government, which was a legitimate government,
declared the Aryans to be the rightful property owners?
Closer to home, did the Japanese who had their homes and businesses
confiscated in the beginning of World War II by the U.S. government
lose their claims on the property?
You seem to be backing up my point here - if the government decides
you don't own your property anymore, then you don't own it
anymore.
I suppose a better way of saying it, however, is that society is
the grantor of property rights, with government as the enforcement
arm.
|3.6.07 @ 5:03PM|#
Dan,
You are confusing posession with ownership. Unless, of course, you
are arguing that the German government shouldn't have paid
compensation to the victims of the Holocaust...
Robert|3.6.07 @ 6:21PM|#
If most oil and did come from biomass, and represents a significant fraction of the total, and most free oxygen came from photosynthesis, and the fraction of total oil burned is significant, then why has the oxygen content of the atmosphere not budged?
|3.6.07 @ 6:22PM|#
The article doesn't really 'debunk' Peak Oil...it says that
it is a moving target.
You apparently aren't very familiar with the theory the Peak Oil
doomsayers have been proclaiming. This article is a resounding
refutation of their position.
|3.6.07 @ 6:47PM|#
Mass of oxygen in atmosphere: 1.2 million trillion kg
Mass of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil: 160 trillion kg
Burning gasoline consumes about twice as much oxygen by mass as
gasoline. Presuming crude oil is similar...
Mass of oxygen consumed by 1.1 trillion barrels of oil: 320
trillion kg.
So, if the oxygen were not replaced by any process, all the oil
burned so far would produce a loss of 64 parts per million of
oxygen in the atmosphere, or 0.027%.
Since oxygen is 21% of the atmosphere, I would wager that you
couldn't tell if the oxygen content of the atmosphere budged or
not.
|3.6.07 @ 8:30PM|#
I wouldn't write off peak oil just yet. I can tell you right
now, even with the price of oil and gas where they are, there isn't
enough drilling infrastructure currently to pursue most project.
There are 3-5 year waiting lists for drilling equipment ordered
today. Most deepwater project are almost a decade out for coming
online, all the while consumption is increasing. And alot of those
wells are still speculative on final production rates. I have a
feeling that soon we'll start to really hurt buying fuel, it'll
still be there, but for alot more money than we've been used to
paying. Nuclear power will keep our house lights on in the future,
along with many smaller energy generation plants, like hydro, wind,
solar, and thermal, but oil will become a much reduced commodity,
and while it will still be produced for decades to come, its price
will be high enough that most of it will go to high profit uses,
like ethylene, propylene feedstock and better margins. Gasoline
will be a relic horded by classic car nuts like myself to keep our
ancient jalopies on the road.
Oh, and american classic car prices will plummet in 2020.
|3.6.07 @ 8:47PM|#
even with the price of oil and gas where they are, there
isn't enough drilling infrastructure currently to pursue most
project.
And the reason the capital equipment supply can't scale up to serve
the most profitable companies in the world as their reserves only
get more valuable is...?
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 8:55PM|#
Burning gasoline consumes about twice as much oxygen by mass
as gasoline. Presuming crude oil is similar...
Don't presume that. There are reasons we distill gasoline oand
other fuels from diesel. One of them is that they combine with
oxygen easier than crude does. Soeme other reasons too, but that is
the big one.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 8:56PM|#
MikeP,
Very good! Those static modellers are so annoying and I doubt that
your comment will dent his brain case.
Guy Montag|3.6.07 @ 9:01PM|#
Oh, and american classic car prices will plummet in
2020.
Okay, you bank on that one while I add a six-pack to my 1972 Dodge
Ralley Charger 'hybrid'. No
worries, a "you were right" and a handshake by the victor is fine
with me.
|3.6.07 @ 9:23PM|#
Don't presume that.
I know it's not precise. The "twice as much oxygen by mass" is
already an approximation.
But you do remind me that more oxygen is actually consumed than I
calculated, as the hydrogen in the fuel becomes water as well. I
was counting only the CO2. I don't know by what process, if any,
water becomes oxygen. If it doesn't at all, then you can roughly
double the dent that I calculate above in the oxygen content of the
atmosphere.
|3.6.07 @ 10:15PM|#
Guy,
I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm reasonably sure
that classic american iron will be worth less in the future than it
is now. Why? Because most of what's moved on the auction block are
"drivers", cars people like to take out quite often and show off.
There's a glut of these cars versus "collectors", pristine original
restorations. Once the "drivers" become too expensive to take out
alot, casual car guys will stop driving them and/or try and sell
them. Future buyers will be of the "collector" group, looking for
better examples and dramatically reduce the price of many
"drivers". This in turn will send more "drivers" back to
restoration shops for complete workovers for concourse appearance.
They will then enter the market and drive down the cost of
"collectors". From there some sort of market equilibrium will be
reached, but many times below what it is today.
Paul|3.6.07 @ 10:44PM|#
You seem to be backing up my point here - if the government
decides you don't own your property anymore, then you don't own it
anymore.
You're precisely correct in these here modern Unified States of
'Murrica.
The government giveth, the government taketh away. The use of
Eminent Domain has made that abundantly clear.
Guy Montag|3.7.07 @ 5:08AM|#
MikeP,
The heptane reaction goes something like this:
C7H16 + 11O2 = 7CO2 + 8H2O
For octane begin with C8H18
Guy Montag|3.7.07 @ 5:10AM|#
Lost_In_Translation,
Ah, so that is why the 1930s Woodies are worthless now?
|3.7.07 @ 10:56AM|#
The Amazonian rainforest is privatized? I had the impression most of it was government owned, with areas leased out to private users and tribals. Am I wrong?
|3.8.07 @ 5:20AM|#
MikeP wrote:
"You apparently aren't very familiar with the theory the Peak
Oil doomsayers have been proclaiming. This article is a resounding
refutation of their position."
What is the title of the Ron Bailey article?
New York Times Debunks Peak Oil
What does it say at the end of the NYT article?
"In 1978, when he started his career here, operators believed
the field would be abandoned within 15 years. "That's why peak oil
is a moving target," Mr. Hatlen said. "Oil is always a function of
price and technology."'
Thus perhaps a better title for Ron would be:
"New York Times Debunks Peak Oil Doomsaying"
Peak Oil still exists, its the alarmism that is at fault. (so I am
nitpicker...)
|3.8.07 @ 7:01AM|#
"That's why peak oil is a moving target," Mr. Hatlen
said.
No one doubts the existence of peak oil. It is Peak Oil that is in
question.
Guy Montag|3.8.07 @ 7:35AM|#
It is a good thing that my 'hybrid' Charger is green inside and
out so I can help move that Peak Oil target.
Thank goodness it does not have a red interior or I would be
pressured to join a political party!
So, Holly or Edelbrock? That is the big question. I can't smoke the
tires with this Carter.
Bob|3.8.07 @ 2:55PM|#
The calculations above confirm my doubt about the fossil fuels
hypothesis. If the reduced carbon & hydrogen and the free
oxygen in the atmosphere were both primarily products of
photosynthesis, and if the sequestered reduced material can be
assumed to far outweigh the transiently-existing biomass, then one
would expect the burning of a putatively large fraction of the
reduced material to consume a correspondingly great fraction of the
oxygen.
The fact that the oxygen content hasn't budged shows that there's a
hell of a lot more fuel than you think, and/or that the fossil
fuels hypothesis is bunk, and/or that photosynthesis is not the
major source of free oxygen.
|3.8.07 @ 3:14PM|#
...Or that the vast majority of oxygen in the atmosphere comes
from oceanic algae that has nary a chance of becoming fossil
fuel.
I may be wrong, but my impression is that the quantity of limestone
in the world dwarfs the quantity of coal, oil, and gas.
Kevin Carson|3.8.07 @ 4:41PM|#
All the Times article "proves" is that higher oil prices make it economical to go after the higher-hanging fruit, at higher marginal cost. Absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the levels of total oil production will peak. I read most of these articles "debunking" Peak Oil, and come away with no reason to believe the author even knows what he's arguing against.
|3.8.07 @ 6:31PM|#
The theory that was being sold as Peak Oil a couple years ago
had two major components:
1. A shortfall in the supply of oil will result in a nearly
instantaneous leap of the price beyond anyone's affordability, and
the effects will cascade through the economy to seriously disrupt
the modern way of life.
2. This is going to happen before 2010.
This Times article refutes both those points. Not only
does it describe "new" oil reserves exploitable in the present day
at present prices, but it offers a paradigm for more "new" reserves
to become profitable as the price of oil rises, dampening the
predicted skyrocketing of price.
Again, no one doubts that production of oil will peak. But the Peak
Oil doomsayers foretell catastrophic consequences of that moment
that run counter to all economic reasoning and experience.
That is what is being debunked. That is what needs to be
debunked.
xiaonanok|3.8.07 @ 9:06PM|#
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World oil consumption (1996-2007) - The road to the crash
(2020):
http://www.euroekonom.com/Graphs-html/oil-consumption.html
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