Peak Oil? Cue Crickets Chirping
Great article asks "Whatever Happened to Peak Oil?" over at RealClear Politics*
Apparently Google searches for the terms like "oil glut" and "too much oil" are now much more popular than those for "peak oil" from a decade back. Back in in 2009, I wrote:
In May 2006, I reported in Reason that global oil reserves were ample to supply humanity's needs for liquid fuels until at least 2030, despite headline-grabbing predictions that our supply had already peaked. Afterwards, the world experienced an unprecedented run-up in oil prices topping out at $147 per barrel in July 2008, which led some negative prognosticators to get a little cocky. One of the leading doomsters, Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons, told CNBC in July 2008, "The idea that it's a bubble is all poppycock." He confidently added that the price of oil "is not going to collapse." Simmons advised Americans to move into villages and to buy locally produced foods and goods.
Prices did surge again, but human ingenuity in form of fracking and other innovations proved again that extent of resources is determined by technology and markets not just the accumulation of stuff in the ground. Global production soared and prices fell. The peak oil chorus of doom has largely gone silent. Over at RealClear Politics, there is a terrific article detailing the sorry history of periodic peak oil hysteria. From the article:
This perception that we would run out of oil, and sooner rather than later, became more than a theory, one that went by the name "peak oil." It became a kind of catechism. It was included in the prayer books of the environmental movement and incorporated into the legislative history and language of U.S. federal energy policy. It became an underlying basis for everything from Jimmy Carter's admonition to turn down the nation's thermostats, the enactment of 55-mile-per-hour speed limits, and federal mandates on gasoline standards for cars and trucks.
Today, the question is how policymakers should one react when the conventional wisdom is proven so spectacularly wrong, as is the case here. …
One factor the peak-oil adherents never seemed to consider was that the supply of oil, like many commodities, was directly influenced by price—and that drillers and investors previously not searching for it would return to exploration if market prices became high enough.
"The biggest supporters of Peak Oil almost all are petroleum geologists; almost none of them are economists," said Ronald Bailey, an author and science correspondent with Reason magazine who has written extensively on climate and energy. "They really don't understand markets."
*Oh, wait. The article quotes me. Despite that, reading the whole column is well worth your time.