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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
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To: orkrious who wrote (10095)8/2/2004 9:14:52 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön  Read Replies (1) of 116555
 
the idea of inexhaustible oil is promoted by what Colin Campbell calls the "flat-earth economists". they think it is just a function of price, and since there is always some residue left somewhere, it's just a matter of how much it will cost.

but oil is not like diamonds or gold, which can be thought of in some sense as money; oil is produced, ultimately, because it is energy. so there is an absolute energy budget which supercedes economics. namely, if the process of oil production consumes more energy than the produced oil itself contains, you're SOL. there is some long acronymn for this, along the lines of "net energy returned for energy invested".

it is sort of like saying somebody would invent a perpetual motion machine if only the price were high enough.
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