@peak oil -- trotsky, 12:57:51 08/30/06 Wed
the oil geologists bemoaning the imminent arrival of peak oil make a few good points - their best argument is imo the undeniable peak of US production in the 1970's, as well as the global discovery peak of the 1960's.
that said, they also leave a lot to be desired in terms of their proposed solutions. consider this statement from the earlier linked article
When Oil Dries Up.
p088.ezboard.com
apart from the fact that oil alarmist Heinberg (who apparently makes a good living writing and lecturing about the stuff) is a self-admitted Malthusian resource depletion worrier - a branch of alarmism that continues to run into the endless fount of human ingenuity as it were - he's saying THIS:
"If you look at the end of the process it's not hard to paint a fairly attractive picture. The problem is how we get there - very few communities are planning for this transition. [But] if we just let market forces rule, the result is going to be economic, political and social chaos in the intervening period."
then he goes on to laud Sweden - Sweden! the socialist utopia in decline! - for having produced a paper - government-sponsored of course - which has 'the imprimatur of the Prime Minister, Goran Persson' (will he produce energy somehow?) in which it is proposed to make Sweden an 'oil-free society by 2020'. i guess we should commiserate with the Swedes - not only will they keep suffering under the socialist yoke, by 2020 they will also sit in the dark and walk instead of driving.
so , if we 'let the market rule' we shall have 'chaos'.
what utter tripe. this is the problem with the entire bunch of oil alarmists - they cry out for government intervention and regimentation, as if the bureaucracy could somehow muster better ideas to overcome the problem than the market.
then there is the additional fact that the alarmists fail to acknowledge the economics of resource extraction (in this context note that in the mid 1800ds, the coming of 'peak coal' was a big topic).
has anyone ever wondered how it is possible that e.g. a gold mine that had reserves of say 5m. oz. at the beginning of its life continues to produce after those 5m. oz. have been extracted, and often has quite a few years of production still ahead of it? the reason is that it is not economic to prove up ALL of the reserves so far ahead of their extraction. rather, producers prove up additional reserves along with the depletion process. thus it's quite possible that the mine in the example produces 500k. oz. in one year, and thereafter STILL has 5m. oz. of reserves left - because an additional 500k. oz. have been proven up during the first year of extraction.
this makes oil peak forecasts a tricky business. how reliable is our knowledge of the ultimate amount of recoverable oil? global usage of 86m. bbl./day sounds like a lot, but consider that ALL the oil EVER produced would only fill about two thirds of Lake Tahoe.
that said, we WILL have a problem if Campbell et al. are right about an imminent production peak. however, it is definitely erroneous to believe that government intervention can save the day in that case. i prefer to put my trust in the market any day - where human inventiveness and entrepreneurship are cherished and remunerated is also whence a solution to any problems with future oil production is most likely to come forth. |
