Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mistermj who wrote (207213)	10/28/2006 10:53:29 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

I already provided you with links that shows these arguments are not convincing. Not only that, your own charts shows that Hubbert was remarkably accurate and your switching to the discussion of energy from oil shows that you're grasping at straws. This isn't a political argument because the arguments fall on both sides of the divide. It inflates the price of BigOil assets and provides arguments (not matter how patently stupid) to provide them with $8 billion of corporate welfare. When gas prices rise because production isn't (for whatever reason real or nefarious) keeping up with demand then even Walmart suffers. It isn't a 'liberal' argument to say that peak oil is a real thing. It's just a rational view of looking at the available data and the history of oil production in the US and the world.

To: mistermj who wrote (207213)	10/29/2006 7:06:14 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

Or just look at your history...there is at least 100 years of the same predictions from so called experts about running out of oil. But this time...you think you have it right? I don't think so. At it's most fundamental level, Hubbert's peak production is based on oil production following a Gaussian distribution. If you took an undergraduate course in statistics that should be an obvious truth. You would also know that the Gaussian distribution/central limit theorem takes into account all the unpredictable dynamics. The problem is knowing which Gaussian distribution the curve will follow. A simple illustration. If I give you two points in the Cartesian plane and ask you to draw the circle that conforms to the mathematical properties of a circle you should respond that there are many circles, sic, you don't have enough data. If I give you three points [not in a line], it's a done deal. There is only one circle that can be drawn through three points. Making the challenge analogous to the oil production: I'll give you three points in the Cartesian plane but also tell you that they may or may not be on the circle. They're close, I'm not sure how close, but give me the circle. The only choice you have is to show the circle that goes through the three points. That's the best you can do. It's wrong, but that the best you can do. That's the problem that Hubbert had in 1948. He guessed at what the Gaussian distribution would be based on the available historical data. Predicting the proper Gaussian distribution is problematic. But the more points I give you the closer you'll be able to get. There are more data points today then there were in 1948 and the possible classes of Gaussian distributions are declining. Or to put it differently, do you think that today's experts are as stupid as they were 100 years ago? Every generation of experts knows more than the previous generation of experts. While there are numbers available for "reserves" or even "proven reserves" no one knows what they really are. OPEC in particular which is believed to have the largest concentration of oil reserves has been fudging what they publish as reserves. No one really knows how much total oil has been undiscovered. In spite of the improved technology of finding oil, large oil discoveries have declined. The majority of "new oil" to meet increased demand has come from improved extraction techniques, or a higher oil price making extraction economical, sic, Canadian oil sands. Recent years of oil production has been flat. The $64K question is why? We won't know for some time whether it's the peak or some temporary anomoly. If it is a peak, we won't know for some time how important the price of oil will be in that Gaussian distribution that follows. And if it's shown to be a peak, which Gaussian distribution we'll be pretty much settled. We're not going to ever run out of oil. The question is when we're going to run out of cheap oil and how quickly we'll be able to transition to a more efficient use of it [or substitutions]. jttmab