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 : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (1887)	8/21/2008 6:50:50 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

but it sure does imply that we are on an asymptotic curve that is flattening out, ie approaching zero.... It doesn't imply that we are on such a curve, but that's a minor quibble since we indeed are on such a curve, at least in a general sense (its not a smooth downward curve, but that's what happens eventually) OTOH while the curve will apparently approach zero (not in the extreme sense of going to to infinitesimal numbers, but in the sense that it would seem like zero in terms of trying to support the economy on it), that doesn't mean it will approach zero any time soon. If restrictions on drilling are lifted, American oil production should actually increase (at least if they are lifted fast enough), but increasing from here, still doesn't mean that we have not passed peak oil, because oil production is very unlikely to surpass the previous peak. And of course the new sources will start running down as well, and new sources beyond that tend to be harder to find, more expensive, and likely smaller, so after a few to several decades we get back on that negative curve. How sharp the drop will be is an unknown, there can be periods of plateaus or very slow decline, and it can take a very long time to really approach zero, but unless our understanding of oil is profoundly wrong (and I don't think it is), it will eventually happen.