10 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”

  1. To a large extent I believe in ‘peak oil’. At some point the cost of extraction will make alternatives more economic and the transition to alternatives will accelerate.
    I am confident enough that this transition is far enough in the future that my investment strategy of buying stock in companies that mine that nasty oil sands will pay off. Canada is basically a bank and oil stock economy anyway.

  2. Another blast from the past.
    Jimmy Carter, the father of the 1979 oil crisis, is urging Obama to reject Keystone XL. I guess he wants to return to the days when Iran controlled U.S energy needs.

  4. When Carter was President he bought into the meme that the US would run out of natural gas (basically the crap in this chart being pushed by the oil, coal, and nuclear lobbies). As a result the US energy policy he originated was fatally flawed and was only saved because the private sector moved forward with fracking without the government.

  5. Keep in mind that “proven reserves” is a moving target based on the technology of the day. Once the low hanging fruit is picked, new methods of extraction are developed then suddenly, the old level of proven reserves is invalid. This can be seen with gas fracking, the bakken field, and the oilsands.

  6. Quite true, CT. Except to a certain degree it already has. In 1960, about 20% of world electricity production was coming from burning bunker oil. That’s now been replaced almost completely by nuclear. Just about the last oil fired plants in Canada are Holyrood in Newfoundland and Coleson Cove and Dalhousie in New Brunswick.
    The reason the peak oil fanatics are wrong is because oil will never run out in absolute terms. Rather, the demand for what it does will become sufficiently high that supply is unable to keep up with all its existing uses. Thus the lowest value applications will be dropped off for other things, just as has already happened in the case of electricity from oil. Because of its multiple other important uses, the same thing will happen to natural gas at some point.
    We’ve gone through this kind of thing many times before in industrial history. For example, we’re not limited in the supply of combustible fluids by the availability of whales.

  8. Peak oil occurs when we use more oil than we we find to replace it.
    We’re past that point for easy-to-refine ‘light sweet crude’, but still many decades before we reach the peak for heavier oil that’s more expensive and difficult to refine. At some point it will become easier/cheaper to make gasoline and kerosene from relatively abundant natural gas.

  9. 40 years later US reserves remaining are 2500 T’s 3 times what is on the graph. Frack that a

  10. well said, and in far fewer words than most:-)))
    peak oil is that imaginary “point” that always seams to move, it is effected by both “supply” and demand. As London England and NYNY found out, peak horse shit just never arrived because some damn fool invented electricity and the ICE.

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