Back in the days of usenet there was a fellow named Jay Hansen who preached the gospel of Peak Oil. He regularly frequented sci.econ and sci.environment simply posting long ill worded and ill argued essays on the end of the world. It was fun to toy with him as he so enjoyed the attention. The current Peak Oilers are mere amateurs compared to good ol' Jay. What is surprising is that the current crop of doomsayers is so seemingly respectable. Campbell and all the others keep pounding the table about peak oil. Back in the 1990’s Jay trotted out Campbell and others that the peak was right around the corner in 2001 to 2004. Now it’s shifted to 2013 and beyond. The problem is that technology is working as usual from two directions at once – hybrids and electric vehicles from the consumption side and continually improving recovery technology, startling new discoveries in Brazil, development of the Bakken and a growing list of substitute liquids on the supply side. All of this seems to be shifting the peak further and further out. We have just seen the effect of high oil prices, a reduction in demand and perhaps a permanent change in behavior though we did see this same change in the 1980s and we dampened the rate of change but did not see permanently altered behavior largely because of the Jevon’s Paradox. But in that brief moment of $140+ a barrel oil every alternative fuel project exploded from dream to yeah its possible, universities around the world started or extended research, countless companies came into being almost overnight. $60 a barrel oil is killing some of the enthusiasm but your list shows that work is continuing. But all of this can be neatly refuted by the peak oilers as they are true believers and can keep shifting their Hubbert curves further and further out. Nice work if you can keep moving the pea around without anyone noticing.
These guys are easy to refute. Their linear thinking is the dead giveaway. They have convinced themselves that there are no substitutes for oil as if oil is the equivalent of oxygen. Oil can be made in a variety of ways. One of the most promising is Craig Vetner’s synthetic life project, see: http://fora.tv/2008/02/25/Craig_Venter_on_Fourt...
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Back in the days of usenet there was a fellow named Jay Hansen who preached the gospel of Peak Oil. He regularly frequented sci.econ and sci.environment simply posting long ill worded and ill argued essays on the end of the world. It was fun to toy with him as he so enjoyed the attention. The current Peak Oilers are mere amateurs compared to good ol' Jay. What is surprising is that the current crop of doomsayers is so seemingly respectable. Campbell and all the others keep pounding the table about peak oil. Back in the 1990’s Jay trotted out Campbell and others that the peak was right around the corner in 2001 to 2004. Now it’s shifted to 2013 and beyond. The problem is that technology is working as usual from two directions at once – hybrids and electric vehicles from the consumption side and continually improving recovery technology, startling new discoveries in Brazil, development of the Bakken and a growing list of substitute liquids on the supply side. All of this seems to be shifting the peak further and further out. We have just seen the effect of high oil prices, a reduction in demand and perhaps a permanent change in behavior though we did see this same change in the 1980s and we dampened the rate of change but did not see permanently altered behavior largely because of the Jevon’s Paradox. But in that brief moment of $140+ a barrel oil every alternative fuel project exploded from dream to yeah its possible, universities around the world started or extended research, countless companies came into being almost overnight. $60 a barrel oil is killing some of the enthusiasm but your list shows that work is continuing. But all of this can be neatly refuted by the peak oilers as they are true believers and can keep shifting their Hubbert curves further and further out. Nice work if you can keep moving the pea around without anyone noticing.
These guys are easy to refute. Their linear thinking is the dead giveaway. They have convinced themselves that there are no substitutes for oil as if oil is the equivalent of oxygen. Oil can be made in a variety of ways. One of the most promising is Craig Vetner’s synthetic life project, see: http://fora.tv/2008/02/25/Craig_Venter_on_Fourt...