Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 5:52 am Post subject: Economic Models
I have viewed the debate on oil peak over some time and the impression I get now is that there is a shift from 'whether' production will peak to 'when'. There seems also to be an increasing agreement that this will be sooner rather than later.
Richard Heinberg's book (amongst others) paints a pretty gloomy picture of the consequences. I have no reason to doubt this overall assessment.
However I would appreciate some guidance on whether there are any other analyses or models on the economic impact of oil peak - and the characteristics of businesses and country economies that would make them more or less susceptible to these changes.
Joined: Aug 10, 2004 Posts: 1104 Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:20 am Post subject: Re: Economic Models
MikeT wrote:
Richard Heinberg's book (amongst others) paints a pretty gloomy picture of the consequences. I have no reason to doubt this overall assessment.
However I would appreciate some guidance on whether there are any other analyses or models on the economic impact of oil peak - and the characteristics of businesses and country economies that would make them more or less susceptible to these changes.
A good starting point is the book "Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades"by John Gever et. al. This was written in 1986. Interestingly enough, at the time they wrote, Asia, including India, were in the dumps and the authors were not sure whether they would become a major energy consumer or not. Of course, we now know the answer. The authors also strongly argue that the US not take the "let's waste cheap energy" route and instead start focusing on the problem. Well, we know what happened there as well.
There is another book I've got called "Global Energy: Assessing the future" which does not model the economics but looks at the big picture of future energy sources.
I've been focusing on this particular and have a fairly large listing of resources I've found on the internet regarding this topic. My feeling is that, if it doesn't already exist, a modeling group should be formed ASAP to focus on this particular topic. Up to this point, economic models have considered energy to be just another resource that can be replaced or increased when pricing signals indicitate as such. Those days will soon be over.
Up to now, most of the economic/modeling work seems to have focused on the outputs, e.g. CO2 and global warming, how to minimize etc. These same models, or the work that has gone into them, will prove useful as we focus on the inputs as well, namely energy.
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