JD's Peak Oil Debunked blog says, Oil is finite, will peak

Ayoob · Expert Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 1110

This has got to be the strangest own-goal I've run across in years. Why bother with the blog if the first thing out of your mouth is, Yeah, oil production is going to peak. But these people are all assholes!
link

Why does this guy bother?

ROCKMAN

Thanks for the link. I read it out of morbid curiosity. You’re right….he’s as much of a PO believer as many. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. I dug thru it a little and couldn’t find his timing on PO. As far as I can tell all he has debunked is that we’re going to all die from PO next month. Perhaps he’s just gotten off his meds for a bit.

JohnDenver · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 29, 2004 Posts: 1878

Ayoob, nobody, and I mean nobody (including Yergin, Lynch, CERA and every uber-cornucopian out there), disputes that oil is finite and will peak. That is and always has been a settled scientific fact which no one disagrees with.

But of course there is much more to "peak oil" than that. In fact, "peak oil" is a huge mountain of doomsday religion, survivalism, luddism, anti-capitalism, conspiracy theory, radical environmentalism, nationalism, anti-immigration, authoritarian depopulation programs, goldbugs, oil speculators, subsidy suckers, crap-talking market bears and every other agenda under the sun, all trying to advance themselves under the cover of that tiny pinpoint of scientific fact.

You're just pushing the classic peak oiler fallacy: pretend that because oil is finite and must peak, that all the cultish baggage attached to peak oil is somehow scientific and irrefutable.

Peak oil is a serious issue, and there are many honest people who are concerned about it. I'm one of them. It is critical, however, to think clearly and separate the facts from all the hype, bullshit and sales pitches. That's what my website strives to do. Say the politically incorrect things you're not supposed to say as a good "peak oiler". Expose the underbelly of the peak oil cult, so to speak.

For people just coming to peak oil and worried about the defeatist doomer swill they encounter here and at LATOC, I generally recommend this friendly intro by my fellow debunker Dr. Doom:
CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-DOOMER

I also recommend THE SOLUTION: ELECTRIFICATION + CONSERVATION as a concise overview of how the peak oil problem will be solved.
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Think outside the petri dish.

s0ul5 · Tar Sands Joined: May 07, 2008 Posts: 36 Location: Finland

JohnDenver,

To clarify this, are you saying that the world can support the current population (which is growing) and standard of living (e.g. no increase in hunger) through the transition period?
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The best about PO is that it constantly unbores me.

Cashmere · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 1971

TheDude

Carlhole · Knight of the Realm Joined: Jul 05, 2004 Posts: 3217

JD has posted innumerable times about the inevitability of a world oil production peak. He's done so for as long as I can remember and I've been tuning into this site since nearly the get-go in 03/04. It is only the ignorant abiotic oil group that insists that crude is a renewable resource.

But if you read Doomer posts here on PO.com, you can't help but notice that it has an adolescent kind of unsophistication about it. And their ideas tend to reinforce one another's doom fantasies.

It's not exactly a cult, but it's similar to a cult in that these folks insist that only they can peer into the future with any accuracy, only they can grasp the simple ideas associated with Hubbert's Peak, that everyone else in the world is in denial when confronted with the very-simple-to-understand ideas involved. The Doomer group shows a remarkable contempt for technology or continued innovation and adaptation. One of their themes is that everything of scientific importance has already been discovered and so continued scientific advancement is hopeless.

You can readily see this contempt for Science and Technology in Doomer responses to Graeme's posts on Future Technology News.

According to Doomers, any rational person who has watched, for example, the film A Crude Awakening should immediately begin preparing for the apocalypse - (in DoomerSpeak "TSHTF"). To arrive at any other conclusions is to be a victim of "cognitive dissonance" or to be in one of the stages of grief. It's farking ridiculous.

How long ago was it that Matt Savinar posted the thread, We probably have less than 12-to-18 months before TSHTF?

And just like one of those cliched END TIMES prophets shouting imminent doom on city streets, Matt will just come out with another date to mark the onset of collapse once his prediction fails to materialize. Good luck with that, Matt.

By now, the Peak Oil idea has been elucidated in a great many books, articles, films, blogs and forums, global conventions, seminars, meetings and televisions programs. Lots of people the world over know about it. As the price of crude has risen to new heights over the past few years, the idea has gained more prominence than ever. Yet, the Doom Fantasy remains as unconvincing and marginal a minority position as ever. It must be frustrating to be a hard core Doomer and see your ranks fail to swell so obviously.

You could probably write a book about Peak Oil being a real phenomenon that does not necessarily spell doom - and, in fact, peak oil notables have done so. Take Matt Simmons, for example: This is a knowledgeable man who has done his homework, who is in the oil business, who warns about the dire ramifications of peak oil - yet who consistently declares that we can beat this thing if we get our act together now.

Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes is also in this category - someone who warns about peak oil in an attempt to get societies working immediately on solutions which he considers achievable. These people are not Doomers. Place me in the same category as they.

The Doomers cannot tolerate any intelligent dissent of their cherished Olduvai Gorge scenario. So they like to pick on JohnDenver or Lorenzo or anybody that disputes the fantasy with reason and depth. Just look at how they respond to criticism - usually short dismissive testimonials of personal belief that disparage their opponents but don't argue with any thorough persuasiveness.

If you want to be perceived as belonging to the Doomer clique, you have to utter the occasional testimonial now and then. It creates a great little Us vs. Them group psychology. And the best way to do that is to jump all over someone like JohnDenver, Lorenzo, or Graeme, throwing out tired epithets like "cornucopian" or "denialist" all the while.

For the Doomers, it's all a matter of belief and faith. However, don't expect to join their clique if you happen to have a little belif or faith in the ability of human beings to adapt or to innovate.
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"May you live in interesting times"

syrac818 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 01, 2005 Posts: 113

Very solid post, Carlhole.

I have been reading this site for almost four years now, and while there are some great minds on here, the overall theme can get pretty tiresome. I started checking out JD's site about a year ago, simply as something of a counterbalance. Amazing the kind of discussions that can take place once we move beyond the topic of "We are ALL sooo F*CkeD! 6-8 weeKs before TSHTF, I feAr for teh ChildrEns Sad

"

threadbear · Expert Joined: Jan 22, 2005 Posts: 7738

The recent slide in the price of oil, makes monkeys out of many who see a one to one correlation between price of a barrel of oil and simple demand and supply dynamics.

That being said, I think anyone who takes Yergin's point of view, as I interpret it, radiating from the book, The Commanding Heights is also in thrall to a kind of cultish thinking.

I would really like to have it explained to me, Denver, how capitalism in it's present form, privatization that has segued into piratization, holds out much hope. How can you have a commercial model based on expansion when we are overriding carrying capacity? As nutty as some on this forum may seem, their central understanding of constraints is appreciated.

Carlhole · Knight of the Realm Joined: Jul 05, 2004 Posts: 3217

s0ul5 · Tar Sands Joined: May 07, 2008 Posts: 36 Location: Finland

Ayoob · Expert Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 1110

JD,

Just for the record, I agree that 99% of what's posted here is pure swill. The hippie contingency is beyond delusional with that kumbaya crap, and of course there will be a group of people who will have windmills and solar panels and crap. I don't think that's really up for debate.

But you and I spoke about this late one night on peakspeak. It doesn't matter much whether 10% of the US keeps the lights on, because for 90% of the US the lights go off. It's pretty much dark.

My buddy whose house is in Phoenix, he thinks his home value will stay up because he can afford the mortgage. And he can, he's very successful and could buy another two houses like the one he's got if he wanted to. But the value of his house will plummet because so many OTHER people won't be able to afford their comparable homes that his value will fall regardless.

Does that make sense?

It's not his fault at all.

Just like today, there are very wealthy people who have large houses, private school education for their children, dedicated and honest police in their neighborhoods, clean water to drink and bathe in, nutritious food, etc... of course that group of people (or some other group of people) will continue to have those things. But the majority will lose out, and it's their very human reaction to losing what they already have that makes me a doomer.

I'm not a doomer because oil prices are going to continue to rise until they price the bottom end consumer out of the market. I'm a doomer because those at the bottom are going to react to that situation in a manner that's not entirely constructive.

Also, it doesn't have to be ALL of them that react that way, it only needs to be a few percent of the losers to completely overwhelm any kind of police response that the US could muster.

That's when the vegetable gardens get ransacked, houses get broken into, bars go up on the windows, catalytic converters get stolen off cars, and robbery goes up significantly.

Thus, the doomer position.

As far as a timeline, we're on it. Point A is behind us, point B is ahead of us. Who can say how far apart they are? We are, however, being drawn inevitably to B. I'll go ahead and make the leap that we will have left A completely behind and enter a new world of B within my lifetime. It could be a few years, it could be ten years, it could be twenty. I'm still going to be alive in twenty, so I just assume it's soon.

The sooner I begin to change my life to suit future conditions, the better I will have adapted, and the less this is going to affect me. So, I make choices in life that would suit the future well but might not have produced great results ten years ago.

I try to have a future time orientation, in other words.

JoeW

vilemerchant · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 07, 2008 Posts: 122

Here's peak oil REALLY being debunked (in 4 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHZRSlhJxY

Dezakin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 1373