[deMolay]

http://www.financialsense.com/editorial ... /0731.html

[shortonsense]

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/powers/2009/0731.html

I guess I don't understand the "proof positive" part? Can't the guy just present a graph of oil production? Here it is going up..there it is leveling off...there it is declining!

I suppose that would be too easy, or generate too many questions related to all the other peaks, or questioning from the uneducated masses who have but to look around to say, " gee, a year post peak and things sure look the same as they did last year...except gasoline is cheaper" and then the lightbulb clicks on..."hey! wait! If this peak oil stuff means cheaper crude prices then BRING ON SOME MORE!!".

[vision-master]

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/powers/2009/0731.html

I guess I don't understand the "proof positive" part? Can't the guy just present a graph of oil production? Here it is going up..there it is leveling off...there it is declining!

I suppose that would be too easy, or generate too many questions related to all the other peaks, or questioning from the uneducated masses who have but to look around to say, " gee, a year post peak and things sure look the same as they did last year...except gasoline is cheaper" and then the lightbulb clicks on..."hey! wait! If this peak oil stuff means cheaper crude prices then BRING ON SOME MORE!!".

Why do you hang here, just to argue?

Show me your proof?

[Ayame]

Oh my god.

To be alive at this time.

One would need the courage of Dienekes.

This isn't going to end well.

At least the Spartans had training and each other and knew what they were fighting for: their liberty and homeland. We will be fighting others just not to starve.

This is not good news.

[Pops]

As far as I'm concerned, anything that comes out of the mouth of an "investment advisor" is not news, it is a sales pitch.

[Roy]

As far as I'm concerned, anything that comes out of the mouth of an "investment advisor" is not news, it is a sales pitch.

+1

[vision-master]

Who does one believe?

[shortonsense]

Show me your proof?

Of what?

How about proof of the earth shattering effects on the american consumer of crude in their wasteful personal transport?

Heinberg declared peak oil day as July 11, 2008.

So what has happened since then?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleu ... _page.html

The EIA says that gasoline prices are $1.45 cheaper this year.

Now, call me crazy, but the speculation back in 2005 when that peak was coming into view didn't tend to revolve around happy motoring as a result of peak oil...that one, or the one in 2008. So the strident tone with which people are trying to convince the world that something of significance may have happened is not a surprise.

The reason why this matters, and is a personal irritant so that my comments appears to be more argumentative than usual at times, is that concerns of resource depletion, which most certainly have not abated just because of a price drop, are set aside because of all the crying wolf routine that gets the serious folks lumped in with the crackpots.

Prof Rutledge of Caltech wrote an article trying to apply peak oil curve fitting routines to coal. And the journalists right there in the article were pasting him because they recognized early that this was just another trend fitting exercise leading to some assumption of Doom, which, based on anyone casting around for predictive forecasts already gone bad, presto, they find peak oil.

[Auntie_Cipation]

Heinberg declared peak oil day as July 11, 2008.

So what has happened since then?

Assuming Heinberg was right (and I'm neither claiming nor denying that), why would you expect to see certain changes so soon?

And why would you not think that the broader things going on (economic recession, for the most obvious example) are part of "what has happened since then?"

If you really believe that the world is so simple, so uncomplicated and obvious, and that peak oil is the only important thing happening that affects our perceptions of our culture, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Maybe decades (or maybe it will take longer than that) after peak, we'll be able to look back and see how this or that current events were really part of the whole oil-peaking picture.

But to expect only first-order consequences, and to expect them to appear so soon and so blatantly, is very naive, IMO.

Personally I believe we ARE seeing the effects (not the only effects, just the phase we're in at the moment) of peak oil, regardless of whether it peaked in 08 or will spike again next year (or whenever) for the ultimate peak. The date doesn't matter, the balls are already rolling down the chutes on this Rube Goldberg device we call industrial civilization. There have been, and will continue to be, dozens and dozens of categories of consequences, some of which are inevitable and some whose form will be determined by what ELSE is going on in the world at the same time.

[AgentR]

The EIA says that gasoline prices are $1.45 cheaper this year.

Why are people still so desperate to believe that a peaking of oil production guarantees any particular outcome with regard to pricing.

Pricing is equally effected by supply, desired demand, and the amount of demand that people can or choose to pay for. If current production is a 100, desired demand is 110, but the amount of demand that people are willing to pay for is only 80; the price will drop like a rock.

Everyone just assumes that demand is some inexorable divine power that will continue, constantly rising regardless of what the state of the economy is. Demand can fall as easily as it can rise, disastrous economic events can destroy so much demand that oil producers would be lucky to give the stuff away; even if they are only producing 80% of what they once were able to do.

[POAlex]

What's strange is that he showed a graph from 2004 instead of actual data from 2004-2009.

[shortonsense]

As far as I'm concerned, anything that comes out of the mouth of an "investment advisor" is not news, it is a sales pitch.

+1

+1

[JJ]

Auntie, I believe that. It probably will be a true "long emergency"; we probably won't be able to see it until much later (if at all). If we get reduced to a nuclear waste dump, noone is going to care how the jackas$ got in a ditch.

[shortonsense]

The EIA says that gasoline prices are $1.45 cheaper this year.

Why are people still so desperate to believe that a peaking of oil production guarantees any particular outcome with regard to pricing.

Why are people still so desperate to believe that a peaking of oil production guarantees ANY particular outcome at all?

Resource wars, zombie hordes, creation of the Amero, civil unrest, the dissolution of NASCAR and air travel, overshoot and dieoff, you name it.

And to answer your question specifically, Matt Savinar when he answered question #12 in his "book" about the aftermath of peak oil including decline rates, he said the following,

"However, the decline is more likely to be over 5 percent per year as the rising price of oil will
motivate oil companies to frantically drill for whatever of the black stuff is left, thereby pushing production
past the plateau and off the cliff."

Heres another from his intro page.

"Oil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope."

So yes, people did used to think that peak effects would show up in the price of crude and gasoline. To claim otherwise shows a tendency towards revisionism.

Everyone just assumes that demand is some inexorable divine power that will continue, constantly rising regardless of what the state of the economy is.

Not everyone. Economists certainly don't assume that demand is an inexorable and unidirectional force. But economists and their theories have always been in poor standing in the Peaker community. What you are describing is much more the standard Doomer position pre-2005, as demonstrated by a peak oil expert and his writings.

Demand can fall as easily as it can rise, disastrous economic events can destroy so much demand that oil producers would be lucky to give the stuff away; even if they are only producing 80% of what they once were able to do.

The ramifications of falling demand have been obvious as long as there have been economists to comment on it. JD commented on it as early as Aug 18, 2005 at his blog so no one can claim the effects of these economic principles hasn't been out there for even lay people to notice.

[shortonsense]

Heinberg declared peak oil day as July 11, 2008.

So what has happened since then?

Assuming Heinberg was right (and I'm neither claiming nor denying that), why would you expect to see certain changes so soon?

Because that was the hook, the claim, the neat-o factor used as a draw to the idea. Certainly peak oil among its early proponents wasn't about the long and inevitable transition into nukes and renewables, the electrification of transport, hybrids and fuel cell cars or Exxons algae investment, that wasn't near exciting enough. It was about stopping long range transport of food, people not being able to afford to drive to work, farmers not being able to afford to run their tractors, and all the cool stuff.

And why would you not think that the broader things going on (economic recession, for the most obvious example) are part of "what has happened since then?"

Recessions and commodity price spikes may very well be related. The historical record on this possible relationship didn't require peak oil then any more than it requires it now.

If you really believe that the world is so simple, so uncomplicated and obvious, and that peak oil is the only important thing happening that affects our perceptions of our culture, then I have a bridge to sell you.

This is a peak oil website. We are in the "Peak Oil Forums", and "Peak Oil Discussion", in a thread titled "Proof Positive Oil has Peaked".

I am not here to venture my opinion on the simplicity, or the complexity of the world, to entertain delusions over faked moon landings, 9/11 nonsense, monster conspiracies involving the Illumaniti, eco-fascism or hysterical proclaimations about the Great Depression II in this particular place as having anything remotely to do with Peak Oil and its proof.

If I did want to bath in such topics, I'm sure I could find an appropriate place around here where someone would be more than happy to weave all the workings of the world into a peak oil tapestry spanning a majority of the last 2 centuries with as much disregard for factual information as possible.

But to expect only first-order consequences, and to expect them to appear so soon and so blatantly, is very naive, IMO.

I agree with you. I'm betting that all the "experts" who were saying just such things wish they had thought about it a little harder.

Personally I believe we ARE seeing the effects (not the only effects, just the phase we're in at the moment) of peak oil, regardless of whether it peaked in 08 or will spike again next year (or whenever) for the ultimate peak. The date doesn't matter, the balls are already rolling down the chutes on this Rube Goldberg device we call industrial civilization. There have been, and will continue to be, dozens and dozens of categories of consequences, some of which are inevitable and some whose form will be determined by what ELSE is going on in the world at the same time.

I would venture the statement that the predictable effects of a drop in oil supply for whatever reason range from what we have ( nobody even notices ) to severe ( gas shortages and rationing like the 70's ), and that predicting the future is a difficult proposition at best. Which is why it amazes me when some undertake such an exercise with such little thought. I include organizations such as the EIA and IEA in that statement as well.

[AgentR]

So yes, people did used to think that peak effects would show up in the price of crude and gasoline. To claim otherwise shows a tendency towards revisionism.

No intent toward revisionism here, read what I wrote. Why are people still harping on price. We are right in the middle of a solid counterexample; production is static or slipping, but price has fallen, not risen. Its falling because the [b]demand[/d] side of the equation has collapsed.

You posit the question about why should people have any expectation on the effects of declining production. I've always tried to express it in terms of a cap; if useful economic demand is even modestly below what the current sustained production would like to be, the price collapses; however, as economic activity increases, useful demand rises. Problems only occur when that demand taps the production cap; but once the problems start, they ramp up very, very quickly because that economically viable demand that exists lucratively at $120 a bbl; is still marginally profitable at $200; but that same $200 price would absolute crush many uses (and thus jobs) that were only marginally profitable at $150. This introduces jitter, uncertainty... which is much, much worse than high prices.

The tighter the cap on current production, the more destructive each of the "tap" events becomes, and the more intense the jitter becomes.

Its this dynamic that *I* believe makes the effects extremely unpredictable.

I could see an environment where gasoline costs $1 a gallon, and I feel I couldn't afford it.
I could see an environment where gasoline costs $20 a gallon, and I wouldn't even give it a second thought as I fill up the tank.

The fact that I see both of those as reasonable outcomes; disturbs me greatly.

[shortonsense]

So yes, people did used to think that peak effects would show up in the price of crude and gasoline. To claim otherwise shows a tendency towards revisionism.

No intent toward revisionism here, read what I wrote. Why are people still harping on price. We are right in the middle of a solid counterexample; production is static or slipping, but price has fallen, not risen. Its falling because the [b]demand[/d] side of the equation has collapsed.

I agree with you that the demand/supply dynamics, ignored nearly in their entirety early in the debate, keeps coming around for several and obvious reasons, from my perspective its as an example of how poorly even small forecasts into the future go with what are claimed to be major events.

But the price has a value because its the main metric by which all people can tell, at a glance on nearly every street corner or interstate stop, the price of crude, and by extension, its availability.

The tighter the cap on current production, the more destructive each of the "tap" events becomes, and the more intense the jitter becomes.

Its this dynamic that *I* believe makes the effects extremely unpredictable.

Such is expected when predicting the future. The fault lies with thinking that a 2 parameter curve has a predictive ability, rather than your more accurate ( I believe ) view.

[kiwichick]

shortonsence;give it time darling ; as the song says

you ain't seen nothing yet baby
you ain't been around

[shortonsense]

shortonsence;give it time darling ; as the song says

you ain't seen nothing yet baby
you ain't been around

Malthus was pretty thoroughly discredited within 75 years of his death. Jevons was discredited by substitution and modern economics within 40 years of his. Ehrlich was discredited fast enough that he could watch in real time. The same with Duncan. ( I'll leave Kunstler, Ruppert, and Heinberg out of this, it isn't fair to count fear mongering shills pushing stale ideas to sell books ).

So sure, I think its a great recommendation to give it time...its worked like a charm debunking all this stuff before.

[Auntie_Cipation]

Malthus was pretty thoroughly discredited within 75 years of his death. Jevons was discredited by substitution and modern economics within 40 years of his. Ehrlich was discredited fast enough that he could watch in real time. The same with Duncan.

Would you mind giving me either links or sufficient keywords that I could pretty easily Google and find these discreditations please? I did not know any of them had been authentically discredited. I'm curious to look at the reasons behind what was wrong with each of their logic, to see whether it truly applies to the current prognosticators or not.

In other words, was Malthus or Erlich wrong due to some major logical fallacy that could easily repeat itself in the current iteration? Or were they wrong in some minor technical way but their overall conceptual ideas are sound?

If they were "wrong" in the sense that their timeline was a bit off, I'd react very differently to that than I will if you show me that they were wrong in essence and concept.