[TheDude]

No, that's not just my opinion. Actually I do read what they have to say, but anyway. Courtesy of Profit from the Peak author Chris Nelder: Reading Peak Oil Deniers Is a Waste of Time

Three bombs were dropped on the peak oil community this week, in what smells like a coordinated attack timed to incite public uncertainty about the validity of the peak oil argument, and question the importance of mitigating climate change and transitioning to renewables.

The peakers are mobilizing a response, an onerous task made necessary only because their critics' bombs received prominent placement in major publications with large readerships, not because their critiques had any serious validity.

I will leave it to the capable hands of authentic petroleum geology experts to debunk the latest critiques. It is in order, however, to give the public a brief look at who these critics are, and their abysmal track records, which I have tracked and debunked since 1996.

Well, next to Lynch and Yergin Learsy's no bomb; more like an airborn meadow muffin. Chris mentions the response over at TOD too, which I was proud to be invited to contribute a guest post for. Excellent article, some details I'd forgotten, like CERA calling in 2005 for 14 mb/d over what we have now online as of next year; oh Danny Boy! You're So Full of BS, the Peakists are Calling.

[yesplease]

Ah yes, a coordinated attack. Zee British are coming, zee British are coming!

Don't get me wrong, oil production has to reach a maximum sooner or later if it already hasn't, but I can't help but get a kick from the bizarre ranting of both "sides". Just when I think the paranoid crackpot behavior might be subsiding, I find something new and entertaining!

[katkinkate]

Reading Peak Oil Deniers Is a Waste of Time

Yep, just as much as reading creationists, fundamental religionists, climate change denialists and political extremists. They all share the common characteristic of the inability to see and understand reality.

[kjmclark]

Actually, I can't include Yergin in that category anymore. I have to read a bit of what he's writing or saying to decide whether it's worth going on. He's sometimes worth reading more for 1) the insights you can get from the argument he's chosen or 2) learning from the expert way he plays the media. Also, last I heard, CERA was moving toward the peak oil camp, like the IEA, but as usual, from the "lack of investment" perspective.

Otherwise, I think of many cornucopians the same way I think of climate change deniers - really not worth the time. There's another distinction here though, since some of them, like our own Oilfinder and John Denver, are often at least bringing up new technology or discoveries that are worth reading about.

[shortonsense]

Chris mentions the response over at TOD too, which I was proud to be invited to contribute a guest post for. Excellent article, some details I'd forgotten, like CERA calling in 2005 for 14 mb/d over what we have now online as of next year; oh Danny Boy! You're So Full of BS, the Peakists are Calling.

Chris's comments on anti-peakers is as bad as the misdirected and off topic junk that TOD pumped out. I haven't seen someone dispute Lynch yet, its all been chest beating contests over who has done a worse job predicting the future. Both are terrible, but that wasn't the point of Lynch's article.

[dunewalker]

The worst presentations of the issue of peak oil I've heard have been on NPR.

[Southpaw]

Text and expletives deleted.

[jeromie]

Getting to the bottom of " peak oil" has taken me a very long time. Virtually all of the editorial content I have read since the hysteria began around five years ago peak oiler, peak denier has been of a genre I call Macro Floaters because the pieces simply give a macro view with apparently little understanding that macro is worthless unless built up from a thorough understanding of the micro elements that sum up to the macro at the end of the day. Conventional crude oil production from known proved reserves has peaked. That is all. Conventional crude oil production is oil produced by primary and secondary recovery methods.


One of the worst disservices to the entire problem of peaking conventional crude oil is to concentrate on global numbers which are worthless except as hyperbole and a methodology of confusion. All oil is produced locally and as such is totally under political control. Obviously, states that produce crude oil by any means including conventional, tertiary recovery of formerly conventional crude pools and all other unconventional types will satisfy domestic needs first and will increasingly divert production from raw export to finished product exports. These are all local considerations . The global aggregates from the local with the added proviso of consideration of major power foreign policy. Another new factor requiring a detailed micro analysis is the emerging ability to convert gas directly to distillate or for use as a substitute. Unconventional gas sources are massive and no matter the discounting from distrust of numbers that gas is there and will be for a very long time.

The entire issue of how much of fossil energies are there on a state by state basis requires understanding emerged methodologies for production even if discounted.

The question of who gets the fossil energy available for export use requires an understanding of future financial constructs and of course geopolitical considerations. The geopolitical settlement will decide who gets the export use fossil energy.

Anyway, I have now spent considerable time on what North American prospects are to produce their own energy needs from any source available. No state is going to volunteer to die for lack of energy and that goes exponentially for any state or allied states that possess energy to get by on and will deny that energy to others to maintain national life.

I leave out ecological concerns as a complication solely to get to the facts of energy possession and the ability to produce that fossil energy.

It is possible to sort the energy problem out.

[aldente]

NPR (forgot which show) interviewed Jerkin Yerkin yesterday mostly about the "Prize." No discussion, just a small derisive aside on peak.

Why getting upset? The most simple denominator to look for when the "obvious" is being violated is the involvement in any form of either personal or vested interest.

[kjmclark]

The worst presentations of the issue of peak oil I've heard have been on NPR.

Makes sense. Liberals tend to be city people and don't know nothin' about country ways.

Huh??? Since when does peak oil have to do with country ways? Did I miss the joke?

Here's a better interpretation: NPR listeners are usually listening while sitting on their lazy butts driving to and from work. If your customers were addicted to something, would you talk much about that thing going away? Remember, motorists aren't addicted to oil, they're addicted to the cheap oil lifestyle. Oil isn't going away, but cheap oil sure is.

[hironegro]

The worst presentations of the issue of peak oil I've heard have been on NPR.

Makes sense. Liberals tend to be city people and don't know nothin' about country ways.

Maybe we should lynch people and drink moonshine to understand wise country wyas.

[shortonsense]

Oil isn't going away, but cheap oil sure is.

Cheap oil has been gone since 1973. Nearly two generations have grown up in the realm of "expensive" oil, and it sure hasn't seemed to cause <fill in your favorite UberDoomer fantasy>.

Basing a scenario on "non cheap oil" ignores the obvious.

[DantesPeak]

No, that's not just my opinion. Actually I do read what they have to say, but anyway. Courtesy of Profit from the Peak author Chris Nelder: Reading Peak Oil Deniers Is a Waste of Time

Regarding reading PO deniers is a waste of time - well, that's mostly true. It's almost laughable four years after peak (conventional) oil we are engaging in a debate with people who think that PO is to come in the future. Frankly to a great extent the PO deniers have made it easier for folks like me to profit from their misdirected forecasts by buying - or shorting - various stocks, industries, exchange traded funds, etc. (I don't trade commodity futures at all).

However in the long run, I find that for the average person it is very difficult to "profit from the peak". Generally while new growth industries, such as alternative energy, may produce a few investment breakthoughs, new technologies have also been associated with investment bubbles and widespread business failures. Moving away from stocks, even the US dollar - and I dare say almost all others - are subject to loss of purchasing power in the post peak world. Therefore cash under the matress is still subject to loss (albeit less dramatically than a stock market decline). That is because relative to everything else, oil and energy in general will become expensive - although most currenices being fiat based, will suffer long term declines anyway. It is unlikely that the interest rate earned will exceed the rate of inflation (excluding oil). Price rises caused by resource constraint are not monetary inflation, and can not be overcome by further easy monetary policies of the world central banks.

The low prices for natural gas in particular relate chiefly to the fact that North American NG is mostly an isolated market, and busines activity as measured by industrial production is down about 10%.

[BigTex]

Note the symmetry between the peak oil deniers and the people who are opposed to mark to market accounting.

They both think that breaking the thermometer will change the weather.

It's a strange thing to watch.

[Auntie_Cipation]

Oil isn't going away, but cheap oil sure is.

Cheap oil has been gone since 1973. Nearly two generations have grown up in the realm of "expensive" oil, and it sure hasn't seemed to cause <fill in your favorite UberDoomer fantasy>.

Basing a scenario on "non cheap oil" ignores the obvious.

Oil may have been even cheaper before the early 70s, but even since then we've still been deep into the realm of cheap oil. Anytime oil is cheap enough to allow people to continue their "happy motoring" lifestyle, as JHK would put it, that's still cheap oil. Maybe it's more than it was (even adjusted for inflation) but all the way through last year, until the credit crisis stepped in, people still earned enough money, generally speaking, to drive long commutes from homes in the suburbs, to recreate using cars and other gas-drinking devices, etc.

One gas is no longer cheap, you'll know -- people will stop driving as much as possible. Trucked-in products will skyrocket in price. People will swap for smaller cars, or motorcycles, scooters, etc. People in cities will return to bicycling, walking, and mass transit.

We're seeing a little of that due to the credit/economic crisis, but at the moment it's not driven much by oil prices.

Just wait.

[shortonsense]

The low prices for natural gas in particular relate chiefly to the fact that North American NG is mostly an isolated market, and busines activity as measured by industrial production is down about 10%.

And it certainly doesn't hurt that 36 years after the American peak in natural gas, we have gone and done it again.

[shortonsense]

Cheap oil has been gone since 1973. Nearly two generations have grown up in the realm of "expensive" oil, and it sure hasn't seemed to cause <fill in your favorite UberDoomer fantasy>.

Oil may have been even cheaper before the early 70s, but even since then we've still been deep into the realm of cheap oil.

Not really. The trend of real oil prices since 1973 is actually pretty clear, according to the 2005 Hirsch DOE report anyway. And I'm sure that anyone who was alive last summer and buying fuel for their automobile in America would disagree as well.

Lets not forget recent history, as late as 2005-2006 people like Savinar and Kunstler were screaming about how $40 oil was going to cause <fill in THEIR favorite UberDoomer fantasy>. So were posters at this website. And yet here we are, $70, and everyone seems pretty happy about it, heck, people aren't even using the word Depression anymore to describe the economy.

Anytime oil is cheap enough to allow people to continue their "happy motoring" lifestyle, as JHK would put it, that's still cheap oil.

Quite a different measure than the real and nominal prices usually used to figure such things. Besides, it is completely possible to have happy motoring without gasoline, all THAT requires is someone joy riding around suburbia in a safety cage with 3 or 4 wheels, its not dependent on what powers the wheels.

Maybe it's more than it was (even adjusted for inflation) but all the way through last year, until the credit crisis stepped in, people still earned enough money, generally speaking, to drive long commutes from homes in the suburbs, to recreate using cars and other gas-drinking devices, etc.

Of course. Do the basic calculations, its quite reasonable to place a higher value on 2000 extra square feet of housing than it is to, say, double ones fuel bill. Heck, swap out your F150 for a Prius and you won't even do that. I certainly changed my behavior at $4/gal last summer, turns out it didn't affect my bottom line much at all because I don't drive many miles. Whats a couple hundred bucks here and there over the course of the year when a TAX bill for my property is $2000 in the same timeframe. Pittance.

Run the price to $8/gal and it wouldn't bother me much, commute wise. Pay me less, and my taxes are still more of an issue than commuting costs. Not everyone lives 200 miles from work and drives a Hummer.

One gas is no longer cheap, you'll know -- people will stop driving as much as possible. Trucked-in products will skyrocket in price. People will swap for smaller cars, or motorcycles, scooters, etc. People in cities will return to bicycling, walking, and mass transit.

We're seeing a little of that due to the credit/economic crisis, but at the moment it's not driven much by oil prices.

Just wait.

Some of has have been, ever since peak oil happened in 2005, and gasoline prices are cheaper now than they were then as well. Maybe another 5 years, decade maybe, and with a Volt in my garage I'm not sure I'll notice anything about gasoline prices at that point either.

[DantesPeak]

The low prices for natural gas in particular relate chiefly to the fact that North American NG is mostly an isolated market, and busines activity as measured by industrial production is down about 10%.

And it certainly doesn't hurt that 36 years after the American peak in natural gas, we have gone and done it again.

Can you tell me how you arrived at that conclusion?


Marketed Monthly U.S. Natural Gas Production