[TheAntiDoomer]

Please Explain your choice. I'm curious.

[GHung]

Fox News wasn't a choice. Outright lies always do more damage than honest mis-calculations. In short, none of the above.

[Subjectivist]

I was a big fan of Matt Savinar until he went off the wall and became an Astrology salesman.

[Rune]

I thought you did a pretty damn good job yourself, AntiDoomer.

JohnDenver...yes.

I voted for Matt Simmons, because he was more mainstream than Matt Savinar and more widely read.

Simmons really went off the deep-end towards the end of his life. Remember all those lunatic ravings about The Gulf?

Ruppert was nothing more than an ranting bi-polar, recovering alcoholic opportunist although I had been a subscriber to his FromThewilderness for a while. He did have an interesting turn of phrase back in the day.

I also read stuff by William Engdahl, a peak oil doomer turn-coat, who I also lost respect for, even though I found his oil geopolitics stuff interesting at first.

I often wonder what has ever become of Bob Watson who founded die-off.org. That site really was the genesis of the modern peak oil doom movement. His voice became silent a long, long time ago. I regard die-off.org as an internet phenomenon, rather than a peak oil phenomenon now.

We are looking at a dying meme in peak oil doom when we review the period from the late 90s to about 2010. I sense in a vague way that this meme has played a role in historical events such as Dick Cheney's still-classified Energy Task Force and the subsequent War in Iraq.

The peak oil meme played a role in Wall Street's assetization of oil, which helped push the price higher, of course, in conjunction with supply/demand considerations. If money were to flow out of oil hedge funds, managed futures funds, ETFs, and such, it would have a dramatic effect on price movements to the downside - maybe $20 - $30 worth of per barrel value.

[Plantagenet]

I'd nominate someone who isn't on your list.

When President Obama repeatedly gave speeches and went on TV saying that the USA has a "100 year supply of natural gas" and the USA will soon be "energy independent" during his 2012 re-election campaign, it completely undercut the idea that the US is actually facing serious issues in fossil fuels.

These speeches got far more media coverage then all of the other folks on your list combined

[John_A]

I picked Ruppert primarily because you could see that nut coming a mile away, but contemporaneous to his dubiously acquired popularity the gullible went for his authority figure guise hook, line and sinker.

At the more macro level, I think the group (rather than individual) that tarnished the credibility of peak oil the worst were those educated in other fields, who then went out and in near random fashion assigned non-linear fits to time series data without knowing a damn thing about that data, about the oil and gas business, about resource extraction in general, the economics or history of past resource scares, just...fit...some...data...proclaim...victory....

Sure, it is easy to do this. Sure, those who did it thought it looked good. Sure, it works well in other fields of science. Sure...any hard to change system can produce a trend for awhile....

Until it doesn't.

And so you got the peak not happening when claimed (Campbell, 1989 ) and becoming a peak later....except then that peak didn't decline and became a plateau, the plateau becoming yet another increase, and then TOD where so many of these "experts" congregated fleeing the field of battle from sheer embarrassment.

When the head of ASPO even admits that the words "peak oil" have been corrupted by its advocates and is desperately looking for a PR name changing stunt to escape the stain of association, you KNOW you have a problem.

[Rune]

I'd nominate someone who isn't on your list.

When President Obama repeatedly gave speeches and went on TV saying that the USA has a "100 year supply of natural gas" and the USA will soon be "energy independent" during his 2012 re-election campaign, it completely undercut the idea that the US is actually facing serious issues in fossil fuels.

These speeches got far more media coverage then all of the other folks on your list combined

Yes. The peak oil doom meme seemed to rise dramatically with the Bush Administration and all that hype leading up to the War in Iraq. Then, it declined with the Obama Administration once our presence was established and once fracking put the lie to imminent peak and steep decline.

Probably, there was no direct causality link. Memes are, after all, broad societal idea trends. I recall Colin Campbell remarking that the War in Iraq really had sparked a lot of interest in the idea of peak oil.

[Rune]

D'oops

[ROCKMAN]

I’m not trying to offer cover for president Obama but….. From reason.com in 2004:

President Bush and his Democratic opponent John Kerry are both for "energy independence"—like every other president for a generation. That elusive, but ultimately pointless, quest has been a central feature in American politics and policy for the past 30 years, ever since the October 1973 embargo on oil exports to the United States launched by Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Libya.

By January 1974, oil prices had risen from $3 to $11 per barrel. In response to the embargo, President Richard Nixon did lots of counterproductive things, including imposing oil price controls and lowering highway speed limits. Nixon also launched Project Independence, declaring, "Let this be our national goal: At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving."

President Gerald Ford moved the date for achieving American energy independence back to 1985. Ford signed the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which set federal standards for energy efficiency in new cars for the first time.

President Jimmy Carter made energy policy the centerpiece of his administration. He notoriously declared on April 18, 1977, that achieving energy independence was the "moral equivalent of war." In August of that year, Carter signed the law creating the United States Department of Energy, intended to manage America's energy crisis. “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977—never," Carter declared in his nationally televised speech on July 15, 1979. He proposed a sweeping $142 billion energy plan which would achieve energy independence by 1990.

In 1991, in the prelude to the First Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush announced a hodgepodge of proposals as a national energy strategy. Naturally one of his strategy's guiding principles was "reducing our dependence on foreign oil." President Bush, meeting with representatives of the "Big Three" automakers, announced a jointly funded U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium—a $260 million research project to develop lightweight battery system for electric vehicles.

In 1992, President Bill Clinton proposed a BTU tax on fossil fuels to raise money to reduce the deficit. Clinton's tax proposal would have put a levy on natural gas, coal, and nuclear power of 25.7 cents per million British thermal units. Crude oil would have been taxed at 59.9 cents per million BTU to discourage dependence on foreign oil. The crude oil BTU tax would have raised the price of a barrel of oil by about $3.50, and would have cost the average family between $200 to $400 annually. In 1993, Clinton launched the $1 billion Partnership for New Generation Vehicles with the Big Three automakers, aiming to produce a prototype car that was three times more fuel efficient than conventional vehicles by 2004.

California experienced a series of rolling blackouts in the first months of George W. Bush's administration. A task force described America's energy situation in stark terms: "America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s. . . . A fundamental imbalance between supply and demand defines our nation's energy crisis." What people need to hear loud and clear is that we're running out of energy in America," said Bush in May 2001. "We can do a better job in conservation, but we darn sure have to do a better job of finding more supply." He added, "We can't conserve our way to energy independence." Nevertheless, George W. Bush repeated recent presidential history by insisting, in his 2003 State of the Union address, that one of his administration's goals was "to promote energy independence for our country." In that speech, Bush announced his $1.2 billion Freedom Car proposal to develop hydrogen fueled vehicles.

John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, says he too has a plan for energy independence. "It's time to make energy independence a national priority—and to put in place a plan that frees our nation from the grip of Mideast oil in the next ten years," he intones in a campaign ad. Among other things, Kerry would retool Gerry Ford's automotive fuel economy standards by raising them to as high as 36 miles per gallon. He would also require that 20 percent of electricity generation come from renewable energy sources by 2020—reminiscent of Carter's bold 1980 plan to supply 20 percent of America's energy by 2000 using solar energy. Kerry's plan would also doubtless utterly fail to meet its goal, as with Carter's plan and all the other bits of energy planning political hubris mentioned in this article.

So, is there any real difference between Bush and Kerry on energy policy? Not really. "Both believe that at the end of the policy rainbow is energy independence, and they are willing to move heaven and earth to get there. Both are convinced we need government intervention in energy markets," said Jerry Taylor, the Cato Institute's director of natural resource studies, in the Washington Post. "The difference is emphasis, not policy."

And which president didn’t go around tossing out hope of energy independence? Bush and Kerry should take a lesson from the one president who refused to meddle extensively in energy markets—Ronald Reagan. In January 1981, on the day he became president, Reagan ended the remaining federal regulations on domestic oil supplies and prices, allowing oil prices for the first time since 1971 to fall and rise with world market levels. In December 1985, Reagan signed legislation dismantling the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp.

[Plantagenet]

Plant, Obama never said/implied the United States would be energy independent.

Of course he did. Lets be honest here, Peter. It was one of the planks of his re-election campaign in 2012. For that matter, he's still saying it today

For instance, check out Obama's personal website at BarackObama.com (see below). The header on Obama's own website says: "President Obama's approach to ENERGY INDEPENDENCE"

The website is still up today----i.e. Obama is still claiming the US is on the path to ENERGY INDEPENDENCE right now. Obama is making this very claim on his own personal website right now.

Obama claims that the US is on the path to "energy independence" on his personal website. This claim clearly undercuts the peak oil message

Clearly you are wrong on this one, Peter.

----------
PS: I note you aren't disputing that Obama also claimed the US had "100 years of natual gas supply". Clearly that famous statement also undercuts the peak oil message.

[SeaGypsy]

The head of ASPO is looking for a job. He even tried spruiking here- despite the fact that a plateau is still a peak. In the long run it will look like one of those mountains with it's head cut off to get at the coal under the top. Unlike the price- which sooner or later will rise inexorably.

[dolanbaker]

It's difficult to point the finger at any particular individual, but there were plenty of people who made the incorrect assessment that total collapse would immediately follow the point of peak production.


Charts like this assumed that oil was the only show in town.


Many of these predictions assumed that nothing would replace the oil, in fact what actually happened was that coal & gas took up the slack, an economic "stall" killed the upwards trend in consumption and people accepted the fact that oil produced (expensive oil replacing "cheap" oil) now costs four times the price it averaged at the start of the 2000s. Plus, of course, improved efficiency, meaning each barrel does more work along with less wasteful use as well.

The fact that we do have such high prices should be the warning flag that there is still a problem.

[John_A]

The head of ASPO is looking for a job.

Well...doesn't that say just BOATLOADS.....

He even tried spruiking here- despite the fact that a plateau is still a peak.

Ah yes...do away with peak association as we march off into a future of higher plateaus! I like it! The stain removed by simple semantic gymnastics! I can just see it now.

"No, we are the plateau oil folks. Not related at all to those crazy peak oil folks, what nutjobs they were, but us, we are sane and normal people and putting time and effort into the proper study of this plateau thing, unlike those other folks!"

Might work. Maybe Jan Mueller can use it to spin the next increasing plateau to a different clientele? One with deeper pockets I guess.

Whatever in the hell were they thinking when they decided to go lobbyist with the idea, I'll never know.

[dorlomin]

Doomers?

Who did the most damage to the cornucopiancs credibility?

Its seems to me like the fringe crazies who were predicting Mad Max were every bit as wrong as the fringe crazies like Oil Finder, The AntiDoomer and Yergin.

Doom is such an interesting word though. People here it and think only of a disaster, while those of us with a bit of a broader knowledge of English know the word mean Law or Fate: hence the Domesday Book of William the Bastard and the Doom Book of Aelfred. Another King of that era, Cnut the Great had some thoughts on men's ability to control the tides of time.

[Rune]

A Post-Oil Man



Don't forget THIS guy; he did a lot of damage early-on.

[John_A]

Doomers?

Who did the most damage to the cornucopiancs credibility?

Easy! Even Wiki knows this one!

Lewis Strauss, then Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, who in a 1954 speech to the National Association of Science Writers said:

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter..."

What a rube!!!

Its seems to me like the fringe crazies who were predicting Mad Max were every bit as wrong as the fringe crazies like Oil Finder, The AntiDoomer and Yergin.

Oilfinder wasn't any more crazy than pops. Or you. He just irritated folks because he could demonstrate that the claims of "can't find enough!!" were hokum.

And Yergin believed in peak and plateau just like everyone else...just didn't think it was near term...and might end up being much more right than those who claimed it in what is now the past. So might the EIA!!

Talk about a reversal of fortune, the much maligned EIA, using USGS information, is closer to being right than the "experts" passed around peak oil websites...until....they disappear...being too embarrassed to show themselves anymore.

[John_A]

A Post-Oil Man



Don't forget THIS guy; he did a lot of damage early-on.

OMG that is hysterical! Were they REALLY that cracked back then?

"This ain't like that Y2K stuff...." CLASSIC!

[Lore]

I can read plant. "reduce our dependence on foreign oil" means "reduce" not "obviate" our needs for imports. You don't seriously believe we will ever achieve 20mb/day when our economy recovers?

Probably not, but you can be sure that one way or the other, Plant will proclaim that it's Obama's fault.