Is Peak Oil a Fallacy?

[Fat Tails]

Quote from unretired:

This is my position as well.

Those who own the candlestick on one end are
seeking to conquer the candlestick of the other end of the "energy candlestick."
There are more profits and power by doing this. This is what happens with big money.

However the materials supporting the theory of "peak oil" have merit to the degree that given enough time and people the theories are a logistical fact.

My contention is that these big players of oil, power and money have never yet shown benevolent, selfless intention, nor materials that "don't make them look good" nor materials "that do not support their agenda."

While the facts dictate that the theory of peak oil is an eventual a reality,
I believe those facts are strategically twisted and that we are 150+ years away from what is being considered imminent now.
I believe it is also planned and that the plan is not based on serving the peoples of the planet but one of increasing money and power.

This is a 100% backtested fact regarding those in these power and oil positions.

Therefore I have to be objective that the fruit of all prior motive and action shows current motive and action and future motive and action. There is no evidence contrary regardless of how they want to appear to offer "an inconvenient truth."

The issue for me isn't that however ... but that they set the trend regardless. How do I see it and adjust wisely to the swings of these "Big Fish" behaviors and increase in accumulation, liquidity and speculative investments and trading?

Seeing conspiracy everywhere can make blind for the facts. Of course "Big Fish" is never altruistic, but seeks to make profits, as all corporations do. But beware: "Big Fish" has little impact on Peak Oil.

- "Big Fish" does not control the industry, more than 75% of oil production is controlled by national governments of oil exporting countries, not "Big Fish".

- Swap dealers hedging index funds also contributed to rising oil prices.

- Non-conventional oil has production costs up to 50-70 $ /bbl, so do not expect futures to trade below these levels for a sustained period.

- If someone wants to understand Peak Oil she needs to grind all the facts and details, and this is quite boring. Too easy to comment on something without having made one's homework. I actually have followed this subject for years and listening to either side.

Ignoring Peak Oil is dangerous for the US. Have a look at the trade balance. Recycled petrodollars finance Al-Quaida. Recycled dollars contributed to excess money available to feed the real estate bubble. Ignoring Peak Oil lead GM and Chrysler to false product development and bankruptcy. Acknowledging Peak Oil and transforming the industry is cheaper than financing unnecessary wars (talking about Iraq, not Afghanistan). The weapons of mass destruction of Saddam were not real but invented, Peak Oil is real.

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from unretired:

This is my position as well.

..and what types would that be? What is the hidden interest for a math or economic professor to tell you that using a limited resource will cause its inevitable end?

Since you are seemingly trying to be neutral in your approach (failed) I will teach you something:
the logical fallacy what you do is called false analogy. You are comparing global warming and peak oil when they are completely different issues. nevertheless according to you the same type of people are behind them...

Do yourself a favor and stop posting here because your luck of understanding 3rd grade knowledge is just too painful too watch.>>>>a group of 3rd graders can understand and acknowledge peak oil in less than 15 minutes

 

[JSSPMK]

If peak oil is true then why is oil trading below $100, shouldn't it be near $200 or maybe $300, check out commodity prices at times of limited supplies. Saying that crude prices are artificially supressed because of equity markets preservation is horseshit. And what about that graph concerning amount of drills ordered, isn't that a perfect play into peak oilers to pick up upon, after they report it what happens to oil prices, up or down? It's only about money, not end of the world as we know it.

 

[Misthos]

Quote from JSSPMK:

If peak oil is true then why is oil trading below $100, shouldn't it be near $200 or maybe $300, check out commodity prices at times of limited supplies. Saying that crude prices are artificially supressed because of equity markets preservation is horseshit. And what about that graph concerning amount of drills ordered, isn't that a perfect play into peak oilers to pick up upon, after they report it what happens to oil prices, up or down? It's only about money, not end of the world as we know it.

Wow... people still don't get it.

There are two issues here.

Peak Oil is one thing.... when (the timing) oil peaks is another issue.

We could be past peak, we could be approaching peak, or peak could be another 50 years away. No one knows until a significant amount of time passes after peak and then we realize that we can't reach a certain point of global oil production per year again.

In other words, say the world produces 90 million bbls a day at one point, and decades later, we still can't reach 90 million bbls a day... well, obviously, we hit a peak. No one knows when that will happen or how high the peak will be. It's something you notice in the rearview mirror, so to speak.

 

[Pekelo]

Let's sit in my timemachine and pretend that this conversation takes place in 1972, shall we?:

Quote from JSSPMK:

If peak oil is true then why is oil trading below $10?Shouldn't it be over $20 or $30?

My dear friend, this is only 1972. Just give it a little* time and it will.....

P.S.: Of course this little example didn't even address the issue of alternative resources and their effects on oilprices.

*little is meant as time in history not a few weeks

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from JSSPMK:

check out commodity prices at times of limited supplies.

No limited commodity's price goes infinite, period. Show me one.

What happens is that users simply can not afford to buy the thing anymore and that puts a limit on the price or if it is replacable, there will be an alternative thingy in place, again, limiting the thing's price.

I show you a historical example: whale oil.

Whale is actually a replenishable resource (unlike oil), meaning that if you leave the whales alone, they fuck and breed and multiply. Nevertheless it is possible to use up all whales as long as we hunt them fast enough so they don't have time to keep up with the hunters. (Rate of hunting is bigger than the rate of whale population growth).

...and that is exactly what happened if you didn't miss the 5th grade history class about American industry. Whales almost went extinct in the late 1800s when whale oil price also went exponential.

But a strange thing happened. Colonel Drake, Pennsylvania,etc and there was a cheap and plentiful alternative to whale oil.

That was the end of whaling for oil and the price of whale oil collapsed.

End of American history class, we will do the economy class when the next moron posts in this thread....

Edit: I am done with this thread, because really, what's the point in trying to educate morons?

 

[JSSPMK]

Which makes you a moron also, does it not?

Edit: As far as I am concerned you are a moron, so I guess we agree to disagree. And that is where the whole argument rests - it's all based on belief.

 

[Specterx]

Peak Oil is clearly real. I don't know how it could possibly be a "fallacy" - obviously any limited resource will eventually be exhausted, and in fact oil will become far too expensive for most everyday uses long before we "run out."

It's possible that the peak is many years away but it seems unlikely. Most folks who look at the issue (including that Stanford fellow in the video) seem to think the peak is just a few years away, if it hasn't already passed.

The only question is what kind of social or economic disruption will be caused by peak oil production. Obviously in some absolute sense the disruptions will be massive, but my own feeling is that they'll take place over such a long period of time (20-30 years) that most people will hardly notice. Patterns and geographic distribution of production will change, travel will get more expensive and prices of most goods will rise, there will be more telecommuting etc. but it'll be something that shows up most dramatically in long-term graphs and data series rather than rapid, perceptible changes in day-to-day lifestyle.

Of course there could be a war or some other kind of shock that causes lots of short-term chaos, but that's always been the case...

 

[BostonKiller]

Quote from failed_trad3r:

peak oil isnt about oil running out.

it is about oil costing more and more to extract.

the cost is not measured in money, but in energy.

oil wil never run out

but if it cost 2 barrels energy to extract 1 barrel energy is it worth it.

Thank you! This is the very essense of the PEAK OIL theory.

It's not that the oil is running out...it's simply that we won't be able to comtinually ramp up the produciton of it! That's it!

 

[failed_trad3r]

Quote from achilles28:

Has crude oil ever been made using dead animals? In the lab?

Please answer that.

well, the biomass of plants in the world is much larger than the biomass of animals. you don't even need dead animals to create oil.

but even so one poster said something about whale oil. well, there oil made from dead animals.

to all the posters who say peak oil is a conspiracy, follow the money, there are people who have a clear interest in keeping the myth of peak oil:

americans use the most oil per capita in the world. this means americans have a clear interest in disproving peak oil and support the abiogenetic theory. This way they don't have to change their wasteful ways. This means that any american who doesn't want to believe in peak oil are the same thing they accuse others of! talk about hypocrisy

Yet, nobody discusses the true solution for all the problems we have today.... population reduction... either by genocide or abstinence. All the world problems would disappear, especially the environmental ones. The illuminati want genocide. What do you want?:eek: