WSJ carefully introduces peak oil

Pekelo

Pekelo

Kudos to the WSJ. Page 1 article about the looming limitation on crude production. (for insiders, that is peak oil)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119543677899797558.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

One of the authors emailed the guys at theoildrum.com, who asked for clarification regarding one not so flattering sentence about peak oilers, here is his email:

"Thank you for getting in touch about the “Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production” article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

You asked about the sentence: “They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.”

We were referring to the numerous times in the past when peak oil theorists have predicted a specific date the peak will occur and decline begin. For instance, in a 1991 book, Colin Campbell predicted world oil production would peak around 1995.

My co-author and I were referring to this history of predicting peaks when we wrote the sentence.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

Rgds,

Russell"

Also good discussion of the article itself:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3265#more
 
Thanks for posting this. That particular sentence about the theory being debased caught my eye this morning (since it's a blatant opinion in a non-editorial context).
 
personally i think high oil prices could just as easily be resulting from the gradual saturation of short term opportunities in the equity markets. over the last several years the financial economy has essentially eclipsed the real economy and traditional spec markets have become almost the exclusive domain of institutional participants with unlimited cheap leverage

as traditional spec markets get saturated, spec liquidity migrates to better opportunities in comparatively less liquid, more fundamentally driven markets (like oil, and commodity futures in general)
 
There is so much oil in so many places, it is nearly incomprehensible.

The true price of oil, if markets were actually free, should be less than $12 per barrel.

'Peak oil' is tinfoil hat-ism par excellence.
 
Quote from ByLoSellHi:

There is so much oil in so many places, it is nearly incomprehensible.
More...

....and the article actually used a very good analogy, showing the problem with it:

"these unconventional oil supplies are like having $100 million in the bank, but "being forbidden to withdraw more than $100,000 per year. You are rich, sort of."
 
Quote from ByLoSellHi:

There is so much oil in so many places, it is nearly incomprehensible.

The true price of oil, if markets were actually free, should be less than $12 per barrel.

'Peak oil' is tinfoil hat-ism par excellence.
More...


Does that true price include the cost of massive damage to the environment?

Very narrow.
 
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