Is the idea of peak oil just a bunch of bunk invented by conspiracy theorists, or do geologists and petroleum experts support it as well? If so, are we already on the downward slope of oil production?
I have also read (sorry, no cite…I cant remember where i saw this) that oil might not take billions of years to create in the crust of the earth at all, and that microbes near the core excrete the stuff, which rises close to the surface where we drill. The article also stated that there is evidence of this in “dry” oil wells that are somehow being refilled.
Anyone who actually has real knowledge about this, what’s really going on? Is peak oil going to destroy us? Are oil wells actually refilling in ways that we dont understand? Is there any likely alternative to oil if the stuff DOES run out?
A commodity price is going to include its future value. Suppose that tomorrow the supply of mayonaise was going to collapse and that the world mayo experts knew this. You would then see today’s price of mayo skyrocket in response to tomorrow’s expected shortage.
If oil is so valuable and irreplacable that its acute scarcity ten years hence would cause a collapse of the world economy, then that should be reflected in rising prices. Ten years is a pretty short time horizon for the sort of physical capital invested in oil extraction, nor is ten years that long of a time for a price spike to be discounted to nothing today. So the experts have spoken: look at the price of crude oil and conclude for yourself whether the oil experts expect the price of oil to spike to ridiculous level in ten years.
That sounds reasonable for the most part, except that oil producing countries seem to have a vested interest in having people believe they can produce forever. A good comparison to this is seen by looking at how environmentalists in America, funded by the government, have released a report that we’re on the brink of a huge environmental disaster. The government tried to cover the report up, even though scientists and environmental experts overwhelmingly supported it. Would oil-rich nations do the same when THEIR experts tell them that oil production wont last another ten years? This obviously doesnt prove that oil is running out, but at the same time i dont think that the relatively stable price of oil should be used as an argument that we still have a lot of it.
On the other hand, hasn’t OPEC announced that it will reduce oil production for the next two years? How does that figure into the theory of peak oil?
You are going to have to defend that claim. And you are going to have to explain why the companies who invest in oil extraction are complicit in the conspiracy. Also, the price would rise without OPEC pulling back production, just like the mayonaise scenario, because the sudden realization that oil is running out would alter its value.
Google for “club of rome” and see if this argument doesn’t come up in other forms. As stated by a previous poster, this has been going around and around for some time. Oil supply is finite, but if its supply were about to come to a critical shortage, then we would expect to see that reflected as buyers & sellers accomodate for that fact.
That’s the best I have to offer without this going to GD.
I have been seeking factual arguments either for or against a massive social upheval caused by the oil peak for the last couple of months after I first read about it…the internet seems critically short of them. Experts on both sides of the discussion and in different sectors (ie geology and economics) disagree. My personal take on all this is that we will see a rise in oil prices which will be large, but not so large that it leads to the downfall of mankind. I think that when the need is greatest we will see new developments in energy.
It is interesting to see how current events (Iraq invasion, general involvement in Middle East politics) could tie into all this though. Makes you wonder, what does President Bush know that we don’t?
When I was debating NDT in college the resolution had to do with reducing the non-military consumption of fossil fuels in the U.S., and such arguments were legion. That was a while ago and I couldn’t even begin to send you in the right direction; besides, those arguments are for the constraints of the debate and not really for us to worry about in real life.
The thing is that non-oil energy sources are only a few cents per kilowatt-hour above oil, so the cost would be to the energy producers–probably to be borne by the public in the form of government largesse–in the form of capital investment. We’d have to find a suitable alternative for the automobile, and there individuals would be hit hard having to get their engines replaced at the very least. Why would that cost cause massive social upheaval, i.e. violent cracking of social networks rather than just moving players/groups up & down the ladder?
That you can’t find factual arguments is more due to them not existing than anything else, IMO.
Think about it another way. What are the steps in the argument? First, oil will dry up in the very near future. Next, no suitable replacement is available at a reasonable cost. Next, through conspiracy or ignorance, society will not prepare. Oil dries up and fuel alternatives are unavailable. Next, production and transportation are severely curtailed–mostly transportation will be hindered. Next, people have trouble getting access to goods & services–most notably, food. Finally, anarchy ensues.
To find a factual argument, we need for there to be compelling evidence for each step along the way. So suppose that the geologists & geophysicists etc. working for the big oil companies all realized that we’re running out of oil at an immediately critical rate. Does the idea that big oil wouldn’t prepare for this and adjust their plans sound even remotely reasonable? What would qualify as compelling evidence to establish this as an acceptably proven for us to move to the next step? It is very hard for me to believe that it is profit maximizing for these firms to not prepare by investing in alternative fuel sources, that they would conspire to keep the shortage secret, and that they could keep all the independent industry analysts ignorant and/or quiet on these points. And that is just one small sub-argument in the overall chain of argument for the premise as a whole.
That such an argument could be so convincingly constructed as to be called factual, for lack of a better word, is simply unbelievable to me.