Doly wrote:And those of us who knew better than to fall for any of them, are still surprised that circa 2002-2005 (2 claimed global peaks already occurring this century) folks didn't look backward in time and see the same pattern, stretching back to 1886. And not just the pattern, but the WHY folks got it wrong.
All right, enlighten me: why do you think that people got it wrong?
They don't have a complete understanding of the problem. That statement applies to their understanding of the history of not just the same claims in the past themselves, but why those claims didn't work out. If they HAD understood all of that, and thought that their idea accounted for why such claims hadn't worked out in the past, they would still have had a devil of a time getting it right. That one, the technical side, I can discuss voluminously, but don't want to volunteer a tome unless someone is actually interested in details.
Doly wrote:Because as you are saying it now, your argument sounds much like a person that has got very sick and has been in hospital several times, and concludes that because they survived six times, they will also live the next time around. The right answer is to say that each of the times the person really could have died, but they got lucky six times.
That might be one perspective. But not a scientific one. And you missed a component in your example, the PREDICTING of going to the hospital. I predict I go to the hospital. I predict why....heart disease. I get hit by a bus and go to hospital. Heart still sketchy of course. I predict the next time, it will certainly be heart disease. I trip over cinder block in back yard and break hip, go back to hospital. I predict the next time, it can only be heart disease, it runs in the family! Hit by a bus again, I go to the hospital And finally, because of the trauma done to my body by the bus, my heart does indeed stop beating, and I die, in the hospital. As predicted. The 4th or 5th time anyway.
There is no argument that peak oil will occur, regardless of whether or not it was in 2018, or is still in the future. The math on this is absolute. But if you want to make the best guess at when and why, you have to do more than just endlessly proclaim it to be so tomorrow afternoon, cross your fingers, and begin the broken clock is always right twice a day routine. That isn't science. That isn't learning from past mistakes and events. That is run of the mill Doom-mongering because less oil screwing up the world is a far cooler scenario for the Happy McDoomsters than the slow, grinding along of decaying economies or climate change.
Doly wrote:What noticeable consequences would you contend are visible from a 3 year old THE peak oil now, that are perhaps different than run of the mill consequences we've been experiencing for the past half century because of wars, recessions, changes in industries, finance, geopolitics, run of the mill economic mayhem and bad actors, etc etc?
The main difference is a consequence of the fact that you can't allow oil to be a very small fraction of the economy, because it's essential in our current economy. All essential products have a floor on their price, because otherwise somebody could corner the market, and nobody wants to allow that.
All essential products have an X/Y supply/demand location to their price (Z). Can you define your concept of "price floor"? Because there are many prices, and costs, and I want to make sure that the definition of price we are discussing isn't different.
Doly wrote:If you have a limited supply of oil that can't possibly grow, it stops the whole economy from growing, for as long as oil continues to be essential. Wars, recessions, geopolitics, etc., tend to be more temporary stuff.
If oil supply cannot grow, the usual actors come into play. Conservation and substitution immediately jump to mind....think....1979 global peak oil, not to be matched for 15 years. Yet the world economy certainly continued to grow. We substituted good fuel mileage cars for crappier ones, we used less for 15 years.
If oil cannot grow, today, demand for that product can no longer increase, therefore price skyrockets, it doesn't floor. That market signal then tells, as just one example, consumers that they can't afford their monster trucks, so they buy EV Hummers. It tells airlines that they can't afford crude oil based fuels, so they substitute GTL technology from natural gas (breakeven of around $125/bbl) to get cheaper fuels. Bunker fuel burning consumers to heat their homes are bankrupted, or pay to replace those furnaces with electric ones. World economies are thrown into turmoil trying to adjust, just like the real energy crisis in the 1970's when cartel behavior jumped into the public lexicon, followed soon thereafter by a global oil peak that might just be a good example of peak demand, so often dismissed around here.
In order to have any hope of discussing peak oil consequences, you've got to employ the full suite of known economic action/reaction effects of supply/demand interactions. That is one of the reasons peak oilers have gotten it wrong on quite a few occasions. Economics being a social science, it makes one feel all....dirty.... to apply the basic precepts, but those precepts are quite valuable in explaining what happens next. Rather than just the common refrain of "stuff runs out...world ends (because I don't know how economics works, or it is just fru fru crap science)...buy guns and ammo and MREs". That is all so...2005....
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"