[thinker]

Hello, here is result of simple model (2 hours of programming). I am not economist and I did not use any real data. It is demend/supply model but I was wonder how close it is to the real oil pricing graphs.



http://thinker.50megs.com/images/image001.gif




{...waiting for Aaron to upload GIF; EE}

[turmoil]

nor am i but here goes...

i think your graph assumes a very elastic suppy-demand relationship. up until the oil crisis in the 70s, oil use was directly linked to economic growth. Since then some inelasticity was created because of efficiency gains and thats why $60 for a barrel of oil is not devastating the world economy.

The problem now is that we are voluntarily giving up those efficiency gains with population growth, vehicle choice, and wars of attrition, therefore making oil use more inelastic and exacerbating the resource depletion problem. This applies to every energy source; oil is not the only fossil fuel under stress.

or something like that...

here's some info on elasticity

http://www.investopedia.com/university/ ... omics4.asp

Edit: maybe aaron will host the picture for you.

[EnviroEngr]

Curious.

Rudy Rucker had a set of equations for fractal functions and Douglas Hofstadter had a model built for perturbations that looked something like that.

I should go mining for them babies.