Doly wrote:We are in the peak oil forums, so of course we think we deserve access to information about oil reserves. Why else would we be hanging around here?
Folks always think they should have what they want, and reserve information is state secrets to some countries. The US government can think it deserves access to Russian missile numbers and locations as well, but, you know, bummer. The latter question is best answered because peak oil is a great doom trigger, and for many it is about McDoomsters needing triggers for their scenarios, and peak oil is a good one. This all tended to wind down after a couple of claimed peak oils came and went, and some turned to climate change, but it just doesn't have the kick.
Doly wrote:You can't very well attempt to figure out when peak oil will happen if you don't have an estimate for reserves.
True. But, knowing you can't get those best estimates from countries where they are state secrets, no peak oiler just gives up, right? You come up with a way of making an etimate. Like the US with its intelligience agencies, trying to figure how to count Russian missiles and nukes by clues and whatnot, and making a best call.
Doly wrote:Under the assumption that central banks are aiming to keep oil prices stable, oil price no longer is any sort of signal, so there is a valid question of what, if anything, would give a warning that peak oil is near.
Pops has a good one with global storage. It happens to be the one with a relationship to price outside of whatever central banks are doing and it is in the world of the physicals, not financials. And folks have already claimed that peak oil is near, or even past, using all sorts of signs beyond price.
Doly wrote:I think the warning in that case would be wages not keeping up with inflation, even if inflation was being kept moderate. You can keep oil price roughly constant but the prices of everything else would move relative to oil in a similar way that they moved relative to oil in the oil crisis in the 70s. So, something like stagflation, but without high inflation. Which is not terribly different from the economic picture we are seeing right now.
Or the stagflation we saw during the last real energy crisis in the 1970's, and a global peak oil in 1979 along with price spikes, etc etc. But as we know, that was THE peak for only about 15 years or so. So, maybe the conditions you describe, similar to those 40+ years ago, will cause a demand reshuffling just as that global peak did? And a peak oil even? With just as much a chance of NOT being THE peak oil as the last time it happened.
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)"