Doly wrote:Still, I think my point is likely to stand: why get economic variables into the model when it doesn't need them to make useful predictions about peak oil?
Because
A) Charles Hall couldn't get EROEI to make useful predictions
B) EROEI isn't the independent variable upon which the production of oil and gas depends
C) SEC Rule 156 exists for a reason
and that C) is EXACTLY where peak oilers crash and burn. There are components of tomorrow's oil production that are related to today, but the further from today you get, the more the underlying economic fundamentals of new development applies. And EROEI isn't a fundamental and never has been.
I am willing to be proven wrong of course. Find, in millions of wells drilled, hundreds of thousands of projects, tens of thousands of fields around the globe and hundreds of basins a SINGLE ONE where the decision to develop was based on the 2nd Law. Or an EROEI metric. All it takes is a single one to call into question my statement, and give EROEI at least a chance to be of value.
Doly wrote:I mean, I get why people want economic variables into it. It's useful information. But I've tended to put all economic variables as output variables, ie optional.
Unfortunate that you don't recognize it as the independent variable. Here, let me prove it to you (I use this one all the time, it pisses off specialists in all 3 of the scientific specialties involved).
If there is no known oil, the technology to get it is irrelevant, as is price.
If you have known oil but don't have the technology to get it, price is irrelevant.
If you have known oil, and the technology to get it, price is the only thing that matters.
Peak oilers spend all day talking about the size of the oil available, while ignoring changes to the technology that have created Saudi America, while ignoring (as you do) the only variable that matters in the current circumstances.
And then screw the pooch in making peak oil calls through sheer, mind blowing ignorance of WHY they keep getting it wrong.
Doly wrote: I accept I might be wrong and that some economic variables are self-reinforcing and capable of causing visible real-world changes all on their own. But if that's the case, a very good question is whether that's a good thing to start with. Nobody wants money to make them crash against thermodynamics.
Good thing there is no conflict between money and thermodynamics. But only one is the independent variable needed to model oil and gas production. The other is no more useful now than it was when Charles Hall demonstrated that there are reasons you don't ask a fisheries ecologist questions related to the physical sciences.