Re: Peak oil debate
Posted: Tue 13 Nov 2018, 03:45:14
Bardi, U. (2019) Peak oil, 20 years later: Failed prediction or useful insight?, Energy Research & Social Science, 48, 257–261.
A B S T R A C T
20 years ago, in 1998, Scientific American published a paper by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère titled “The End of Cheap Oil” [1], starting a debate on oil depletion continuing to the present day. It was the return of a viewpoint on oil depletion which had been proposed more than 40 years before by Marion King Hubbert [2] and, in later years, largely forgotten. In their paper, Campbell and Laherrère updated Hubbert’s model with new reserve estimates and proposed that the world’s crude oil production would peak around 2004–2005, and then start an irreversible decline. Shortly afterward, Colin Campbell proposed the term “peak oil” for the highest global oil production level. The term was to become popular over the following decade, generating a true movement of ideas sometimes called the “peak oil movement.” Today, these predictions turn out to have been only partially correct, mainly because the role of “non-conventional” oil was underestimated. The peak oil movement seems to have faded away, while the concept seems to have disappeared from the debate and to be commonly described has having been “wrong.” The present paper reviews the cycle of the peak oil movement, examining how the peak oil concept was understood with the public and the decision makers and what caused its diffusion and its demise, at least up to the present time.
https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib ... 9618303207
Quote, Pp. 260 (emphasis added) - ...it must also be said that the weakness of the theory ceased to exist when it was understood that the bell shaped curve is just a simplified version of the general theory of mineral depletion [33] based on the concepts developed first by J. Forrester [34] and by the authors of the 1972 “Limits to Growth” report [35] (For a modern version of these models, see the recently developed MEDEAS model at http://www.medeas.eu).
In short, the basis of the bell shaped curve is in the decline in the net energy of extraction, a concept often expressed in terms of “Energy Return On Energy Invested” (EROI or EROEI) [36,37]. So, the peak oil idea was based on solid theoretical foundations. The quote “when I have new data, I change my interpretation, what do you do, sir?” is attributed to John Maynard Keynes and one wonders why it was not applied to the peak oil theory. With new data input on the consistency of the non-conventional oil resources, the theory could still provide useful information on the future of fossil fuels, but this was not done. Instead, most commentators preferring to engage in an activity that we could define as “Hubbertbashing.”