Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Subject is the question.

Or does it just increase ultimately recoverable resources with the same peak?

Davidyson

Surely it depends upon the details of the technology, and the timing of it's discovery and application.

It appears that you are asking a theoretical question, and attempting to treat the consequences of all technologies equally. I don't really think this can be done with regard to the timing of peak (although it may be possible on various other levels of abstraction).

If you are instead asking about our specific case, then I think a case can be made that technology utilization would suggest a less steep decline from peak than the rise to peak.

With regard to timing, however, this is still problematic. How would we know where the peak would be without the peak. Remember, on some level, the very ability to drill for oil is a technology. I would submit that without deepwater technology, we'd already have hit peak.

Perhaps technology hastens the peak, and makes the decline even worse.

The more oil we can recover, the lower the price... thus stimulating consumption?

Technology hastens entropy. The more we apply it, the more entropy and disorder we have. If it pushes PO to a later date, then the collapse at that later date will be greater. 2nd Law.