[joewp]

This quote from your second article made me guffaw:

The Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah gave a frank assessment of the situation, saying that the "boom days of easy petrodollars are gone forever".

[Chuckmak]

This got me guffawing:

Industry experts say the future looks bleak. Brent crude has now dropped to its lowest price, in real terms, since the 1970s.

[emersonbiggins]

1998 article - 'Doomsayers predict new world oil crunch'
Wasn't oil $11/bbl back in 1998? Good times.

Doomsayers predict new world oil crunch by Keay Davidson, EXAMINER SCIENCE WRITER:
Monday, August 31, 1998--Oil, the black gold of the world economy, is almost insanely cheap - but it won't be for long, warns a small but growing band of doomsayers. Based on a controversial theory, they fear world oil demand will begin to exceed supply as early as about 2010.

That might revive sights not seen since the oil crises of the 1970s: traffic jams at gas stations, Saudi Arabian princes buying U.S. skyscrapers, and news stories about inventors whose cars allegedly burn corn oil, wood chips or beets. ...

Nowadays, the world is awash in cheap oil. Prices are so low that they are hastening the collapse of the economy of Russia, a major oil exporter. ... "If we've consumed a quarter of our oil in that time, we don't have more oil - we have less." But such fears of a post-millennium oil crunch are "primarily bunk," replies economist Mike Lynch of MIT, an expert on oil-supply trends.

Lynch laughingly recalls past flubbed forecasts of an oil apocalypse. One of the leading doomsayers at present is Colin Campbell of Petroconsultants in Geneva, who, Lynch says, "predicted in a 1989 article . . . that world (oil) production had peaked . . . and that the price would go to $40 to $50 (a barrel) in the early 1990s. "And now it's about $12 to $13." ...

Hubbert's disciples have updated his calculations by using high-speed computers and far better databases. They argue that oil demand will begin to exceed supply sometime in the next two decades.

Simplistic prediction: But Lynch calls the Hubbert curve "very simplistic . . . (It) relies on certain assumptions that don't work." While oil-supply forecasting is extremely difficult, and is complicated by political choices and unexpected global events, Lynch expects the world to have enough oil for the next 300 years. He says new technologies will allow oil geologists to extract fuel from presently unappealing crustal sources, such as tar sands and oil shale. ...

The nation should begin preparing for an oil crunch - perhaps by developing oil resources or alternative energy sources - lest a future price surge severely damage the world economy, says Ivanhoe, who coordinates activities at the M. King Hubbert Center for Petroleum Supply Studies at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo.

"If the captain on the Titanic had had a few hours to change his course, he wouldn't have run into the iceberg," Ivanhoe says. "It's when he doesn't have enough time to prepare that all hell breaks loose."

SFGate

[SoylentGreen]

basically Colin Campbell's Scientific American article plagerised.

[dinopello]

Thank you! I love the blasts from the pasts.

Lynch expects the world to have enough oil for the next 300 years.

I guess it begs the question - enough for what ?

[Twilight]

I remember those days. When we were right, they were wrong, and people were yet to lose their homes to the difference.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

Hey, my first post. FYI, I bought my 1996 VW Passat TDi in February of '98. I wanted a vehicle that got at least 50mpg back then, but had to compromise with this vehicle at 42mpg....I was getting ready then and was surprised it took so long. This article kicked in later that year. The writing has been on the wall for decades, we just feel asleep and, oops, the storm is now at full force.

Oh, BTW, I was working for an auto company as a design engineer. Can give some good stories on what was happening then and the direction they were going. And this explains the big cars, luxury cars, SUVs and big pick-ups that the Japaneses companies started to pump out. The management laughed at me for buying a diesel. Who is laughing now.

Next project, getting a coal burning stove...along with other alternative energy saving items. Fun times are now here.

And my electric usage for June will be 183kw, last month 215kw. I want to get it down to 110kw/month, but there is 2 of us in the house, so maybe challenging. Hey, maybe Al Gore can buy some carbon credits from me for his GoGoGreenhouse mansion in Nashville, since he is running a little over the "average" American. I have alot to sell since his "carbon footprint" is slightly higher...and I could use the cash. I love the doublespeak. It is all about the money.

[emersonbiggins]

Welcome to the board, TDI. I also saw the writing on the wall re: Jetta a couple years back and bought an '06 TDI. I haven't looked back.

[Wren]

WOOOW! I was a kid in 1998, didn't have a driver's license, went to HS, had never heard of PO. I was prob. more worried about my B.O.! haha. I like that quote-
But Lynch calls the Hubbert curve "very simplistic . . . (It) relies on certain assumptions that don't work."
As if simplistic things are inherently less valuable than COMPLEX things, like our economy. Right? And I wonder what assumptions he's refering to that don't work?
Anyway, glad I have been able to learn what I have and hope it will see me through!
Great post. Thanks.

[killJOY]

Check this one out. My geology professor wrote it about the same time.

Oil back on global agenda.

A permanent decline in global oil production rate is virtually certain to begin within 20 years. Serious planning is needed to deal with the economic consequences.

I typed the whole thing out and posted it on The Oil Drum last year after Nature came out with a peak oil article. If you scroll a little, you find the article quoted in its entirety.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

Glad to be on board. I have been peaking (pardon the pun) at this website for a few years , but the AP story a few weeks ago that was posted on the DrudgeReport brought me back to monitor the site now daily. As mentioned, I been waiting for this to blow up to panic. Was PeakOil mentioned on any of the news outlets in May?....Now it is June and the world is coming to a halt.

Ok, back to 1996-7. Same auto company. Subaru came out with the AWD Outback wagon. Great car for utility, size and flexibility. My suggestion to my company: Make a competing vehicle, but drop a 4-banger diesel that you could get 37-40mpg. Again, they laughed.

[Twilight]

Here is another 'certain assumption that does not work'. It was thought that high prices caused by increasing demand stimulate investment and create increased supply. What actually happens is you get told to f*** off and don't get your plane ticket reimbursed.

[MonteQuest]

Here's another doomsayer:

Current estimates of fossil fuel reserves vary to an astonishing degree. In part this is because the
results differ greatly if cost of extraction is disregarded or if in calculating how long reserves will last,
population growth is not taken into consideration; or, equally important, not enough weight is given to
increased fuel consumption required to process inferior or substitute metals. We are rapidly approaching
the time when exhaustion of better grade metals will force us to turn to poorer grades requiring in most
cases greater expenditure of energy per unit of metal.
But the most significant distinction between optimistic and pessimistic fuel reserve statistics is that
the optimists generally speak of the immediate future - the next twenty-five years or so - while the
pessimists think in terms of a century from now. A century or even two is a short span in the history of a
great people. It seems sensible to me to take a long view, even if this involves facing unpleasant facts.
For it is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable
at not over twice today's unit cost, are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if
present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account. Oil and natural gas will
disappear first, coal last. There will be coal left in the earth, of course. But it will be so difficult to mine
that energy costs would rise to economically intolerable heights, so that it would then become necessary
either to discover new energy sources or to lower standards of living drastically.
For more than one hundred years we have stoked ever growing numbers of machines with coal; for
fifty years we have pumped gas and oil into our factories, cars, trucks, tractors, ships, planes, and homes
without giving a thought to the future. Occasionally the voice of a Cassandra has been raised only to be
quickly silenced when a lucky discovery revised estimates of our oil reserves upward, or a new coalfield
was found in some remote spot. Fewer such lucky discoveries can be expected in the future, especially in
industrialized countries where extensive mapping of resources has been done. Yet the popularizers of
scientific news would have us believe that there is no cause for anxiety, that reserves will last thousands
of years, and that before they run out science will have produced miracles. Our past history and security
have given us the sentimental belief that the things we fear will never really happen - that everything turns
out right in the end. But, prudent men will reject these tranquilizers and prefer to face the facts so that
they can plan intelligently for the needs of their posterity.
Looking into the future, from the mid-20th Century, we cannot feel overly confident that present
high standards of living will of a certainty continue through the next century and beyond. Fossil fuel
costs will soon definitely begin to rise as the best and most accessible reserves are exhausted, and more
effort will be required to obtain the same energy from remaining reserves. It is likely also that liquid fuel
synthesized from coal will be more expensive. Can we feel certain that when economically recoverable
fossil fuels are gone science will have learned how to maintain a high standard of living on renewable
energy sources?

Anybody tell me who wrote this and when?

[killJOY]

Admiral Rickover.

[MonteQuest]

Correct- 1957

[killJOY]

Google!



(Although I had read it before.)

[cipi604]

The pioneers of the peak oil concept vs the economists, a classic one.