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MP: Just like how advanced drilling techniques have led to a revolution in the domestic natural gas industry, new technologies for drilling oil have revolutionized the domestic oil industry. That's one reason that peak oil is peak idiocy: it always underestimates the ultimate resource - human capital (i.e. human ingenuity and the resulting innovation, advances, new technology) - which is endless and boundless, and will never peak.

Aliken said...
Thanks for driving another nail in the coffin of Peak Oil.

Those dire Malthusian fallacies were reduced to rubbish over a century ago. It's amazing how old, discredited theories such as Peak Oil, mercantilism, marxism linger like the stench of a bum at a bus stop. No matter how many times or how well you explain it to them, they are unshaken from their beliefs.

rufus said...
Let's see, our oil production reached a high point in 1970, and has been declining at a fairly steady 1.2%, annually, but we'll Never Peak:

Is that about it?

PeakTrader said...
Rufus is correct. U.S. oil production peaked at about 10 million barrels a day in 1970 and and gradually fell to less than 5 million barrels a day in 2008.

Human ingenuity may not replace oil depletion fast enough, at least over the next decade or two. So, there may be rising prices and increased conservation.

We've been at peak oil for over five years. World oil production peaked at roughly 85 million barrels a day in 2005.

(Chart at bottom: "Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08 by James D Hamiliton, Department of Economics, UC-San Diego").

Peak Oil Wikipedia

Optimistic estimations of peak production forecast the global decline will begin by 2020 or later, and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, without requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used.

Pessimistic predictions of future oil production operate on the thesis that either the peak has already occurred, oil production is on the cusp of the peak, or that it will occur shortly. As proactive mitigation may no longer be an option, a global depression is predicted, perhaps even initiating a chain reaction of the various feedback mechanisms in the global market which might stimulate a collapse of global industrial civilization, potentially leading to large population declines within a short period.

Throughout the first two quarters of 2008, there were signs that a global recession was being made worse by a series of record oil prices.

Daniel said...
Peak oil has never been about running out of oil. We will always find new fields; we will always find new techniques to sequester more oil, and extend the lifespan of fields.

If peak oil is nonsense, then prove IEA's (an organization which a few years ago would have been on your side) field-by-field study of the world's largest 800 oil fields - the study that found depletion rates are dangerously high at 6.7%. If peak oil is nonsense, then prove that the world has been finding more oil than its been consuming since the '80s. If peak oil is bull, then show everyone that ExxonMobil, a company famous for not wasting money, are a bunch of idiots for willing to pay the Ghana government $100 a barrel for a quarter access to the Jubilee Oil field.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28997633&postID=5017970182062973152

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MP: What is it about the Canadian banking system that allowed it to survive the recent worldwide slowdown without a single bank failure? What can the United States learn from Canada about sound banking?

PeakTrader said...
The bank's gain is the borrower's loss.

I wonder how many Canadians were able to buy a house without a job, extract a large amount in equity within a few years, refinance at lower rates more than once within a few years, lock-in a low 30-year rate, etc.

Terrence said...
And if a Canadian mortgage holder walked away from the house for any reason, they STILL hold the mortgage.

PeakTrader said...
Terrence, I also wonder if Canadians can live in their houses without paying the bank for a year or two?

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PeakTrader said...
There has been enormous progress in economics. Yet, it's far from complete, unlike statistics, which is a dead field.

Humans don't have the capacity to create a sound general equilibrium model of a large economy. However, a crude understanding can be achieved by tying-together partial equilibrium models, optimization models, input-output models, contemporaneous models, etc.

Economics, like mathematics, wasn't invented, it was discovered and there's much to learn.

Making appropriate adjustments, changes, or choices, given known information, is easier than predicting a dynamic, not static, future.

Economics fails when too many economists too often use economics as politics.

There's more to discover about ancient Egyptian civilization than statistics.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28997633&postID=8631223443377318280

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PeakTrader said...
It seems, China's laid-off factory workers have infrastructure jobs provided by the $586 billion stimulus.

It seems to be a sound economic shift, for an export-led economy, to offset lower exports with more infrastructure.

However, it's also inefficient, e.g. producing empty office buildings, while the communist elites still benefit much more than the masses, e.g. all land in China is owned by the state.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S4krKZ-9ESI/AAAAAAAAM4A/VBrFWf4akc8/s1600-h/chinawages.jpg