Item of General Interest
July 25. I received notice today that an article I helped write is available for free download for the next fifty days. The corrected free link for the article is "An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits." The article discusses the possibility that oil prices may not rise endlessly, and evaluates three future price scenarios. Under the "low" scenario (prices remain under $50 per barrel), oil production in China has already peaked.
Tag Archives: peak oil
An Updated Version of the “Peak Oil” Story
The Peak Oil story got some things right. Back in 1998, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère wrote an article published in Scientific American called, “The End of Cheap Oil.” In it they said: Our analysis of the discovery and production of oil … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged Conventional oil, oil glut, peak oil, recession, resource limits, unconventional oil
1,968 Comments
The real oil limits story; what other researchers missed
For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses and low prices. What is going on that was missed … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged EROEI, Harold Hotelling, M. King Hubbert, oil demand, oil limits, oil price, peak oil
1,243 Comments
Our economic growth system is reaching limits in a strange way
Economic growth never seems to be as high as those making forecasts would like it to be. This is a record of recent forecasts by the International Monetary Fund: Figure 2 shows world economic growth on a different basis–a basis … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged economic growth, entropy, peak oil, renewable energy, slow economic growth
1,136 Comments
We are at Peak Oil now; we need very low-cost energy to fix it
This past week, I gave a presentation to a group interested in a particular type of renewable energy–solar energy that is deployed in space, so it would provide electricity 24 hours per day. Their question was: how low does the … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged electricity price, financial crash, oil price, peak oil, renewable energy, solar energy
1,585 Comments
Why “supply and demand” doesn’t work for oil
The traditional understanding of supply and demand works in some limited cases–will a manufacturer make red dresses or blue dresses? The manufacturer’s choice doesn’t make much difference to the economic system as a whole, except perhaps in the amount of … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged debt defaults, low oil prices, oil demand, oil production, peak oil, supply and demand
1,389 Comments
