Raise the Hammer

Why would one want to gloat about a worst case scenario not playing out? Yes, the falling oil price is indicative of greater above ground inventory. It does not mean the earlier warnings were invalid or false. It means the situation that was warned about may have been averted, however perhaps only for the short term.

The extra inventory comes from new but environmentally destructive methods, and fracking wells deplete quickly too that's why so many get drilled. Also in the short term, the decline in price is partially due to the US dollar making a comeback, and yes partially due to all the geopolitical intrigue that goes on constantly and forever, and will be debated around dinner tables constantly and forever. All of this is temporary. Nice analyses from us all, but only applicable to this specific boom bust cycle, in my opinion.

The permanent economic adjustments will start occurring as new technologies are arriving to replace oil as a transportation fuel. The full change may take more than one generation, but it's begun. Economic models will have to adjust as the changes take place, and already it is getting harder to replace all the blacktop that cars and trucks are crushing to pieces, so a fully weight or vehicle class based system may be inevitable.

In the meantime my guess is the boom bust cycle continues on various time scales. And people will continue to think individual downturns will continue down forever, and individual upturns will continue up forever.

Regardless of all of this ...

No reasonably sentient species that is the steward of any planet they may live on, should deliberately pump 100 million years worth of organic matter built up during a dense lush carboniferous forest that existed a quarter-billion years ago, into the atmosphere in one century, just because they can.

By taming dependence on oil, we can have it available for responsible use at a reasonable price, for whatever there isn't a good substitute yet. In addition to and perhaps surpassing environmental stewardship - the threat of real damage to the economy from the real threat of permanently soaring oil prices if demand wasn't tamed too, didn't just spur quick fixes to squeeze more drops out of our suffering biosphere, it spurred actual innovation of many new energy technologies. Why would you gloat at a good outcome like that!

Comment edited by mikeonthemountain on 2014-12-12 10:58:18