Comment 68364

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted August 23, 2011 at 11:25:46 in reply to Comment 68352

Oh Kunstler. If only he could settle down a bit... This definitely deserves a bit of a note about the extremely difficult nature of predicting anything more than a year ahead.

It wasn't long before most of those who were talking about peak oil and weren't just alarmist wingnuts started realizing this would be a lot more complicated than a steady march onward to $500/barrel then a prompt apocalypse. Ryan's comment below is a good example - high oil prices rely on a strong economy, which relies on low oil prices. So rather than a constant and predictable fall, we're far more likely to see prices lurching wildly. Beneath all of this will be the trends we're talking about.

"Peak oil" describes a fairly abstract concept - the point at which oil production begins to fall as scarcity and increasing energy requirements overtake our ability to continue raising production. There's nothing "neat" about it - areas peak at different times, and a global peak might never be totally definable down to the day. That day isn't what's important though, it's the falling EROI (Energy Return on Investment) which we need to consider.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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