On the 150th anniversary of the first oil well, the NY Times Green Inc. blog has a nice round up of recent commentary including this Op-Ed that argued against the entire concept of peak oil.
In the piece, Michael Lynch talks about peak oil — the point at which the extraction of oil begins to decline — as a “Malthusian belief” based on “poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical matter.” He goes on to say that the arguments of peak oil are based on anecdotal data, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry works.
Peak oil’s main arguments rests on the fact that oil is not being discovered at the rate it’s being produced. But Lynch argues, that ”the combination of new discoveries and revisions to size estimates of older fields has been keeping pace with production for many years.”
Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota. But that may not keep the Chicken Littles from convincing policymakers in Washington and elsewhere that oil, being finite, must increase in price.
For a different view, check out Climate Progress which notes that Lynch predicted in 1996 that oil prices would be flat for the following two decades.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Adjusted for inflation, the price of oil earlier this year was the same as in 1996 — in that period of time consumption has gone up by about 20% if my data is correct. There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence (yet) that oil prices will rise significantly 1996-2016, and therefore prove Lynch wrong.