Re: Hubbert's peak

[sartesian <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is possible to twist and turn and refer to statistical relativism and do
all sorts of things to make Hubbert appear less Hubbertist than he was and
his predictions appear more accurate than they are, but doing that obscures
the kernel of the Hubbertist message-- and that message is not one of
conservation, price increases, tax, etc...  It is quite clearly a message of
approaching apocalypse, an absolute, irreversible, depletion of hydrocarbon
fuels.  These fuels are mis-identified as fossil fuel where there is in all
actuality very little evidence that supports the notion that oil, natural
gas, and gas liquids are the products of compressed and heated biomass.  The
Hubbertist message, the ringing sound of the bell curve, is extinction.
Read Campbell, Deffeyes, etc. and see for yourself.

One can say the bell curve isn't important, but it absolutely is essential
to the Hubbertists; Campbell, Deffeyes, Laherrere includeed.  To say the
bell curve applies quite well to mineral production is to beg the obvious
question, "where?"  Nickel?  Iron?  Bauxite?  Are we running out?  Has
production of those minerals followed a bell curve based in ascent and
decline on reserves, reserve discovery, and depletion?

The curves produced by the post-Hubbert Hubbertists rely on data
manipulation, not true data analysis-- see for example the Hubbertists
manipulation of data on North Sea discoveries to show that over time the
size of the discoveries systematically declined.

Which gets us to another point, and the one where industry, ideology, and
cash flow meet:  The Hubbertists have created a veritable industry out of
predicting catastrophe.  They've been at it for awhile, and after 1999 OPEC
rescued them, just as it rescued the oil industry, from low rates of return.

Hubbert and the Hubbertists are in no way shape or form describing,
analyzing, marginal rates of return.  They pretend to describe absolute,
inevitable depletion.  They manufacture an ideology, a pseudo-erudite
hysteria which is a self-blind product of a falling rate of return in the
industry.

If you examine rates of return on investment in the oil industry in the US,
you will see that the return peaks on 1970 and then falls, along with
production.  What I haven't seen is Hubbert's 1956 paper predicting this
exact date.  It may exist.  I would appreciate a reference to the original
prediction

I would like to know where the bell curve has correctly predicted, not
increased costs of extraction, but absolute depletion and scarcity-- and a
deficiency where say it takes more aluminum to find bauxite than the bauxite
can yield?  Has the bell curve explained iron ore production, nickel,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
To: <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hubbert's peak


> >Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >>Hasn't been a decade since a major oil discovery has occured?
> >
> >So do you think we'll "run out" of oil - in the economic, not
> >physical sense - before we choke on the smoke and CO2?
> >
> >Doug
>
> Higher prices can cause stagflation, before the oil industry invents
> new technology to make oil production cheaper again and/or other
> industries learn to economize on oil.
> --
> Yoshie
>
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