Okay let's analyze those graphs. According to you production has peaked. But two times before the line on the graph has done the same thing.



Okay, let's analyze OPEC's production graph.



It is going down recently and it did it before in case you didn't notice. So if world production is staying flat, that means non-OPEC production is going up and making up for it. So maybe OPEC is purposely producing less to increase the price. And since they are a cartel and have a huge market share, they have the power to do that.

Those two graphs show no conclusive evidence of peak oil.

Umm? The market in non-OPEC countries is going to magically invent oil fields so as to balance OPEC countries declining production? I don't understand.

No they don't, but when you consider the fact that demand is now at an all time high, (at your points, there was global oversupply) it adds weight, and when you consider the exponential rise in prices, (and drops in reserves as well as new discoveries) I think it becomes pretty clear. Maybe we aren't there today, but it is certainly closer to today than a decade from now.

However, feel free to head on over to post #142, and don't be shy, click on the links, especially the one titled 'Peak Oil Overview.' You might learn something, and learning, as far as I can, the market can't do for you.

I just read 'large electrical base-load plants fed by hydrogen' would be a better alternative to nuclear power. Has this got any chance?

I'm not saying that Peak Oil will not happen or that it will not be a problem. However, if Saudi Arabia is planning to increase production, it is likely that peak oil has not happened yet. Most estimates that I have read have put it around 2010.

Not all of post #142 is regarding Peak Oil. It's mostly regarding propaganda, with a couple links pertaining specifically to how ARAMCO (the Saudi National Oil Company) uses it; they falsify their dwindling reserves.

Isn't demand basically constantly increasing? Was demand NOT at all-time highs at the points he circled?

I honestly don't know the answers to either of those questions.

I edited that into my post.

Demand is constantly increasing. But sometimes there is oversupply; Saudi Arabia is the designated OPEC swing producer (they produce more in shortages, and less in oversupply situations). At those points, the price got so low that they cut production.

Today, demand is unquestionably higher than at any point in history. Why? Many reasons? Every country using more is one. The US military is another, and those figures are not factored into domestic consumption. The US military is also the planet's biggest consuming entity. Finally, the rise of India and China.

The efficiency of solar collection matters. We could conceivably satisfy all our energy needs by covering a very large area with photovoltaics operating at 15% efficiency. Using bugs to process biomass with an end efficiency less than 1%, it probably won't be possible to satisfy our needs, much less greatly increase our energy usage.

Also, the reason non-OPEC production has gone up is almost solely due to Russia. However, Russia's reserves are limited and they are simply taking advantage of market conditions. Their focus is natural gas.

Again, that doesn't prove peak oil. Only that a supplier would supply more oil when the price went up. Shocking!!! All reserves are limited obviously.

If you can think of a better way of creating Oil. We are all ears.

The problem isn't electricity. It's gasoline for our cars. We can't convert electricity into oil but we can do the opposite. And since everyone keeps repeating that Oil is limited, then we should all applaud a company doing the natural thing of coming up with a solution.

Maybe you should extend your scope and adjust for inflation:

.

What?

From 98-02 prices rose. Tripled for a large part of it to. Mostly due to decreased production. From 90-91 prices also rose. In other places where price dropped significantly, production didn't.

Doesn't your graph prove my point? There was recession which cut demand thereby dropping prices and production; recession wanes, demand goes up, as does production. In contrast to today, where there is no shortage of demand.

Huh? From 98-02 prices rose while production was stagnant. How does this prove your point that prices dropped.

I believe what you're doing is nitpicking, and I have no reason to break my brain over this. As a whole--maybe you need to re-read this thread--my point factually stands. The weight placed on 'price got so low that they cut production,' is actually irrelevant.

So you've claimed commodity prices have been increasing, when they haven't. You've claimed the only reason oil production peaked before was because OPEC artificially reduced output because of falling prices, which is wrong. Damn nitpicking.

That sounds like only part of an answer. You don't find hydrogen gas naturally, you have to produce it from something. So you can run a hydrogen fuel cell or a hydrogen power plant, but you need to get the hydrogen from somewhere, which takes either fossil fuels or energy. It might make sense to have a big solar infrastructure, then use hydrogen as a backstop when solar production doesn't meet demand. But as an answer itself, hydrogen is incomplete.

The global economy was in a cluster****--less demand--at the points in the graph where the price drops. The ten years graphs show what happens when demand actually increases. This is due to additional demand from developing countries.


What you and the other marketists have been claiming is that this magical mechanism can and will somehow regulate prices (regulate demand I assume as well) of finite resources, for which there is ever-increasing demand. And now, for the first time in history, the bulk of this demand does not come from, nor depend on (at least not even close to the point it did prior), the US economy.
Also,
From USGS:

borovoselo--you have said several things to the effect of 'the market cannot handle finite commodities efficiently'

Have you actually read what microeconomists predict will happen under a capitalist system given a finite commodity? It isn't what many market advocates have been saying in this thread--that prices will continually decrease--so attacking this as "the market argument" is a bit of a strawman in my eyes. If you know and understand the "real" capitalist viewpoint, I'll respect you views (although I'll not agree with them).

But I agree that you are right and others are wrong that commodity prices should not theoretically decrease forever.

I haven't read anything, but I assume what you are talking about is that market forces will produce alternatives when the existing orthodoxy becomes comparatively unprofitable.

Theory is my whole problem with this marketist/capitalist approach. Did Adam Smith (or pick your favorite economist) incorporate power with this theory? Was their theory able to assume that the trillions reaped in profits would not result in billions being poured in to the development of elaborate legal, quasi-legal, capital, architectural, social etc., frameworks that protect status-quo? Not to mention that thus produced prosperity breeds other industries which further reinforce status quo.

Peak oil, for example, is more than a theory, it has now, or will very soon, become reality. The 'market will automatically do this and that' approach has more or less become fantasy with the exponentially increasing technological, and in turn, bureaucratic sophistication of today's world.

Good thing we're talking about oil, and not all energy. Carry on!

The Zero-Emission Sedan of the Future. A Reality Today

Methinks you're an intelligent fellow but too pessimistic. I realize that the infrastructure for fuel cell autos doesn't exist at this time but say people are dislodged from their current lifestyles in the USA for 10-20 years, does that really matter 200 years from now? If something like fuel cell automobiles did become commonplace in the next 20 years it would probably be viewed as another success for market forces actually. I'm not that good at predicting the future, you probably aren't either, and I do know that their are a lot of "cracked crystal ball" constantly.