{"id":23850,"date":"2017-05-05T14:15:19","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T19:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23850"},"modified":"2017-05-05T14:15:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T19:15:19","slug":"why-we-should-be-concerned-about-low-oil-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23850","title":{"rendered":"Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil\u00a0Prices<\/a><\/h3>\n
Most people assume that oil prices, and for that matter other energy prices, will rise as we reach limits. This isn\u2019t really the way the system works; oil prices can be expected to fall too low, as we reach limits. Thus, we should not be surprised if the OPEC\/Russia agreement to limit oil extraction falls apart, and oil prices fall further. This is the way the \u201cend\u201d is reached, not through high prices.<\/div>\n
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I recently tried to explain how the energy-economy system works, including the strange way prices fall, rather than rise, as we reach limits, at a recent workshop in Brussels called \u201cNew Narratives of Energy and Sustainability.\u201d The talk was part of an \u201cInspirational Workshop Series\u201d sponsored by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. Empty Schuman room of the Berlaymont European Commission building, shortly after we arrived. Photo shows Mario Giampietro and Vaclav Smil, who were the other speakers at the Inspirational Workshop. Attendees started arriving a few minutes later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My talk was titled, \u201cElephants in the Room Regarding Energy and the Economy.\u201d (PDF<\/a>) In this post, I show my slides and give a bit of commentary.<\/p>\n

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Slide 2<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The question, of course, is how this growth comes to an end.<\/p>\n

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Slide 3<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I have been aided in my approach by the internet and by the insights of many commenters to my blog posts.<\/p>\n

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Slide 4<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We all recognize that our way of visualizing distances must change, when we are dealing with a finite world.<\/p>\n

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Slide 5<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil\u00a0Prices Most people assume that oil prices, and for that matter other energy prices, will rise as we reach limits. This isn\u2019t really the way the system works; oil prices can be expected to fall too low, as we reach limits. Thus, we should not be surprised if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1233,588,592,595,600,1232,694],"class_list":["post-23850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-gail-tverberg","tag-oil","tag-oil-price","tag-oil-production","tag-opec","tag-our-finite-world","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23851,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions\/23851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}