{"id":43451,"date":"2019-02-02T12:19:41","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T17:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43451"},"modified":"2019-02-02T12:19:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T17:19:41","slug":"how-the-peak-oil-story-could-be-close-but-not-quite-right%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43451","title":{"rendered":"How the Peak Oil story could be \u201cclose,\u201d but not quite right\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ourfiniteworld.com\/2019\/01\/30\/how-the-peak-oil-story-could-be-close-but-not-quite-right\/\">How the Peak Oil story could be \u201cclose,\u201d but not quite&nbsp;right<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago, especially in the 2005-2008 period, many people were concerned that the&nbsp;<strong>oil supply would run out<\/strong>. They were concerned about high oil prices and a possible need for rationing. The story was often called \u201cPeak Oil.\u201d Peak Oil theorists have also branched out into providing calculations that might be used to determine which substitutes for fossil fuels seem to have the most promise. What is right about the Peak Oil story, and what is misleading or wrong? Let\u2019s look at a few of the pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[1] What Is the Role of Energy in the Economy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The real story is that&nbsp;<strong>the operation of the economy depends on the supply of &nbsp;affordable energy<\/strong>. Without this energy supply, we could not make goods and services of any kind. The world\u2019s GDP would be zero. Everything we have, from the food on our dinner table, to the pixels on our computer, to the roads we drive on&nbsp;is only possible because the economy \u201cdissipates\u201d energy.&nbsp;<strong>Even our jobs depend on energy dissipation<\/strong>. Some of this energy is human energy. The vast majority of it is the energy of fossil fuels and of other supplements to human energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peak Oilers generally have gotten this story right, but they often miss the \u201caffordable\u201d part of the story. Economists have been in denial of this story. A big part of the problem is that it would be problematic to admit that the economy is tied to fossil fuels and to other energy sources whose supply seems to be limited. It would be impossible to talk about growth forever, if economic growth were directly tied to the consumption of limited energy resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[2] What Happens When Oil and Other Energy Supplies Become Increasingly Difficult to Extract?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Peak Oil story could be \u201cclose,\u201d but not quite&nbsp;right A few years ago, especially in the 2005-2008 period, many people were concerned that the&nbsp;oil supply would run out. They were concerned about high oil prices and a possible need for rationing. The story was often called \u201cPeak Oil.\u201d Peak Oil theorists have also [&hellip;]<\/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":[1233,596,1232,617],"class_list":["post-43451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-gail-tverberg","tag-oil-supply","tag-our-finite-world","tag-peak-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451","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=43451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43452,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451\/revisions\/43452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}