There is quite a bit of fuss about peak oil. Are we running out? Are end times near?
Pulitzer Prize winner, Daniel Yergin has a piece on peak oil over at the Wall Street Journal. He explores the origin of the theory and gently explains that Hubbert, the theory’s proponent, was mistaken.
“Hubbert was imaginative and innovative,” recalled Peter Rose, who was Hubbert’s boss at the U.S. Geological Survey. But he had “no concept of technological change, economics or how new resource plays evolve. It was a very static view of the world.” Hubbert also assumed that there could be an accurate estimate of ultimately recoverable resources, when in fact it is a constantly moving target.”
It may very well be that Rose could have said, “… energy is a constantly moving target.”
Over at Exxon’s Perspectives blog, the writers have a done excellent job at explaining energy mixes and the changing shape of consumption. This isn’t a shift in language, it’s a shift in a broader consumption of different forms of energy, oil included.
Leokadia Rucinski 