No Peaking!

Remember Peak Oil? How people kept saying that by 1990 we'd run out of oil. Then it was 2000. Then it was 2010. Then... well, UC Davis scientists are now saying 2040. People used to really go around screaming like Chicken Little over this one. Everyone was screaming doom and gloom over this one, and the doom and gloom was supposed to be immediate. We were supposed to be out of oil by now in the earliest versions of the theory.

I decided to troll around the 'net and see what's the latest buzz on this old topic. Interestingly, Peak Oil is kind of on the way out as a theory. I came across many interesting headlines:

‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy' - New York Times

The IEA Says Peak Oil Is Dead. That’s Bad News for Climate Policy - Time Magazine

Everything You Know About Peak Oil Is Wrong - Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine

There Will Be Oil:For decades, advocates of 'peak oil' have been predicting a crisis in energy supplies. They've been wrong at every turn - Wall Street Journal


Sure, you can find stories saying that Peak Oil is still coming and there are studies like the aforementioned one at UC Davis. But look at who's saying these headlines! These aren't weird survivalists in the woods. New York Times, Time, Wall Street Journal. I guess as a "theory", Peak Oil just isn't scaring people like it used to.

Now, I'm well aware that any oil supply that we have must be logically finite. We will run out of oil someday. Its just interesting that the scare theory of Peak Oil is being seriously discounted by seriously powerful people.

I wonder if in a couple of decades, we'll be reading the same thing about Global Warming.  The latest scare theory which has the status of religious truth right now; to question it, is to bring horrible retribution as an evil infidel against wisdom!  And there were those British scientists caught fudging data to make it fit the theory... Oh wait, did I say that? Oh no! It wasn't me who questioned Holy Global Warming Writ, the devil was at my elbow!