Thursday, November 18, 2010
Not So Peak Oil
As I mentioned several years ago, the theory that underpins peak oil analysis is not especially sound. The output from a given deposit is bell-shaped. This is a sound empirical rule. You can aggregate all known deposits into a large bell shape. True enough. But this theory is only valid for known existing deposits. It doesn't take into account technology growth that allows for the exploitation of new fields or new sources of petroleum. You know, as is happening now.
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Also, the chemical and geological processes that formed all that oil didn't just pull an all-nighter five billion years ago and then stop forever. New oil is being produced by the earth constantly, though I've no idea at what rate. Probably really slowly if you look at it per square foot, but then again, it's a big planet.
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