So, Bob, my man, your basic claim is that you do not "believe in Peak Oil" because the U.S. has a history of bad and mistaken policies?

I think that we should keep in mind that in the 50s, Peak Oil was such a futuristic and misunderstood threat that it was almost baseless, in consideration of the views of the people who were in a position to prepare the nation for it. There were also, no doubt, vociferous disbelievers in the notion back then, as there are now.

Moreover, there was just Too Much Money to be Made at the time to put the Fear of Oil into the populace - it didn't make sense to do this economically from a micro or macro standpoint - with respect to both the government's financial agenda as well as the private sector's, keeping in mind that the government is run by regular people with vested interests in private sector success.

If I based all my beliefs on the strength of American policy to "Do The Right Thing," I think I'd have a bridge in Louisiana to sell myself, or something. It certainly wouldn't be a basis from which I would ground myself before exploring important critical theories.

Zip

Originally posted by bigx01

Originally posted by kilcoo316

Peak oil is not about reserves, but about economical production.

no peak oil is about when the oil we get out of the ground starts to decline. take the north slope in alaska. it peaked in the mid 90's at 2 mm bbls a day and is now below 1mm bbls.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear there - I didn't say the economical oil is the stuff we get out of the ground - but its what I meant, alternatives are too expensive as of this moment in time. After we go over that peak, oil prices will rise to a level where economic growth of an oil based economy is impossible.

Well the question one must asks as this Peak Oil myth is a CONSPIRACY , who benefits from the perpetuing of this?

Originally posted by billybob
who remembers who first coined the term 'peak oil', and what their motivation was?

7 years after you will get the answer:

The term "Peak oil" was coined by oil geologist Colin Campbell and scientist Kjell Aleklett when Campbell founded ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas). Their "motivation" was to study when the peak would occur since they knew that a global peak would occur eventually. Before ASPO the term was "Hubbert Peak" after the US geologist Marion King Hubbert who in the 1950's predicted that the US oil production would peak around 1970 (which also happened) and that world oil production would peak sometimes close after the year 2000.