tisiwoota

So. A friend who is skeptical about Peak Oil has referred to me two papers that confront and dismiss the idea.

1. An article by an MIT economics prof [pdf] .

Reviews the history of people crying-wolf about energy sources, then takes a critical look at market arguments and reserve estimates.

Two points it raises about market interpretations:

a) Since the world market is dominated by the OPEC monopoly, higher prices don’t necessarily say anything telling about supply as they would in a truly multi-player competitive system.

b) Cartel pricing changes are often more significantly the result of speculation than competitive prices, so again may not be a good predictor of supply.

2. The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources:
Debunking the Hubbert Model [and Hubbert Modelers] [pdf]

Quotes:

“The initial theory behind what is now known as the Hubbert curve was very simplistic. Hubbert was simply trying to estimate approximate resource levels, and for the lower-48 US, he thought a bell-curve would be the most appropriate form. It was only later that the Hubbert curve came to be seen as explanatory in and of itself, that is, geology requires that production should follow such a curve. Indeed, for many years, Hubbert himself published no equations for deriving the curve, and it appears that he only used a rough estimation initially. In his 1956 paper, in fact, he noted that production often did not follow a bell curve. In later years, however, he seems to have accepted the curve as explanatory.

…That the curve appears to have some validity can be easily explained: a bell (or logistic or Gaussian) curve represents exponential growth and decline, which is typical of large populations and/or persistent capital stock.

…[Further], most nations’ production does not follow a Hubbert curve. In fact, Campbell (2003) shows production curves (historical and forecast) for 51 non-OPEC countries, and only 8 of them could be said to resemble a Hubbert curve even approximately.

…The primary error for Hubbert modelers is the assumption of geology as the sole motivator of discovery, depletion and production”

[This article is focused on exposing shady statistics by a pair of Peak Oil researchers named Campbell and Laherrere].

***

Dear oh wise ones with far more math and economic and probably nunchuck skills than I, do offer any comments you might have that could help turn my friend from the dark side (if indeed that’s what it is). I am thoroughly out of my depth in these sorts of arguments, so any help to separate the wheat from the chaff would be, well, helpful!

As I recall, Miss Hungry had announced that the theme of her blog for April would be “free” trade agreements. This is an article which notes the growing recognition of the impacts on public health that result from the changes to national intellectual property laws often required by such agreements.

First paragraph:

“More than 1,200 farmers, slum dwellers and HIV/Aids patients from 30 civic groups staged a six-kilometre walkathon yesterday from a temple in Jomthien to the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel to drive home their demand that intellectual property rights (IPR) be removed from free trade talks with the United States.”

Helpful context:
(more…)

Slate.com has up an article that is attention-gettingly titled Quality Control: The case against peer review. Whether there is a viable alternative to the process (or whether the situation is analogous to Winston Churchill’s famous line: “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”), it’s at least an interesting meta-point that no one’s yet done a definitive objective review of the system of peer review.