Peak Oil Theory and the Limits of Growth
I was surfing through blogs on Peak Oil and saw old thread (that, maddeningly, I can’t find again), started by someone asking for a refutation of Peak Oil theory, and his responders were happy to oblige.
I found it to be a curious phrasing of a question. It’s a bit like saying “I am about to step off the edge a cliff, so will someone provide a refutation of the Theory of Gravity.” And his responders might have pointed out that Einstein showed that Newton’s Law of Gravity to be wrong. And so it’s safe to step of the edge of a cliff. Right?
One commenter pointed to a chart in a paper written by M. King Hubbert, the originator of Peak Oil Theory. The chart shows world oil peaking in 1995. The commenter points out that world oil didn’t peak in 1995, therefore Hubbert was wrong and so it is indeed ok to step off the cliff.
It would appear that no one in the heated debate bothered to read Hubbert’s paper. (After all mankind used to seek knowledge; now all you need is a web link to knowledge.). They might have noted that the paper was not about Peak Oil and the one chart with the peak at 1995 was almost incidental.
Hubbert’s paper was entitled “Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History”. The last two paragraphs are reproduced below:
Those whose need to “refute Peak oil” is greater than their need to think rationally may take the words I have emphasized out of context and show to the world the King of Peak Oil says there is nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately King Hubbert was worrying about something a great deal worse: arithmetic; specifically the arithmetic of exponential growth. He lists statistics of growth rates over the last two centuries: production (and consumption) rate of oil doubling every ten years, for example.
He hasn’t much hope of convincing the general population (many of whom are baffled by the ‘miracle’ of compound interest) but the arithmetic of exponential growth inexorable. Arguing about the precision of the numbers is irrelevant. Doubling in ten years is not sustainable. Doubling is not sustainable. Ultimately, growth is not sustainable. The question is not whether we will run until insoluble problems but when.
There seems to be a large and noisy population that acts as if not problem is important unless it is their face right now. At least if it’s a societal problem.
We have learnt that some problems are worth dealing with before they get severe. We attempt to diagnose cancer as early as possible because it’s a lot more likely to be treatable. It takes just 46 cell generations for a single cancer cell to become a tumor that’s bigger than your body. How big do we like it to get before we treat it?
Do we want our Societal Doctor to shake his head ominously with the words “If only you had come me sooner”? “While there is yet still time” as Hubbard said, 30 years ago. 30 years in which humanity has done something about the problem: it was made it exponentially worse.
I found it to be a curious phrasing of a question. It’s a bit like saying “I am about to step off the edge a cliff, so will someone provide a refutation of the Theory of Gravity.” And his responders might have pointed out that Einstein showed that Newton’s Law of Gravity to be wrong. And so it’s safe to step of the edge of a cliff. Right?
One commenter pointed to a chart in a paper written by M. King Hubbert, the originator of Peak Oil Theory. The chart shows world oil peaking in 1995. The commenter points out that world oil didn’t peak in 1995, therefore Hubbert was wrong and so it is indeed ok to step off the cliff.
It would appear that no one in the heated debate bothered to read Hubbert’s paper. (After all mankind used to seek knowledge; now all you need is a web link to knowledge.). They might have noted that the paper was not about Peak Oil and the one chart with the peak at 1995 was almost incidental.
Hubbert’s paper was entitled “Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History”. The last two paragraphs are reproduced below:
“It appears therefore that one of the foremost problems confronting humanity today is how to make the transition from the precarious state that we are in now in to this optimum future state by a least catastrophic progression. Our principal constraints at present are neither lack of energy nor of material resources [emphasis not in the original] nor of essential physical and biological knowledge. Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential for its stability that it is incapable with reckoning with nongrowth.
Since the problems confronting us are not intrinsically insoluble, it behooves as, while there is yet time, to begin serious examination of the nature of our culture constraints and of the cultural adjustments necessary to permit us to deal effectively with the problems rapidly arising. Provided this can be done before unmanageable crises arise, there is promise that we could be n the threshold of achieving one of the greatest intellectual and cultural advances in human history.”
M. King Hubbert. 1976
see http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Hubbert/wwf1976/
Those whose need to “refute Peak oil” is greater than their need to think rationally may take the words I have emphasized out of context and show to the world the King of Peak Oil says there is nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately King Hubbert was worrying about something a great deal worse: arithmetic; specifically the arithmetic of exponential growth. He lists statistics of growth rates over the last two centuries: production (and consumption) rate of oil doubling every ten years, for example.
He hasn’t much hope of convincing the general population (many of whom are baffled by the ‘miracle’ of compound interest) but the arithmetic of exponential growth inexorable. Arguing about the precision of the numbers is irrelevant. Doubling in ten years is not sustainable. Doubling is not sustainable. Ultimately, growth is not sustainable. The question is not whether we will run until insoluble problems but when.
There seems to be a large and noisy population that acts as if not problem is important unless it is their face right now. At least if it’s a societal problem.
We have learnt that some problems are worth dealing with before they get severe. We attempt to diagnose cancer as early as possible because it’s a lot more likely to be treatable. It takes just 46 cell generations for a single cancer cell to become a tumor that’s bigger than your body. How big do we like it to get before we treat it?
Do we want our Societal Doctor to shake his head ominously with the words “If only you had come me sooner”? “While there is yet still time” as Hubbard said, 30 years ago. 30 years in which humanity has done something about the problem: it was made it exponentially worse.