Provocatively, Peter Schwartz, a futurist planner who worked at Shell Oil in the 80s, said that peak oil is wrong, that “clean technology professionals shouldn’t believe what they hear about peak oil”.
zach wilson says, “This is such a stupid, intentional misrepresentation of the position of many advocates of the peak oil concept it is simply infuriating.
“Peak Oil has never been about supply, it has always been about flow rate.
“Peak oil is about whether or not we can maintain the current, expected level of oil production at current costs and if not, what the ramifications for that are.
“More expensive oil means that we’re spending more of our GDP on energy which means a lower quality of life across the board. Someone has to suffer, likely a lot of people have to make major sacrifices.
“At $125 a barrel, [we will be] spending 1/4 of our GDP on energy…. and as a result many dependent sectors of the economy will suffer – like food production and manufacturing.
Simon says,
“The more sophisticated Peak Oil arguments may be about flow rate, but the ones that permeate the popular media right now are all about the ‘end of oil’ which is of course sexier/scarier and make for better ratings.”