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Comment by DanielH | Hacker News Reader

Problem #1: We'll see probably $200 this year and even higher in the next years. This can only be slowed down and nothing else... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

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My understanding is that this prediction of oil running out (always a few decades in the future) has been commonplace for almost a century. How is it possible to know what will or won't be discovered, either by way of new deposits or new technologies? 30 billion (estimated) barrels were just discovered in Brazil.

I should perhaps add that I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other. I just like being skeptical, and I smell ideology in these predictions.

It's not about oil running out, it's about supply peaking and not being able to keep up with demand. That's happened, China and India demand is only going to continue rising. Short of some new technology, prices will continue to rise from now on.

At a certain price, there is always enough supply for the demand.

Of course, but then you can't expect low prices, demand dictates price which is exactly what we're seeing now.

Fair enough, but these predictions have a way of turning out wrong. I think the ideology driving the prediction is the operative factor.

Edit: I'm being too hasty this morning. How exactly does "supply peaking" not have to do with "oil running out"?

Supply and demand are the operative factors, price is up because demand is up while supply remains steady. Ideology has little to do with it.

I look at who's making the predictions, what else they think, and what agenda they have. From that perspective, ideology has a great deal to do with it.

Which means little once the predictions start coming true. Look around, peak oil isn't really a prediction any more, it's happening, demand has sky rocketed beyond what supply can handle. When pieces of sky are hitting you in the head you don't stand around questioning Chicken Little's ideology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oil_Prices_1861_2007.svg

Demand trails price and production trails demand by several years and it's related to politics. So it's hard to make real predictions. In the end politics plays a huge role in today’s oil prices and long term we can manufacture it from other sources for less than 200$ per barrel. Granted we use a lot of oil so infrastructure costs are huge so the major players are going to be vary conservative.

I don't know a single person who takes near-term Peak Oil seriously who is not some random blogger or pop star.

Edit for the down-modders: Our "years of consumption" for oil, which is known oil reserves divided by current usage, has increased pretty constantly since 1920. In 1945 we had about 20 years of consumption left, in 2000 we had about 40. You can find this stat as figure 66 in "The Skeptical Environmentalist" which sites the primary source. "Peak Oil" is an unproven baseless scare-mongering prediction about the future.

It should also be noted that these kind of simplistic doomsday predictions have been going around since at least 1865, when Stanley Jevons predicted that England's coal supplies would run out and torpedo the industrial revolution. He failed to account for the incentive effects of rising coal prices.

But you know what they say about those that do not study history...

Perhaps the Shell geoscientist, Dr. Marion King Hubbert?

I've seen Congress people talk about it at length on CSPAN. Granted, not necessarily a great vote of credibility, but does not fall under the headings of blogger or pop star.

Arguably pop star :)

Maybe "celebrity" would be a better fit.

These days, random joe blogger has more credibility than Congress.

Lots of people aren't happy with President Bush - he's got approval ratings somewhere in the low thirties, I think. Even less people are happy with Congress - they were in the 14% ballpark recently. I'm tired of the whole lot. There are some good Republicans, but I'd sacrifice them to wipe the slate clean.

Term limits!

Not that I disagree, but what makes you think Congress will ever vote themselves out of office with term limits?

I don't know. You can amend the constitution without congress, but that would require quite a lot of organization and "grass-roots" (I hate the phrase, but to use another cliche, it's used for lack of a better one) efforts. You could probably get started by picking off a few active and former members of congress to sort of "lead the charge", but the effort would have to be sustained through several election cycles, I think. You'd also have to make sure you leverage the precedent set by the 22nd amendment (presidential term limit).

It's a bootstrapping problem, and a particularly difficult one because there is a reasonable argument against it (people should be free to elect whomever they want).

It'll never happen, that's the reality. I wish it would, but at this point I have very little faith in government, in fact I have none. They're corrupt and the system is setup to keep it that way. The foxes have been running the hen house for a long time.

Only popstars and random bloggers?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8183966529898602701

I've seen the hearing at the congress last week, these excutives didn't look and sound very confident to me...

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