So what I'm getting here Grisu is that you
don't think that PO theory is dead.
We are talking past each other because we have not agreed on a definition of PO theory yet. WE can keep moving the goal posts and changing the definitions and we have an irrefutable hypothesis.
1) As promulgated by the Drummers in the mid 2000s, the peak of oil production was 2005 (or 2006 or 2007), global production would then fall some fixed percentage per year (an exponential decay) set by geological limits and when this happened (starting ~2008) prices would skyrocket exponentially to levels like $100, $200, $400, $1000/barrel that would cripple society, destroy our lifestyle, and lead to the dying off of most humans.
OK, that didn't happen. The exponentially increasing price topped at $150, fell to $50, and settled on a plateau of $100 for 4 years and counting.
2) After the oil price collapse in 2008/9, the story changed....PO was still important b/c it had caused the financial crisis that everyone was talking about. Of course, it also lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union in their telling. But the price forecast had to be changed---the PO induced financial crisis had destroyed demand, and bought us a few additional years of survival, but the geological limits were still there. As soon as the economy recovers, they predicted, oil demand will rise to the previous level, the price will rise again, and a new PO-induced recession will occur. The prediction is that the global economy will never be able to grow much above its 2008 peak, and each oil price spike/recession will be worse than the last, and take us to a lower standard of living and GDP.
OK, that hasn't happened either. The US and global economies have been growing since 2009, at a pace consistent with their different circumstances. China has been booking solid growth consistent with the typical 'emerging market' growth curve versus per capita GDP. The US has been growing at a slower pace, consistent with being a more developed economy. The EU took an austerity route, and has been enjoying a mild recession. None of this looks like the (revised) PO prediction....poor counties (China) would be priced out first and die off first. The US would be crippled by its greater dependence on oil per capita, and the EU would adapt better and be more resilient in a PO plateau world.
3) When folks point out ~2011 that oil prices are stable, oil supplies are growing, GDP is making new highs, the PO folks won't give up. Rather than being a 'commodity supercycle' like the 1975-1985 period, where a lot of new resources were developed after a price spike, the PO folks insist that PO and the geological limits are still there....waiting, always waiting, to kill off us foolish humans.
--They say that shale oil and shale gas are fictions, not that they are bad/polluting, but that they **won't work**, because EROIEIO is below 5, or 3 or whatever, and that is impossible, or that decline rates are exponential and 60% per year. Soon all the companies doing fracking will soon go out of business, existing wells will deplete in 1-2 years and then we are back to the previous PO story.
--They say that GDP growth is fictional. The US is NOT making more products (per capita) and selling them overseas then it ever has before. If it appears that way, it is not stable....only the result of cooked financial data from a crooked US govt (most be both parties, since the same cooking of the books occurred with both parties in the white house), or the result of QEx goosing the system in a totally unsustainable way, that depending on who you ask will result in weimar hyperinflation, or the collapse of the US govt and GDP as soon as rates start to rise when QE is ended, etc.
4) When folks in 2013 point out that PO has all the trappings of a falsified hypothesis (i.e. multiple failed predictions and resulting moving of goalposts and revising of predictions), PO folks retreat to safety. They issue easy platitudes like 'oil is finite', 'exponential growth cannot continue forever on a finite earth', 'PO was never about the oil just running out one day', 'fracking is really bad, people won't go for it', 'the EIA predicts PO in 2035, this will all come to pass then, we better get ready for it'. Uh huh.
There we have it folks, no die off, no oil production peak, oil prices in a narrow band around $100, gas guzzlers still the most popular models (in the US), GDP at new highs and growing at rates comparable to pre 2005 period. But we are deluding ourselves...its all a trick by Obama and Bernanke...one of these days the crash will come and the hard geological limits of PO theory will rise up again.
