Michael C. Lynch: Peak oil, uncommon ground

Steve Andrews was kind enough to approach me about writing on the subject of where the peak oil community agrees with, shall we say, its critics. However, the peak oil community is itself divided in its views and cannot be addressed as a unified whole. So, this piece will include what I consider the areas of disagreement between the two communities of peak oil advocates, and the subsequent areas of agreement between resource optimists and peak oil advocates of both kinds.

The division appears primarily to be between those who focus on resources (Campbell, Deffeyes, Laherrere) and those who consider flow rates to be the key question (Rodgers, Skrebowski, Smith). The central point where these two groups tend to agree is that world oil production will likely peak sometime during the next decade, at a level below 100 million barrels/day, but the flow rate pessimists would, I think, tend to agree with most of the following statements, which contradict the beliefs of many resource pessimists…

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