Editorial comment – march 2004

WorldOil:

At the risk of thoroughly ticking off some of these folks, I’ll reveal some tricks of the trade. There are three guiding principles for successful soothsaying: don’t be too specific in time or details, and make many predictions – one of them is likely to come true, and the others will be forgotten. As examples, let’s examine Jean Dixon, Nostradamus and M. King Hubbert. Admittedly, this comparison is a bit strained, like TV evangelist Rev. Eugene Scott’s infamous sermon, “Let us compare and contrast Spiderman and Jesus.” And I should mention that I have nothing personal against these folks, nor their followers, especially the Hubbertites. They just happen to be – completely wrong.
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Hubbert used a simple bell-shaped curve for his predictions and assumed that it was symmetric. The idea that a small, simple reservoir ramps up production to some peak, and then begins to decline is obviously correct; but it cannot be extended to the entire planet in a predictable way. You have to assume how much the total world endowment is, what future recovery factors are, and that the earth is maturely explored. Even US production, which has been nearly flat in recent years, is now 1.75 times higher than his predictive curve indicated.

WorldOil