[spike]

I'm sure there are dead people who've sold more books, but how did you figure out I sold 24?

[Cog]

Doomers absolutely hate the past. They love future doom predictions but past doomer predictions go down their memory hole.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spike', 'I')'m sure there are dead people who've sold more books, but how did you figure out I sold 24?

[rockdoc123]

If I remember the story correctly Hermann Melville wrote Moby Dick in the late 1800's and hardly sold any copies until the 1920's when suddenly readers began to appreciate the work. It is now, of course, a classic. Henry Thoreau also resorted to self financing in order to publish and hardly sold any books. Well after his death his works finally became appreciated and he is now recognized as one of the great American writers...who here hasn't read Walden? Keats was another whose writing wasn't appreciated until almost 70 years after his death.

My point is that what might be considered insignificant literature today may well be the go to treatise on a particular subject somewhere down the road. All knowledge is good knowledge, reading publications and books by authors who might have been wrong in some of their predictions is an important part of learning and formulating your own hypotheses.

[asg70]

Most of the writings about peak-oil in the 2004-2008 time-frame put forward bad predictions. I see very little concession to this fact on the part of the peak-oil faithful here. They seem cultishly immune to facts. As long as that's the case, there won't be any learning or hypothesizing going on, just spin-control intended to maintain a continual sense of imminent dread of TEOTWAWKI.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('asg70', 'M')ost of the writings about peak-oil in the 2004-2008 time-frame put forward bad predictions.

[spike]

It's not that Campbell, Simmons, Deffeyes, etc were wrong, it's WHY they were wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellyn ... 962e985c56
Campbell, Laherrere and Deffeyes relied on math that was simply invalid (but copied by many others). I have several chapters in my book which explain what they did wrong.
Simmons never had much behind his arguments. There is no real evidence in his book that the Saudis are about to experience a peak, just claims that the papers show "problems" as if there were no other places that experienced problems.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spike', 'I')t's not that Campbell, Simmons, Deffeyes, etc were wrong, it's WHY they were wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellyn ... 962e985c56
Campbell, Laherrere and Deffeyes relied on math that was simply invalid (but copied by many others). I have several chapters in my book which explain what they did wrong.
Simmons never had much behind his arguments. There is no real evidence in his book that the Saudis are about to experience a peak, just claims that the papers show "problems" as if there were no other places that experienced problems.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')pike, time for another talent search. Adam's failed his assignment.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spike', 'I')t's not that Campbell, Simmons, Deffeyes, etc were wrong, it's WHY they were wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellyn ... 962e985c56
Campbell, Laherrere and Deffeyes relied on math that was simply invalid (but copied by many others). I have several chapters in my book which explain what they did wrong.
Simmons never had much behind his arguments. There is no real evidence in his book that the Saudis are about to experience a peak, just claims that the papers show "problems" as if there were no other places that experienced problems.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '
')In case you haven't noticed, this isn't really a peak oil website any more.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spike', '
')Simmons never had much behind his arguments. There is no real evidence in his book that the Saudis are about to experience a peak....

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') guess if you ignore the facts in Simmon's book then there isn't much evidence there.

But wait! Maybe the facts are important here? Maybe facts have something to do with evidence? Can you comprehend that idea?

If so, then lets examine the question of whether or not KSA is "about to experience a peak" as you put it.

Simmons pointed out in his book that the amount of oil that has already been produced from Ghawar is enormous. The fact that a huge amount of oil has already been produced at Ghawar is indisputable. Are you with me so far on that FACT or do I have to explain it all again for you?

[spike]

Thanks, rockdoc, that conforms to my perception. I heard from a reliable source that, indeed, he only read the abstracts. But I pointed out the many of his mistakes and contradictions in my paper https://books.google.com/books/about/Cr ... RFAAAACAAJ (which cites some others who made more technical critiques).
Simmons actually was asked why, if all of the papers he was citing had been presented to the petroleum engineering community, none of them saw the danger he perceived, and he said it was probably because as a banker he was better at seeing the big picture.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spike', '
')Simmons actually was asked why, if all of the papers he was citing had been presented to the petroleum engineering community, none of them saw the danger he perceived, and he said it was probably because as a banker he was better at seeing the big picture.

[asg70]

Note the language. "eventually". "on a path". "not unlimited".

Nobody's disputing the finite nature of oil, not even Michael Lynch. Oil has been finite since drilling first began. We're now about a decade beyond the time that Simmons and company predicted peaks. Hubbert's curve was supposed to form the basis of a prediction methodology. The methodologies failed to the point where while YES, there's reason to be concerned about a post-peak world, there's no longer a way to accurately predict when that will occur.

Not having any way to tease out a prediction via science means the discussion falls back to individual predictions based on little more than hunches and predisposition. It's the equivalent to people betting on college sports.