[Viti]

Greetings - I am a new poster here.


Question : Can anyone direct me to detailed, informed comments on, responses to, or critiques of the recent work of Dr Duncan Clarke called :


The Battle for Barrels, Peak Oil Myths and World Oil Futures, ISBN 1846680123, February 2007 ?



Kind regards



Alistair Munro

Nelson
New Zealand

ackm@silkweb.net.nz

[joewp]

Welcome.

Amazon is always a good place to start
link to book page

and after reading the reviews, I'd say the book is just a cornucopian manifesto written by someone who doesn't have a clue. From one review: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')A few good things can be said about this book:

1)Its a good study guide for those wishing to understand the different methods used to attempt to undermine arguments when you have very little rationale points to offer.
2)For those with even the least bit of knowledge about Peak Oil theory this book will show them that the arguements against Peak Oil are extremely thin.

[master_rb]

http://www.economistshop.com/asp/bookde ... ?book=2910

not a detailed description, looks boring

[some_guy282]

Jim Puplava interviewed him this weekend.

http://www.netcastdaily.com/fsnewshour.htm

Second hour interview of the April 14th 2007 show.

I listened to the interview and the guy sounded like he was full of a lot of hot air. I'd agree with that reviewer who joewp quoted - it was good reminder at how thin the arguments of cornucopians are. Some points I remember from his interview with Puplava.

- He kept stressing that there are many above ground factors which influence production, like economic demand and technology.

Economic growth and oil drilling technology are both very high in the US. Neither of these factors have reversed our 30+ year decline in production.

- Calling Peak Oil a "static flawed model"

Gee, I wonder what all those previously Peaked nations and oil fields have to say about that. Someone better call up Pemex and tell them they don't have to be bound by Peak Oil. They can start increasing production at Cantarel again...

- He talks a lot about exciting new discoveries and reserve growth.

Reserve numbers are meaningless. You can have all the oil in the world in a single field, but if you can't increase production to meet your needs then the reserve numbers are meaningless. This is what Peak Oil is all about. I think Puplava also asked him about the strange reserve growth in OPEC during the 80's and he basically dodged the question.

- Using the "boy who cried wolf" argument, saying the whole theory is invalid because all prior predictions of peaking and running out have been wrong. In particular he named Deffeyes and Campbell.

Like everyone else who uses the boy who cried wolf argument, he conveniently omits the one person who was dead on in his prediction: Hubbert in his call of a peak in the US lower 48.

- He talks positively about alternative liquid fuels like ethanol and tar sands, and predicts current projections for a peak and major supply problems in the next few years will continue to be pushed into the future as they have in the past. And by the time that happens (20 or 30 years from now) we will have a very different energy situation with alternatives, so it will be a non isssue.

If oil supplies are as secure as he would like us to believe, then why even talk about things like tar sands and ethanol? They're not even worth looking at unless the price of oil remains high, and Clarke certainly gives the impression prices will come down in the long term. But, he expects us to believe that we will continue to diversify energy supplies globally. I think that's a load of BS. We wont do anything without the economic incentives. After the shocks of the 70's when prices came down no one cared about switching away from oil because prices were low. Why wouldn't the same happen again?

That's most of his points. Very thin. And he's a geologist! Did he get his degree in a cracker jack box?