by Heineken » Thu 22 Nov 2007, 10:27:25
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'D')id any one else notice that the year intervals along the bottom of spot's happy flat chart are a little...funny.
Though appearing to be equal segments, they actually vary from six year intervals to seven, to nine, to...zero!!
Yes, spot, you have 1986 (if I recall correctly) twice along the bottom of your graph. I don't know if it was intentional, but it sure helps flatten out the curve!
I'm not sure who should be more embarrassed: you for presenting such sloppy work, or the rest of us for not noticing such a basic gaff so far. Or maybe the other posters were just being polite?
Your basic point has been made many times on many threads here--it is hard to know exactly how long and how flat or bumpy the plateau will be, but there aren't a lot of positive signs that I can see. Maybe you can apply you're graphing skills to chart the price of a barrel of light sweet crude from 2000 to now in (regular!) two year intervals. I believe you will find that it approximates an exponential curve. That is closer to the reality we are in than a deceptively comforting flatish curve.
I didn't notice it. But when you mentally extract that bogus segment, the basic shape of the curve doesn't change much.
The key point is that spot's analysis is completely irrelevant. He's zeroed in on the production plateau, most of which is behind us, and claimed that since it's been fairly gentle, we can count on harmless times
ahead. A least a good 40 fun years, or conveniently long enough for any of us now alive, including spot.
All plateaus are gentle. That's what a plateau is. It's the downslope, which we're fast approaching or actually now in, that matters. An entirely different animal colliding with the fully accelerated, grasping, dependent creature that a century of energy abundance has manufactured.