[MonteQuest]

Chris,

I'm going to lock this for now and see if we can get it into the Ask the Experts forum.

MQ

[EnviroEngr]

I'll get to this in a day or two.

[EnviroEngr]

http://www.peakoil.com/post66090.html#66090

[Ayoob_Reloaded]

Please list them in this thread, they will be collated and sent to Lynch.

That is all.

[marek]

Given high oil prices, why are the companies spending money on repurchasing their stock or merging instead of exploring for more oil?

[killJOY]

How many SUVs do you own?

[seahorse]

Ayoob,

The questions are listed in the forum "Open Lynch Challenge."

Killjoy, I own 1 SUV, toyota 4 runner, what do you drive?

[killJOY]

1990 VW Fox, 1980 Honda 650 bike.

Also, to be clear: anyone who can afford to drive an SUV should be permitted to. My question is solely designed to elicit a "money where his mouth is" response.

[MonteQuest]

Moderators note:

We already have a collection area. See here.

Please repost your questions there and I will delete this thread.
MQ
http://peakoil.com/fortopic1176.html

[nero]

My criticism of Michael Lynch's article in the Globe and Mail May 28 2005:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lynch', 'A')mherst, Mass. — Since the early Greeks speculated that the Trojan War was started by the gods to reduce overpopulation, many have feared resource scarcity. The obvious finite nature of non-renewable resources such as minerals combined with occasional shortages and an inability to be certain of future supplies has made this a recurring theme in political economy.

The most obvious modern analogy has been the work two centuries ago by Thomas Malthus, who made a simplistic (and incorrect) calculation of growth trends in population and food supply, and continued by Paul Ehrlich, who continually foresees imminent mass starvation.

[heyhoser]

That's a very well thought-out and put together critique, Nero. It's good to see other people seeing through the bullshit that's thrown at us.

[EddieB]

Hear, hear. Great job Nero. I had many of the same thoughts but I'm too lazy to type it all out. Great analysis. You should send that critique to the Globe and Mail. Maybe they'd publish it - or an edited version of it.

[bobbyald]

Good work nero, I agree 100%.

I expect in the long run Thomas Malthus will be proved correct, he just didn't consider overshoot.

[mididoctors]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he world contains abundant oil resources to meet demand for decades to come, with the amount of drilling historically outside North America a fraction of what the United States and Canada have experienced, and well productivity running 30 to 500 times that seen here.

[Dvanharn]

Michael Lynch seems to me to be simply a more famous and well-paid version of our own faith-based techno/econo proponents here , like the current crop that includes John Denver and BiGG.

As I have repeated many times here, these guys are like the layman who challenged the weather forecaster, and beat him for "accuracy" on forecasting the next days weather by always saying it would be the same as today's weather. However, simple logic says that while his percentage on overall forcasting could be very high, his percentage of predicting change would be zero - far below the weather forecaster's accuracy. Lynch simply says that tomorrow will be like today with respect oil - it will be found and produced when it is needed by the market demand because a higher price will provide the incentive to find and produce it. However, I don't think that there will be a sufficient supply of portable and cheap energy in the near future - at least not enough to keep our debt-ridden fiat money, profit-driven capitalist system going.

I believe that there may be lots of petroleum (rock-oil) left, but our economic system may not be able to handle extracting and processing the nasty sour and heavy oils and tars, and the conversion of coal to oil/gas for future growth needs. And without growth, the economy will collapse (at least the economy on which our "non-negotiable" American lifestyle depends.)

Dave

[Geology_Guy]

I agree-great analysis. Another reason for the greater number of wells drilled in the USA is the early development of the oil business. In the old days before geophysics etc. the drillers just picked a spot and started to drill. Since the US was undeveloped in respect to oil wells they did find a lot of oil, but they also drilled a lot of dry holes.

Oil drilling in a lot of the rest of the world including Saudi Arabia only really picked up after WW2. By then the geophysics guys would say where to drill so there were a lot fewer dry wildcats.

The rest of the world will never reach the well density of the US because they don't need to in order to find their oil. Hence the argument that there is a lot of oil to find outside of the USA because of the relatively low number of oil wells there has little merit.

[mididoctors]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geology_Guy', '
')
The rest of the world will never reach the well density of the US because they don't need to in order to find their oil. Hence the argument that there is a lot of oil to find outside of the USA because of the relatively low number of oil wells there has little merit.

[ubercynicmeister]

Yep, so Mr Lynch is of the opinion that: Peak Oil Can't Be Happening Because Even After The Peak, We'll Still Have 40 Years Worth Of Production (yada yada yada, *yawn*).

I can't add much to what Nero has said, except to point out that Malthus was incorrect, but only because he didn't take into consideration "peak energy".

But why should he have? When he was around, the overwhelming majority of "energy" was something either a horse, the wind or a human did. Or a waterfall. The topic never arose, until the 20th century some 300 (?) years later.

Thanks for your post, Nero. It was well reasoned out.

Just one question - given the UNreliability of OPEC "reserve" and "production" data, has this clown (Lynch) stumbled onto something here, in the sense that we should not be trusting the figures?

Mind you, if so, then it makes the case worse for Mr Lynch (I think it's a mister), does it not?

[khebab]

I personaly find Lynch very arrogant, in his presentations he always find a way to say that he did his PhD at MTI consequently he's smarter and more scientific than everybody else. He's an economist so he believes that market will push oil companies to invest in new technologies and stimulates exploration. He does not believe that a natural resource can be depleted because it has never been true in the past.

He does not back up his claims with any numbers or data but rather by destroying the methodology basis followed by Campbell et al. which is a lot more easier.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nero', 'I') do think this is a valid critisism of some PO doomers. However many people who worry about peak oil do not fit into this mold. They may be worried about peak oil but they do not predict a catastrophe. Simmons, Campbell and Aleklett for example are not malthusian doomers. Lynch is implying here that anyone who worries about peak oil is a crazy survivalist nutcase. It's a cheap rhetorical trick to start an opinion piece devoid of facts.