A peak by any other name is still a peak

Those who criticize peak oil theory or at least the conclusion that peak oil is nearby find themselves faced with a naming problem. If they believe that oil supplies are for all practical purposes infinite (an idea usually associated with the abiotic theory of oil), they are consigned to the category of people who are incapable of accepting the overwhelming evidence that no matter what oil’s origins, it is, in any time frame that matters to humans, finite. They are not exactly cornucopians.

Genuine cornucopians don’t deny that hydrocarbons are limited in supply. Rather, they believe that humans will find ingenious new ways to power their economies through innovation and marketplace incentives and that they will do this in plenty of time. At the very least, the infinite supply theorists should not be classed among the reality-based community.


Of those who accept that oil is a finite resource, many believe a decline in supply won’t occur for three decades or more. They use such words as “undulating plateau” or “no visible peak” (Michael Lynch) to describe their views. Perhaps the most ingenious formulation is that put forth by Daniel Yergin, long-time head of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, that the risks to oil supply lie above ground rather than below it. This implies a desire for a certain kind of unspecified foreign and domestic policy to solve the “above ground” problems. (These problems, of course, are problems primarily for oil importers, not oil exporters.) The problems include the following:

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