Peak Oil is You
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Page added on February 12, 2015
A New Book on Oil, Finance, and Economic History
In 1863, with the first American oil boom “at full tilt”, Andrew Carnegie had an epiphany: the world would soon run out of oil. He and a partner “decided to dig an enormous hole, capable of holding 100,000 barrels of oil”, where they would stockpile crude “until the worldwide oil shortage had struck”. When that happened, they’d be rich – to be precise, they’d be millionaires.
As Blake Clayton recalls in his awesome new book Market Madness: A Century of Oil Panics, Crises, and Crashes, they then waited. “And waited. But the long-awaited shortage never came. The only thing that did arrive was evaporation, which kept skimming more and more oil off the top of the lake.” Carnegie, writing fifty-seven years later, “noted wryly that the shortage… still had ‘not arrived’”.
I’m not an impartial observer – Blake did much of the work on this book while he was a fellow with my program at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he’s still an adjunct – but don’t let that lead you to discount my enthusiasm. This is a fascinating book: it’s simultaneously an entertaining story of four peak oil scares (and how they end) stretching back over a hundred years; an analytically serious book about behavioral finance that helps explain how markets can often be incredibly wrong; and a careful look at how policy makers manage – and mismanage – energy strategy in the face of uncertainty and fear.
In any case, don’t just take my word for it. Dan Yergin calls the book “fascinating and lively”. Greg Sharenow of PIMCO calls it “a landmark study that is a must read for investors and policymakers alike”. And Charley Ebinger predicts that it “will rank with Daniel Yergin’s The Prize as an icon in the field”.
Don’t bet against that. You can buy the book here. And, in a year or so, you’ll probably want to buy the paperback too – its epilogue about the latest oil crash is bound to be a must-read.
16 Comments on "A New Book on Oil, Finance, and Economic History"
Tom on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 8:45 pm
Any author that references the endorsement of Daniel Yergin, except when looking in the rear view mirror, can’t be much worth reading.
Plantagenet on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 8:51 pm
Any book that discusses the history of past oil gluts is worth trading because it may shed light on what will happen during the current oil glut
Plantagenet on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 8:53 pm
Worth READING…
DMyers on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 9:10 pm
People thought it was going to run out many times in the past.
It didn’t and it hasn’t run out.
Therefore, it will never run out.
That’s the logical overlay on an article like this (and the book I presume). It’s not a valid conclusion but it does sort of make you feel good.
The interesting thing is what seems to be an abiding or at least recurring sense of imminent oil depletion over the years. The article states that this urgent foreboding first found a voice in 1863, only historical moments after the Age of Oil was launched in Pennsylvania.
I speculate that this collective sense about oil in the near term has been a natural psychological response to the way oil has been exploited. We have simply used it up as fast as we could and continue to do so. A wise, observant eye relates this to other phenomena in life and recognizes that aggressive extraction often results in quick depletion.
Clearly oil extraction has been such an endeavor, and we have extracted a truly huge quantity of the best oil in what is truly a mere hundred years. We have exhausted a quantity of oil what would have appeared inexhaustible at the start.
So even though the concrete end of the resource did not fulfill the warnings of depletion, we have seen a fantastic rate of depletion, probably greater than imagined by even the darkest of pessimists in former times.
At some point, the foreboding will hold true.
Apneaman on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 9:42 pm
The Age of Oil was NOT launched in Pennsylvania in 1863, it was launched in, Black Creek / Oil Springs, Ont, Canada in 1861. Baseball was probably invented in Canada too. Oh and fast food was around at least since the Romans, including the an early version of a hamburger.
Makati1 on Thu, 12th Feb 2015 10:21 pm
Two thoughts to consider…
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to it’s old dimensions”
And one I need to remember…
“Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.”
Have a great day!
GregT on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 1:00 am
CFR propaganda, written by Michael A. Levi, a David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment.
Anyone that doesn’t have the ability to fully grasp the reality of what this is all about, should buy the book.
Worth READING….
Perk Earl on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 2:13 am
I’m really puzzled by something. Why are there so many articles about Keira Knightly’s pregnancy? Almost every single day for weeks now Google News has run an article on her pregnancy – it’s a bump – bump showing on designer dress – so and so says she’ll be a great mother, so on every single day! Wtf is going on?
Is Keira Knightly the world’s new super woman God? They make it sound like she’s the only woman in the world capable of getting pregnant. Does this seem sick to anybody else?
GregT on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 2:39 am
Perk,
Bread and circus. Nothing more than a distraction.
Dredd on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 5:53 am
“Climate change has always happened, therefore no climate change is of human origin.”
“Oil depletion has always happened, therefore no oil depletion is of human origin.”
“Mass extinctions have always happened, therefore no mass extinction is of human origin.”
=========================
Here are the proper premises and deductions:
“Climate change has always happened, thus no climate change was of human origin before humans existed.”
“Oil depletion has always happened, thus no oil depletion was of human origin before humans existed.”
“Mass extinctions have always happened, thus no mass extinction was of human origin before humans existed.”
One flaw in Oil-Qaeda logic the first three statements is the false equating and therefore conflating of “all of the past” with “some of the past.”
=========================
That is the way Oil-Qaeda wants local yokels to misapply principles of logic.
“Pass me the thingy” is not good nomenclature for professionals.
Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death
paulo1 on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 8:39 am
Who is Keira Knightly?
dave thompson on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 8:42 am
The McPherson and Ehrlich conversation is telling.
Perk Earl on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 10:37 am
http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a26746/keira-knightley-jimmy-kimmel/
Paulo, here’s a link to yet another daily article on Keira Knightly. She’s just a film actress (sorry, nothing to do with oil) that somehow is written about now every single day on Google News.
I’m wondering what happened that this person is now more important than anything else in the news. She’s apparently more important than oil, because oil articles do not show up every single day in the Google News.
But GregT is probably right, it’s just bread and circus. Something to entertain the masses.
Apneaman on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 11:13 am
EARN REPORT
January 26,2015
THE INCREASINGLY UNEQUAL STATES OF
AMERICA Income Inequality by State
1917 to 2012
http://s3.epi.org/files/2014/IncreasinglyUnequalStatesofAmerica1917to2012.pdf
bobinget on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 11:33 am
Do we need to wait till Saturday for news, more important even then Lovely Keira?
Unusual weather events are already eating away at
world economies.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/snow-cold-wind-new-england-braces-another-weather-nightmare-n305801
Homeowners, cities and counties are already deeply
in debt clearing snow.
One thousand year drought.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-us-is-heading-for-a-megadrought-if-climate-change-continues-at-this-pace-10044965.html
Makati1 on Fri, 13th Feb 2015 6:29 pm
US ‘news’ is like the huge malls that infest America. Take out all of the unnecessary / uninformative stuff we see today and it would be back to one small store / 10 minutes at 11 PM. But then, the sheeple would wake up and pick up their guns and take out the establishment.