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Peak Oil

I find it difficult to gainsay the logic behind peak oil. That is, that oil is a non-renewable resource, until the abiotic people prove their case. I think that they will not. In such circumstances, there will not be much left at viable prices if oil continues to be used at the rates at which it was used for the past decade.

I am however compelled to look to events. Speculation, economic growth, and the number of available refineries all affect the price of oil. Nevertheless, I think that the coming deep recession will allow for a slower use of oil than might have been expected; it may buy us some twenty years or so.

In that regard, I'd hate it for any reader to think that I wasn't capable of changing my mind, or that I would stick to predictions of oil-driven disaster if the facts change. I still think that the things touted as renewable technologies are a waste of time at the minute, and that we as a state should invest in clean coal and nuclear power. I do however note that the price of oil has, at the moment, ceased its upward trend and may be heading down.

To that extent, Irwin Steltzer and the Devil's Kitchen, whose published position either on this blog or theirs disagreed with my prediction that oil would be a feature of the predictable catastrophe we find ourselves in, were right. I was wrong. It was a herald which is now falling in price, as they predicted.

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