HR: 08:25h
AN: U21B-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources: Debunking the Hubbert Model (and Hubbert Modelers)
AU: * Lynch, M C
EM: lynch@energyseer.com
AF: Strategic Energy & Economic Research, Inc., 14 West Chardon Road, Winchester, MA 01890 United States
AB: Recently, numerous publications have appeared warning that oil production is near an unavoidable, geologically-determined peak that could have consequences up to and including "war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens" (Campbell in Ruppert 2002) The current series of alarmist articles could be said to be merely reincarnations of earlier work which proved fallacious, but the authors insist that they have made significant advances in their analyses, overcoming earlier errors. For a number of reasons, this work has been nearly impenetrable to many observers, which seems to have lent it an added cachet. However, careful examination of the data and methods, as well as extensive perusal of the writings, suggests that the opacity of the work is-at best-obscuring the inconclusive nature of their research. Some of the arguments about resource scarcity resemble those made in the 1970s. They have noted that discoveries are low (as did Wilson, 1977), and that most estimates of ultimately recoverable resources (URR) are in the range of 2 trillion barrels, approximately twice production to date. But beyond that, Campbell and Laherrere in particular claim that they have developed accurate estimates of URR, and thus, unlike earlier work, theirs is more scientific and reliable. In other words, this time the wolf is really here. But careful examination of their work reveals instead a pattern of errors and mistaken assumptions presented as conclusive research results.
DE: 6600 PUBLIC ISSUES
DE: 6620 Science policy
DE: 1699 General or miscellaneous
DE: 1610 Atmosphere (0315, 0325)
DE: 1645 Solid Earth
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting