Remember those predictions of “peak oil” certain economists/ environmentalists were pushing last decade? The idea that oil production would soon peak, supplies would soon dwindle, and gas prices would rise into the stratosphere? (And, not so incidentally, this was the reason we had to hand out billions of dollars in green subsidies for renewable energy to companies that just happened to be connected to Democratic Party bigshots.)
Back in 2008, I remember a senior New York editor telling me that science fiction convention attendance would continue dwindling because “gas prices will never go down again.” Peak oil was treated as an ironclad inevitability second only to global warming.
Yeah. Not so much.
“They’ve been talking about a peak in the global production of oil for the last two decades now and it still hasn’t happened, and I think the reality is that they are going to remain wrong going forward.”
In fact, thanks to improved technology, fracking, shale oil, and declining demand, quite the opposite has occurred, as a worldwide glut has oil down near $30 a barrel.
Once again the market has proven much better at adaptation than erroneous neo-Malthusian thinking. Anyone telling you they know exactly how things will unfold should be treated with severe skepticism.
The future’s not ours to see…