Monday, October 08, 2007

Baby, It's Cold Out There!

I first read this, and assumed it was a parody.

Well....it IS, but not an intentional one.

There was a power failure, and Dr. Roth sat and thought of how this temporary, storm-caused power failure give "some insight into some of the issues likely to confront us as peak oil and gas approach."

Russ and I took up this lunacy a bit on our podcast. So, that's all you really need to know: Peak oil--dumb concept. Sitting in four layers of clothing and thinking about peak oil while wearing a beanie--Pointless.

2 comments:

Angus said...

"A blog by Dr Paul Roth exploring healthcare options for a scarce oil future."

Help me Mungo (witz)!! What am I missing? Is oil a major ingredient in pharmacuticals? If oil hits $100 a barrel will new epidemics break out? I don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Mungo, I gotta say that about.com response to the idea of peak oil is pretty unconvincing.

First, the article dishonestly switches from discussing running out of oil to the question of gasoline. Most oil is used for electricity production.

Second, the question of whether we will or will not run out of oil in the sense that there will be not a drop left strikes me as rather a straw man. The article itself acknowledges blithely that "When a useful commodity, such as gasoline, becomes scarce, there is always a cost to the economy."

Now that's understatement, especially coupled with the free market hand-waving that precedes it: "the car manufacturers will have an incentive to develop cars which run on less expensive alternative fuels in order to win the business of consumers fed up with high gas prices."

Ok, what if that development takes 10 years? 20?

Oh, and the article starts out by stating that demand for gasoline is elastic. Most of the literature suggests clearly it isn't.

You're economist enough and certainly smart enough to see that, while there might be legitimate questions about the idea of peak oil and solutions, pointing to a terrible about.com article as if it's pwnage really doesn't fly.