9/21/2011

Juice

The Prize is an amazing book and I can't wait to read Yergin's new book, The Quest.

Oil is the most important commodity in the world and it's history is fascinating. Especially if you sit and stare at it's price all day and live in a country that exports 2 million barrels a day.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps his writing skills are better than his body of work relating to Peak oil at Cambridge Associates, I don't know how to get myself to read the work of a person who has taken illogical positions in the past that have been well documented.

But perhaps I am completely wrong on this.

Solfest said...

I haven't read his stuff at Cambridge.

The one thing that I don't see with some of the peak oil thoughts are the action of price.

They seem to look at supply and demand only and forget to factor in the effect of price on demand.

Anonymous said...

Very true, rare to see or read a balanced risk-based assessment of price destruction, demand destruction, supply and grade constraints, upstream extraction costs using advanced technologies and reservoir decay.

Not to mention the affect on price from hedging, the economy, credit and money supply and speculation and inventories.

What makes Daniel's analysis and position tenuous (to me) that he was steadfast and unwilling to consider other points of view, even Hubbert couldn't pinpoint anything because of extenuating factors. And here we have a historian clinging to an unbending view of the future.

Solfest said...

I think it is safe to say that science is dead.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/09/20/peter-foster-deep-sixing-global-warming/

It's all about the money on both sides. But now "scientists" have become very good at getting money.

The tried and proven method is to convince us we are all going to die and the only way to stop it is by research.

In my life time we were all going to die by starvation, an ice age, no more oil, aids, the flu, mosquitoes, SARS, global warming, ozone depletion, too much sun, not enough sun, no vaccines, too many vaccines, and there are probably many more I have forgot.

I no longer listen to chicken little and just sit here and wait for the nuclear holocaust which actually could kill us all.

Unless inflation gets us first. :)

Anonymous said...

"science is dead".....

Oh you mean thoughtful, objective, empirical, open minded and agenda-less, collaborative, mature observation and analysis is dead.

And is replaced by a hoax, a pseudo science driven by petty goals, monetary or otherwise.

Why sir, you have hit the nail on the head!

May I go further and suggest that that is in fact a reflection of us as a decaying society. Of the way we all think, of what we hold dear and what we value. But maybe I tend to digress a bit.