> What looks like the problem of "peak oil" to some is in reality the
> political problem of mismatch between who has oil and who has
> investment capital and advanced technology, in the context of rising
> domestic oil consumption on the part of oil producers, NOT a
> geological problem of running out of recoverable oil (which we WON'T
> any time soon).
When the original doomsayers' manual Limits to Growth was published, Sussex University scientist William Page pointed out the error of assuming that reserves were a known, or fixed quantity. With drilling going no further than six of the 25-40 miles of the earth's crust, reserves have hardly been touched yet. Page's point is not that the resources of the Earth are infinite. Only that the Limits to Growth computer model massively understated them. He predicted then that, in principle, resources were sufficient for ".perhaps tens of thousands of years". As Page says ".the most pressing limits to growth are not geological: Mother Nature has put ample on the planet". Rather ".what limits there may be come from man's economic and technological ability to exploit these resources". (HSO Cole et al, Thinking About the Future, Sussex University Press, 1973, p38)