procratination

Sometimes I wonder if I should have been an economics major. I spend altogether too much time reading, thinking and writing about politics and economics. I've just spent almost three hours researching past and projected future levels of oil production and consumption. I was curious to know if we were going to face an oil crunch anytime soon, and if so, how dire the effects would be. People have been projecting an oil 'peak' for a long-time now. The term was first coined by Marion King Hubbert in 1956. At the time he was a geologist working for Shell oil. He got the peak of continental US production right. Similar predictions for world production (1989, 1995, 2000), mostly by an institute lead by Colin Campbell, also a former geologist for the oil industry, have all proved wrong. Uphased, Mr. Campbell continues in his attempts to predict the peak. Most recently, he's pegged it at 2010. What all this means is another question. When Hubbert first presented his peak theory, he also argued that the oil production curve has a particular shape. Critically, it slopes steeply downward on the far-side. This is perhaps the more important question as it greatly affects what we think the effects of the peak will be. Some envision a global economic and social crisis. Others think the peak is farther off, and some also believe that the drop on the far-side won't be so bad.

Anyhow, I'm procrastinating again, and now I really need to get back to work.