“… there are organizations devoted to the study of peak oil. Akin to the Bigfoot research groups, they are clearly stating their conclusion in the subject in their name.”

“There were claims about a major conspiracy to hide the problem. ‘Debunkers’ like myself were typically subject to vitriolic and usually personal attacks instead of criticism against our arguments, theories, and data, including the label ‘denalist’ which has become a way to avoid substantive debate.”

Some years ago, a peak-oil advocate told an audience that he had recently been in the Middle East where executives at one of the national oil companies had told him that raising production was difficult.

That seemed to impress the advocate, but it really demonstrated his lack of experience. It has never been “easy” to produce oil, despite the frequent mantra that “the easy oil is gone,” an attitude that has been around since the days of Homer’s Iliad that  remarked on how much stronger warriors had been in the old days.…

“Production in a region rarely follows a bell curve nor do regions necessarily experience a single peak. As a result, this method repeatedly predicted premature peaks for many countries and for the world itself.”

“Production patterns are determined by the geology and chemistry of the deposit, plus the engineering decisions on how to produce it, plus the fiscal regime in place.”

Although the insistence that “peak oil” was imminent has largely faded from public view, it remains a valuable illustration of how poorly developed theories can nonetheless catch the public’s imagination, including those who should know better. So what were the theories and methods that were employed to support peak oil, arguments that a library of articles and books repeated to create a false narrative (and, undoubtedly, a ‘97% consensus’).

The original claim underlying peak oil was that resource scarcity would cause oil production to decline in the near future and that nothing could be done to alter that trajectory. …