[Editor note: Mr. Lynch’s op-ed in the New York Times last week stirred a good deal of  comment and disagreement from “peak oil” proponents. His response is here]

The publication of my op-ed on peak oil in the New York Times brought forth the usual tidal wave of criticism. The Oil Drum went so far as to put up a separate page for comments, and Joseph Romm issued a ‘challenge’ to me to wager on oil prices. (For an executed bet coming due next year, see the appendix below.)

Responding to each and every comment, or even the main ones, would be a Herculean (and Sisyphean) task, so I will (here) make some hopefully useful observations.

First, I apologize to Fatih Birol for lumping him in with the peak oil advocates.…

[Editor Note: This piece was orginally published by the Institute for Energy Research and is reprinted with permission]

There are two futures for energy, depending on which socioeconomic system we adopt. The free-market promises a bright energy future, while the opposite path of political energy is dark. In that sense energy differs little from other goods and services (such as health care): its supply will depend on whether economic laws are allowed to work or are hampered by political intervention.

Free-Market Energy

As the late Julian Simon explained, the future for free-market energy is positive. “It’s reasonable to expect the supply of energy to continue becoming more available and less scarce, forever.”[1] So Simon said in his most influential book, The Ultimate Resource. This prediction riled his Malthusian critics, who labeled Simon a naïve romantic.…

[Editor Note: An earlier series at MasterResource on John Holdren, President Obama’s science and technology advisor, is being reprinted given the recent controversy surrounding Dr. Holdren’s earlier views. This original post is dated January 22, 2009]

Paul Ehrlich treated his intellectual rival Julian Simon with great disrespect during Simon’s lifetime. Ehrlich refused to debate Simon or even meet him in person. He insulted Simon in print. Ehrlich even scolded Science magazine for publishing Simon’s 1980 breakthrough essay “Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of Bad News,” with the words: “Could the editors have found someone to review Simon’s manuscript who had to take off this shoes to count to 20?” (quoted in Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource II, 1996, p. 612)

Such intolerance for reasoned dissent, unfortunately, has also been a trait of Ehrlich protégé John Holdren.…

[Editor Note: An earlier series at MasterResource on John Holdren, President Obama’s science and technology advisor, is being reprinted given the recent controversy surrounding Dr. Holdren’s earlier views. This original post is dated January 2, 2009.]

Physical scientists are prone to viewing hydrocarbons as a fixed quantity. Being fixed, this volume must deplete with production. Extraction costs and thus selling prices must rise. The crisis is only a matter of when [“What will we do when the pumps run dry?” asked Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich in 1974 (The End of Affluence (p. 49)] . Physicist John Holdren is no exception to this view.

Reality is quite different from the hard science formulation, however. In a business or economic sense, mineral resources are not fixed, known, or depleting. They are created by entrepreneurship (”resourceship”) in a market economy where incentives are present and technology improves.…