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151 comments on Jubak: More Peak Everything! (and an open thread)

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Halfin on April 18, 2006 - 6:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Seeing Peak Metal as only a manifestation of Peak Oil is like seeing everything as a nail because all you have is a hammer. Not everything is about oil.

Jim Jubak's analysis makes sense to me. The same kind of factors that limit oil production - basically, that we got the easy stuff first - are present in mining industries too. And he notes that mining industries are both more conservative in their pricing estimates and have fewer new technologies to work with in trying to increase production, compared to oil companies.

In short he sees Peak Metal as a manifestation of the same kinds of effects that are driving up oil prices, as a robust world economy puts unprecedented strains on commodity production. And for the reasons above he sees the run-up in metal prices as likely to be even stronger and more persistant than for oil.

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totoneila on April 18, 2006 - 7:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Halfin,

Your Quote: "Seeing Peak Metal as only a manifestation of Peak Oil is like seeing everything as a nail because all you have is a hammer. Not everything is about oil."

Sir, I respectfully disagree in regards to peak minerals.  It could be argued that we would have passed Peak Minerals decades ago if we had not discovered petroleum to mechanize machinery.  In the olden days, sailing ships use to sail to hand-harvest guano from caves and ancient bird nesting places.  Please google Guano mining. Here is a link to get you started:

http://www.caves.org/pub/journal/PDF/V60/V60N2-Frank-History.pdf

Not many humans are willing to shovel 100 tons to get one ounce of gold.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Oil CEO on April 18, 2006 - 7:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It should also be added that Jim Jubak is an extremely intelligent, experienced observer in these matters. His attention to the topics of oil and economics and his analysis of energy companies and their balance sheets are on record and go back years.
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wkwillis on April 19, 2006 - 8:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Uranium is like oil. First we got the expensive stuff, then we got the cheap stuff, then we got the expensive stuff. Remember, we started out with oil in Pennsylvania long before we found Spindletop and other "real" oil fields.
Same thing with uranium. We found the crappy stuff first and the good stuff in 1970 and onwards. Eventually we will run out of high grade uranium ore and then the EROEI will go down.
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