He did make the point that oil reserves kept going up until the went inexorably down..

What is described follows the general principle of over-optimism followed by over-pessimism, if I may put it like that. For ex. I have money in the bank to refurbish a house, I over estimate my resources, don’t husband them properly, or plan well; when things start going west I suddenly say, no we can’t afford this, or that, or the other, we are broke, etc. Result: the house is not properly done.

Social psychology has shown, if one extrapolates from all kinds of studies on germane or tangential topics, that group-think, or group-processes (as contrasted with my illustrative individual example) can both amplify and mute such phenomena. In some cases, the group exagerates or polarises the individual opinions or planned actions (eg. risk taking: groups like it, individuals are more wary, which is quite comprehensible; or crowd behavior, everyone becomes infected with nutty zeal...) and in others it smoothes out the extremes to settle on a mean which is often very sensible and accurate (eg. bets; judicial decisions, etc. - the ‘hive’ mind.)

It is all a mystery.

Energy ‘reserves’ or energy future 'projections' are definetly subject to these processes. That is hardly STOP PRESS material I know..