While it is clear to the readers of The Oil Drum how unrealistic this assumption is, this is not clear at all to the average Swiss attendee of the symposium. They look at Birol's graph and see that oil will continue to be coming their way for at least the next few decades. So they are happy. What is there to be worried about?

Thanks for your instructive report

Your experience of the Lucerne conference reminds me of a recent discussion organized by the newly founded Green-Liberal party here at Zurich that I happened to attend. After watching the Gelpke ‘Oil Crash’ movie, a panel comprising Rolf Hartl (secretary of the Erdölvereinigung) and, as opponent from the environmentalist side, Patrick Hofstetter, WWF’s climate expert commented on the issue. As usual, Hartl pointed to the huge resource figures of mostly unconventional fuels. Then it turned out that Hofstetter, an educated mechanical engineer, concentrates on greenhouse effect yet has no fear of an energy crunch, because he believes technical soultions could still emerge (as he told me afterwards).

As I noticed the discussion was going to finish in perfect harmony, everybody knowing and liking each other, I mentioned your IEA slide and reminded Hartl that, according to IEA WEO, just 25% of 2030’s oil will come from currently producing fields. His answer was quite friendly: ”Yes, of course, we need 6 new Saudi Arabias by then” (not 4, as in your report) which of course prompted the question “and where are those 6 SA?”, at which point the discussion again changed direction .

My conclusion: you may neatly present the abyss for inspection, yet nobody seems to be willing to take a look.