The Oil Drum

As regards "S dot", that's how I understood it but left the "dot" out of my reformulation.

With respect to Lynch criticizing Hubbert Linearizations --since Lynch does not effectively believe that fossil fuels are finite in extent, then he does not believe that any economics of finite resources (like that of Hotelling) applies to the problem.

Regarding the 2.35 trillion barrels and what is recoverable, that was my mistake. I don't know what I was thinking there. The main point, that there is a finite URR, remains untouched.

My reformulation was supposed to be a "straw man". If URR is finite but very large and its exhaustion is beyond the time window that our economic behaviour allows--which for the futures markets appears to be at best a few years--then my thinking was that available flows are finite ie. have an upper bound. Since that is the case, as Peak Oil theory predicts, then efficient allocation of the resource might be based on those instead of the entire estimated Qt.

Perhaps an economist like yourself or someone else might step in here, rewrite macroeconomics a bit and show us a light that leads us out of the darkness. Because it is certain in my view that in using the current economics of extraction we are stealing the scarce, precious resources from future generations. To make that less abstract, that would be our kids and their kids.

In talking about the economics of this, I knew I was setting myself up but I was hoping and still am that something positive might come from the discussion. After you've fed the dog, I'll be looking forward to any proposed solution to the mess we're in that you care to make.