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36 comments on The End of Exploration?

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TI on January 11, 2006 - 4:18am

Very interesting, indeed. The exploration data gives us the basis for long range forecasting, otherwise than the production numbers. We can argue about the likelihood for production growing a couple years more, but it is very difficult to deny the meaning of the exploration data that precedes production by 36 years! In fact the lag is shortening especially for the offshore fields and this might mean that the production downfall will be faster than expected.

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andrew on November 7, 2006 - 5:12pm

isn't this (almost) the entire PO argument - exploration peaked about 40 years ago (the exact year of the peak isn't that obvious due to noise around 1970 - could someone who has done the maths fill us in here?)

although 36 years ago is 1970, and from the graph above it looks like the peak could even of been before then.

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“This order [i.e. capitalism] is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with the economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”

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