The End of Oil Part 6

Today was a big day for this blog because I finally have found a reference to the work of the Hills Group and their Etp model in a linked post on the automaticearth.com written by Alastair Crooke: https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2017/01/what-is-this-crisis-of-modernity. That post is worth a read and contains a lot of good opinion on aspects of society not involving the declining net energy to society as a result of oil depletion which is of course the subject of the Hills Group 65 page monograph which I have been referencing in my latest series of blogs. It is my hope that the work of the Hills group gets wider dissemination ASAP by people with the training and perspective to understand the methodology and significance of that 65 page paper. If their work is correct then the Industrial World is in for mammoth changes in BAU and I don’t mean in 2050 or 2100 which most of the mainstream energy agencies, oil companies and business media have been assuming. The sources for their opinion has been the work of economists and economic oil analysts, oil executives and some geologist organizations and political figures who have incorrect assumptions, biases and financial motives which have hindered and impeded answers to the questions: How much oil can we realistically expect to receive in the future and for how long and what prices can we expect to pay?. It is my well considered opinion that these people are seriously mistaken in their assumptions,predictions and projections, particularly those residing within the economics profession, which is a “social” science, composed of many “schools” of thought who have had a dismal record of prediction and their recommendations to central banks and political figures have been appalling failures by any standard. Ted Williams the famous Red Sox hitter famously said “If you don’t think too good, then don’t think too much!” It is high time to listen to true scientists from valid scientific disciplines looking at these questions from valid and established scientific perspectives from fields like physics, chemistry, thermodynamics,  energy ecology, systems analysis  and climate science. We need continuing input from economic historians and I fully expect that the economic profession will be able to evolve and understand eventually the dynamics of the situation that the world is facing in the next decade or two. Lawrence Peter once wrote:” An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.” And my favorite from Mark Twain:”It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so!.”