Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
I remember a presentation made by he then CEO of Total when Fuel was approaching 100 $ a barrel a few years back . A slide of his presentation showed a bell shape and the point of no return when demand will exceed capacity.
What you are describing is
"peak oil"; the completely sound (and very old) recognition that since oil is a finite resource there must eventually come a point in time when production peaks and then falls.
When combined with the seemingly obvious assumption that demand will not fall away as supply does, peak oil implies that oil prices must then spike, almost certainly spectacularly and disruptively. It's the nightmare version of the "oil running out" scenario we were almost all taught in primary school over many decades.
But there are respectable alternative opinions emerging.
This article from Nasdaq makes for interesting reading.
Regardless of whether you believe that climate change is real, the widespread belief in climate change is certainly real and affecting government policies and markets, and it is becoming accepted that
"to achieve anything better than a 50/50 shot at keeping global warming under 2 degrees centigrade (the most widely accepted threshold for avoiding catastrophic climate change) 82% of fossil reserves must remain in the ground."
In that context, peak oil potentially takes on an entirely different complexion, with peak production following slowly falling demand and prices rather than preceding excess demand and astronomically high prices.
I'm an engineer, not an economist (or a climate scientist), but when Nasdaq publishes a story like this I think it is worth reading and considering the possible implications.