We aren't running out of oil. We are running out of the easiest oil to extract.If we want oil, we are going to need high prices . . . That's what peak oil is all about -- progressively higher prices that are going to allow us to continue to find new sources of oil.No, “peak oil” - by its very nomenclature - is, “We’re running out of oil, and there’s nothing we can do about it!! The sky is falling!"
Jimmy Carter was all about peak oil. His policies made sense only if oil - particularly, if natural gas - was suddenly going to be completely depleted some day. There was such a thing as “MOPPS” - “Market Oriented Production Price Survey” (IIRC) during the Carter years. It came back with an analysis projecting that increased prices for natural gas would bring forth increased production of natural gas. Completely unexceptionable to the author of this article - but anathema to Jimmy Carter, who demanded “MOPPS II,” as the Wall Street Journal described it. But it still came back with an elastic supply curve for NG, and Carter still rejected it.Price controls seem to make sense to people who believe that the supply of a product is completely independent of how much people are willing to pay for it. And since governmentists want to control prices - and everything else - they promote “inelastic supply curve” theories such as “peak oil.”
Inelastic supply curves make about as much sense as “man-made global warming.” I’m sure Jimmy Carter still thinks NG price controls make sense. Just like we could enter a new Ice Age and Al Gore would still believe that combustion of carbon by people was warming the planet.