kebu77

Why Commodities May Be Nearing a Turning Point

On a longer time-scale (years, not weeks), peak oil could be something of a game-changer. (Bear with me in this streamlined version of energy history.)

Europe was hitting "peak wood" when coal came along. People forget what a positive game-changer coal was over 200 years ago.

But oil came along before peak coal (though some did prematurely speculate about coal peaking). And hydro-electric, nat-gas, and nuclear came along before peak oil. So here we are, two centuries into the industrial age, without encountering any negative game-changers.

But. . . it is time-consuming and expensive to expand hydro and nuclear and there is cause for concern (at least regionally in N. America) that nat-gas is on a plateau (Canadian declines and US increases). Without technological advances that are not on the horizon, solar makes a miniscule contribution. Wind is expanding, but from a small base. So, if as many are suggesting, we are at peak oil production (now or on a plateau that ends in the next five years, pick your prediction from several), in the mid-term commodities prices have nowhere to go but up.

While not directly responding to OT's article, the US badly needs a national discussion on energy, leading to a coherent energy policy. Hope is not a fact. We should want to know if peak oil is imminent, not place blind hope in a technology fix (which seems to be a standard response when peak oil is put on the table).

(Of course we could all get lucky. Dr. Brussard (RIP) was working on a cheap fusion device; the Navy Dept. is continung his research and could prove him right. But do you want to bet your kids on that?)