In business and in government, lesson after lesson has been learned against trusting the ‘smartest guys in the room.’
Remember Enron, where doubters were told by CEO Jeff Skilling that they just didn’t ‘get it’? … the alarmist climate scientists who have long stated that the science is settled…. the Obama Administration energy decision-makers who know which technologies are ‘environmentally sustainable’ and are ‘commercially promising’?
F. A. Hayek warned against the ‘pretense of knowledge” where an intellectual elite via government coercion plans for the rest of us. Economist/educator Russell Roberts (Mercatus Center, George Mason University) explained what Hayek meant in a Wall Street Journal piece, “Is the Dismal Science Really a Science?”
…If economics is a science, it is more like biology than physics. Biologists try to understand the relationships in a complex system.
“We are on a collision course to a world without rocks. Only take as many rocks as you absolutely need.”
– Dr. Victoria Merrill, author, No Stone Unturned: Methods For Modern Rock Conservation
“Think about it. When was the last time you even saw a boulder?”
– Henry Kaiser (ge0logist and Onion expert)
The easy oil has been found. There are no more mega-fields. Costs up … prices up … economic stress … crises.
We have such certain knowledge from the smartest guys in many rooms: Paul Ehrlich, John Holdren, Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrère, Richard Heinberg, Chris Skrebowski, Matthew Simmons, …. and Kenneth Deffeyes.
Oil output peaked on December 16, 2005, in case you did not know it, according to geologist Kenneth Deffeyes in his 2010 book When Oil Peaked, available at Amazon in hardcover for one penny (yes, one penny!).…
“It’s been my experience in 17 years of recruiting in the oil and gas industry [that] this is the ‘sweet spot,'” [Tim] Cook wrote in an email, referring to the 10- to 30-year range. “These are the individuals that companies are wanting to hire, and because of the downturn in the mid-’80s to mid-’90s, this is the missing generation in the oil and gas industry.”
Talent needed! Jobs available! Training required! Students: please major in petroleum engineering. Retirees, we need you back. University of Phoenix–start your oil and gas engines. Staffing professionals–help us please!
This is the good news, the great news, from the energy sector. And it is the reality that President Obama and public-policy makers at all government levels should understand–and heed.
First, some background. Environment & Energy News has a daily subscription service that a lot of us must read each workday: E&E Daily, Greenwire, E&E News PM, and ClimateWire.…