Peak coal points way for peak oil

Advertisement

TS Lombard with sounds analysis:

Until not that long ago, the idea was still taken seriously that peak oil would be supply-side driven and triggered by sky-high prices: but as it is now clear that the oil case will resemble all previous energy transitions, useful lessons may be had from the most recent such precedent–peak coal.

The first such lesson is the lack of a linear relationship between falling demand (the underlying driver) and falling prices. The main reason for this is decreasing investment in new supply getting out of sync with decreasing demand.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.