Duncan Weldon alerted Twitter to this very nice think piece by my old boss, now at BP.
One of the points he makes is how new reserve discoveries have been outpacing oil consumption. And he uses that to question whether the old Hotelling model of oil as an ultimately exhaustible resource is now not right for the job.
I wonder.
First, Spencer is making a practical point. In principle, oil is an exhaustible resource nonetheless, given the pace at which current biomass generates it, relative to current consumption.
Second, as Spencer discusses, we might presume that sooner or later the world will get its act together to make sure that not all the carbon-generating fuel that we have is consumed, to limit climate change. In which case, new discoveries don’t add to the amount of oil that can and will be consumed.
There’s a lot of uncertainty about how soon…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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