I have the utmost in respect for the great site, The Oil Drum, which is dedicated to the “peak oil” hypothesis so it’s a little embarrassing for me to point out an error in a post over there. In a recent post there the rise and fall in the production of whale oil in the 19th century was proposed as a model for what’s likely to happen to petroleum. The following graphic was shown:
Click on the image for a larger version.,
I think they’re right but probably not in the way they may think. The use of whale oil emphatically did not decline because of resource depletion but because of substitution. The substitute was kerosene.
Kerosene was first described by the Arab al-Razi, a resident of Baghdad. The Arabs were great distillers, sort of a delicious irony. Following an improvement in the method for producing kerosone, In 1850 the first commercial company to market kerosene was established. In 1856 a method of producing kerosene from seep oil, essentially a waste product was developed and kerosene became the primary fuel for lighting in Europe and the United States with amazing rapidity.
This is a subject I happen to know a little about. As I’ve mentioned before I collect pressed glass from the period in question (1840-1870). At right is a whale oil lamp from my collection and one picks up information about things as an aid to identifying and dating various objects. After 1856, as kerosene became commercially available (and cheap) practically everywhere, whale oil lamps disappeared from production virtually overnight, just as candlesticks had before them when oil lighting came into vogue. The kerosene lamps that succeeded them are dramatically different in design.
Note the points of inflection in the graphs above. They correspond with extraordinary precision to the adoption of substitutes, kerosene for whale oil and steel for whale bone in corsets (the primary commercial reasons behind whaling). Steel became cheaper after the Bessemer process was developed, c. 1855.
So, yes, production of a commodity can rise to dizzying heights and drop meteorically but resource depletion isn’t the only explanation for the drop in production. Substitution can cause a drop in demand for riskier and intrinsically more expensive commodities. And, importantly, as the price of a commodity rises the incentives for finding substitutes rise, too.
What does that portend for oil producers? Nothing particularly catastrophic, I suspect. Oil has lots of uses. If production slows and as prices rise it will increasingly be relegated away from mass consumption and towards specialty and luxury goods. I remember attending a speech given by Jordan’s King Hussein forty years ago. In his speech he said that oil was too valuable to burn. I think that’ll be about right.
译文:
替代品的作用
我对The Oil Drum这样一个致力于“石油峰值”假设研究的巨大网站极为崇敬，所以指出其页面的一个错误让我有点难为情。在它最近的一个页面上，十九世纪鲸油产量的上升与下降被提为是石油产量增加与减少的模型。贴有下面的图表：
点击这张图片及其最大化。
我认为他们是正确的，但是他们思考的方式可能不对，鲸油使用的减少完全不是因为资源的减少而是因为有了替代品。这种替代品是煤油。煤油是由一位居住在巴格达的阿拉伯人al-Raz首先发现的。阿拉伯人是伟大的制酒师，有几分新鲜的讽刺意味。制取煤油的方法改进后不久，第一家销售煤油的商业公司于1850年成立。1856年一种从渗出石油中生产煤油的方法得到应用，这种基本上是废物的渗出石油得到开发，同时煤油以惊人的速度在欧洲和美国发展成为主要的照明燃料。
这是一个我恰巧碰到并且知道一点的话题。在我收集所谈论年代（1840-1870）的压制玻璃之前，我就曾
谈到过。在右边是我收集的一盏鲸鱼油灯，它可以帮助我们获知很多信息，帮助我们鉴定许多东西，并确定其日期。1856年后，当煤油商业化应用遍及所有地方、并且价格便宜时，鲸鱼油灯正如以前燃油流行时的烛台一样几乎是一夜之间停止了生产。设计形式完全不同的煤油灯替代了它们。
注意上面图表中的拐点，他们极其精确地符合替代品的应用状况。煤油替代鲸鱼油，钢铁替代做紧身衣（捕鲸业兴起的主要商业原因）的鲸鱼骨。贝塞麦炼钢法得以应用后，大约是在1855年后钢铁变得便宜了。
因此说是，一种产品的产量可以极快地上升到极高点，也可以像流星似的急速下降。但是，资源减少并不是其产量下降的唯一解释。替代能够导致受威胁的产品和本质上昂贵的产品，价格下降。同时更重要的是，当一种产品的价格上升时，寻找一种替代品的动力也就增强了。
那这给予了石油生产商什么警告呢？我认为没有什么，尤其是没有灾难性的后果。石油的用途众多。如果因价格上升而导致其产量下降的话，石油会摆脱大规模生产，转而变为特殊品和奢侈品。我想起了四十年前参加约旦国王候赛因的一次演讲。在演讲中他说，石油太贵重而不能用来燃烧。我认为这种说法是合理的。