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The following letter is in response to our article, Peak Oil and the Long Term Asset Allocation Implications, by Dick Vodra, which appeared last week.
Dear Editor:
It concerns me greatly that so much broadly published information about the environment, oil, and the economy in general seems to escape journalistic scrutiny these days, in all sorts of publications. In my opinion, you have allowed the publication of an article that is worse than useless to rational investment/portfolio planning. The article you allowed to escape fact-checking scrutiny by so-called 'expert' Dick Vodra; "Peak Oil and Long Term Asset Allocation Implications" is written with a clearly politically-driven agenda along with the attendant and totally to be expected pontificating and lecturing. Following are just a few of my quibbles with what I believe are Mr. Vodra's faulty notions, along with some comments as to why I think very careful thought should be given to publishing articles professing to give investment advice that is so arguably weak on an objective assessment of the facts, such as Mr. Vodra's.
1) "Peak Oil". The very notion itself, is NOT PROVEN, and is at best controversial. The Hubbert curve, the holy grail of "peak oil" believers has plenty of detractors among the scientific community. The very notion that dead dinosaurs and plants create oil is not a proven fact, and it is not without substantial scientific opposition. But the 'peak oil' notion does lend itself very nicely to environmental alarmists and their predictable dire warnings. We've been through this before, for those who have memories, in the 1970s. Then we only had 10 or so years of oil left. Here is a FACT that is actually a fact; oil has been discovered at depths below which organic matter can exist, the abiotic theory of oil origins holds at least as much validity as this 'peak oil' idea, but in terms of 'inconvenience', an abundant, replenishable supply of hydrocarbons would not fit well with radical environmental alarmists scare tactics. Hydrocarbons are detectable on other planets in our solar system. That is a FACT; how can that possibly be, Mr. Vodra? Were there dinosaurs and plants on Mercury and Venus? There is an abundance of information that points to other possibilities than the 'fact' of peak oil, and whenever articles are published on this topic, I believe responsible journalism should at the very least qualify the topic, and balance it with the countering theories. The National Review Online has published some thorough countering theories about oil origination that are worth reading.. Simply citing a number of professional geologists’ beliefs as proof is ludicrous. How many map-makers once drew the earth as flat? We don't know whether the 'easy oil' is gone, because we don't even look or drill in areas that might disprove the theory. Much work remains to be done in this area, before we will know the truth, I believe. The current oil dilemma has been primarily manufactured by environmental extremists holding us hostage through weak-kneed politicians whose policies for more than 20 years have prevented us from exploring and producing oil that can be safely and cleanly developed in our own backyard.
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