describes the use of petroleum for energy
rapid increase, saturation, and decline
objects/hubbert.html
describes the use of petroleum for energy
rapid increase, saturation, and decline
Systems model for this phenomenon
cost per unit of resource is determined by demand and supply
use of the resource decreases supply
at the same time that population increases, driving up demand
the higher cost of the resource after the peak, is not sufficient to keep the resource from being totally depleted
A model of this looks like:
and output of this model looks like:
Recycling prolongs the amount of time the metal is in the economy. The above figure has 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% recycling.
if the supply decreases and costs increase too much, other resources may be attractive
one important aspect of resource switching is that there is a path or mechanism that allows people to switch, for example if you were burning wood in your medieval castle it would be easy to switched to using charcoal
