The 2006 peak for world conventional crude came and went without fanfare. A key reason may have been the belief that US shale would maintain production or at least remain profitable. Perhaps when that belief is shattered the market will get the heebie jeebies. In Australia there are big hopes for fracking and offshore oil but it is unlikely to reduce import dependence that much.

Something that is little discussed is how expensive oil could do more to reduce emissions than carbon taxes. Since oil powered transport moves stuff around the resulting economic slowdown could drag down coal burning with it. It will mean higher food prices and less discretionary spending. Maybe the EIA knows this and doesn't want to frighten the horses.

This is just plain daft. and if the resources are being depleted faster than predicted? All the more reason to embrace energy sources like MSR thorium. Thorium is the most energy-dense material on the planet!

And MSR technology can be deployed to burn nuclear waste! And or, weapons-grade plutonium, all while generating virtually free energy.

As the half-life is reduced to 300 years and the final completely depleted plutonium product in eminently suitable as long life space batteries that completely burn up with reentry!

Moreover, nuclear energy that safe, cheap and dispatchable means, making all the far more affordable, endlessly sustainable hydrocarbons we could ever need, from inexhaustible seawater.

And without any additional carbon load added to an atmosphere that can be allowed to return to a more natural atmospheric normality!

Greta and her generation will thank you! As you line your pockets as far out as it is possible to see!
Alan B.

oh good, another (YET ANOTHER) article from the oil-price crowd telling us why prices are gunna rise.

Did they buy 2025 futures and now need to talk the price up? Who knows? But they're consistent.

And what's the argument this time? Well just that two of the most prestigious and well-regarded authorities on oil and energy are utterly wrong and some backwoods crew who desperately want to end fossil fuels are right.

Post Carbon Institute. They have tortured the data until it confessed and discovered that fracked energy is a passing mirage.
They want a post-carbon future and can't have it while-ever fracking makes fossil fuels cheap.

Solution - imagine it away.

Meanwhile, in the real world....

Taswegian,
Previiously when expensive oil dragged the economy down, it was because of a lack of alternatives. But now alternatives are readily available. High oil prices will cause a surge in demand for electric vehicles.