I am surprised to be the first to make a comment.
Is it a stunned silence or is it just that no one cares.

I suspect the latter. Politicians and the whole political scene are
more interested in the NBN.
I guess one of these magic applications that parliament is being told
will be a teletransport system so fuel will no longer be needed.
Just click on your groceries list and they will come out of
your new fibre connected numerical controlled terminal.

Wow, I am sure they would believe it !

I have contact with a council group that is supposed to study future
needs of the council and the people.
They are only interested in global warming. The one person who thought
that oil supply was important gave up and resigned.
When you have committees that on paper are supposed to study and
make suggestions for the future operation of the council and they
avoid discussion of the matter unless it is phrased in how much CO2
will be saved then we are in real trouble.

I really don't think any mitigation or preparation can be done until
they get fed up with sitting in one kilometre long petrol queues.
Even then they will blame the oil companies.
They may even get out and demonstrate about the supermarket shelves
being half empty and that they cannot buy their favorite beer !

Bazz says:

"I am surprised to be the first to make a comment.
Is it a stunned silence or is it just that no one cares[?]

I suspect the latter. ..."



I would have to disagree, Bazz. I think that many people outside of politics care deeply about this issue, whilst those within politics don't want to discuss it, for reasons it would seem have yet to be revealed.

As evidence I offer the following links to Twitpics of the OLO Articles' Popularity display (viewable on the OLO Main Page by scrolling down a bit) taken over a number of days:

http://twitpic.com/39byun

http://twitpic.com/39bzqy

http://twitpic.com/39c0vk

http://twitpic.com/39c1r3

http://twitpic.com/39c2de

http://twitpic.com/39c32z

http://twitpic.com/39c3ko

http://twitpic.com/39c41t

This article was already featuring in the 'Today's most popular' display by 3:47 PM Tuesday 16 November, the day it was published. It soon featured as second-most popular for the week by 5:31 PM Friday 19 November, and continued so until at least 8:05 AM Monday 22 November. All this at a time when there had just been several other 'peak oil' related articles recently published on OLO.

In the light of the author's recounting of last year's IEA projected world requirement for 106 mbbl/day by 2030, it is interesting to consider the UCG/CTL potential of the recent Pedirka Basin coal discoveries, estimated at from 0.6 to 2.1 trillion tonnes of coal projected as capable of yielding between 1 and 2 bbl per tonne of (high grade) liquid fuels. See: http://bit.ly/e2ATTk

Why is the general Australian public not hearing a word about the potential significance of this?