Great article thanks Michael. It would be nice to think that techno-optimists like Rhostry are right because they are the only reason I get up in the morning. I need to believe that something will save us or at least give us a softer landing than we might otherwise have. It's going to be very disruptive economically when we come off the "rough plateau" that oil production has been on since 2005. Curmudgeon, you claim that oil companies are not investing enough. Come on. They have $100 a barrel or more to play around with and the reality is that the only stuff left is very expensive to produce/extract with very low EROEI. Michael is right. The shale oil currently being mined in the US is only going to extend the plateau for a very little while. After that it is oil decline and we're going to have to deal with it, like it or not.

Curmudgeon, your continued denial/cognitive dissonance towards the very possibility that there are limits to economic growth always amuses me. The 'peak oil scenario' may have died in your mind, however three highly respected journals (Science, Nature and Energy - see: http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-02-13/three-major-journals-publish-articles-limited-world-oil-supply) certainly don't seem to think so. You also consistenly seem to confuse the total reserves available with production rates, this of course being the whole crux of the peak oil issue.

And perhaps you should read the following article on US oil resources versus reserves. As always the devil is in the detail, whilst there might be vast resources, the reserves are far less promising.

(http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-04-04/does-us-really-have-more-oil-saudi-arabia)

And if you want to understand why OPEC might not be investing (what evidence is there to support this asertion?)enough perhaps read the late Matthew Simmons 'Twilight in the Desert.' Its a hefty tome but explains the challenges facing OPEC from a geologic and technical perspective.

Thanks for responding Cheryl. I’m glad I was sitting down when I noticed it!

You wrote:

<< that's because your posts ends up in self referentialism which posits that technology is bad, people are bad, the earth is doomed >>

Ooohhww!! Wow!! Gee!!

You know that when you assert things that you know are not true, you are lying!

<< …the article is a front for depopulating the earth. It's barking mad and so are you… >>

Now, that statement really IS barking mad! But funny! (:>)

Why do you make such enormously and blatantly absurd statements, Cheryl??

What IS your agenda?

There are two ways in which the Western Oligarchs keep their masses in constant slavery.One is the control of the money supply via the fractional reserve system of counterfeiting our productivity,the other is the ownership and control of energy.

The current wars in the Middle East and Africa is about the Western Military Industrial Complex starving China of energy like they did to Japan in 1942.

Peak Oil is just another lie,like Global Warming,y2K bugs,swine flu pigs flew,bird flu,Muslim Terrorism etc.Muslims seem to have too much oil on their territories,therefore they must be terrorists.

My interest is in the notion of the 'big lie'. If the author was talking of the USA, then I think he might have something, because (having lived and worked there) I would agree that the notion that anyone can get to be rich is alive and well there.

But here? In my large extended family and larger circle of friends and acquaintances I know no one past the age of about 16 who thinks like this. Yes, people want to have enough income to allow them to do some of the things they would like to do. But I've never heard anyone speak like this or act like this. Nor can I find it as a slogan or modus operandi in print. You can get a sense of it on television news and in reality shows, but that's about it.

So, on the evidence, if it is a lie, it's not a big one, for it doesn't seem to operate in our society.

As for peak oil, I am one who simply doesn't know. There are lots of arguments each way. Given the prevalence of gas, my guess is that if petrol becomes unreasonably expensive we will switch to gas, following the lead of buses and taxis.

There will never be a water shortage here because we have this huge river running all through Australia, called DE NIAL.
When the usual mob come out with their message of hope (that it is not happening) how can we be worried.
Then we have some input from the raging hormones department (you cannot stop us from having our babies) then we know that all is right with the world.
Spruiking the production of oil from Canada and the Bakken as a savior to our oil addiction is a bit over the top when you consider that it took the production from 6,617 wells to produce North Dakota's 546,000 b/d in January. Divide the daily production by the number of wells and you get an astoundingly low 82 b/d from each well. Astounding" because a good new offshore well can do 50,000 b/d.
This would not even keep the US air force in the air for a day let alone “The Amerikan way of life”.
Yes the article will be ignored except from the few who are following the development of the end of the world, as we know it.

Water supply problem?
Well yes you see the La Nina has been affecting the show for the last couple of years and when El Nino returns (as it surely will) it will be the mother of all el Ninos, which is when we start saying “ Do you remember when it rained?”

“Which posits that people are bad,”
It’s not that people are bad, it’s that too many people are bad. We still have a pair of political parties that embrace “big Australias” and are still paying woman to have babies, let alone paid maternity leave.
Also we are importing more and more “skilled” workers to man our vital industries that cannot be done by out large group of unemployed.
For imported skilled labour, read, willing to work for a lot less than an Australian in the same job.