leckos

it is you who are in denial. The Matthew Simmons book 'Twilight in the Desert' you quote has already been overtaken by events - as can be seen by a look at the copyright date and a check of the time lines set out in the book. The OPEC fields should have already dried up according to that book. But you did know that, right??

As for the rest of the stuff you quote, the key point to remember is that the main story is the decline in OPEC production and rise in unconventional/shale production. As OPEC has not been investing in production as it should you will get a plateau for some time.. So I don't necessarily disagree with at least two of the three articles you quote as far as they go.. Oil prices will also go up because unconventional stuff is more expensive than conventional.

As for the "assertion" about OPEC not investing enough on production one paper on this is in the September 2009 journal article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives by James Smith an oil and gas economist. There are others to quote but that should give you enough to go on with.. I think its available online..

QUOTE
"It has been a while since we've had a 'we're all rooned' story from the anti-population lobby."
END QUOTE

Q. What is the difference between popoulation growth proponents and a computer?

A. You only have to punch the information into a computer once!

Curmudgeon, I don't own a copy of Twilight in the Desert and its been a year or more since I read it, but if memory serves me nowhere did Simmons suggest that Saudi Arabia's oil fields would have dried up by 2012. Rather he suggested that they would have significant trouble in maintaining let alone increasing production. Given that Saudi oil production has shown a slight decline, using production data to 2010, and oil prices have been stubbornly high, this suggests that either the Saudi's can't, or won't, raise production significantly. Whilst they claim significant excess capacity, most of this is suspected to be heavy sour crude that most refineries are not configured for. So whilst his thesis is yet to be proven, it is also yet to be disproven. Have you actually read the book, or just read a couple of internet reviews?

Overtaken by events! Since that books release we have had an unprecedented global economic crisis, oil prices reach $147 a barrel followed by a dramatic fall followed by sustained prices of around $100 a barrel, oil production continues its seven year plateau and the financial system is verging on imploding again thanks to confusion of money printing with wealth creation. Perhaps you might like to reword that statement. Maybe this is what being at the limits to growth looks like.

I am amazed that so many are so determined to poo poo the depletion
without even looking into it.
Curmudgeon, the Saudis have been pumping seawater into the fields that
they have kept their production almost constant. However they are in
most fields bring up around 50% water.
What is certain that having pumped in water, depletion will be faster.

Cheryl, Population plot ? You really are away with the fairies.
Never mind when depletion exceeds the shale oil production food will
be the concern not babies.

Rhrosty, all your suggestions are good and will have to be used on an
increasing scale. Which reminds me scale is the problem most do not understand.
Japan uses 8 million barrels a day. It has to have four super tankers
of 2 Million barrels arrive in its ports every day.
It takes about 100 day for a round trip to the Middle East.
So 400 2 million ton tankers are used just to supply Japan !
Now for the rest of us !

Geoff of Perth; well we all hope it will not be a catastrophe but
Hirsch said in his report that we had to start preparing to transition
to the new energy regime 20 years before peak.
When did the IEA say peak occurred ? 2006 !

Arjay; The Y2K bug was real ! The only reason it did not cause a
problem was because 100,000s of programmers worked overtime for a year
to fix the problem in millions of programs.

Don Aitkin; The US govt tried to hide the Hirsch report.
The Australian government tried to hide the BIRE report.
Oh yes we are being lied to by both sides.

Now that we are past peak oil there is not much hope for you all.

Welcome to the post peak oil world !

Judging by the burial sites, compassion and empathy is nearly as old as we are? As we've evolved, we encountered and overcome myriad problems.
What is that going to be like, when there are 9 billion of us living on a planet, which can only sustainably support around 1 billion?
Well we can be part of the solution or the problem.
Paddling a lifeboat has to be a cooperative enterprise, where everybody takes a turn at the oars; and, paddles in the same direction. Thinking within a very limited circle of ideas, limits the questions, and by implication the answers/choices?
[Wind, solar or anything else even more unreliable or expensive.]
Great, but only if you want to cruel the economy and dismantle our industrial base?
We pay $1.50 a litre for imported petrol and export our copious NG, which would, could and should power our traffic, for around 40 cents a cubic metre.
The fact that we still mine coal for coal-fired power stations and offshore steel makers; is, I believe, down to a handful of extremely recalcitrant politicians, who always seem to put personal ambition and power ahead of every other consideration, including the national interest?
Hardly a day goes by without some self appointed, self serving drop kick, telling us we NEED international investment. Well, that may be true in part; but, we don't need debt laden asset stripping economy destroying international speculators! [Ireland, Spain etc.] Just the money and from the same sources they access, minus the profit demanding speculator.
For far too long we have been enslaved by an economy that needs to be completely re-jigged, so that it finally works for us. Incidentally Cheryl, I played sport and was even selected for representative honours. Rhrosty.

The problem no one faces up to is the energy density of hydrocarbons.
No other energy source has the ability to provide energy in such
massive amounts from just a small container.
One diagram I remember is an image of 2000 men pulling a car.
This was calculated from knowing the energy that can be exerted by one man.
When you look at food production, and I cannot remember the accurate
figures but if one man on a tractor can plough 200 acres in one day
how many farmers are needed to plough 200 acres with a horse and single furrow plough ?
Answer about 100 days !
Therefore to eat will need 50 times the number of farmers we have now!

This is the reason why some people who have studied these problems
believe we must expect a significant population reduction over the
next 100 years.

We will not need so many marketing analysts but more agriculturists.
Bankers will be on the dole if it still exists.
Financial experts will be unwanted, but plant breeders will be in great demand.