Well I am pleased to see that I am not all on my own.
Roses1, the problem is not with the media but with the politicians.
While I do not go along with conspiracies, I do think that pollies in
most countries have agreed, probably with a wink & a nod, to pretend
that there is no problem at all. After all if they spoke the truth they
would be expected to do something about it.

I seriously doubt that we have enough land able to be allocated to
the growing of crops to fuel just our own aircraft, let alone visiting
aircraft. Alan Joyce understands the problem, he is just hoping that
they can keep flying.
Re natural gas, well the old joke about "Would you fly in a coal fired Aircraft ?"
is very relevant, I definately would not fly in a cng aircraft.

Australian depletion is now at approx 18% /yr depletion rate.
Now you know now why Shell closed its Sydney refinery and the others
are planing the closure of their refineries.
From about now we are fully at the mercy of overseas refiners and
suppliers. Just hope nothing goes wrong anywhere or we will not even
have emergency supplies of petrol & diesel.

We have no choice but to use all available alternative energy sources.
As the Hirsch report shows to make a smooth transition to whatever
comes next we need 20 years to prepare. To make the change with only
very bad depressions and very high unemployment we need a 10 year start.
We have missed the boat, so we are in for a very bad time ahead worse
than the 1930 depression and because of the bad food supply situation,
according to the UN, there will almost certainly be starvation.

Ho hum doom and gloom predictions such as these have had a poor track record since Malthus. This is all part of the same system of beliefs which brings you fears of overpopulation, resource depletion, global warming etc.. Anyone remember the food gluts which led to dumping of crops off the coast? We have had as many problems with excess as we have had with lack.

The US has more than 100 yrs of gas for its own population at today's usage rates but the author doesn't want gas either. What does he want? Apparently to get everyone worried about his Malthusian ideas though he presents little evidence for them other than what someone else said.

I guess enough people will take the bait to keep him happy for a while.

Do people really think that industry and Governments of the West will just let it all run out overnight while amateur doomsayers will be proven correct. Don't think so.

Rhosty, I think you had better go back and study chemistry again. Sodium comes after Lithium in the periodic table. It might be cheaper, but is certainly heavier, actually almost twice the density of lithium.

David

Fracking for gas/oil is merely a game extender. Oil from fracking accounted for less than 5% of daily U.S. consumption last year. This is even after a 750% increase in tight oil production since 2003. Clearly there needs to be an unprecedented increase in exploration and drilling from fracking to even begin making a dent in the broader shortfall.

Fracking production figures for individual wells commonly decline 60-80% in the first year followed by a more gradual decline. This means new wells must constantly be drilled to avoid production for a whole area dropping off very quickly. The EIA forecasts that domestic production of tight oil will max out at 1,325,000 barrels a day by 2030. This is only 7% of current U.S. daily consumption.

No one seriously believes that the U.S. economy can grow without increasing oil consumption. The numbers don’t stack up.

As for the “The United States is now or will soon be a net oil exporter” phooey - the rise of tight oil extracted through fracking has been hailed as a new era for U.S. energy independence. Some have even gone as far as saying that the U.S. is now a net oil exporter. The devil is in the details. On a Btu basis the U.S. imported 58% of the oil it consumed in 2011. Now it is true that the U.S. became a net oil product exporter in 2011 for the first time in over sixty years. This is however very different from being a net oil exporter. Petrol, diesel and heating oil made up the majority of these products, much of this oil was imported as crude, refined in the U.S. and then exported.

This doesn’t make the U.S. a net oil exporter. Total net crude and product imports did fall 11% in 2011 to 8.436mb a day, the lowest point since 2005. Domestic oil output did rise 3.6% to 5.673mb a day. But this still leaves a 48.7% difference between imports and domestic oil output, a huge gap that the IEA forecasts will not be closed as far out as 2035.

Geoff of Perth
I see from your second post that you're beginning to see reason in this debate. I have hopes that you will soon realise that peak oil is not so much dead but never intended to apply to total oil reserves in the first place. Its been consistantly misapplied. Recent scare stores concerning peak oil have, however, completely died for all but a fringe element.

The deep oil stuff is just part of the known and completely untapped reserves, notably unconventional oil. Check out the stuff on the Canadian fileds and ask yourself why Canada only recently become a major oil exporter.

Judging by the responses perhaps there were two articles that Mark wrote. Increasingly it seems that terms like climate change, population growth and climate change generate a pavlovian response where the substance of the argument rapidly drowns in a morass of misconceptions.
It was treasury that stated Australia would run out of oil by 2020 - Mark quoted the treasury statement and then asked quite reasonably what plans have been made? The government seems on other occasions to act on treasury advice so why not this time?
For those who are convinced that a business as usual scenario will see us through or those who are convinced that we should be aiming for a zero carbon high energy economy the following link might be instructive. The danger of the absurdity is well summarised here http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/