Like Don Aitkin I have also tried to make sense of peak oil and the graph about says it all..

I use to think that peak-oil was sort-of correct when applied to easy-lift on shore oil, the stuff in the reservoirs in OPEC countries. A lot of more experienced analysts than me also thought this. But the apparent plateau in that production - as opposed to production from deep offshore and share oil etc - may simply be due to the general failure of OPEC countries to explore or invest in production facilities, and that failure is due to financial self-interest.

Nothing about the oil industry is simple but peak oil, as a concept, is a waste of time..

The IEA states we're already past peak Oil. As the body tasked to monitor this stuff, seems to me we should pay some attention to what they say. As you stated in the article, it's not the end of production, it just means Oil will become more and more expensive now the low hanging fruit has been extracted. They will find more Oil but not enough to replace production loss and it will be more and more expensive to extract. When it gets to $200+ a barrel people like Curmudgeon will be prattling on similarly.

Of course the IEA also say anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is a danger and not enough people accept the Science on that to Act to mitigate either.

Seems most people are happy to abandon facts when it doesn't coincide with their World view of how they want things to go forward.

Peak oil talk seems to be like invoking the wolf that never comes. According to some, we actually ran out of oil years ago; at least, we would have if we had believed them. There are always individuals and weird groups who get their kicks out of trying to scare people – peak oil, AGW, food shortages …. What next?

Couple of basic facts . . .
World oil production has been on a plateau for some years now with consistently high oil prices, Brent crude over $100 per barrel. If oil producers want to make money, why haven’t they produced more oil to take advantage of this price?
World conventional oil fields like Saudi Arabia where the vast bulk of oil is produced are in a state of permanent decline at a rate of something like 4.5%pa. By my maths, that means the cheap easy stuff will be half gone in about twelve years. Every year, this shortfall must be made up from unconventional sources, oil sands, arctic, ultra-deep and so on.
Valley Guy is absolutely correct in his conclusion.
Oil will become increasingly expensive, the environmental costs of producing it ever higher

" Oil was once very cheap, and its very cheapness was a basic cause of industrial expansion everywhere. Now it is much more expensive, but then GDP has risen a great deal everywhere, so we can still afford it. It's unlikely to be cheap again."

At risk of being accused of "shooting off on a tangent":

The price of oil products in Australia is manipulated to some extent by Coles and Woolies taking virtual oligopolistic control of petrol retailing. It is ironic that most, including the ACCC, forgive them for this, because consumers supposedly benefit by taking advantage of shopper dockets issued by the Big Two to purchase marginally discounted petrol. What consumers appear to overlook is that such petrol sales are subsidised by Coles and Woolies by their application of higher margins to grocery lines such as (allegedly) fresh fruit and vegetables.

Recent reports state that Australian oil production will virtually be exhausted. by 2020.
What this means is that ALL of our transport fuel will have to be imported by then
The price of oil will have risen so much that it is doubtful that we will be able to afford to import fuel for more than essential services.
There will also be a shortfall by our existing supplier countries as they also run low on supplies and husband what they have left for their own use.
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657

Shale oil is a diversion to keep the stock price of oil companies up. It is running at no profit and will cease eventually.
It is also causing pollution and depletion of water stocks.