Imperial
you raise an excellent point but its been answered.. OPEC likes prices the way they are.. if they produce more oil then prices go down.. so they ignore investment in production and exploration and their production tapers off but they get good prices for what they have.. meanwhile production form other sources ramp up.. hence the plateau.. at least that's one story.. I do know that if the original peak oil doomsters had been right production from OPEC would have vanished entirely years ago..

Valley Guy
In fact I've seen through several oil price booms and busts and I'm still prattling because I have yet to be proved wrong, so I'll repeat what I said slowly, for your benefit.

Peak oil as a concept is a waste of time now, as much as it was when I first heard of it in the 1970s. It doesn't mean anything for prices - the market is such that disruptions and changes of supply can mean big swings in either direction - and it doesn't mean anything for production. The concept had some currency a few years ago but its past its use by date as the article makes clear..

Its not so much whether we should be worried about 'peak oil' but whether we should be worried about the limits to growth of which peak oil is but one subset.

There are a number of critical oversights in the article. Some of the major ones are:

- declining net exports from oil exporting countries. This is a trend that has been in place for seven or eight years now and shows no signs of changing direction. We can't all be oil importers. The reduction in oil consumption, largely due to economic difficulties rather than increased fuel efficiencies in developed nations post GFC has masked this problem. I guess as long as we all get poorer this isn't a problem.

- Oils aint oils. Most of the relatively slight increase in oil production since 2005 has been from sources other than conventional oil, such as Natural Gas Liquids. Whilst still useful products they are generally used for industrial rather than transportation applications.

- Energy Return on Investment (EROI). As we get closer to the bottom of the barrel so to speak, we classify more and more marginal sources of liquid fuels as reserves. Hence it appears that reserves are remaining around the same or increasing. What this doesn't consider is the EROI for these marginal sources (e.g. tight oil and tar sands) is far lower (it takes a lot more energy in to get a smaller amount of energy out). This is the biggest oversight of most 'economic' arguments against peak oil. When your average EROI is 50 to 1 (e.g. for an investment of one unit of energy you get 50 out) or thereabouts a globalised industrial economy can function, when it drops to single figures, not so much.

- the relationship between money/credit and oil. As James Howard Kunstler argues, one of the biggest impacts of peak oil will be on capital formation. Look around at the financial shenagigans around the world (Quantitative Easing anyone...) and it seems that he might be onto something.

Robert LePage we have plenty of our own oil, & more gas than most, all we have to do is tap it.

The oil reserve in the Rundle shale, & under that area alone would supply Oz for the best part of a centaury. It is too politically difficult to harvest it right now, but just as with water, when things get tight the green menace will evaporate, like water in the desert. Dams were no problem, when city water supply was threatened.

Apart from the few radical ratbags, people are only green when they are comfortable, & have nothing to worry about. If they can't afford, or get petrol for the car, the Great Barrier Reef can go to hell, they will want that oil.

Of course, we can also turn all that black stuff under most of Queensland into liquid fuel, any time the need arises.

Yep, no trouble with liquid fuel in the lifetime of anyone alive on Oz to day, unless we are taken over by a stronger country.

What Don Aiken failed to mention was that US oil production did peak in 1970 !
It has never reached that level since. The current surge in tight oil
comes no where near the 1970 peak.
Also it will be a comparative flash in the pan as average decline rates
for tight oil wells varies between 40% & 60% PER YEAR !

A few things to remember;
1. The amount of oil discovered each year peaked in 1964.
2. The first year that production exceeded discovery was 1983 & always since.
3. At present we use about 5 times the amount each year than we discover each year.
4. Conventional oil, about 90% of all oil, is declining at 4.5% per year.
5. To offset that decline we need to find another Saudi Arabia every 3 years.
6. Half of Australia's refineries have closed, rest in few years.
7. 100% of petrol & diesel will be imported.

The implications of these figures could only be missed by those who do not wish to see.
Or is a politician.
These figures are what I meant the other day when I said it is simple arithmetic.
It is not like global warming, anyone can do the arithmetic.
Check it yourself.

Regardless of whether or not 'Peak Oil' is real or not, Australia needs to develop an energy security policy. We are in the fortunate position of having plentiful natural resources.
Why do cars in Australia run in imported oil only, when they can run on locally produced gas? It is possible to legislate for all cars sold in Australia after a certain future date to have dual fuel capability.
Base load electricity is best produced from coal, with peak load being provided by gas and solar. Solar is useful on hot days as it increases input to the grid at the same time as demand increases