Rhian - I don't disagree with what you say, but the deep oil will still be more expensive than the easy lift stuff which is supposedly (note the supposed) running out..

Taswegian - the general trend on energy return is probably right but I thought the return on ethanol was actually negative.. the 5 figure for Canadian tar sands seems suspiciously low. I don 't think they'd do it for that.. what's the source..

The articles author is basically correct.
There is a famous graph that shows oil discovery and production.
The year of highest discovery was 1964 and it has all been downhill
since then except for a few bumps.
The production curve crosses the discovery curve in 1983.
Think about that, we have been on borrowed resources since 1983.

I wish we could show graphs in our replies.

There was a paper by someone I cannot remember about the oil companies
return on search and development investment.
They are on a beating to nothing and there is only one way out.

Curmudgeon, an RMIT Prof published some figures for EROEI for oil and coal.
I have it here somewhere but it was this from memory;
ERoEI
OIL COAL
1930 100 80
2010 10 30

Now that IS something to worry about.

I don't remember Oil Sands, better known as bitumen sands being as
low as 5, but it was quite low perhaps 8 to 10.
At 5 they will not bother coming back.