Peak Oilers have been ridiculed and are keeping their heads down for now. An OLO commenter has opined that since recent oil prices are moderate then oil cannot be in sight of serious depletion. Like some kind of Magic Pudding. Others are suggesting from now on oil could be cheap until the last drop. I guess many of the billion internal combustion engines that fire up each day won't feel the need for fuel. That includes essentials like journey to work, aviation and farming.

I see a hint of Magic Puddingism in AEMO's submission to the Finkel review. They suggest we need less combined cycle gas baseload more open cycle turbines which can run on presumably always abundant liquid fuel when gas is in short supply. They don't seem to envision a big switch to electric cars which would also need baseload power.

If I recall the Office of the Chief Economist said Australia imported $24.4 bn of liquid fuels last year, including both crude and refined fuel. If crude oil goes to $100 a barrel the import bill could double to $50 bn yet we seem blithely unprepared. Unless there is a fabulous local gas and oil discovery to give a temporary reprieve things must get tougher within a few years.

We've all heard this story before and used to separate the ignorant from their energy dollar?

The 1.8 trillion barrel Edmonton reserve will, given modern technology, keep production well above demand as will the change over the next 15 years to vastly less costly to run, rechargeable electric vehicles!

And tantamount to cooking the goose that lays the golden egg on the part of the price gouging foreign oil companies, whose only patriotism is towards the almighty dollar A k A the ever rising profit curve!

If any of these massive multi-trillion dollar companies was headed by (a) hard headed rationalist(s), they would now be pouring their R+D dollars/investment dollars, into Thorium based energy generation and still be principle players in the energy business one and a half decades from now!

Especially if, earnings returned for investment, was the actual goal!
Alan B.

Ahhh yes, if only the politicians etc had taken notice of Colin Campbell in the 1990s.
Some people even poo pooed Shell's announcement that they are planning
how to leave the oil industry.
Many do not understand that crude oil production peaked in 2005 and it
triggered the GFC in 2008. Then that started off the tight oil rush
which has been a nice gap filler but that has now peaked.
Exxon's profit fell from $70B to $3.8B and Conoco made a loss.
Shell likewise had a bit fall in profit. Forgot the amount.
Just to make it all more difficult, world coal production has peaked !

Unfortunately I think it is too late to rush about building nuclear
power stations for our electric cars.
Face it we will not have cars or aircraft !
There is a real risk that we will not be able to build a reliable
electrical system due to difficulty in borrowing the necessary funds.

If you want to see the future, watch Egypt.
85 million people and the Nile can support 40 million.

Then just to put a bit of icing on it all;
I have read that the US government had congress permission to keep
borrowing but that expires on 15th March.
The US government will have $200B in kitty. It will be broke about mid year.

Sleep tight, the Financial Stability Board will find your deposits.

Interesting the author seems more a sustainability activist than a qualified expert in oil science and economics.

The author's broader description is http://theconversation.com/profiles/frederick-trainer-8622 :

The author "...has taught and written about sustainability and justice issues for many years.

He is also developing Pigface Point, an alternative lifestyle educational site near Sydney..."

Enough said.

The future Bazz? No need to journey up the Nile, when all you need is to go to the crowded and well watered, well oiled,(comparatively) Philippines.

Take a butchers at Manilla and its permenant traffic jam (bedlam) to understand just what overcrowded underfunded looks like and surrounded on all sides by wealth, the shrinking moderate and the abusive, arrogant, fat, expanding, gorged, obscenely wealthy.

Then slip across to even smaller, vastly less well resourced tiny Singapore, if only to understand, the answer just does not lay in extreme exploitative capitalism/corrupt cronyism.

Then slip over to Ceylon, to understand that conflict solves nothing and ultimately armed struggle just produces victims/sorrow/heartache/grieving widows and orphans. And poor folks all the poorer for the experience.

Except the oil merchants, arms dealers and the ubiquitous, divisive sabre rattling politicians!

We have the technology and the finance to turn this nation into a veritable garden of eden for all its inhabitants!

All that's missing is a (Lee Kuan Yew type) no nonsense visionary at the helm, with the wit to enable its fruition?

As opposed to do nothing hand wringing blame shifters, and where they almost to a generic man, excell!?

Currently we're hell bound on a path that all but guarantees, we can out Filipino the Philippines. God give me strength!
Alan B.

Hmmm, well Alan, Egypt is a classic example, declining oil, declining
money, increasing debt, continuous land bridge to Europe, 45 million
people that have to die or go somewhere.

What I find depressing is the total lack of any sense of urgency from
the powers that be. Even your favourite solution is probably too late.