Good concise summary Michael-thanks for taking the time.
G'day Bernie - hope you are right but that's the rub-the decline will not necessarily be slow or gradual, particularly for Australia.
Some of the leaders in the government,community and industry are concerned which is why they have had an inquiry into the Liquid Fuels Emergency Act. Joe public doesn't know about it because they don't want to spook the precious "market" and God forbid people might start spending and consuming less.
I looked at Y2K and decided in the words of Benny Hill that it was a load of old cobras according to the research I did. I've done the research on peak oil and I'm concerned.
Australia imports liquid fuels from 45 nations. In the 10 months from Dec 06 to Sept 07 we spent $A18.75 billion. Our main suppliers are in decline and have rapidly growing domestic consumption.Top 3 suppliers of crude are Vietnam,Malaysia and Indonesia.
Imports could dry up rapidly - calm decisions won't cause alternate supply to materialise. Remember we are in the most competitive sector of the world.Have a look at the globe, we and NZ are down here all alone. Long way down the supply chain.
Aust Govt holds no petroleum stocks.Commercial sector hold only 39 million barrels. We have rapidly increasing consumption and population.
I don't know how old you are Bernie but I remember the punch ups in the fuel queues in the 70's, current population is not nearly as laid back.
That was a temporary political shortage this is a permanent geological shortage.
We are up against some heavy hitters to try and secure supplies.
space constraints prevent me going in to further detail.
Be prepared - best wishes.

If Australia were to act intelligently, it should build a rationing system now. There exists a well thought out model called Tradable Energy Quotas www.teqs.net
It is the only system that is a direct rebuff to the doom and gloom arguments.

The sooner Labor:

- wins

- considers the peak oil problem

- retires its temporary vote magent - Peter Garot

and

- formulates realistic pro nuclear policies (to address the peak oil energy shortfall)

the better.

Pete

Fungible is spot on. Australia is in very poor bargaining position
when bidding for oil supplies.
There is another factor Fungible did not mention.
All our oil companies have their head offices in the US or Europe.
Can you imagine their HOs allowing the Australian subsidiaries to
outbid them in the market ?
I do not know the mechanism of the tradeable scheme but there is a
method that would use the new Medicare card.
Everyperson would get an annual ration. When you buy petrol your card
is swiped and the litres of fuel is deducted from your ration.
If you think you have more ration than you need you could sell via the
same system to someone who bids for your excess.
It would require changes to the banks computer system to retransmit
the data to the government fuel management computer system.
It would not be a programming job as complicated as the credit card
system.

Getting the politicians to come clean with the public is the main problem.
Some do seem to be aware as shown by the NSW State Government that is
mothballing their old buses instead of scrapping or selling them.

An indirect relative is in the bus manufacturing business in Europe.
Delivery times for new buses are getting very long due to a surge
in ordering.

However the RTA in NSW does not study future petrol costs when planning major roadworks.
The Minister does not even know what the International Energy
Authority does, he had not heard of it.
RTA does a growth study on traffic and project it forward not taking
into account increased petrol costs.

Hi Bazz,
If you have a link to any work done on rationing, I will be interested.

It is inevitable that rationing will be introduced when the SHTF so if the govt were to pick up a really good model, like TEQS.NET, it would hold society together and save a lot of suffering.

Plantagenet,

Nuclear power is not going to help, we'd need to be building plants now and not in ten years time (and does anyone want a reactor in their back yard? I thought not) -- in any event nuclear power is a derivative of oil, not an alternative.

Uranium has to be mined (using oil powered machinery), transported (using oil powered trucks or trains).

Construction of the reactor is done using oil powered trucks, cranes, lifting equipment, powered compressors and the construction crew probably drives to work.

The equipment used to build the reactor also consumes oil when built as well. The pc the architect uses is also built using oil by products ; the work forces lunch arrives in an oil powered truck etc etc etc…

In short you can't really get away from oil. Our entire way of life is dependent on this one commodity.

This presents a problem in that any alternative to oil needs oil to make it in the first place.

Is there a solution? If we took action NOW, maybe. Given most political parties haven’t heard of peak oil and would like to build more roads, the answer is most likely “no”. There are some good points on Lifeaftertheoilcrash.net (goto Home and then follow the link for page two) on why rationing may not help the situation.

To sum up (From Matthew Savinar’s site http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html)

"Is there any reason to remain hopeful?"

As far as the fate of society or the world as a whole, the most honest answer is "no." Our political processes are entirely controlled by massive corporations in the petroleum, defense, automotive, agribusiness, construction, and media industries. Most of the responses to this situation that would be favorable to you and me (such as mass transit and large scale urban gardens) would be at odds with the interests of these corporations. Thus, there is little realistic hope they will ever be aggressively pursued. The end result is likely to be a large scale societal collapse not unlike what happened to the Roman, Viking, Mayan, and Easter Island societies.