The mention of 'growth of demand' not being factored in brings us back to hideously rising populations which are causing more demand for everything.

Growth should be seen as a dirty word by all but those making money from growth, and pushing for higher immigration and populations to make them even richer. There are fewer of them than us, and it's about time we started leaning on our useless politicians.

As for oil: it's been 'running out' for decades now. Maybe it is near it's end, maybe it's not. We would all like to see alterntives (the providers of oil are ripping us all off) but to date, the only possiblity with any practical use is nuclear power. All other forms are OK for hobbyists, but there is no evidence that electricity, solar or wind will, even all together, provided a reliable and practical supply of energy in the future.

Many people are against nuclear power, including our own Government, so there's not much hope for us if we are to believe the people who have become professional scare-mongers.

Sorry PhilipM, the calculations on when fossil fuel reserves are likely to run out are almost certainly wrong. You may be out by a century, perhaps several. Who knows? There have been forecasts that easy lift (ie cheap to extract) petroleum will run out some time soon, but no-one is seriously suggesting we will run out of fuel. Instead, the concern is that the switch from cheap to expensive oil will be disruptive. I have no comment to make on those forecasts but it is likely that the recent spike in petrol prices was due to some short term factor, rather than the long-term decline in easy lift oil.
However, no one aside from the occasional rapid environmentalist has suggested that there might be an end to coal. The reserves figure you are using almost certainly bears no relation to the amount of coal that can be exploited - as has been shown time and again the reserves figure for minerals is influenced by price. If coal is worth more there is more exploration, ergo more coal is found. This relationship is true for all resources - even oil to a certain extent. Leave it with you.

At last.... an article that says it the way it really is.

I'm of the opinion we have very few avenues left now that we have allowed Peak Oil to catch the powers that be by surprise. One of these avenues is to live more simply, so we may simply live, to quote Ted Trainer.

In our household, we have proven beyond any doubt that it is possible to lead a far more satisfying lifestyle on a fraction of the energy budget we all take for granted.

We generate over 90% of our electricity with a combination of solar and efficiency (and could easily make it 100% with some effort from our kids!), and we grow much of our own food, including this year the exciting prospect of making our own cheese from organic goats' milk. Food creation is one rarely disclosed area where much of our energy is used up. My car ran out of rego 18 months ago, and that was that. We now save so much money by NOT participating in the economy, that my wife only needs to work five days a fortnight to cover all our expenses including her pottery habit.

If only she'd agree to get rid of her car.... we'd be able to pay the rates just with cheese I estimate!

Curmudgeon you may be right that we will find more copper and zinc if we look harder due to high prices. That could be true of gas to some extent (think hydrofracturing), but coal and oil are different. The most recent good sized oil discoveries have been way offshore and even then under kilometres of seafloor rock. When it takes as much energy to extract and refine as it can produce then the whole exercise is futile whatever the price. Mining of fossil fuels is different to metals and diamonds because they not only have to break even in energy terms but still have enough surplus energy to power the rest of the economy. Limiting CO2 places an extra constraint. As far as I am aware nowhere outside of Iraq can profitably produce a new oil field at $50 a barrel. Basically what we have now is as good as it gets. Look at the UK; their once mighty coalfields in Wales and Yorkshire are now uneconomic as the remaining coal is too deep. High oil prices didn't help the Brits find more oil in the North Sea and they are now oil importers, not exporters. They also now depend on Russia for 20% of their gas with unhappy results. If coal, oil and gas can run out or become uneconomic for the Brits why can't it happen to the world as a whole?

Sorry to tell you Curmudgeon.... but you are wrong. The US, the largest producer of coal in the world, hit peak COAL ENERGY 20 years ago. Anthracite, the best coal of all, is as good as totally mined out, and more and more coal, of ever worse quality, needs to be exploited, and more and more energy spent in the process, all the time, just to tread water. The exact same thing applies to oil too.

You are right that we will never run out of oil, because one half to one third of what is left is so energetically expensive it will never come out of the ground.... it would take more energy to exploit it than it contains.

You should visit http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

It seems to me that we really need to think and act outside of our current rigid boxes re the nature of energy altogether---and how we can generate, harness and use it.

What about the ideas and inventions of people such as the genius Nikola Tesla or the relaitively unknown James McCanney.

Then there is the entire spectrum of possibilities featured on and via this website: http://www.borderlands.com