A few points on Lardelli's article. When the peak oil was first forecast some years back - and here I refer to the modern, serious forecasts, not the ravings of the Club of Rome and the like - the original proposal by Campbell et al did not suggest for a moment that oil output would stop (no-one in their right mind would). The concern was that production of easy-lift, comparatively cheap oil would ease off before all the alternative sources of supply - oil sands being the big one - came into effect. They were concerned there would be disruption. Well I have yet to be convinced peak oil is here. I looked briefly at the link in the article and it points to another peak oiler reanalysing figures to suit the argument. But in any case the Canadian advances in oil sands would make that peak less of a concern. Anyway, we will know when the world is past that peak - it will be when the oil industry seriously starts to exploit the oil shale deposits in Queensland.
Back in the mid-80s David Suzuki, also a geneticist, tried to convince me the world's oil supplies would run out by the end of the century. I thought he was talking nonsense then and, sorry Lardelli, I am not convinced by this article either.

I feel optimistic after reading Michael article. What is needed is a reversal of our sacred economic system or it will wipe us out. The first step is in this outline of an article that was rejected last month by this Forum.
Today’s major concerns are unemployment and global warming, which must be fixed right now, for our children’s sake.
Pollution from the use of fossil fuels appears early whereas; today’s greenhouse gases obscure their outcome by taking decades to increase world’s temperature to an unliveable state.
Labour can be increased by decreasing all taxes and charges on it. Greenhouse gases can be reduced by increasing their taxes. These measures can be implemented without a revolution or any hardship; on the contrary, they will improve our life.
The reason we have periodical unemployment is due to charging and taxing employers for using labour and taxing labour while keeping taxes low on profits, resources and energy to gives a competitive advantage. Thus the burden of raising taxes falls more on wages, salaries and the GST, but those taxes in turn reduce purchasing power, which results in unemployment: unless the economy, by magic, keeps growing.
We allocate taxes and charges according to what needs to be promoted or discouraged, like high tax on tobacco and alcohol and less tax for fresh foods. This must be applied to employment, resources depletion, and greenhouse gases.
Today we need to increase tax on carbon and a decrease tax on labour until we stop emitting carbon and everyone is employed. Halving labour’s cost will result in employing more people instead of machines.
Small businesses have the largest labour cost and the greatest inconvenience with the required paper work. They will benefit from these measures. The welfare of people is the responsibility of their community, while the responsibility of business is to provide a safe working environment and supply useful services to the community without pollutants. The tax lost from labour for governments will be offset somewhat by smaller wage bills; In addition there will be increased revenue due to taxes on carbon and non-renewable resources.

I am always bemused when people claim to be able to accurately
predict the future, for along comes some variable which proves
them wrong.

I remember a story of not so long ago, when ABARE was making
yet another prediction, when it was pointed out to the
person, how wrong previous ABARE predictions had been.

At least the bloke was honest, responding that if he could
accurately predict the future, he would not be working for
ABARE :)

.

Curmudgeon, you can't be serious about tar sands...... what do they produce now... is it one or two million barrels a day when demand is over eighty five million? And it's all produced by turning pristine Canadian water into toxic ponds many many square kilometres in size, and huge quantities of gas that Canada will soon also run out of...?

And REALLY, the Club of Rome were RAVING? Raving about what exactly? As it turns out, I am reading the very latest edition of Limits to Growth, and from where I sit, well, they were and still are spot on.... We have hit Limits to Growth (that first book, BTW never mentioned Peak Oil at all) and are now well into overshoot. It's going to get ugly alright.

Michael, you know I'm a peaknik from way back. But even I have to question linking to TSW about alternative energy. Ted doesn’t seem to acknowledge many of the recent trends in renewable energy.

I’m convinced this is a massive crisis, and needs the Federal government to take a ‘war time’ economy to it. But ultimately, if the ERoEI of wind and various other renewables is high enough, our children or grandchildren may come out of the energy bottleneck we’re about to enter. Sure we’ll have to ration, car-pool, cycle, walk, and do whatever it takes to prioritize the remaining fuel to get the next infrastructure running. But some think tanks are calculating a plan to do this in 10 years!
http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/zerocarbonplan

Peter Newman has explained that electric cars may help ‘spread the load’ in grids. (I’m no fan of cars, and really wish we’d build more attractive New Urbanism). But if we need “some” transport in a post-oil world, with a city plan that has a more disciplined use of the car, then surely those sectors that MUST have cars should have an EV running on renewable electricity.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2571785.htm

I am completely behind you raising the concerns you do. You’re asking the right questions, but I’m not sure you’ve thoroughly debunked some of the ‘solutions’ the way you think you have. I really wonder if you sound ‘agenda driven’ by not more comprehensively debunking some of the ‘solutions’ you seem so pessimistic about and showing why electric trolley buses cannot quickly be deployed to become the backbone of “corner store villages” that we will start to create in our vast suburban sprawl. Once this electric lifeline is going in there, it is easier to divert the remaining liquid fuel to agriculture.

Remember: while oil will decrease exponentially, solar and wind have been increasing exponentially for the last decade. They don't produce oil, but maybe we won't need as much by then. There is hope.

Coorangreeny, the Club of Rome is a byword for loony forecasting. By most of the original forecasting - the forecasts made back in the 70s -we should have all run out of resources decades ago. Well, we haven't and despite the assertions of the author of the article and others - and more loony forecasting in the Limits to Growth - the end is still no where in sight. As for oil sands, the Canadian story is a complex one but basically the country has gone from nowhere to having the third largest exploitable reserves. Just to take your 5 million barrel figure (I am assuming its correct) its just part of the switch from conventional to non-conventional production sources for oil.
As one example of the nonsense that often occurs in the limits to growth debate, the article suggets that out population will outrun food supply in decades to come - pointing to a long standing argument about how much of Australia's food production is exported.
Sorry, just don't buy it. The problem has always been to sell Australia's food output. If there were more buyers then more would be produced. As it is, the actual area given over to food production activities may well have reached a peak and is now declining - a trend similar to one happening in all the developed countries.
The limits just aint there. Sorry.