[idiom]

If this has been mentioned before feel free to point it out, 'cause I couldn't find it.

It appears to me that there are two different oil issues the we are confusing. One is peak oil which is global production reaching is maximum, something nice and logical and permanent. The other is Exceed oil where oil usuage exceeds supply and is possibly temporary.

Now if our current high prices are due to excessive consumption then we may exceed supply independent of production peaking. Thsi will cause huge price spikes and shortages and likely a recession. Now a recession should quickly push consumption back down, for a while at least and all of this without production reaching its maximum, it just has to rise slower than consumption.

What we are all afraid of is when the excession is caused by the oil curve coming down to meet the consumption curve and causing the end of the oil age (the concerning part being the rate thereof). However at the moment both curves are going up which means in the near term we are likely to hit the crossing point, freak out and have consumption bounce down ala 1970. This could happen several times before 'The big one' and students of history naturally fear we won't learn in time.

If this is all correct then it would make sense to, say, destroy a bunch of supertankers and create an artificial shortage in order to bring the vulnerability to the Front page. Like when we all set our computer clocks forward for y2k and some of found ourselves in trouble, cause at that point its still fixable.