[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 1930 we found 10 billion new barrels of oil in the world and we used 1.5 billion. We reached a peak in 1964 when we found 48 billion barrels and used approximately 12 billion. In 1988, we found 23 billion barrels and used 23 billion barrels. That was the crossover when we started finding less than we were using. In 2005, we found about 5 billion to 6 billion and we used 30 billion.

These numbers are just overwhelming.

[cube]

15 years ago if you mentioned this fact to a PO skeptic, (we consume more oil then we're discovering) their usual response would be:

"From a business point, why waste money discovering more oil when we have so much in excess reserve?"

That may have made sense 15 years ago but fast forward to the present, that argument doesn't hold water anymore. Too bad for the PO skeptics. That was (past tense) actually one of their STRONGEST arguments against PO.
-----------------------------------------
edit:
I've noticed that PO skeptics have decided to retreat their previous positions and now admit that PO is the TRUTH.

However their new argument now is to claim PO will be a benign event with a painless transition to renewables......... ha ha ha

[Duende]

Very interesting article. In my mind it paints a picture of how things are likely to play out. I'll pull a snippet from the article to illustrate my point:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Q: What about a peak in gas production?

A: That's much, much further out. There is a lot of what they call stranded natural gas, big discoveries that are not tied to any local needs, or any local distribution system, and they will be tapped and brought in, in liquefied form to our country and to Europe and to Asia. The peak of natural gas now roughly looks like it will be in 2035 to 2040. There is a finite supply that is being drawn down, but it hasn't been exploited nearly as much as oil. The run-up in natural gas prices in the past year or so was because production in this country has peaked, and natural gas is more expensive and difficult to move from one continent to another, and we don't really have the means to do that yet. We are getting there and the big liquefied natural gas expansion is starting, and soon we are going to have interchangeability between continents. When one continent is short we can move gas there, which will keep prices down.

[kublikhan]

Interesting read. He seems to think that the current tightness in the oil supply is not because we already peaked, but rather caused by the ineptitude of national oil companies. He predicts the worldwide oil peak as 2015-2020, depending on how much conservation the world does. And natural gas peak around 20 years later at 2035-2040. Sounds like we still have some time to adjust.

I didn't see him mention coal though. I think coal is going to grow in importance as oil shrinks in availability. Woe to the environment when that happens.