Insider: Peak oil

Followers of the peak oil theory argue the world has already or soon will have used up more than half the non-renewable resource. They say current crude prices are just the beginning. Skeptics insist there is no reason to believe that carbon-based capitalism has started to run out of gas. Today


10 Reasons not to buy Peak Oil

1. High prices do not prove the world is running out of oil. After the dot-com market implosion, housing prices soared. After real estate crashed, the cost of oil spiked. People still have homes and Internet access.

2. Higher prices do mean that a lot more money will be invested in finding more oil and better recovery technologies.

3. Peakers take turns dismissing technology on YouTube, then watch each other on credit-card-sized iPods more advanced than computing systems on the first space shuttle.

4. Future oil prices are lower, not higher.

5. Peakers say supply is running out but demand can