The interesting question here and now is: Is the current high price of oil really a reflection of any actual irreversible peak in production?
I remember that in 1999 the Economist had a survey of global oil that highlighted the LOW price of oil and the oil GLUT. And in the 90s, industry-types whined about how Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with Russian companies helping, was driving down the global price of oil and ruining their lovely profit pictures. OECD countries also fretted over the prospect of deflation such as what beset Japan in the 1990s.
(Though in the case of Japan this seems to have been a perfect storm of cheap oil and gas combined with an overly strong currency. The currency policy was forced on Japan by the US since the 1980s. And even though 'bilateral' trade talks forced on Japan were ostensibly for increasing consumer spending, most of the prescriptions actually dampened consumer spending--increases in social security taxes, imposition of national retail taxes, and ineffective public works spending that created a government bond bubble because savings accounts brought no return).
End of digression. My sense is that what we have now is not a true permanent peak, and not a true high price of oil because of physical scarcity, but just another capitalist speculative bubble or set of bubbles (with money going into oil futures, but also other oil-related plays, such as the last wave of really large global oil companies acquiring other really large global oil companies, and also including, for example, national oil companies such as what we find in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia).
The debate about 'dear oil' vs. 'cheap oil' in US capital is like the 21st century equivalent of 'gold vs. silver' or 'high interest rates vs. low rates' or 'deficit spending vs. balanced budgets' or 'no inflation vs. some inflation'. The interesting correlation is that the current US leadership's dollar policy is a cheap dollar (vis-a-vis OECD) to go along with the expensive oil, and the bi- partisan consensus of federal leadership of the US are willing to run unbelievably high deficits to keep this all going.
Remember, fossil fuel and oil and gas infrastructure capitalists do not want cheap oil and gas for you; they want profitable oil and gas investments--because they want profits for themselves.
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