Possibly Hubbert's peak?

"Thus, we have learned that $60 oil and the ensuing $2.30 gasoline is not much of deterrent to American driving habits. It is not doing much to the economy, and certainly isn’t stirring up any serious action in the Congress which continues to fuss around with a largely meaningless energy bill. With good economic growth, the US demand for oil continues to increase.

The Chinese continue to claim their economy is growing nicely, suggesting increased demand for oil in the near future.

OPEC and the Russians — the folks with some spare capacity left — seem to have at least squeezed out one last round of production increases in response to calls to stem growth-endangering higher prices. At the same time, many of the world's older non-OPEC oil fields are talking of dramatic drops in production.

If one puts all this together, it is hard to escape the conclusion we just may be very close to Hubbert's peak right now and, some day, 2005 will be declared the year of peak oil."


Time will tell. Yes, I know: it's summer and that gets everyone talking about Hubberts peak again, just like every year. What's interesting this time around is that crude prices are at around $60 and yet the same folks who told us a while back that a 50 cent increase in the price of gas will lead our economy and therefore the world economy into ruin and we'll all be living in mud huts if that happens are now talking about how resilient and flexible the US economy. Yippee. Let's go through this slowly for everyone: the price isn't coming down anytime soon and by the looks of it right now, it won't ever.