telltale signs of peak oil?

Sounds like it:

The mass media is back at it, trying to explain high prices at the pump to the average American. If their lack of understanding weren’t so scary, we could all have a laugh. This time its being blamed largely on problems at petroleum refineries. We Americans do like simple answers. If prices at the pump rise rapidly, we assume there must be an easy explanation. It couldn’t be a more comprehensive problem with the way we use energy and our reliance on a finite resource.

How about this question. If you knew, as the supplier of a finite resource like oil, that the oil you sell was about to become physically less available each year forever, would you continue building refineries? Of course not. Any industry that understands it doesn’t have a long term future will act with blatant disregard for it’s long term well being in favor of greater short term profits. I think big oil is doing just that and it points out peak oil like a tattletaling two year old.

And More here:

One might be tempted to question the competence of an organization with access to some of the best data in the country that can narrow down to no less than thirty-three years the estimated time of arrival of what promises to be an event with unprecedented adverse consequences. But this is not an issue of competence. One way to interpret this presumed myopia is to treat it as the product of a system in a highly complex environment. At the macro-social level Luhmann’s General System Theory provides insight into why we might expect offices such as the GAO and other governmental bodies to be restrained in their communication to the public about the Peak Oil phenomenon.

[both via the oil drum]