Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Peak oil doesn't necessarily mean it becomes too expensive. It means the point in time that humanity consumes the greatest amount of oil, and tapers consumption after that.
This could be due to dwindling supply, or alternatives. I tend to think it will be a combination of both.
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Peak oil availabilty will not be determined by demand per say. Oil will begin to leave us long before we are ready to leave it. We use resources from the best, first. And we used all of the Beverly Hillbilly oil a long time ago. Peak oil will ocurr from constricted supply as it gets harder and more expensive to get. There may be a long plateu in price though since we are likely to see world economic deflation as more and more middle class people find that they will have less and less surplus income to buy things and oil producers will be forced to sell production from existing wells at a big loss to try to keep some cash coming in. Eventually the price will skyrocket in 20-30 years as we are stuck with nothing left but very tight or deep water oil and tar sands. Pricing oil out of reach for most uses like transportation and agriculture that we have taken for granted for the last 100 years.