OPEC won't cut output even at $20 a barrel: Saudi

[Kelvin Mace]

44. Umm, Wikipedia is a good starting point for discusion

but not exactly authoritative.

Hubert predicted U.S. peak between 1965-1971 and it peaked in 1970. Other predictions have been adjusted as empirical data became more reliable. The U.S. may actually reach its 1970 number this year, which would contradict the original prediction using tech that Hubert didn't forsee, but I would also point out at an environmental cost no one would have predicted would be tolerated by a sane society.

The over all theory of Peak Oil is sound. A finite commodity is going to spike in production until each reaches the most that can be gotten out of the ground, the easily found/pumped oil in this case. After which, production will decline and it will get more and more expensive to get out of the ground. We moved from oil that was literally bubbling out of the ground in the 1850s, to deep drilling, to offshore oil, to arctic oil, back on to land with tar sands and shale oil that require fracking and other dirty/energy intensive means to obtain.

We can quibble about the exact number of barrels produced or the tech used, or environmental damage inflicted, but at some point you run into Peak Oil theory's unassailable truth: Once the amount of energy required to extract a barrel of oil is greater than the oil's actual energy content, the party is over. That is an iron-law of physics.