Letters to the Editor
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Peak oil isn't specifically about price
"There is undoubtedly a good bit of truth to that theory -- the power of the price mechanism is a mighty thing -- but it certainly doesn't negate the premise that the era of cheap oil is over."
Just to be clear, Peak Oil is not about cheap oil per se, it is about our ability to sustain or increase the amount of energy available at any one time. So we are getting about 85 billion barrels per year out of the ground now. Peak Oil occurs when we are not able to increase that to 86. That's why all this talk about "total reserves" and tar sands and wind farms etc is moot - the point is that if we cannot get more and more net energy out of the ground/sand/corn field/waves etc *PER YEAR*, and our demand continues to grow, we have a problem. Most alternatives produce energy orders of magnitude more slowly than oil.
That it will result in higher prices is a given, but that is not what Peak Oil is about specifically.