in the (immortal) words of bullwinkle moose: "this time, for sure"

My dad told me that when he was in high school in the late 1930s, his chemistry teacher assured the class that there was no more than another decade of oil left on the planet.

Oil is finite, but substitutes exist and if the price of oil goes up, the substitutes will be employed. The only ones hurt are those nations too stupid and profligate as to be solely dependent on oil extraction for their economy.

Gee you mean like George Bush will win 50 states in 2004?

Good lord, these Hubbert Peak cultists really are a hoot. Every single time there's a price spike, they're out hollering. It was fun last time oil dropped to about $12/bbl after one of their outbursts. They went away, but only for a little while. What a bunch of nitwits.

Brandon:

Know anyone else who never wavered?

OJ: Me. But I was only brave enough for 40.

Good one Brandon!

Brandon - You can't blame OJ, it was those darn Democrats who screwed up his prediction. If they hadn't voted ...

Out here in West Texas, you can see how the drilling increases and decreases in the deep deposit areas depending on the price of oil and natural gas. When the price is high, the areas with reserves 3-4 miles down are explored, while when the price is low, other areas within the region where the deposits are only a mile or two beneath the surface is where the rigs are located, because a deep well strike with oil below $20 a barrel or gas under $3 mcf isn't going to make back its drilling/pumping costs.

And this is one of the easier areas to locate and remove the deposits. As the price goes higher, other areas that might be unprofitable under the current $40-$50 prices will be explored, as long as the enviromentalists don't block the way. So it's going to be a long time before all the reserves are exhausted, though it doesn't mean the price will remain the same, even as the extraction methods improve.

pj:

It was W's fault. If he'd pulled out of Iraq when he should have he'd have easily carried them all.

OJ,

No, you never wavered, and I don't know anyone else who was so consistent. Like the rest of us, you have many faults, which you bravely put on display on this site (unlike the rest of us), but lack of faith surely isn't one of them.

January 28, 2005
Strange Politics
The rise of the not-so-conservative conservatives
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

"The per-capita American use of petroleum is probably unsustainable in the long run, while right now our profligacy means sending dollars to terrorist abettors who wind up helping to kill Americans. In 1970 we could say that the market could, if necessary, "correct" the American idea of driving a 7,000 pound, 13 mile-per-gallon gas hog by a simple increase in the gas price. Of course, it can and will do that eventually, but in the meantime a lot of American dollars are going to the wrong people at the wrong time and making energy a question of national security rather than market economics.

More important, we are losing some of the competitiveness and domestic material production that allows us the cash to pay for our imported petroleum. So a renewed policy that ties necessary drilling in the Arctic and nuclear power to fuel efficiency and conservation offers a lot of political room for future candidates, especially if couched not in green rhetoric but in hard-headed terms of America's national security. It will be interesting to see whether the Right embraces conservation before the Left sees the need for increased energy production; but the first to combine the two approaches will gain the greater political advantage."

Couldn't possibly express it better!
Read it all at:
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson012805.html