I was fortunate enough to attend a talk given by G Warfield Hobbs on this subject.
The majority of predictions he was able to acquire put global peak oil production at some point in the near future, at a time-span short enough that we will likely live to see it. He also stressed that the west and japan have not significantly increased our demand for oil since the oil crisis during the Carter administration (this is true).
The increased demand for oil comes almost entirely from developing nations, such as China (The increase in demand is also the reason for the increase in price-me).
He was hopeful that improvements in recovery technology could yield trillions more barrels from oil fields previously thought to be depleted.
He stressed that one of the biggest challenges wasn't producing enough oil to meet global demand, but distributing all of it (global daily demand is enormous).
Then he made some arguments.
-Current US and global energy practices are unsustainable
---increasing standard of living globally will require energy
---current energy practices have lead, and will continue to lead to climate change.
-we could not maintain our standard of living if we had to rely exclusively on current renewable technologies
-the public and the us government have failed to fully grasp the consequences of climate change
-"Washington is paralyzed by conflicting agendas and an inability to compromise"- said in regard to oil companies, environmental groups, renewable energy scientists, the public interest, and others all having a dog in the fight.
The last point he was able to make before running out of time was advocating higher CAFE standards as something easy that the government could do to help energy problems. He claimed to have personally heard from auto company executives that they could produce more fuel efficient vehicles at no extra cost, but that americans prefer to buy the gas guzzlers, so they make them to be competitive.
Anyway, that's what I heard.
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"What if you just eat vegetarians?"-neonreaper
"^ You are what you eat. ^_~"-Koiji