Brian Behlendorf wrote:
I would much rather be hitting this curve due to refining capacity than to declines in the amount of oil being pulled out of the ground. If we could refine all we could pull, then total reserves would decline that much more quickly, and the wall we would hit (when oil really does start to run out) would be much sharper than it would be if prices crept up slowly from here on out, giving us a generation or two to switch to alternatives rather than just a few years.
I totally agree with this. But with demand now rising so fast globally, will we hit that inevitable decrease in supply that much sooner? Behavior is changing, sure, but I'm not sure current prices in the US are high enough yet to really move the government (I'm talking about the next government, not the current one, of course) to invest in alternatives in a way that is serious enough to re-tool the country's energy infrastructure. I believe the US supply has been declining since the 70s, but I'm not sure the global supply has peaked yet.
Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
