[calvinfroedge]

All good points (very good points). I think we will see the cost of extraction result in a net energy loss by the end of the decade, and maybe sooner. I could be wrong, though. As for growth rates, where do you see that global growth is declining? I think that's only in advanced industrialized societies (like Germany and Japan) where birth rates are lower than death rates. Even in the US, population continues to grow, and big increases are expected.

[Unseelie]

It's been a while since I researched it, but my impression was that the growth rate had been decelerating since the seventies. Not that it isn't still a growth rate, just a lower one.

About energy, I expect that higher prices make many more sources of energy available to the market than is available now, and I don't expect the demand to drop without a very fundamental change....we've still got lots of room for energy prices to go up in our market.