[pocoloco]

The guys at The Automatic Earth[1] explain that after the multi-decade credit run up enabled by cheap oil would come when peak oil is reached. Once there the financial system is not able to sustain itself without cheap credit it will collapse and a sustained credit deflation will ensue. In this deflation all assets will decrease in price but the difficulty to obtain cash will be harder making them effectively very expensive.

This, they explain, will have the effect of making oil cheap to the point that there won’t be enough money to invest in maintaining the current infrastructure and even less to invest in green tech. Once the bad debts are cleared and growth returns the true effects of peak oil will be felt everywhere.

In summary, they say, don’t get your hopes up with clean/green tech. It is too little too late and it simply cannot replace oil. And nuclear energy is no better once you take into account the energy required to build, operate and decommission reactors and also dispose of radioactive waste in a safe manner.

They have in my opinion one of the best analysis available in the intertubes.

[1] http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com