[Nelson69]

I think much of the debates about peak oil revolve around this "finite" resource concept. The reality of peak oil isn't about running out of oil, there really is lot's and lot's of oil and we continue to find more all of the time, it's about the cost of that oil and getting it into a usable form. When demand exceeds supply, costs go up and as the cheap and easy oil fields deplete then you have to start using the small and more exotic sources of oil at a greater cost. The cost at the demand side goes up and at some point it just becomes nonviable. Fundamentally, there will still be oil though. It seems a lot of folks get bent around the "finite" aspect, it's only finite to make the math easier.

We already saw proof of this, $4+ US gasoline prices last summer resulted in a reduction in demand. There is some cost point where it just becomes too expensive to use. We also saw that a relatively small number of speculators and the limited oil reserves on hand make it possible for the demand side prices to spike in fairly short amounts of time which makes it nearly impossible to predict when "peak oil" will happen for good. There are just too many variables, not the least of which is the continual increases in extraction technology. Oil does get more expensive though and at some point it will be "too expensive" and that's peak oil.