I am convinced we hit peak oil after today.

Today, 3/11/08, i paid $3.45 a gallon for gas. Now, I always knew peak oil would happen sometime, but I thought that it would happen in the 2030s-2040s and then go down from there. I had held on to some shred of hope that we (mankind) would hit some huge oil discovery spike and prices would drop to cheap levels such as $2.50 (never thought $2.50/gallon would be considered cheap). I no longer feel that way. I feel that we have hit peak oil. Sign 1- $108 per barrel. Sign 2- $3.45 per gallon. Sign 3- A RECORD, even adjusted with inflation from the crisis in the 70s/80s prices too. I believe that mankind is going to spiral down into an abyss over oil (madmax style maybe not). War is going to ravage the planet...and all in the name of black gold. I may be wrong but its what I believe.....just my Three dollars and Forty Five cents...

Personally I think we have only reached peak pricing of oil. Still plenty of oil in the ground.

Very true you can partial blame the inability of the U.S.to allow any new drilling,we now have to seek it outside our borders.
China has the advantage in many countries that frownd on us even before 9-11.(they are buying up oil fields like crazy,they are there for
for the right buyer at the right price.
Why do you think we are stuck with the middle east?


Shopping locally is always cheaper

You have to remember that the value of the dollar has been decreasing. As it falls the price of the barrel must go up to maintain the same amount of buying power. This is one example but the price of oil isn't 100% related to it's supply.

Yes i failed to account for the world market.
My homestate N.D. is inthe top two producing states.
And still exports much of that.Even a new refinery here wouldn't lower local gas prices, The machine has us by the naughty bits.

Gas prices have nothing to do with peak oil. Every year, at just about this time, oil prices soar as demand increases during the oncoming spring. Since the dollar has decreased in value, oil costs more. But the price, ultimately, does not have that much to do with the world supply of oil reaching its peak point.

[edit on 12-3-2008 by pacificwind]

I realize that .but threw in some local supply and demand into the mix.
You have a few advocates of the planet with deeper oil resevoirs or it's ability to make oil faster than it can be used.
I don't beleive this notion that all the know worlds oil reserves have been identified.

Originally posted by CTMoney
Today, 3/11/08, i paid $3.45 a gallon for gas. Now, I always knew peak oil would happen sometime, but I thought that it would happen in the 2030s-2040s and then go down from there. I had held on to some shred of hope that we (mankind) would hit some huge oil discovery spike and prices would drop to cheap levels such as $2.50 (never thought $2.50/gallon would be considered cheap). I no longer feel that way. I feel that we have hit peak oil. Sign 1- $108 per barrel. Sign 2- $3.45 per gallon. Sign 3- A RECORD, even adjusted with inflation from the crisis in the 70s/80s prices too. I believe that mankind is going to spiral down into an abyss over oil (madmax style maybe not). War is going to ravage the planet...and all in the name of black gold. I may be wrong but its what I believe.....just my Three dollars and Forty Five cents...

There is no shortage of oil; there is a shortage of easy to get at sweet light crude. There are vast reserves of sweet light crude but getting at them requires drilling down 20,000 feet+ through granite or basalt basement rock, or going through miles of ocean, a few more miles of ocean crust again through basement rock, to get at abiotic oil coming up from the mantel. The discovery by Wolverine in Utah is such a field, so are the two recent discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil.

Going that deep, especially through saltwater, does involve some technological challenges. Salt water at depth under extreme pressure becomes extremely corrosive to casings.

There is a world-wide shortage of drilling rigs caused by increase in demand by China and India, and the technology for deep drilling is especially scarce.

However, we also have easy to get at deposits of heavy sour crude; we've got as much of it in Southern California as the entire country of Venezuela, however, unlike Venezuela, we don't have the refinery capacity in the US to deal with heavy sour crude which requires additional cracking and sulfur removal. That capacity could be built but seems that oil companies with 36 billion quarterly profits would rather continue that we tax payers fund wars in the middle east so they can steal sweet light crude which they can process in their existing refineries.

Really, we need to get off the oil teat altogether because it can never provide the amount of energy necessary to eliminate poverty globally and it's combustion is damaging to the environment, and plenty of alternatives DO exist today.

But the truth is we're far from running out of oil; we can go on fighting wars and ruining our environment until it collapses and most of us die of if we choose to do so.