On my way to work this morning I was stopped behind a gigantic truck with a bumper sticker that read "Nuke their ass and take their gas." Ugh.

I'm sure the renewable energy legislation is good public policy. However, I've long thought that the only way to convince an entire country to change its habits quickly is by harnessing the power of the market. For years liberal economists argued that a $1 or $2 a gallon gas tax is the best way to 1) reduce our reliance on oil and 2) rebuild our infrastructure at the same time. Now, we're paying that much but it's going mostly to foreign governments instead of our own.

But the upside (although no politician can actually acknowledge the upside) of high gas prices is that people are rapidly changing their habits. They're driving less, buying smaller cars, walking, biking, turning off the lights, etc. Four dollar gas is changing people's habits faster than any government program ever could.

This is one time we should thank the market, and look for future ways to harness that incredible power.

Actually, there's plenty of oil swimming around out there, whether it be in standard fields, the Athabasca Tar Sands, liquefied coal, or whatever. It's just more costly to produce, and now that the price of oil is high, it will be produced to meet demand. "Peak Oil" won't be truly with us for several generations.

There is, of course, a more important reason to reduce petroleum usage - carbon emissions and global warming. Unfortunately, our built environment has been based upon personal automobile usage, so there needs to be a three-pronged strategy:

1. Increase quantities of alternative forms of energy, not only wind and solar energy but also nuclear power.

2. Continue research into alternative power sources for personal vehicles, most notably the fuel cell consortium project now underway in our sister state to the south.

3. Start redesigning our cities and towns to make use of personal vehicles an option, rather than a necessity.

The lack of oil is because of the the Congress unwilling to allowing the drilling for oil, not because the Earth is not producing oil faster than it's consumed.

There's plenty of oil underground - it's just not popular, or allowed - to get it.

The peak is of course only identifiable in retrospect, but I am assuming for purposes of personal life planning that the peak is upon thus. This affects the way I think about MANY things.

By the way, the peak in domestic production was predicted quite correctly a long time ago. One way or another, oil is a finite resource. It's unfortunate that economists and politicians do not even acknowledge this. (I'll venture that nearly every geologist took an economics course or two, but that precious few economists and political science majors ever studied geology.) Even when you look at the detailed commentaries by economists like Paul Krugman, you don't see anything about the scientific and technological issues; you just see those dry econometric data and supply/demand curves, all predicated on the assumption that oil is an infinite resource.

Uh, "Oil Junkie," shouldn't your name really be "Big Oil Lackey?"

Paul G.--we are not dealing with an either/or proposition, but rather both/and...or perhaps better said, short-term and long-term factors. Short-term factors driving up world oil prices now arguably do include those issues you mentioned: Asian demand, political instability in producing countries, and speculators buying up oil futures owing to the weak US dollar. But oil remains a finite resource.

US Geological Survey world oil reserve assessments make useful reading.

There is no oil shortage. There is a shortage of refined oil products and this shortage is the cause of price spikes, not some sudden realization by OPEC or commodities traders that the moment of peak oil has come, is immanent, or even predictable within two or three scales of magnitude.

1) Oil is priced in $US. Thus when the $US is at an all time low it makes far more sense for producers to keep oil in the ground, even when prices (for us) reach $150pb. Why show a surplus on the balance sheet when the visible presence of the surplus will drive down the value of the surplus?

2) Hedge fund argument made above.

3) Refining capacity has gone down in the US over the last twenty years as it has become increasingly difficult to site new refineries or to expand existing ones.

4) Hugo Chavez makes the markets very nervous. The US still gets up to 20% of its per day supply from a country that is openly hostile to the US, itself faces the threat of either a violent revolution or a violent repression, and can not maintain peaceful relations with other Bolivarian republics.

Even if we are at, or past peak oil, most models show a 30-50 year tail. Imagine the differences in combustion technology 30 or 50 years ago now project forward by the same degree of development. There is every reason to believe that, as long as a strong price signal exists, the fuel efficiency of auto and truck fleets could quadruple; 75MPG etc. The other side is that once oil supply declines are noted the market would switch to natural gas for which there is at 100-150 years known supply at current rates of discovery-consumption and thus at least another 50 years supply if those same high efficiency combustion engines were converted to natural gas.

No, the dwindling supply question will not be, and has not been persuasive enough to shift our consumption habits. In a year's time oil could easily be back at $80pb or lower and the mainstream push for change will die back. The argument must be made on the basis of particulate emissions and CO2 emissions.

The problem is the very people who often argue for the widespread acceptance of plug-in electric vehicles, for instance, are often the same people who advocate curtailment of the hydro-system, want a ban on coal plants, don't trust nuclear and are opposed to the LNG terminals which will be needed to supply gas fired turbine generators. You can build all of the wind, wave and solar capacity speculated to exist and still have a net energy demand in excess of what those fuel sources provide. Where will that energy come from? Conservation? Though we have a remarkable history of conservation in the NW (enough to drive WPPS into receivership) most energy economists believe there will be only marginal increases to conservation. More over, thinking of conservation as an energy "source" is an error; conserved power can not be traded or stored, shaped to meet demand, in short it is not dispatchable. If it isn't dispatchable it is not a reliable source of energy.

we'd all be better served if politicians told Americans the facts: 1) oil is a finite resource and we can't rely on it forever and 2) climate change is upon us and is perhaps the most compelling reason to get off oil.

I agree with this. But I also think we're leaving out one very big internal reason for reducing our energy consumption: It is the morally right thing to do.

The left is always hesistant to make moral arguments, to our detriment. The reality is that the external argument (limited supply, global warming) only works if those external arguments continue to hold true. If we discover a new way to extract oil from hard-to-reach places and we gain a new 500-year supply, does that mean we should use oil freely? If the earth begins to naturally correct for global warming and the effects are not as bad as some predict, should we ramp up our energy usage again?

No. Reducing our personal consumption of energy is just simply the right thing to do. We live in a wealthy country where sustenance is not our daily goal. We can afford luxuries such as biking to work, walking to the store, turning off our lights, turning down our thermostats, and driving less. It's better for us, better for the environment, and morally right. No matter what else changes.

What a dearth of misinformation and inaccurate facts.

So many claims and very little truth. Some facts for your perusal:

1) At current technology levels there is enough solar energy to supply all electrical demand, and transportation demand. Obviously the transportation devices are not in place yet, but electric transport is well on it's way.

2) New technologies that will thrive as equitable amounts of capital are invested have already been discovered to generate all the power we need. Wave power (offshore) is on it's way and has the potential to power areas with less isolation (sunlight striking the surface).

3) The Earth is NOT producing oil at a substantial rate. It has taken EONS to produce the oil reserves extant on Earth and we are without a doubt in a reductive resource state. Meaning we are taking out far more oil than is being produced.

4) People don't change unless they have to, nor will they change by mandate. So let's not try to get everyone driving 2 seat hybrids (like myself) but let's enjoy the things we love (muscle cars) responsibly. Which means new technology, and adaptation to new situations.

5) Venezuela has been more than gracious in it's international affairs with the US and has suffered extreme insult and antagonizing at our hands. They are not outwardly hostile. They have NEVER invaded our country or attacked our citizens. That is something the US has done over and over and over and over... while purposefully denigrating valid Democracies worldwide. Take a look in the mirror and maybe a reality check to boot.

Yikes!

• The doomsayers of decades past were not wrong. They warned us in enough time to act in a way that would have avoided disaster. We did not heed them.

• The folks who have been more right than wrong about energy believe we have already reached peak oil or will soon do so. Continued dependence on fossil fuel will have diminishing returns, as more energy is used to produce energy - it does not matter what oil costs in dollars. When it takes a BTU to produce a BTU, the oil is effectively useless as an energy source. Exploiting diffuse sources like coal and tar sands mean huge areas of the planet's surface ripped open and ruined. Any fossil fuel use leads to more atmospheric carbon dioxide and a greater risk of destroying the biosphere - think Venus or Mars.

• The Market has not and will not lead the way. It reacts to short term and not long term conditions. It is also distorted by the interests of those who control the present, very profitable technology. Of course, these are the same interests that conspire to prevent social and political consensus on how to get out of this mess.

• The future will not look like an alternatively fueled version of the present. That is wishful, addictive thinking. If we are smart and hard working, we may keep some of the lights on and a few of the trains running.