Have we reached peak oil production?

A small but growing minority of researchers believe we may be close to, or perhaps even have passed, the point of peak global oil production. At that point, there will still be lots of oil left (half of the world's available oil will have been used at that point, meaning that half still remains). But these researchers say that world oil production will start to decline at that point while demand continues to increase. The result will be greatly higher prices for gasoline and other oil-based energy.

A Times-Argus article puts it this way:

"Dr. Campbell is at the center of a small but suddenly influential band of contrarians known as the peak-oil movement," the newspaper reported. "They see cause for alarm in the fact that since the early 1980s the world has been pumping more oil out of the ground than it's been finding. By as early as next year, they say, humanity will have reached a point of reckoning: It will have extracted half the oil it will ever get. Once that 'peak' is reached, Dr. Campbell says, global oil production will start falling, never to rise again."

And that, the report continues, would mean the end of cheap oil. Consumers might continue to use oil for another century or so, but oil prices would steadily rise . . .

During a conference presentation Campbell said:

I think basically that now, that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is leaning me more by the month, the worry that peaking is at hand; not years away. If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But if I'm right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating.

But unfortunately the world has no Plan B if I'm right.