Inflection Point Oil

Peak oil gets all the attention, but the peak isn’t the problem. Unless your assumptions about the dynamics of oil production are rather artificial, there will be an inflection point before the peak. Symptoms of strain in the system appear as soon as the production rate grows more slowly more slowly than GDP less intensity improvements, or simply more slowly than expected. That’s when price has to begin rising to clear the market, creating the signal to alternatives (efficiency, biofuels, unconventional oil …) that they are needed, so that’s when the pain hits. Whether the pain is brief and results in an orderly transition, or something rockier, is a matter for some debate. Either way, arguing about when the peak might come is the wrong question; we should be considering whether we’re past the inflection point, and thus in a period of rising stress, and what to do about it.