There was a report prepared for and sponsored by the department of energy released a few weeks ago. I found it very interesting. Basically the authors are optimists that believe there will be a techno-fix for the problem of peak oil, at least in the short run. But they are optimists that have done their homework.
They look into three different scenarios,
1) A crash-program for peak oil is started in the face of the peak
2) A crash-program for peak oil is started 10 years before the peak
3) A crash-program for peak oil is started 20 years before the peak
And when they say crash-program they mean exactly that. All the funding that is needed is provided; every political decision that is needed is made instantaneously and so on.
In a following post in this thread I will post the executive summary of the report, for those interested but disinclined to download the full report (1.2 MB / 91 pages pdf).
The conclusion they reach is this
[ QUOTE ]
Our results are congruent with the fundamentals of the problem:
* Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action
leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two
decades.
* Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps
considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the
time that oil would have peaked.
* Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer
the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.
[/ QUOTE ]
A commentary on the report can be read here:
Considering there is a fair amount of people with real knowledge on these things that claim we are less than 5 years from the peak, I’d say it’s about time to get that crash-program started.
The Hirsch report (1.2 mb pdf) Energy bulletin