A couple of questions:
as demand continues to grow (China, SUV's, India etc...).
Why does everyone crap on SUVs all the time? Yeah, they're big and largely pointless. They're also a fraction of the market that is called
Minivan. They're large, often the same size or even heavier than many SUVs. There are few, if any, four cylinders. And they are a huge segment of the market relative to SUVs. Did kids get bigger? We had two kids and a dog and did fine with two or four door cars.
Oh, and with alternative fuels - we could instantly remove any clout or power that these no good middle eastern governments have.
And replace it with any clout or power in what nation specifically that won't exploit it in exactly the same manner? I frankly don't believe governments anywhere (US, Canada, any Euro nation) are altruistic. So we'll end up with an alternative fuel source, but will it be cheaper? Probably not. Will it be free? Definitely not. Will it be cleaner burning? Maybe, but maybe not.
My point, aside from my nature of being contrarian, is that there are real issues with alternate fuel sources as well. Much of our research is hampered by overt environmental concern. I'm not at all suggesting there should be no consideration but we need to be pragmatic and realistic.
The problem with peakoil is that it's extremely reminiscent of what we (well, those of us old enough) saw in the 1970s. Oil reserves were running out then too and a great many people made the same prognostication that Rob did. Did we find more oil back then? Nope, we just got better at taking it out. Improvements will continue to be made, but yes, it is a finite resource. Rob's statements that we need alternatives are accurate. Maybe if we stopped wasting all the money on Kyoto (which by the way if all targets are met will reduce warming by 0.6 C - less than the error in the measurement - by 2050 at the cost of billions of dollars to each nation) and plowed it into research for alternate fuel sources, we'd be better off.
Gas here is 1.085 per liter. Four liters per gallon.