and i just bought my first car …

April 21, 2005 | The one thing that international bankers don’t want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be around the corner. But last week, a group of ultraconservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age.

About 944 billion barrels of oil has so far been extracted, some 764 billion remains extractable in known fields, or reserves, and a further 142 billion of reserves are classed as “yet-to-find,” meaning what oil is expected to be discovered. If this is so, then the overall oil peak arrives next year,” he says.

If he is correct, then global oil production can be expected to decline steadily at about 2 to 3 percent a year, and the cost of everything from travel, heating, agriculture, trade and anything made of plastic will rise. And the scramble to control oil resources will intensify. As one U.S. analyst said this week: “Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/04/21/oil_peak/print.html