"Crisis is Opportunity" - ancient Chinese motto
Whether or not Peak Oil is at our door, the real story is how demand has begun to outstrip supply, which shall lead to more-or-less permanent shortages, and sooner than later. A diary by Jerome a Paris from last year shows what happens to market prices when demand gets ahead of supply, whether the cause is dwindling supply or increasing demand, using molybdenum (recent) and whale oil (19th century) as examples. In the case of whale oil, prices may well have gone higher had not kerosene (i.e. petroleum), and electricity later on, replaced whale oil for lighting some time after the peak.
Using molybdenum as an example, prices climbed fairly steadily for a few years (sound familiar?), suddenly tripled almost overnight, then doubled again over the next few months before falling back a little. If gasoline and diesel fuel follow the same trend, we could hit $15/gallon in the US! That is, when we can get it.
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