Where is Peak Oil, and how long am I going to be able to continue to afford gasoline?

TomDispatch:

The price of crude oil, which this summer threatened to top $80 a barrel, briefly dipped under $60 for the first time in six months yesterday, a 23% decline from July highs. In the Midwest, where gas not long ago had soared to $3 at the pump, it now averages, according to the Energy Department, a nationwide low of $2.20 a gallon ($1.89 at one Jackson, Missouri gas station).

At the same time, another set of figures rose precipitously. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 42% of Americans "agreed with the statement that the Bush administration ‘deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections.'" Two-thirds of those respondents were registered Democrats for whose party the price at the pump has proved a potent issue.

Such a conspiratorial train of thought is not exactly lacking in logic. After all, the President and Vice President arrived in office deeply tied to the energy business (which has been a major supporter of the Republican Party) and promptly Halliburtonized the military, then Iraq, [...]

[...]for those of us living now, the "peak" is more likely to feel like a plateau -- lasting for perhaps a decade or more -- in which global oil production will experience occasional ups and downs without rising substantially (as predicted by those who dismiss peak-oil theory), nor falling precipitously (as predicted by its most ardent proponents).

During this interim period, particular events -- a hurricane, an outbreak of conflict in an oil region -- will temporarily tighten supplies, raising gasoline prices, while the opening of a new field or pipeline, or simply (as now) the alleviation of immediate fears and a temporary boost in supplies will lower prices. Eventually, of course, we will reach the plateau's end and the decline predicted by the theory will commence in earnest.

In the meantime, for better or worse, we live on that plateau today. If this year's hurricane season ends with no major storms, and we get through the next few months without a major blowup in the Middle East, we are likely to start 2007 with lower gasoline prices than we've seen in a while. This is not, however, evidence of a major trend. Because global oil supplies are never likely to be truly abundant again, it would only take one major storm or one major crisis in the Middle East to push crude prices back up near or over $80 a barrel. This is the world we now inhabit, and it will never get truly better until we develop an entirely new energy system based on petroleum alternatives and renewable fuels.

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