OK, this is a huge thread and I'm committing the sin of weighing-in to the original post rather than reading the whole discussion and analysing it and then responding, but I only have one life and one lunchtime to do this in...

Davin is a little over-enamoured of the Hubbard Peak philosophy, which has a long history of predicting the end of oil in the next decade. It's been predicted since the 50's and every time we wriggle our way out of it.

One problem that many analysts don't understand and don't allow for is that for a commercial oil company, there is no value in finding reserves that will not be exploited within 10 years. Most big companies have a policy of "replacing reserves" rather than unbridled growth. So it always looks as if we will hit an energy crisis in 10 years time.

Nonetheless, there are some changes afoot in the global energy market. Kyoto will eventually have some influence in encouraging use of natural gas as an energy source, rather than coal. This will increase world gas demand and provide a huge boost to the LNG industry that has frankly been rather weak for the last couple of decades.

There is huge room for growth in natural gas consumption and huge reserves worldwide. The trick is to fund the capital cost of the facilities to bring the energy to the market, and ultimately that hinges on gas price. So long as cheap coal competes on a notional level playing field, gas demand will be limited, but there will still be steady growth due to the convenience of mains gas for industry and domestic heating and process use.

North America has run pretty low on cheap natural gas and it's finally worthwhile to import it.

For oil, the price was ridiculously low through the late 80's and 90's. The international oil industry contracted hugely in manpower terms - I lost 80% or more of my colleagues and finally lost my own job in the interests of "efficiency".

But the cycle has turned and sustained moderate oil prices have prevailed for the past several years. I say "moderate" deliberately. Although US$50 oil may make headlines, inflation has eroded the value of the dollar. This is equivalent to $20-$25 oil in the early 80's, and that seemed quite acceptable in the aftermath of the "Oil Shock" of the mid-70's.

The oil industry has finally boomed again and finds itself woefully short of trained professionals. From my point of view, this is a Good Thing. (I love using capitals like that!). I'm being paid US$1,250 per day to work in a civilised environment on exciting projects (we just found another 100 million barrels this weekend), in a nice working environment.

The lack of trained personnel is a big issue for the world, though. It means there is limited capacity for the industry to grow and find new reserves. In the past, the constraint on finding reserves was generally demand-limited. Now it is becoming capability limited. As with each boom, suddenly there aren't enough drilling rigs and seismic boats to go round. Day rates have skyrocketed for equipment rental and services. In many areas, we're seeing that good people are hard to find, and much of the technology of finding oil still relies on individual people like myself spending weeks or months picking through complex 3D datasets with the aid of computers. You can automate the data presntation, but you can't beat the human eye and brain for analysis.

It was famously said that "oil is found in the minds of men" (This was written in the 50's before that was politically incorrect. We also use women's minds these days!). That remains true - the ideas for a geological play and a successful trap for oil require thought and understanding of the local data. Without that, you're playing high-stakes roulette and pissing away time, equipment, and money in drilling bad ideas.

Unfortunately, with all the retraction of the industry over the last 25 years, and with the new "green" attitude of many young people, it has become unfashionable to study peteroleum geology or petroleum engineering. At the University I used to teach in, enrollments for petroleum courses were apallingly low. People who quote the Hubbard curve contribute to the perception that this is a "sunset industry" with "no future".

This is far from the case:-

Firstly, I fully anticipate that I will be gainfully employed until the day I die, just on present levels of activity.

Secondly, the world HAS changed, and the future growth will see me being begged to work when I would rather retire fat and wealthy. (and all my colleagues too, who will be running multi-billion dollar companies out of their retirement homes).

China's energy demand has tipped the world scales to one of nett demand for oil rather than a limited market where OPEC had to act as a cartel to prop prices up (remember those days?).

Industrialisation everywhere is increasing energy demand and outstripping energy efficiencies. Indonesia, for example, is on the brink of leaving OPEC because it is no longer a nett oil exporter (or more properly, the rules of OPEC require oil exports to be above a certain % of a nations GDP. Unless the rules are changed, Indonesia must leave). Inevitably, the price of oil will rise. This will trigger further energy efficiencies, encourage alternative energy sources (coal, if permitted, otherwise wind, wave, geothermal, and nuclear - all these will return to the prominence they enjoyed in the late 70's), and the price rise will also enhance the search for new conventional and unconventional energy sources.

That search is still being successful, if not quite as dramatically so as thge world needs. Certainly, if reserves replacement remains low for another 5-10 years, then the price will have to rise to fund more exploration (i.e. to persuade me and my colleagues not to retire and to finally make it worthwhile for young people to join the industry again).

new frontiers are already beinbg developed and new hurdles crossed:-

I am involved in another project which will form a new paradigm in the industry. The first time, to my knowledge, that unconventional reserves have been exploited in a wholly offshore environment.

This is a case of the resource expanding to meet the demand.

There are trillions of barrels of oil locked up in tar sands, in oil shales, and in expensive conventional deposits (expensive because they are small, or in deep water, or mountainous terrain, or whatever).

Steady oil prices will lead to some of these new reserves coming to market. If US$60 oil price is sustained, oil shales and tar sands kick-in and this is a huge resource. It will supply long-term stability to the maximum oil price, keeping the price below about US$75 for the next 200 years. (yes, I mean 200!)

Short-term price fluctuations will remain possible, but long-term the price will be fairly flat, and may gently ramp-down as technology improves extraction methods.

However, there is another issue. Our modern perception of the Earth, post Gaia and Kyoto no longer views the atmosphere as a infinite source of oxygen to burn hydrocarbons with, and to waft away the CO2. Continued growth in energy demand will blow the Kyoto targets out of the water and lead to spectacular greenhouse gas emissions. A prisoner's dilemma style problem exists, or perhaps this is another "tragedy of the commons". Each country needs to develop and expand to enjoy the new prosperity that their population demand, yet collectively the world will suffer.

Maybe "change" is a better and less emotive word. There are many benefits of change.

On a timescale of 50-100 years - a single human lifetime, IF we don't stop expanding our use of fossil fuels:

The Russian steppes will become prime wheatbelt acreage.
The Canadian Prairies will become ideal agricultural land and North Dakota will stop being a joke.
Fishing grounds will expand in the greater extent of continental shelf, brought about by the inevitable rise in sea level.
Some dry countries will get better rainfall.

But there will be as many losers as winners. Florida will dissapear underwater, if the hurricanes don't sweep it away. Most of Bangladesh will dissapear. Climate change will lead to mass migrations of populations and severe local environmental stress as people fail to adjust to the new carrying capacity of the land or the new techniques of agriculture and crops required to best develop any areas of fertile ground.

There will be wars fought over water and food. New famines. Loss of entire island countries from the world map and new refugee problems. Developing countries will suffer worst, because they cannot afford the mitigating technologies to keep life comfortable, but developed countries will be increasingly envied and will suffer financially and politically and some, at least, will be swamped by refugees.

In short, we will NOT run out of oil, or gas. We humans are remarkable clever at exploiting resources and will find ways to keep doing it bigger and "better", until the whole system becomes destabilised.

We may run out of atmosphere*, but not oil..

I predict that the icecaps WILL melt, in another century or two, unless we set up a genuine world government or federation that effectively manages issues such as global energy use and environmental impact AND population growth through measures such as taxation, planning, policy-making, and intervention.

[On longer timescales, change is inevitable. We must adapt, or perish. Another ice age may come, suddenly or slowly. An ice age world would have only half or less the carrying capacity of the modern world. Which 3 billion people will be chosen to not reproduce in the event of slow change, or to die under the stress of fast change?]

* Not oxygen, just run out of clean healthy air which won't melt the icecaps.