As petroleum becomes harder to obtain, that inaccessibility is signalled to the world at large by a slow rise in price over the period of several decades. People adjust, companies adjust, they choose different tecnologies, they invest in different technologies. They order their lives differently, where to live, how to get around, how many kids to have, at what age to have them. Companies make decisions about where to locate their operations, what kind of equipment to buy, and they do all of this amazingly (or not) without anyone having to tell them what to do.
As the relative price of one form of energy becomes cheaper than another, groups of investors pool their money and go after the opportunity. You don’t have to tell them to do it.
All you have to do is get out of their way.
Look back at how much you made when gasoline was a buck a gallon, and compare it to what you make now. Probably gasoline is about the same relative price, or cheaper. What matters is the relative price and as prices vary in relation to one another, you make decisions about your life accordingly. No one has to tell you anything, you figure it out, and the means of communication is the price.
“Peak Oil” is no more about the availability of crude oil than “Global Warming” is about the ever-changing climate.
People who worry about “Peak Oil”, are ignorant about basic economics: substitution, innovation, improvements, efficiency. At $3/gallon, the price of gasoline is already at or above the break-even cost of some other proven conversion technologies. Gasoline in Europe is around $6/gallon. At that price, we could convert municipal garbage and sewage sludge into motor vehicle fuels and have all we wanted to buy.
“signalled to the world at large by a slow rise in price over the period of several decades”
So, just how do you explain, whilst looking at the oil production graphs, why a barrel of oil has gone from $30 to >$100 in about two years?