M. King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that U.S. production would peak in 1970 and "global production about half a century from now". He got ran right out of the petroleum industry for his heresy.
The Texas Railroad Commission, the United States' version of OPEC, annouced 100% allowable next month in the spring of 1971 and this has never been retracted. Hubbert's prediction was slightly late for the U.S., but slightly early globally, as our world wide oil production peaked and entered terminal decline in the spring of 2005.
Peak Oil is now a historical event and we must understand the implications immediately.
The first, last, and best resource for Peak Oil is The Oil Drum, a heavy duty technical analysis site dedicate to oil in particular but covering all sorts of energy issues.
Oil Drum regular westtexas, aka Jeffrey Brown, and independent geologist working in the petroleum industry, has created a simple explanation for what will happen which he calls the Export Land Model.
ELM in a nutshell says this: As oil supplies go down, prices go up, and oil supplying countries economies grow. Oil production trends downward for geological reasons on a known curve but available supplies for importers fall off faster due to oil "staying at home".
Look at Zimbabwe. Look at Nepal. Look at Pakistan. Look at Kenya. Fuel shortages underlie at least part of their troubles.
Look at Nigeria. Look at Mexico. Yes, look at Mexico.
The Mexican government has pretty much announced that Cantarell, the worlds second largest oil field and the source of the bulk of the country's oil revenues, is going to die within the next twenty four months.
The Mexican people depend on remittances from their relatives working in the United States. You can inspect bonddad's efforts to see what is happening to the housing and associated service industries. This is a stake driven into the heart of the well being of the Mexicans both working here and still living in Mexico.
The Mexican nation exists primarily within Mexico and a significant portion of them are either transient or permanently in residence here in the U.S. Their state will fail and the consequences here are going to be awful. When you see an anti-immigrant proposal like the big fence in Arizona that isn't about the workers here, its about firewalling off the coming chaos, although it will get sold politically by pandering to a certain class who feel threatened by the Mexican workers and the wage deflation they bring.
(We don't hate Mexicans. Or Arabs. We aren't particularly fond of big oil and would very much like the political support of the DailyKos community with regards to our renewable energy projects involving stranded wind. The concept of the tip jar is not mentioned in the bible and such assertions are the work of the devil, so don't ask us to post one. No updates today, as we're busy working on your food security.)