Peak Oil: No Big Deal?  

Dave Roberts at GristMill has a post up looking at Marshall Brain's "peak oil isn't a problem" campaign.

In my more purely optimistic moments, I come close to agreeing with Marshall Brain (founder of HowStuffWorks):

As oil gets more expensive, we will replace it with less-expensive technologies in a completely natural way. Therefore, peak oil will be a non-event.

But I can't quite get there.

I share a great deal of faith in the power of markets, unlike some of my fellow-travelers, but this seems naive and flat-footed to me. Here's why:

Oil's current market dominance in the transportation and agricultural sectors is not "completely natural." It's propped up by innumerable subsidies, tax breaks, favorable trade deals, etc., etc. -- all secured as a result of its unprecedented entanglement with the ruling class. It maybe that its unnatural market position has been propped up -- or will be propped up -- past the point when a "natural" transition will be possible.

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