Peak oil is starting to rear its ugly head

[BengaBenga]

At the current moment the demand is equal to a year ago. The market price very muchs steers the demand.
The current price is way too high, but that's mainly due to investment funds trying to make money out of oil. Imo commodities shouldn't have interference from money-hungry financial people.

Peak-oil is a myth by the way. It's true that the EASY OIL is mostly gone, but that doesn't mean these recources are depleted. There is still a lot of production from enormous oil fields in Saudi, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Iran etc.
Once Iraq and Nigeria stabilize production can be upped even further.
Problems are not to be expected for the next 20 years or so. Saudi alone can provide the world for about 10 years with oil, and they haven't even looked much beyond their know petroleum system.

And there's still a lot of exploration for new hydrocarbons. Thee Canadian tar-sands, deep-sea, the arctic. There are still a lot of regions where we haven't even really started because of the big investments needed, but where the high oil price allows for investments now.
Just in the last 3 months two enormous oil fields were discoverd off-shore Brasil.
Alaska should become the next Gulf of Mexico for the US within a few years.

That being said: it's very important to increase the usage of alternative sources of energy. Partly to release the pressure from the oil producers, that constantly have to max their production and to account for growing demand. But most importantly to spare the environment. CO2 reduction is of imminent importance.
Also it makes very little sense to use oil as a fuel, where it is simply burned, while it's such an important chemical component in all artificial created materials, like plastics.