Gail Tverberg, who I’ve written about here before, has a good article at www.ngoilgas.com about “the real symptoms of Peak Oil.” It starts like this:
Most people expect high prices to be an indication of “Peak Oil”, but are we missing the real symptoms? Our resident expert and one of the editors of The Oil Drum, Gail Tverberg takes a look at what she believes to be the more important symptoms of the arrival of peak oil.
If I were to ask 10 random people what they would expect to be a sign of the arrival of “Peak Oil,” I would expect all 10 to say “high oil prices.”
Let me tell you what I think the symptoms of the arrival of peak oil are:
1. Higher default rates on loans
2. Recession
Furthermore, I expect that as the supply of oil declines over time, these symptoms will get worse and worse – even though people may call the cause of the decline in oil use “Peak Demand” rather than “Peak Supply.”
Let’s think about what happens when oil prices try to increase. From the perspective of a consumer who is already spending pretty much all of his income, it seems to me the result is something like this…