The March 1998 issue of Scientific American contains a series of articles in a special report collectively titled "Preventing The Next Oil Crunch."  The first of these articles, "The End Of Cheap Oil" by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrére, states in the opening paragraphs that the oil crunches of 1973 and 1979 had nothing whatsoever to do with any actual shortage of petroleum.  Regarding the popular predictions of cars permanently parked and people commuting by bicycle, they state:  "Their dire predictions were emotional and political reactions; even at the time, oil experts knew that they had no scientific basis."

Gee.  If "oil experts" knew that there was no real shortage, how did we end up with a Department of Energy and a whole litany of laws intended to force us to use less energy?  Because the "oil experts" were the enemy; nobody in elected office would be caught dead listening to them.  You get more votes pandering to public paranoia than dealing with facts.

In further paragraphs, Campbell and Laherrére also confirm my contention that reserves of oil don't "run dry" but rather simply become increasingly uneconomical to exploit.  In fact, the contention of their article is not to focus on when the world will run out of oil but rather when production is likely to peak and then begin to fall off.  This is a key point: as long as increases in production keep pace with increases in consumption, prices are likely to remain fairly stable.  But there will come a time when production will peak and begin to decline.  At that point, the cost of petroleum-based fuels will begin to climb.

Campbell and Laherrére make excellent points, but their objective is simply to point out that this peak in production will eventually happen and that it may be sooner than others have asserted; they claim the peak may occur before 2010.  My contention is that it simply doesn't matter when it occurs.  Whenever it does, the rising price of petroleum will incite a transition to non-petroleum energy sources.  Car companies will gradually introduce more and more vehicles designed to run on ethanol or hydrogen or whatever, and people will gradually upgrade to these cars as their gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles get old and worn out.  There is simply no reason to be concerned about the prospect of such developments, and there is certainly no good reason to be pissing away taxpayers' money in some misguided attempt to postpone or avoid them.  Worst of all, laws to punish people for using fuels that they paid for out of their own pockets is not just unwarranted but outright heinous.