Have a read of this. Which, with a few caveats, I agree with. I get more and more pessimistic about the economic effects, and more and more optimistic about the social and cultural effects of Peak Oil.

UPDATE: good discussion of the paper at the Oil Drum here.

2.6mbd (million barrels a day) is how much new capacity (new oil fields, effectively) has been brought on stream by the oil industry in 2005. That’s significant in the context of an annual supply of 85mbd last year. You might think this means that the situation is rosy. It’s not – because the declines in existing production (ie peak oil in various separate fields) completely offset this increase, meaning that in 2005 there was effectively NO increase in the oil supply. Here’s one of Stuart Staniford’s helpful graphs:

This doesn’t mean that the present rate of production won’t increase. But if we reach 90mbd I’ll eat my hat.