I refer to the article ‘Past the Peak’ in PE 27^th January 2010 and have the following comments.

Agreed the exact date of the peak of oil production is irrelevant, the consequences of running out need to be anticipated. Renewable alternatives for power and materials need to be identified, the consequences assimilated and costs factored in to the cost of living. To achieve that it is suggested that a dummy run be carried out for manufacture operation and maintenance for mass air transport (e.g. a 747) also, for say a heart transplant operation, both without the benefits of using oil and oil derivatives. Other more searching scenarios may be more revealing. Technical solutions, alternatives materials where known could be ticked, those still to be resolved, to be identified and costed as an oil equivalent. The total costs in money would indicate the affect on our cost of living.

The time line would be directly proportional to the pain of running out of oil. So we already may have started late to avoid the worst affects. Should the oil equivalent needed to solve the remaining problems be greater than the reserves we may have already run out of oil. If not, this definition could mean running out is much closer than most estimates.