Regarding Peak Oil, the optimists say it will happen within a decade, or so. The pessimists say it has already happened. In any case, of interest is the graph above which shows that oil discoveries have clearly been declining for decades.

   There is no question that global oil production will peak, and the world will change dramatically.

   Someone who is considered an expert on trans-continental oil depletion is Ali Samsam Bakhtiari who passed away on October 30, 2007. Bakhtiari, a former director of the National Iranian Oil Co., and a trustee of London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC), called the peak of worldwide oil extraction "the event of the century."

   In an essay titled "The Century of Roots," published April 2007, Bakhtiari says this: "After some 147 years of almost uninterrupted supply growth to a record output of some 81-82 million barrels/day [mb/d] in the summer of 2006, crude oil production has since entered its irreversible decline. This exceptional reversal alters the energy supply equation upon which life on our planet is based. It will come to place pressure upon the use of all other sources of energy -- be it natural gas, coal, nuclear power, and all types of sundry renewables, especially biofuels. It will eventually come to affect everything else under the sun."

   Bakhtiari is certainly not the only credible academic to say this type of thing about Peak Oil. For example, Walter Youngquist, a consulting geologist and internationally known petroleum expert who lives in Oregon, says this in his "The Post-Petroleum Paradigm -- and Population" essay: "Reaching and passing the peak of world production will be the most important happening in human history to date, affecting more people in more ways than any other event. It will happen, and during the lives of most people now living."

   At the "International Conference On Energy And The Environment" held in Las Vegas October 27-29, 2008, presented by The Global Commerce Forum, another oil industry expert emphasized the seriousness of the condition of petroleum supplies in the world. Dan Johnson, Manager of Government and Public Affairs-Chevron Corporation, said, "The defining question of the century" is how are we going to meet the energy needs of the future?