Reply #1: Skrebowski, quoted in the article above, has done lots of research on this.

[robertpaulsen]

And some serious analysts have also made the mental journey from dissenters to peak-oil prophets.

"I've been on that journey," says Chris Skrebowski, who spent half his career in the oil industry and now edits the UK oil industry's publication of record, Petroleum Review. He admits to having been dismissive of the idea that the world's wells were running dry. It was a visit from Campbell in 1996 that made him change his mind. "I didn't quite believe him, but I didn't think he was the average nutter," he says.

Skrebowski began to take a look at the issue himself. The numbers told a clear story. "You can just about struggle through to 2011, if everything goes to plan - which, of course, it won't - but after that, the numbers don't add up. And that's taking a reasonably conservative rate of decline. If you wind it up to a 5 or 6 percent annual decline, then you are at this peak or plateau now."

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20080615092652402C618751