In Engineering fields, such as energy, peer reviewed work is generally not too difficult to grasp, perhaps requiring some college grade mathematics or physics, but rarely highly advanced knowledge. While most engineers and economists should be able to gather the sort of knowledge published by TheOilDrum just by browsing peer reviewed literature, in practice they are barred from it due to the closed access policy prevailing in Academia.
This is very true, peer review is big business, if you can't afford it you're left in the dark.
This is where TheOilDrum really nailed it. First of all because it was by nature open access, available to all and taking full advantage of modern communication technologies. And secondly because it dealt with peer review in an elegant way: content was subject only to a mild and swift revision before publication, the real thing would happen after publication. This way the review become far more serious, instead of anonymous feedback from mere two reviewers - that may lack the knowledge to evaluate the work - an article published by TheOilDrum was available for review to the whole world, in a completely open and transparent process.
Sometimes I'm left wondering if academia really functions to the benefit of the masses...
Perhaps this was also the key to the success of other sites like EnergyBulletin or PO.com.