That oil is finite is established and that production will therefore peak at some point is obvious. I'd suggest that the average price at all time record highs is pretty conclusive evidence that either production can not increase much more or that some someones have a pretty good scam going. It looks more and more like the former to me.
I'm not sure what "other energy" is coming online. Coal, that newfangled 18th century energy source, is making a huge resurgence and still spewing crap into the atmosphere - no such thing as clean coal. Just like the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones, the coal age didn't end because we ran out of coal, we just found something better. Now the supply of better stuff is becoming constricted and coal is once again about to take over as king of fuels. Smells like peak oil more and more.
Other energy coming online certainly doesn't include nat gas, it's use is increasing at almost exactly the same rate it's been for decades.
You hopefully haven't bought into the pump and dump fracking hype, if I were a believer in evil conspiracy theories I'd guess Chenny's buddies at Halliburton dreamed up that whole scam to keep drillers in business, ol' Dick certainly played his part:
In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
A 70% decline the first 12 months it's makes for pretty consistent work for drillers, at least until all the E&P companies go broke.
There has been an uptick in renewables, the category however is still led by that even more newfangled energy source: camel chips
So I think the news isn't that "everything's OK", a quick look around the economy puts the lie to that:
The big news is that not only are high oil prices killing demand for oil, they're killing demand for all the stuff we "make" to earn a living and impacting our payments on all the crap we're on the hook already - could be why people and governments are going belly up right and left.
Here is a picture of GDP minus total debt, the bounce at the bottom is where we hit our credit limit:
And if you include the fact that government transfer payments are 28% of the GDP...
Well I think its pretty obvious that everything isn't OK but don't let me interrupt the tune you're whistling past the graveyard.
http://www.businessinsider.com/politics ... 012-6?op=1http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ing-secondhttp://sustainablejohn.com/?p=213http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2011/ ... fairs.htmlhttp://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do?ca ... View=chart
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)