[Keith_McClary]

Re: The "Growing Gap" graph.

This graph extrapolates the apparently exponential(?) decline of "Past Discoveries" to "Future Discoveries" .

It would be interesting to add a dotted line showing the amount of future discoveries necessary to meet the projected demand according to Exxon (eg.).

I suspect this line would have to go up at a steep and increasing angle, totally inconsistent with past trends.

[notacornucopian]

If you take a look at the USGS ( sorry, don't have the link ), they do indeed project a completely unrealistic set of future discovery numbers. There has been a fair bit of discussion here regarding how realistic/unrealistic their projections are. The disclaimer with their data actually admits that the numbers are generated based on anticipated demand, rather than geological data ! In my opinion, this is one of the most significant indicators of where we are with reagrds to the impending peak of oil extraction/supply. I am quite sure you can find this information graphed on the ASPO site as well as others.

[Aaron]