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[keane]

To what degree is Peak Oil likely to disrupt world production, the world economy, stability, even survivability?

Personally, I have not come to a conclusion on this. All scenarios are possible. Most probable and/or completely unavoidable? A large recession. Oil is just too entrenched in everything we do, alternatives of any stripe cannot take over fast enough, replacing the total energy content of the oil we use is virtually impossible without massively developed solar and/or nuclear energy, and people simply refuse to act until they must. This is exactly parallel to what we have seen with Global Warming.

Hey, we already have at least two hot spots in the world directly related to controlling oil: Iraq and Darfur, and most people don't even know about Peak Oil yet. What should we expect once the issue gets rolling?

For the record, I voted for massive, but manageable change. Caveat: that only holds if the issue gets taken seriously and changes start very soon... just like with Global Warming.

Note: I did not include in this question issues of the twin emergencies of GW and PO. For simplicity, consider PO in isolation.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

It means manageable, but massive, change with permanent changes.
100% [

I also think there will be more time to adjust.

[Kuros]

Peak Oil would be welcome.

The whole phrase is used as an analogy to an individual oil-well. At first, oil comes gushing out, but only when there is real pressure in an oil deposit; when there has been some oil extracted and a vacuum exists, does oil start to 'peak.' The vacuum does the work itself. But after a certain point, one gets 'diminishing returns.' There's too much vacuum and not enough pressure, and at some point it gets harder. Those who wish to extract the oil need to pump more pressure into the well somehow. Some scientists want to experiment with concentrating C02 from the atmosphere and pumping it back into oil wells. At any rate, there is a point in this cycle where extraction of an individual well is at its 'Peak.'

Most oil harvesters abandon oil wells with oil left in them. Somewhere around 25% of the oil is left in the ground. It is simply not cost-effective to extract it anymore. I think this may be changing with new methods and technology, but it certainly was the case before the turn-of-the-21st-century.

We have a little problem with the use of oil. It releases hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. It would be nice if we had some incentive to stop using oil. 'Peak ' oil would provide that incentive without leaving us with no oil left to harvest. There's plenty of oil left in the ground; its just harder to extract, and thus less cost-effective.

That's it. That's what 'Peak' oil means. We have a choice: we can either advance our technology to extract oil better, or we can devise alternative sources of energy. Its likely we will do both concurrently.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Kuros