http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/15/MNGSQABVST1.DTL

http://www.livescience.com/environment/end_oil_041214.html

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2004w50/msg00225.htm

http://water.stanford.edu/nur/AGU2004_Amos_files/slide0015_image003.gif

The 1999 Clinton plan for war according to Nur:
http://water.stanford.edu/nur/AGU2004_Amos_files/slide0010_image017.jpg

The Hubbert/Deffeyes method was dead on right in predicting the North Sea Peak, at 52% of Qt.  The North Sea P/Q intercept also accurately predicted the very steep decline rate.  In contrast, the Lower 48 peaked at 48% of Qt, with a much less steep decline rate.  

I'd add two other points that Nur made that I feel deserve emphasis to the public: To believe that oil production will eventually peak, Hubbert's method needs not be an accurate prediction.  All that is required is an acceptance of the finite nature of the oil endowment, so attacks on Hubbert's method (as opposed to attacks on the biotic origin of oil) aren't truly attacks on the Peak Oil concept nor the economic and social consequences thereof.  Moreover, with exponential growth in production on the upside of the curve (as we had seen prior to the '70's and in some periods since then), massive variations in URR result in only very modest changes in the year of the peak.

Gorelick's strongest point was indeed that India and China may not need such large per capita quantities of oil to raise their standards of living, but this point was buried deep in a staggering number of graphs and statistics that I feel are intended to deceive.  One example: he claimed the US could cut its current import of oil from the middle east by 50% by replacing 14% of its light vehicle fleet with hybrid cars.  He presented the 14% figure as though it were small; poking around on the web I find that's around 28 million vehicles; in the last year on the order of 0.2 million hybrids were sold, a difference of two orders of magnitude.  Another example: he pointed out that in the early seventies, global production departed from Hubbert's prediction, but failed to explain that this was a result of political and not geological impositions.  Many of his other graphs were purely historical, with no concession to the change in circumstances geology is proven on a field-by-field basis to impose.  He even went as far as to claim that the US voluntarily decreased its production in 1970; that the lower-48 peak was economically and not geologically imposed.  I must keep an open mind; just because I've never seen that hypothesis expressed before doesn't mean it couldn't be true.  I would welcome any hard evidence either way that the lower-48 peak was geologically mandated, or that it was undertaken voluntary based on the economics of the rapidly globalizing nature of the oil market at the time.

Overall, I also got the sense that Gorelick didn't really believe everything he was stating.  He's a smart man and acknowledged the finite nature of oil, so he can't possibly believe his own claim that only demand has ever and will ever govern the price of oil, nor that Malthus has been conclusively proven wrong (if Malthus's forecast is conclusively proven, it can only be proven right; otherwise we always have the future in which to produce that conclusive proof).  Nur's emphasis, on the other hand, on Hubbert's ideas around the social implications of oil peak and the disconnect between financial and energy-resource economies, led me to believe he does believe what he's saying and feels that the way he's said it his best attempt at publicizing humanity's best options for enduring the coming changes.

Anyway, I wrote a more scathing review that should be published on the energy bulletin soon. In fact one of hte administrators of the energybulletin was there with me.