The Oil Drum

You did not answer my question, but I will posit an answer to yours. Look at this graph:

I don't see a plateau in China's oil use, do you? Of course, that doesn't prove causality. An economist will tell you that economic growth is driving oil consumption.

My argument stems from the laws of thermodynamics. Rewritten for economists, the first law is that money cannot create energy. The second is that energy will always degrade to a less useful form. Consider the following diagram:

The center square labeled "Economy" includes people, buildings, cars, machines, ideas, information, etc. All of these have embodied energy, and none can be created without the input of energy and raw materials. Many human-related things can limit the inputs, such as a lack of technical knowledge and (importantly) economic or political disfunction. On the output side, the economy discards that which it cannot use--trash and waste heat. Both of these arise from inefficient processes and the fact that things break down and buildings crumble (second law). Massive quantities of emitted CO2 is becoming our biggest trash problem, but the floating island of plastic in the Pacific is probably more visible from space.

Now, the economy CAN grow in spite of declining net inputs of energy and materials, ONLY IF that this decline is more than offset by increasing efficiencies on the use of energy and materials. The US has benefited tremendously in the last 20 years from increased efficiency. China is currently benefiting from vastly increased efficiency (machine labor much more productive than human labor) and increasing energy input.

Peak oil is about having an economy built for a given level and type of energy input having to deal with a steep decline. There is certainly the potential for dramatically increasing the net energy input by utilizing solar, wind, fission, fusion, etc., but the physical infrastructure, political will, and technical know-how are not in place. We can continue to become more efficient (such as by implementing Alan Drake's Rail Plan), but these require those things as well. And there are fundamental limits that we will eventually run up against WRT efficiency. And right now, we are running out of time.