The Oil Drum

I know this is an American site, but to give you an idea what other countries would do (my guess).

1)
Most thinkers in Finland, including key politicians, would be clueless. It would not register on their radar.

Once they understood the significance, they'd try an improve emergency stock of oil (double, triple).

This approach would be seriously hampered by other countries doing the same (a bit earlier).

2)

Finnish politicians would procrastinate and bicker about the need to build the sixth, seventh and eight nuclear power plants (EPR type, 1600MW minimum / plant).

By the time Finnish politicians got around to it, nuclear power plant makers would be back ordered in their delivery capacity for a decade or so.

3)
They would then start changing the legislation to allow easier ramp up of windmill farms on the coast line. This would take a few years. They'd also consider subsidies for wind mills or a guaranteed minimum price for electricity produced this way.

Windmill manufacturers might also be constrained in their delivery capacity for some time, due to a surge of orders from most European coastal countries.

4)
Then they'd try to accelerate current bio-fuels program in order to try and ramp up the production swiftly. They'd consider switch grass type perennial grass, rapeseed (to some extent) and cellulose waste feed from forestry/paper industries.

Forest industry would complain that it messes up their value chain and would try to prevent this development to some extent. Regardless, things would go forward without a single serious net energy calculation done for any of the biofuels that would be ramped up.

5) They'd tighten the taxes on certain type of fuels in order to curtail growing consumption (esp. heating oil) and try to encourage swift (10 years) transition from oil heating in residential buildings to geo-thermal exchange heat pumps. In addition, they'd probably improve minimum insulation standard for new buildings and give incentives to retrofit existing ones with more insulation.

Initially people would complain, boycott and not go along with the program. However, a sharp and steady price in oil (with increased taxes) might change people's opinions quickly.

This would cause a big boom in heat exchange and geothermal exchange pumps. Construction industry would have to adjust and would be capacity constrained for a while.

6)Economists would start calculating losses and risks for various sectors:

Obvious losers: Asian air traffic by the domestic airline. Already tightly squeezed trucking companies delivery goods on the roads. People doing very long commutes daily. People living outside big cities, away from rail and coast. All this according to the economists.

Risk analysis would not take into account: falling future export levels from oil export countries, falling eroei of oil production, relative inelasticity of oil demand, agriculture, food import dependence & systemic influence on world economy and the growth paradigm.

Of course, all of the above is just a wild guess based on how this matter is dealt publicly and in research papers here in Finland.

At least you have several agencies in USA that have researched (are researching) and acknowledge the potential risk of the situation.