His comment reminded me of the village in South-West Scotland where my grandfather was the village blacksmith.  The impact of oil is such that this attractive  little community has changed from a farming village to a place where the houses are largely owned as vacation homes, and the locals are no longer able to afford to live there.  The local economy also suffered through mad cow and foot and mouth diseases, and thus the small, self-sufficient community of my youth (with the baker at the bottom of the street) has gone, and the skill levels largely with it. When I was a kid we harvested peat to heat the house, now they use gas.

Today's energy headlines are focusing on the announcement, by Jeffrey Rubin that conventional crude peaked in 2004, leaving the increased demand to be met by Deepwater and NGL increases, as the ASPO Ireland predictive curve suggests on page 2 of the current newsletter.  Currently China is anticipating 8.5 - 9% growth with major investments in energy and transport. US demand is anticipated to increase this year, and by some magic apparently US Gulf production is going to return to at least pre-Hurricane levels despite the loss of rigs and platforms that it will never be economic (according to those that know and have commented here) to re-establish. There is still 400,000 bd of oil and 1.8 bcf of gas that has not been restored.

(You should also note that ASPO USA is starting a weekly publication to overview issues as an e-mail, and the address to send for a copy should be posted on their website today.)