Humans have a perverse interest in fear prophecies. We're always worried about the next big shock.
There are many self-proclaimed experts that like to market their brand of fear to the great unwashed masses. They usually accompany their ideas with various books, dvds, seminars etc that they sell. It's quite the industry.
Peak oil is an example of faulty economics. As a finite resource such as oil becomes depleted the price rises, this puts a damper on demand, but the higher price also encourages further development of reserves that were previously uneconomic. Just look at the oil sands, they are only now becoming an economic resource and weren't even considered as actual oil reserves as recent as 5-6 years ago. As it stands now recovery rates in Alberta anywhere between 10-35%, meaning there is a whole lot being left in the ground.
Peak oil experts are almost akin to doomsday predictors, there have been a whole bunch of claims that oil has reached peak production since the 70's, none of them have been correct.
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