As FlamesAddiction said, biomass for energy still relies on other forms of energy for production. This classifies biomass as a secondary energy and not a primary energy. The peak oil discussion is about primary energy thus hydrogen, biomass, and all that is moot because you need energy imputs.
Some would argue that the sun is biomasses imput but in the case of growing corn to distill ethanol there are huge imputs of natural gas and oil to grow, fertilize, transport and finally distill the corn. Making ethanol isn't all that efficient. Then when you realize the land-use conflicts that arise from dedicating arable land to energy instead of food production then ethanol doesn't seem that attractive.
In the end, technology advocates like Cowperson seem to focus on the demand end of the problem and say that where there is enough demand for alternative energy generation, technology and science will wave its magic wand and invent a new form of energy that's as a) transportable b) energy rich and c) easily extracted as oil.
But that's to lose sight of the essential issue. This is a supply problem. Certainly as the price increases, wells that are not economically viable will become but the net energy output will keep declining as we need to expend more and more energy to extract the oil. Eventually, we will use as much energy as we extract and then oil will have to be replaced.
The real question is then, how much longer do we have?
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