We haven't discussed peak oil in a while, so let's recap a bit. One, geologically speaking, we have used just about all of the easy-to-get-to, high quality, easy to refine, inexpensive top grade sweet crude. The oil fields that are still producing have right at half or less than half their original amounts of oil left. The remaining half is the sludgier, higher-sulfur content, lower quality, harder-to-get-to, difficult to refine, more polluting and less "energetic" stuff (i.e. having higher concentrations of impurities and other things that diminish the BTUs each barrel contains). Geologists began writing articles about peak oil in the mid to late 1950s, and by the 1970s, oil companies were well aware of the problem - so much so that they practically stopped building new refineries, knowing good and well it would be nearly impossible to recoup the costs of new facilities when ordinary people began to be priced out of the market for gasoline.

Fast forward to the last 5 years, when the price of oil went from being around $10-20 a barrel to now being $70-80 a barrel and still rising, just shy of a 10-fold increase in prices. The oil companies are making Billions-with-a-B in profit every year. But, they now say, that amount of profit is inadequate to invest in new infrastructure, or even keep the existing facilities running. Why? Decreased demand, says the article - and that's true. More and more people ARE being priced out of the market. But the other reason is the cost of retrofitting existing refineries to handle the lesser quality goop in the bottom half of the oil fields. If they invested in that equipment, they would never earn the cost back - because doing so would increase the cost of gasoline further and price even MORE…