Newsflash: Peak oil is not about oil running out. Peak oil is about oil production reaching a historic peak.

But the real problem is not about the peak it's about supply and demand. Since 2004 the world hasn't been able to supply the world economy with enough oil. This resulted in the price oil price shock that occurred 2004-2008. Actually the world crude production hasn't been able to increase since 2005 although the oil price has been at record levels. According to the Laws of demand this shouldn't happen, higher price should bring higher quantities. This failure in the supply and demand model is actually one reason that the world governments and corporations hasn't acted. The world has been fooled by the economists into believing that the market will fix everything.

But the real culprit for importing nations like the US and most of Europe is the oil net export market which has shrunk since 2005. Another problem is that China, India and other developing nations are demanding more and more of the shrinking export market. Due to the low (non-existent) price elasticity of oil this will mean much higher oil prices. In the US military simulation The Oil Shockwave a drop in supply of only 4 percent caused the oil price to rise 177 percent and sent the US economy into a recession.

Our economic system is another problem with peak oil. Since our society is very transport dependent our economy also is and it's hard for governments to decrease oil demand. And people don't like higher prices so fuel taxes aren't popular and neither are rising market prices of fuel. But the public need to realize that we don't have the fuel to keep our current society running. The only solution is to transition to a society that don't depend on cars for transportation. If we stick to cars it will get expensive.

The last problem with peak oil is that many believe in that new technology will solve everything and therefor none acts. However energy is not technology, and cheap high density energy is becoming rare. As the International Energy Agency put it in 2010:

"The age of cheap oil is over".

And from a scientific perspective one barrel of oil could be worth several annual salaries due to the high energy content, how easy it's to get and that it's a non-renewable energy resource. This could mean gas price as high as several $1000 per gallon. The problem is that the market has sold oil at a too low price from the beginning and the society has been built up on that low price. This is another failure of the market. However at the current pricing model we won't see any price near $1000 per gallon, however we will see higher prices and nations that realize the true value of oil might curtail exports which in turn will result in even higher prices.

Also most that is being said in the first post is not true.