I know it is not the accepted definition, but peak production doesn't really matter in and of itself. If as economists suggest, we have to expect that supply w

I know it is not the accepted definition, but peak production doesn't really matter in and of itself. If as economists suggest, we have to expect that supply will continue to rise to power an ever-growing economy, one will find the effects hit before the absolute peak in production, therefore expecting to see drastic changes when production starts to decline is a bit late. I think you have to look at this relative to demand because the end of cheap oil requires demand exceed supply which it appears to have done since the oil crisis of 1973 (the oil crisis itself may have been political) but it only could have happened because there was a growing understanding that oil was a limited and finite resource (discovery had already peaked and reserves were about to). This has lead to a post-1973 world where oil producers do not increase production to meet demand, leading to price instability and little changes resulting in occasional price spikes, something we never saw before '73.