The key for OPEC has been keeping the price of oil at a level that produces healthy profits, while discouraging investment in any kind of alternative from coal to lithium-ion batteries. A few shrewd traders in London and New York did managed to make some handsome profits during the 2007-2008 oil shock. But most of the profits wound up in Saudi Arabia or somewhere else like Venezuela. The Russians, the biggest producers outside OPEC, say nothing because they benefit from the same policies. In fact, one of the key reasons Detroit's automakers are in shambles is the boom and bust in oil prices that effectively made it extremely difficult to prepare for an alternative future. Detroit's carmakers tried for a time during the 1980s and early 1990s. But — foolishly — they eventually gave up, having been seduced by the notion the world is awash in cheap oil. Of course, it wasn't. Inflated union contracts didn't cripple Detroit but shortsighted energy policies did and the same thing could happen again unless the U.S. as a nation adopts a more rational approach to energy policy.
I don't know if we've reached "Peak Oil" but the discussion is probably irrelevant. The larger fact is the U.S. economy will continue to face serious difficulties unless it finds a way around the OPEC blockade. Market economics, subsidies, tax credits and incentives and looser or tighter regulation all have proven irrelevant over the last three decades in tipping the energy balance.
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