What if forecasts of a near-term peak in global oil production are wrong? Won't there be a cost to preparing for the oil peak too early? In practical terms, won't this mean voluntarily choking off economic growth?

Because so much is at stake, it is important that these vital questions be addressed not just by partisan participants in the debate over the timing of the oil-production peak. Some independent assessment is required of the costs of preparing too soon versus the costs of preparing too late.

Fortunately, such an assessment has already been undertaken - Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, a report prepared by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) for the US Department of Energy, released in February 2005, and authored principally by Robert L. Hirsch (hereinafter referred to as the "SAIC Report").

The SAIC Report concludes that substantial mitigation of the economic, social, and political impacts of Peak Oil can come only from efforts both to increase energy supplies from alternative sources and to reduce demand for oil. With regard to the claim that efficiency measures will be enough to forestall dire impacts, Hirsch et al. note that:

While greater end-use efficiency is essential, increased efficiency alone will be neither sufficient nor timely enough to solve the problem. Production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be required.

Mitigation will require a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort, because the scale of liquid fuels mitigation is inherently extremely large...The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be temporary, and past 'energy crisis' experience will provide relatively little guidance.

The SAIC Report agrees that mitigation efforts undertaken too soon would exact a cost on society. However, it concludes that:

If peaking is imminent, failure to initiate timely mitigation could be extremely damaging. Prudent risk management requires the planning and implementation of mitigation well before peaking. Early mitigation will almost certainly be less expensive than delayed mitigation.