The outlook for the oil price remains mired in much confusion. Peak oil theorists see production in terminal decline. Others, who expect the oil price to revisit its 2008 highs, argue that rapid demand growth from emerging markets, most notably China, will underpin a long and aggressive rally in the price.
Some even argue that as the world runs out of oil we shall slip back into pre-industrial ways as energy is rationed and human behaviour has to change as a result – an argument that has been regularly trotted out over the last five centuries.
First, in Britain in the 16th century as the country was perceived to be running out of wood, its primary energy source at that time.
