But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.

An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

We experienced similiar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s.

Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

A premium in the oil price of somewhere between 10 to 15 dollars a barrel reflects this heightened anxiety.