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

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.

In the mid-1980s, operating problems took [nuclear] plants off-line so often that, on an annual basis, they operated at only about 55 percent of their rated total generating capacity. Today, as a result of several decades of experience and an intense focus on performance ... nuclear plants in the United States operate at over 90 percent of capacity. That improvement in operating efficiently is so significant in its impact that it can almost be seen as a new source in electric power itself.

Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil.

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

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

It's extraordinary how inventive one can be with ethanol right now.