Those Iranian ‘test’ missiles are really spooking oil traders. Today, crude oil prices climbed again over worries that an attack on Iran would trigger a major supply headache for the global market.

Looks like we might soon get a taste of what a world with prohibitively expensive oil will be like. Already, crude oil prices are weighing heavily on the global stock markets. They’re also feeding into spiraling global inflation.

In a recent post on Whiskey and Gunpowder, Peak Oil expert Byron King explained what Peak Oil means and how it will affect us…

In the big scheme of things, the world will never run out of oil. The Peak Oil concept means a lot of things to a lot of people. But one thing that Peak Oil does NOT premise is that the world will “run out” of oil.

The key idea of Peak Oil is that output of crude oil will reach some maximum level on a global scale. Then world oil output will decline over time. (We may already be there.) There will be oil, but not enough to go around in amounts that people and nations desire. “Not enough” is not the same as “run out.”

In the future there will be oil — plenty of it, perhaps — in some parts of the world. And there will be very little oil, or none, in other parts of the world. And that’s the problem.

We’ve put together a Peak Oil Facts page for those interested in finding out more about Peak Oil.

Source: World Made by Hand, Part I