Oil, AKA why we aren't screwed

I have a certain person I won't link to who I enjoy reading occasionally because if there is a way to be wrong on a topic, he'll find it.  Here, for example, is why you can't take data points in isolation.

  
If you have a preconceived Malthusian notion of what must be happening to the world, your response to that would look something like this:  "Wow. All our high-tech oil extraction that has come online since global peak oil in 2005 has taken us back... to the '50s. Now adjust for population growth. US population in 1952 was 157 million. Just over half of what we're trying to feed now."


If you don't know, here's the chart that will show you what's wrong with that picture:

The same amount of oil we produced in 1950 supports twice the population - but makes three times as much stuff, because you only need a third of the oil per unit of stuff.  Wow indeed.

According to BP (yes, I know) the OECD countries hit peak oil demand in 2005.  That means we will never again want as much oil as we wanted 6 years ago.  If all the world's countries had OECD standards of living, oil consumption would be falling while production rises.  Unfortunately not every country in the world is in the First World.  Fortunately, every country in the world has access to modern technology and is hit by world energy prices, which is why China today uses far less oil per unit of GDP than the USA did at the same stage of development.  BP projects OPEC will be able to meet non-OECD demand, keeping prices essentially stable until world population begins to fall.  We shall see.  But world oil production would have to fall, and fall a lot, for us to slip below the GDP per capita level enjoyed by Ozzie and Harriet.

In the United States, it's not just oil - we've already passed peak energy consumption, period.  Total KWH have fallen 3% since 1990.