Yesterday (2/ 1/2008) West Texas intermediate crude hit $100 per barrel before ending the session at $99.62. This is the first time in history that such a price was reached and was partly due to political events in various parts of the world.
It does show how close supply and demand are balanced and although there will be many fluctuations, it looks as though we will never see really cheap oil again unless there is a severe world recession pulling down demand.
There is lots of oil left, but the easy stuff has already been discovered. It gets harder from now on but Europe and the US are in the uncomfortable position of becoming more and more dependent on supplies from unreliable and potentially unfriendly nations.
With regard Peak Food, the world has used fossil fuels to raise the carrying capacity of the Earth to a level many times higher than it would otherwise be; and yet there seems to be no plan in place to cope when oil and gas become really scarce due to depletion of reserves or to turmoil in the middle east or elsewhere. Indeed as the world population continues to rise and the developing world follows us into oil and gas dependent farming, the risk of severe and sudden shortages increases all the time, and that inevitably means severe shortages of food.