The International Energy Agency says peak oil came and went — in 2006. The only reason we're not already paying $10 a gallon for gas and generally Mad Maxing it up is that there was this thing called a recession.

Well, that, and cough cough the tar sands saved our asses cough cough. Unconventional sources of oil have been making up the difference. But the peak of conventional crude oil — the stuff that comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia — has already passed.

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And unconventional sources of fossil fuels won't save us in the future, argues peak oil observer Mason Inman, so we're still going to have to deal with some kind of major push for energy efficiency or mass energy transition.

Here's how an economist at the IEA put it:

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"We have to leave oil before it leaves us."