Peak postponed to 2015 or 2020?

I get frustrated when I try having a conversation with someone about peak oil and they just flat out deny that oil production will reach a peak. What's frustrating is that I know that these people haven't really done their homework. If they don't even know what ERoEI and URR stand for then there's not much point in arguing with them since they don't really understand the issue.

The other day I came upon this interesting website maintained by Canadian analyst Freddy Hutter. With predictions and data about production, discoveries and reserves from Colin Campbell and others concerned with peak oil, Hutter reasonably suggests that the peak may not happen for another ten years or so. I like this website because you can tell that Hutter has done his homework. He's not just another voice on the web who plays the alternative fuel card or gets nit-picky about Hubbert's failure to include Alaskan production in his 1956 prediction (in Hubbert's Peak, Ken Deffeyes actually shows a Gaussian curve that fits domestic production including Alaskan and offshore fields). Hutter's analysis is backed up with data and graphs that give him much more credibility.

So maybe Deffeyes, Campbell, Simmons and crew will be proved wrong; maybe peak won't happen before the end of this decade. If peak doesn't happen until 2020 what kind of difference does that make? Would that give us enough time to prepare for a world of permanently declining liquid hydrocarbon production? Or would we still maintain the status quo as we are now?

Check out the website (http://trendlines.ca/energy.htm) and see what you think. And comments are always welcome.