Change $ to € and psychologically you will enjoy a fall of oil prices!))

Andrey, Moscow, Russia

The man talks rubbish! We are not runnibg short of oil. The Greenland discoveries, new Arctic Russian discoveries and the tar sands in the US are more than all the known oil sources presently in the world. Plus if you are a believer in "the global warming" theory then we will be using less oil for heat.
Oh, another note: the US just tested a mixture of jet fuel, natural gas and coal gas to fly a C-5 from west coast to east coast. Worked fine. Meaning we could cut use of oil by 50%. Lets see how that changes the $100.00 a barrel cost of oil. The U.N is really going to hate this. Anyone explain why ice at south pole is increasing.? Why we didn"t have all the horrible hurricanes predicted? Why Britain is cooler than usual? Why the Bali Summit ignored a letter to them from 400 world scientists saying man was not responsible for global warming?

ghl, Mdby, USA/Vt

We'd use a lot less oil if we all drove at 50 mph - and fewer fatal accidents too.

Anna, camberley,

Stating the obvious. Wherever the price point is for fossil fuels, etc. to stay cheaper than the alternatives, that's where the suppliers will stay at or below for as long as they can to control the energy market. Once that is no longer sustainable, or their supplies become insufficient, then the other sources become competitive and fossil fuels, et al., become relegated to the past.

I think a lot of people are betting that the transition won't happen in their lifetimes and are acting accordingly rather than showing leadership to enable the inevitable.

Stan Young, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

I think it's so funny that some of you think that they are putting the price up to encourage us to stop using it... Is that why there is 70% tax on our petrol? to stop us using so much? The goverement are soooo caring!!! It's all about the money and controlling us, though limiting and controlling our energy supplies.

You didn't attend the Bilderberg meeting last year did you Gerard, where you there with Anatole Kaletsky? Because they also said we'd be paying $100 a barrel by 2008, do you support there agenda? Maybe you should ask Anatole what there plans are for 2008-2009?

Them Bilderbergers are like psychics :o)

Andy, England,

Yes lets all cheer for $200, $300 is possible hurrrah, hurrah.
The last spike was caused by supply disruption, this spike
is being caused by the very real realization that we are reaching peak oil. The fact is if there were a substitute for OIL we would be
using it. We need to conserve what we have but in order to do
so we need to change our ways in a manner that will not please
anyone heavily invested in the consumption growth economy.

No new major oil discoveries, current stocks overestimated and depleting and no obvious alternative. Hurrah Hurrah. Do read
Matthew Simmons 'Twilight in the Desert'.

Mark, Loughton, Essex

But, Steve Marchant, Gerard Baker's article was not concerned with the narrow issues confronting the British economy but a first world economy that is more fuel efficient than our competitors whose advantage is confined to cheap labour costs made cheaper by a cynical control of exchange rates which will not defy market forces indefinitely.

Fred Keeling, Almunecar, Spain

I don't think some people in Africa will be cheering on $200 oil - when they can't afford to buy kerosene for cooking or heating

Peter, UK,

We could cut our energy consumption a great deal and still lead comfortable, fulfilling lives. If $200 oil is what it needs to make us use this precious and amazing resource more carefully then so be it. Perhaps I'll have to forego buying mangetout air-freighted in from Kenya or to go on weekend breaks by train instead of plane. Prehaps I will need to move nearer to my job, or find a job closer to home. It won't be the end of the world. There are many other pleasures in life aside from those that involve the profligate use of oil.

dave, London, UK

Gerard, you paint a very rosy picture of the 1970s. It was not nice and ended up with severe industrial unrest with many losers who did not have the muscle of the Unions behind them. This time round we are in a much more vulnerable situation:-

Dwindling North Sea oil and gas
Decimated manufacturing capacity
Fragility of so-called financial industry
Record public debt
Record public pensions deficit
Record private debt
No exchange controls

There are already signs of infllation but if it accelerates in any way and the BoE does not maintain an effective anti-inflation interest rate, we will see a flight of capital that will trigger a sterling crisis. This is not a comfortable situation!

Steve Marchant, Torquay, Devon

Well,.........maybe.........just maybe, at $100 a barrel, oil will last for 100 years. Who knows?

T.R.E. Hugger, South Pacific,

I am unfortunately an economist so do not see why the prices are affected so much by turmoil (real or just anticipated). The demand for oil is fairly static although growing world wide (as you say from China) and the supply is greater than this figure so why the jumps in oil prices.

It seems to a casual observer that the demand is inflated due to the stock exchanges futures markets and this false demand is what is producing a vastly inflated oil price.

Please if anyone can explain why this is not so I please do as I am trying to understand the supply/demand process for oil.

joe, Edinburgh, Scotland

Yes, the new price will spur innovation and continue the movement away from oil. But as Keynes pointed out "In the long run, we're all dead".

The American consumer will not be spared the financial hit at the petrol pump and on their electricity bills. Hardly good news when the nation is facing a consumption slow down.

Better keep the champagne on ice.

Completely unrelated - Sean Hannity of Fox News used your marvellous "Huckaboom or Huckabust" line to describe the result in the Republican Iowa Caucus.

Hugh, Orlando, Florida

I take it therefore you are a big fan of coal, there are more hydrocarbons in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your philosophy and they look ever the more attractive, ever heard of market forces? and E-on commissioning coal fired electricity generating plants, don't cheer too loudly.

Simon, Leeds, U.K.

"If $100 doesn't wean us off the petroleum fix, perhaps we should start cheering for $200."

The poor will be weaned off oil, not the like of you.
Will your family forego an outing?, keep the house unheated in winter?, take fewer vacations? and will it be your children who walk to school.

I doubt it. A good article but a very stupid conclusion.

bruce mclaughlin, London, england