Reply #18: A very good and thorough post!

[Indenturedebtor]

And I'm certain that if we can't solve our energy issues, and society doesn't just completely fall apart, that your scenario is likely. However, seeing as how we do have the capability of switching over to renewables if we actually tried... why would people revert? Reverting would be almost as hard at this point - the way that our society is organised.

Personally my main concern regarding peak oil is growing food. We use so many petroleum products to grow our food that I'm worried for massive famines. Long distance transport could be handled by rail and sail, local by solar and wind powered electric cars (hydro, geo, tidal, etc).