The net energy per capita from liquid fuels is dropping...

[FBaggins]

11. Of course that's something of a circular argument.

If that's the underlying assumption behind your review and you build it into the assumptions that undergird the analysis... then all you've done is found a more graphical way to say "I think that the peak has already passed"

It's like that thread you posted a week or two ago re: net exports. You can't tell whether net exports are falling because the peak has passed, or whether it's because net imports have declined. In the case of the US it clearly isn't a case of us importing less because there's less to import... it's because demand is down while production is up. Since this is exactly what happened in the 80s, we can't assume that the cause is different.