Shale Oil Not A Long-Term Solution

We've seen more of a plateau than this chart, but a trend is a trend

Here's the take from a relative optimist:

Not everyone thinks this sort of pessimism is warranted. With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, Scott Tinker, a professor of geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin has been leading one of the most comprehensive, well-by-well analyses of the four biggest shale gas reserves in the U.S., including the contentious Marcellus formation in the Appalachians. Tinker doesn't quibble much with Hughes' and Berman's observations about well depletion rates, though he interprets the implications differently.
"Just like conventional drilling, the broad message here is that these basins are going to continue to be drilled and there will be money made by some and lost by others," Tinker said. He prefers to call the shale boom an evolution rather than a revolution, and he suggests that while new wells must consistently be plumbed to address the shortfalls of old ones, this has always been the case. Newer drilling technology that allows several well paths to proceed from a single surface installation will help minimize local impacts, Tinker says -- adding that with higher prices, the shale gas boom could remain healthy as far out as 2040.
That's not an immediate threat, but it's also not exactly the 100-years-of natural gas that President Barack Obama has touted. Clearly, neither shale oil production, which even Tinker concedes is likely to peak just five or six years from now, nor shale gas will escort the U.S. into the era of energy independence. Getting there requires a much more deliberate diversification of the nation's energy portfolio, along with far more aggressive efforts to increase efficiency and eliminate energy waste -- steps that, by the way, are also critical in addressing that other nagging issue, global warming.

So we're seeing the highest U.S. crude oil and natural gas liquids production since 1980, prices are still near record highs, and the plays that brought us to this production plateau are going to peak by 2020?  Then where will prices be, because conventional fields are going to continue to decline throughout that time frame.  I think the bullshit artists who have buried peak oil and have been dancing on its grave, might want to quiet down for a minute and listen in case a bell is ringing.