@EARTHWORKSrocks Yes, peak oil is here...that's why US just had largest #oil prod. increase in history, will reach 72' peak again by 19'
— John Krohn (@Krohn_DC) January 3, 2014

(Update: The Tweet in question was in response to this tweet and originally embedded to the left, but has since been (wisely) deleted.)

More fun in examining tweets. Let's give John Krohn a break on the fact that peak production in the US was in 1970 and not 1972. Peak Oil isn't his field (clearly) so we can't expect him to know all the important dates and figures.

But I do hold his feet to the fire in what has been an increasing game of "telephone" over in oil optimism-land. Here it's important to recall what the EIA actually said recently: they claimed that US production would "approach" the 1970 peak. This is very careful language on the EIA's part because they're trying to have it both ways. They want to express optimism in their prediction, but they don't want to actually claim that the US will surpass the 1970 peak, just in case it doesn't actually make it.

But predictably in the oil optimist circles, this key step was quickly lost, and in a few days "approach" became "US to test 1970 peak" then in the minds of the super-optimists, it transformed into the idea that the US is destined to crash through the 1970 peak.

The truth is, we don't know one way or the other right now and won't know for sure until 2015-16. But no one serious is actually making the call of a new production peak, at least not yet.

But all this is a preamble to the actual point of John Krohn's tweet. He's trying to suggest that Peak Oil cannot possibly be here because US production has increased significantly.

But to state the truly obvious: We're talking about world oil production, of which the United States is only a small part. Increases in US production are important, but must be considered in context with production increases and declines around the rest of the world.

World oil production, the metric we're actually talking about here, has continued to grow each year, but it's rate of growth has declined over the past few years. Even with US production factored in, world oil production hasn't grown at the same colossal rate it did a decade ago.

US production is very significant, but in the greater Peak Oil story, it is just an important slice in a much larger pie.