People are ingenious. They seem to have a real knack for finding and making stuff.

Within the last decade, technology advances have made it possible to unlock more oil from old fields, and, at the same time, higher oil prices have made it economical for companies to go after reserves that are harder to reach. With plenty of oil still left in familiar locations, forecasts that the world’s reserves are drying out have given way to predictions that more oil can be found than ever before.

In a wide-ranging study published in 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that ultimately recoverable resources of conventional oil totaled about 3.3 trillion barrels, of which a third has already been produced. More recently, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consultant, estimated that the total base of recoverable oil was 4.8 trillion barrels. That higher estimate — which Cambridge Energy says is likely to grow — reflects how new technology can tap into more resources.

“It’s the fifth time to my count that we’ve gone through a period when it seemed the end of oil was near and people were talking about the exhaustion of resources,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil, who cited similar concerns in the 1880s, after both world wars and in the 1970s. “Back then we were going to fly off the oil mountain. Instead we had a boom and oil went to $10 instead of $100.”

There is still a minority view, held largely by a small band of retired petroleum geologists and some members of Congress, that oil production has peaked, but the theory has been fading. Equally contentious for the oil companies is the growing voice of environmentalists, who do not think that pumping and consuming an ever-increasing amount of fossil fuel is in any way desirable.

Some, maybe most, of the peak oil hype was wishful thinking. We had little or no evidence to support the idea, and a fair amount to contradict it. Clearly oil is a finite resource, but we don't yet know enough to make useful predictions.

The hype was instrumental, an excuse to promote less reliable but carbon free energy sources . . . except nuclear of course since it doesn't have the proper karma. And it was a way to spit venom at automobiles in general, and large American autos in particular. Or, really , just spit at Americans. Any or all of the above. It's a disease.

“This is an industry that moves in cycles, and right now, enormous amounts of innovation, technology and investments are being unleashed,” said Mr. Yergin, the author and energy consultant.

After years of underinvestment, oil companies are now in a global race to increase supplies to catch the growth of consumption. The world consumed about 31 billion barrels of oil last year. Because of population and economic growth, especially in Asian and developing countries, oil demand is forecast to rise 40 percent by 2030 to 43 billion barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“Yes, there are finite resources in the ground, but you never get to that point,” Jeff Hatlen, an engineer with Chevron, said on a recent tour of the field.

In 1978, when he started his career here, operators believed the field would be abandoned within 15 years. “That’s why peak oil is a moving target,” Mr. Hatlen said. “Oil is always a function of price and technology.”

I'd like to see some more rational analysis of these related issues. Resource availability, transportation, energy, geopolitical issues and climate seem to be related, seem to all be aspects of oil and other fossil fuels. This creates confusion and overlooks many important aspects that are unrelated to oil.

One nice thing is that a close look at the oil issue is so very instructive.