I look at who's making the predictions, what else they think, and what agenda they have. From that perspective, ideology has a great deal to do with it.
Which means little once the predictions start coming true. Look around, peak oil isn't really a prediction any more, it's happening, demand has sky rocketed beyond what supply can handle. When pieces of sky are hitting you in the head you don't stand around questioning Chicken Little's ideology
Demand trails price and production trails demand by several years and it's related to politics. So it's hard to make real predictions. In the end politics plays a huge role in today’s oil prices and long term we can manufacture it from other sources for less than 200$ per barrel. Granted we use a lot of oil so infrastructure costs are huge so the major players are going to be vary conservative.
