Not that we drive the zeitgeist or anything, but as oil hits a record $135 per barrel, the BBC's World At One is devoting its entire half-hour programme to the effects of the record high oil price (though not if you adjust for inflation? Someone update the Wikipedia graph, quick). You can of course listen to it again on, er, Listen Again.
What is interesting is that people are gradually realising that oil is on a one-way ride; even if Opec does increase production, and even as new reserves are found which become economic to exploit (because even though it's expensive to get out, oil sells for a high price) its availability as a cheap source of energy is fading.
Thus the decision by American Airlines to stop a number of flights, and to start charging for baggage. (How long, one wonders, before they start weighing passengers? It would make more sense - a bag is never going to weigh as much as a person.) One gets the sense this is how the Oil Era ends - not abruptly, but with the gradual shrinkage of things that one previously took for granted.
To quote the American Airlines story: speaking at [the company's] annual meeting in Texas, Gerard Arpey, its chief executive, said: "The airline industry as it is constituted today was not built to withstand oil prices at $125 a barrel, and certainly not when record fuel expenses are coupled with a weak US economy."
What's not mentioned in all this - or not very often - is how oil prices affect HGVs. Our front-page story in Technology looks at the fuel efficiency of petrol and diesel cars, which can range between 30 and 60-odd mpg.
But when you look at HGVs, you're talking about MPG which is in the sub-10 range. At that level, you're sensitive to tiny changes in price - which is why the Road Haulage Association is very, very concerned about fuel price rises (which will of course have a knock-on effect on food and goods prices).
I'm wondering quite what price oil has to reach before nuclear (fission) power becomes outright cheaper. Not that that will make it as applicable - it's going to be a very slow process, if it happens at all, before we have electric cars everywhere. More likely we'll be on bicycles. Or horses. Or, of course, Shank's Mare.
