[Pops]

Well, here we are at the highest real oil price ever achieved in history, and the world economy is still vigorously growing...
Even more curious: Now mainstream economist types like Yergin, Citibank and OPEC are predicting $150-200. $500 and $1000 predictions are being bandied about. So have we completely abandoned the theory that high oil prices cause economic recession/depression?

I just stumbled across that from peakoildebunked and our old friend JD and thought I'd look for a chart to see what oil prices look like now. Here is oil in real 1982 US$:




And in 2011 US$ (semi-log scale)



Off to the left on that chart would be $10/bbl way back to the '30s.

So what is the current consensus among you peak oil experts as to what price the economy can sustain - if only briefly?

[sparky]

.
I'm not sure about "vigorously growing " the debts yes and the manufacturing countries too
pity about the post industrial societies they seems to drag their sorry arses a bit

considering the doggy US$ and various speculators rush to own anything but uncle Sam IOUs
yes the price is rather steep ,
all considered I believe ( am I'm mindful of the custard pie curse ) this is IT

the end of dirt cheap oil

P.S. let this be on record as my call , plus or minus a year

[dinopello]

This is a great question and gets to the value of oil for the various sources of demand and demand elasticity for each of those uses. The use of oil is fairly broad in scope. As oil hits the break even point for value at each use, the use will either slow, disappear or substitue dropping the price. The ultimate highest price will depend on the highest value use that is left at the end. Anyway, I said 200 but I think there are large bulky uses that break even (demand-elasticity wise) at a lower price and so it could take a while to reach that. There are probably also uses that would pay over 200 at least in today's world, but the hard part is figuring out what the world would be like once all the fleshy uses of oil are gone. I know I'm rambling but maybe it makes some sense.

[Novus]

I don't think the economy can sustain anything over $120 so spikes to the $150 don't last very long. The real danger continues to come for increasing costs of the EROEI equation. The cost of pumping a barrel of oil goes up a little bit every month. The day the cost of pumping a barrel exceeds the maximum the oil can be sold for is Doomsday. The day the world really ends.