i have only heard a little bit of peak oil from mike ruppert sites and taped lectures and i grasp a little of it.
a scary thought

What they do now is they pump a bunch of water into the well. As you know, oil and water do not mix, and oil is lighter than water. More water goes into the well, more oil is forced out of the rocks and floats to the top where it is easily accessible.

I know damn well we have no shortage of water (salt water works for this too). Unless for some reason the laws of physics reverse on us, we can keep putting water in the wells, the oil will keep floating up to where we can get to it, and we'll keep having oil.

At least that's my understanding of it.

I've barely read anything about peak oil and even I know better than that.

There's plenty of oil. There's more oil under the ground than we could ever use before we find something better.

Peak oil theory says that as we have to dig deeper and deeper to get to the oil reserves, it will take more and more energy to get it out, until the amount of energy used to get the oil out of the ground and refine it is equal to the amount of energy we get from the oil. It's an asymptotal curve. As we dig deeper and deeper, more of the oil we pump up will be fueling the pump itself, and less and less will be surplus for sale, creating immense scarcity and depending on government policy either result in harsh shortages or very expensive gas, which would render all our gasoline-centric technology completely useless (except for diesels, which seem to run on anything more volatile than water).

It's not that there's no oil, it's that it would theoretically be a waste of effort to get it.

But really, all we have to do is dump water down the pipe. The oil would float to the top where we can get at it. When we want oil to be closer to the surface, we just pump a bunch of water down the chute, wait for it to sink, and start pumping up crude.

My understanding of the "peak oil" is a tipping point that has to do with supply verses demand--not the cost of production. We reach peak oil production when oil production can not keep up with the demand. Due to modern economics this will cause a drastic increase in the price of oil. Currently this production is based on known reserves such as the Middle East, the North Atlantic, and the American Gulf Coast.

Some "experts" predict those current reserves will last for several years. http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/map-505.html
While this oil may exist, it may not be able to keep up with world demand in the near future. As demand outstrips production, it may cause crude oil prices to skyrocket--much higher than it is and has been.

Others are not so optimistic, and claim this "peak oil" will occur in the very near future. There is no question that there is pllenty of oil to last for many years to come. The big problem we face is how much it will cost. Oil is the life blood of industry. Industrial nations have to have oil in order to be industrial. Industry requires much more "oil" for their production than what is used to produce gasoline. (I think gasoline is only 30-40% of current oil consumption.)

The explosion of "suberbia" that spread across the U.S. in the mid 20th century was directly related to the availability of "cheap gas." Daily commutes to work via automobile are dependant upon this cheap fuel. The transportation industry (18 wheelers and trains) depends on the availability cheap fuel. Without cheap fuel, transporation costs increase drastically, the spending dollar of the commuters deminishes.

When we reach peak production and the balance tips, it will have a significant impact on nearly every major economy (read; the big three) in the world. There will still be plenty of oil, but it will be too expensive for those countries to maintain their current level of consumption. When the economic value of industry is threatened by this imbalance, there will be a great deal more importance placed on securing the oil that is still available.

When our current way of life becomes threatened because of the lack of oi, it may be neccessary to set aside our environmental concerns and drill in areas such as the pristene Alaskan refuge. While GWB may currently be viewed with distrust and distain, history may write him as the "oil president." If we are very near that "peak oil" tipping point, he may come off a lot better in the long run, than the dumb ass he appears to be today!

For a better explanation of the impact of the Peak Oil, James Howard Kunster wrote a book "The Long Emergency" that goes into it in a lot more detail. You can read an excert from it here...
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

Okay...whatever. Sorry I questioned your authority....geeze.

True, the supply will/may go down when this tipping point is reached, but we can already see it loosing its balance.

 I know nothing about the oil business.  Is this method of obtaining crude already being used? 

Yes, this is the method already being used. My father works for a company that manufactures drill heads which inject water in order to bring out the oil. So I can say that since we are manufacturing parts to allow us to do it, and have been for a while, chances are we are doing it and have been doing it.

I do think that Peak Oil is a legitimate concern. It does not mean that the oil will run out soon; it means that we've pumped out about half of the readily-available oil. There's still plenty left, but the demand will create a BIG crunch on what remains. So gasoline prices will go up, up, up, up, up...

 And yes, this includes pumping water into wells to get the oil out.

Ack! so much misinformation about "Peak Oil" I cant stand it.

Here in a nutshell is what it really is: At first oil is easy to pump out, and as more wells are dug production goes up. Eventually the oil stops gushing and has to be pumped. There are tricks like the above mentioned water trick, to keep a well going, but that costs money. As the well gets drier, the cost of pumping makes the well less profitable.

The production out of a single well follows a bell curve. It goes exponentially up, till it reaches a peak, then it declines exponentially until it is shut down. The production out of a field also follows a bell curve. Thus, production out of a country also follows a bell curve, the US peak was 1971 -- domestic oil production has declined every year since then.

The awful conclusion is that a global production peak will be reached. From that point forward, there will be less and less oil produced world wide, despite an ever growing demand for it.

There is lots of interested parties who want us to think that peak oil is years away from actually happening. Oil companies of course, oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia, political right wingers etc.

But here is the really REALLY ugly truth: Worldwide oil production peaked in July of 2006 at 82.09 million barrels per day. Every month since then has produced less than that figure. Despite promises from OPEC to increase production, August 2007 production stood at 80.72 million barrels per day.

There may be extenuating circumstances for the stand still of production, such as the war in Iraq, weather, or just plain greed as Oil pushes up to the 90 mark, so it is possible that oil production may rise in the future. But for now it has flatlined, and demand is not getting lower.

A detailed analysis (the best I have seen) can be found here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2693#more 

Actually, it is cars and airplanes that would be the toughest to fuel in a post-petroleum energy economy; it's hard to make any good substitutes that do not require a LOT of energy input.

One can easily supply electricity to trains, by stringing cables overhead or placing extra rails on the side. That has been done for over a century, and is most practical for shorter and heavier-traffic lines, like urban and regional lines. However, it is less practical for longer lines and lower-traffic lines; that is why diesel locomotives are common there.

Of flat-road vehicles, buses are sometimes powered by electricity delivered by overhead cable; there are some cities that have them, and they may become more common as fossil-fuel prices increase. That is feasible for buses, since they usually go on regular routes; but that is not nearly as feasible for trucks or cars, with their much less regular routes.

Also, the energy-returned/energy-input ratio, while comfortably high for existing oil fields, go down a long way for tar sands, oil shales, and coal-based synfuels -- which means yet more expense. So having lots of tar sands, oil shales, and coal won't help that much.

It doesn't actually work like that. Underground oil is mostly in small pores in sponge-like rock formations, not in great open cave-like hollow cavities. It doesn't flow easily. Once enough has been extracted to relieve the pressure, it is very hard to get what's left out.

If it was a simple as you say, it would have been done.