Eric Saigeon typed "peak oil" into a Google search this spring, and his life may never be the same.

The 27-year-old Grand Rapids Community College student dove into Internet video and volumes of literature to learn more about the theory that the world's oil production is about to peak and then decline, causing social upheaval and economic chaos.

So convinced was Eric that he dragged his mother, Ann Saigeon, to a meeting in Middleville on the subject. They both came away "peak oil aware" -- and profoundly shaken.

"It struck me pretty hard," he said.The Saigeons have joined environmentalists, geologists, physicists and energy industry bankers warning of another "inconvenient truth" -- that world oil supplies are not infinite, and we may never have more oil than we do now.

The peak oil debate, long scoffed at by oil producers as alarmist nonsense, is gaining traction in West Michigan and across the country, driven by sharply climbing oil prices, rising food costs, scarcity of new oil discoveries and a growing online community.

Eric Saigeon joined the campus Earth Club at GRCC and volunteered at a peak oil conference held earlier this month at Calvin College.

He started a Grand Rapids chapter of the nonprofit, Local Future, and his own carbon-free lawn service.

His mother is planning to replace flower gardens with vegetables at her Alto home, joined a community agriculture farm and recently pulled out her canning supplies again.

"I took seriously the advice to start putting some things aside, like building a food pantry," she said. "I'm really interested now in getting some land and building a passive solar home."

Peak oil converts include sustainability and "relocalization" groups, folks such as the Saigeons who aren't "off-grid" but trying to unplug a little, as well as investment bankers such as Steven Crower.

Denver-based Crower is with Starlight Investments LLC, a firm serving energy, telecommunications, real estate and similar businesses. Specializing in oil and gas, he holds a degree in civil engineering from the University of Michigan, and designed refineries for four years before earning a business degree from Rice University.

You can hear the resignation in his voice during a slide presentation at last month's local conference, each graph a little more depressing than the last.

Saudi Arabian drilling has increased sharply while output has plateaued, he said. Our rusting, rotting infrastructure is a mess. Indonesia just left the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"This is not a new concept," said Crower. "We went through peak oil in the U.S. in the 1970s. There is nothing you can do to fix it. We are basically along for the ride."

That peak in U.S. oil production was predicted in 1956 by geologist M. King Hubbert, whose name has become synonymous with the peak oil concept.

Now applied to the world's production, the bell curve of oil output forecasts a bleak future.

Simply put, believers note we're using up fossil fuels at an astonishing rate, with no current renewable energy source available to provide for a smooth transition off oil.

If the theory becomes reality, they say, the modern world may be in for a painful withdrawal period.

End of cheap oil

Peak oil is not the end of oil, "just the end of cheap oil," Crower said.

Cheap fossil fuels have allowed economic expansion and sustain our way of life. It's the lifeblood of the global economy.

Supply, demand Michigan's energy supply comes from coal, natural gas and petroleum products, with smaller amounts coming from renewable and nuclear power. Total energy use: 3.2 quadrillion BTU (2005) Energy expenditures: $37 billion (2007) Gasoline demand: 374,335 gallons (2007) Natural gas demand: 866.5 billion cubic feet* Electricity sales: 111,056 million kilowatt-hours* * 2008 projection SOURCE: Michigan Public Service Commission

Theorists cite $4-a-gallon gasoline and doubled oil prices in the past year -- to more than $140 a barrel this month -- as evidence the peak is here.

High crude prices affect prices on everything from plastics to fertilizer to computer screens. Companies are scrambling to offset those costs while investors get queasy over the U.S. dollar's value and the threat of inflation.

"I think the price of oil will cause the collapse of the dollar," said Crower. "The gold standard is going to be energy."

There are no signs of the oil appetite abating. "I think you're going to have to hit a wall first," said Crower.

Even with rising prices pushing consumption down domestically, the U.S. burned through 20.7 million barrels per day in 2007, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Developing nations such as China, India and western Africa are expected to increase world consumption of energy by 57 percent from 2004 to 2030, according to the energy agency.

Couple that with the fact that world population is likely to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, with most of the increase in developing countries, according to the United Nations Population Division.

The peak oil flag has been raised in West Michigan by Wayland mathematics teacher Aaron Wissner, of Middleville, who started Local Future and organized the conference.

Wissner predicts food production will become local, because of projected transportation costs. That means the end of strawberries from California and tomatoes from Florida.

"Everything that we saw in the 1970s -- the car pooling, turning down the heat, 55 mph -- we're going to have to do all of that and more just to help us to make the transition to renewable fuels," Wissner said.

Oil output will never match demand because Saudi Arabian fields are being tapped out, said Crower and his mentor, Matthew Simmons, CEO of Simmons & Co. International.

Simmons authored the 2006 book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."

He said Saudi supply and reserve numbers cannot be trusted. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned company with the largest proven reserves in the world, has publicly said it can produce 12 to 15 million barrels a day for 50 years.

"The Saudis have an enormous amount of pride. They love going to the OPEC meetings and being the world's only swing producer," he said. "To finally say, 'Oh, we've lost that,' is kind of a virility problem."

Saudi Arabia is pumping 9.45 million barrels a day, an increase of about 300,000 barrels from May.

Saudi Arabia holds one-fifth of the world's proven reserves. With major fields in Mexico, the North Sea, and Indonesia in decline, if the Saudis have peaked, the world has peaked, Simmons said.

More dire forecasts

This warning also has been sounded by Saudis. In 2000, Sadad I. Al Husseini, a geologist and former Aramco head of exploration and production, calculated crude reserve depletion in the world's major fields.

He predicted conventional oil output beginning to plateau in 2004, leveling for about 15 years, and then slipping into decline.

Forecasts with a date are varied and controversial. Simmons believes we peaked in 2005. Shell Oil Co. says 2025. U.S. Energy Department analysts say not until 2030.

The varying projections are based upon estimated oil to be discovered, new technologies to reduce demand and production of unconventional sources such as oil shale and tar sands.

On the up side, Daniel Yergin, co-founder and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, finds optimism in the estimated 100 billion barrels of oil and natural gas under the U.S. outer continental shelf.

But, to get that oil, we need deep-water rigs, said Simmons, and only four new ones will ready by the end 2009.

And the Arctic?

"I'm not at all optimistic about the Arctic, because I know that over the last 40 years, we have drilled 22 wells in the Arctic, and they've all been dusters," he said.

David Goodstein, a physics professor and vice provost at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), said the peak could be from five to 20 years off.

"But 20 years is nothing on the scale of human history," he said. "We, our children or our grandchildren are in for some very difficult times."

Are oceans the hope?

Alternative sources with enough power are not readily available.

About 10,000 of the largest nuclear fission plants possible would be needed to replace the 10 terawatts of fossil-fuel energy being burned today, according to Goodstein. And we would need to build them yesterday.

"If you could make nuclear fusion work, it would solve the problem, forever," Goodstein said. But fusion technology is not on the immediate horizon and, in fact, has been 25 years away for a long time.

A 10-year rush transition to renewable sources and away from oil would have moderate impacts and is possible with "extraordinary" efforts from governments, industry and consumers, according to a 2005 peak oil report compiled for the U.S. Energy Department by Robert Hirsch.

The 91-page report outlines the need to act decisively to mitigate the fuel shortage.

"The date (of peak) is almost irrelevant, as mitigation will take much longer than a decade to become effective because of the enormous scale of world oil consumption," reads the summary.

Simmons sees hope in our ocean's energy-rich waves, currents and tides. He is putting his money where his mouth is by investing $20,000 in a mini hydro project in Vinalhaven, Maine.

This year, he incorporated the Ocean Energy Institute in Maine, which will research ocean thermal energy conversion. He's tapping the University of Maine for brainpower and hopes to build wind turbine blades from nanotechnology.

Simmons said the "holy grail" is to have liquid ammonia prove to be a viable fuel in cars and trucks. But time is against us -- even the decade cited in the Energy Department report. Simmons said 2018 will be too late.

"We'll blow ourselves up" before then, he said. "We're talking a real serious resource war."