At the very moment the airplanes shut down the transponders and left their planned routes and stopped communications, roules for an emergency would have applied. At that time it was not known that the planes later would crash into a building.
At first, these were hijackings and should have been treated as such.
Assumptions... There are good reasons to assume that China will increase the demand.
Qou are quite optimistic that the transformation process happens without frictions. But you seem to agree that in 100 years there won't be any more oil...
I agree that the economic viability of production depends on the price.
So you are right, the exact point of peak oil (if it exists) depends on the price, too.
But what I mean is if there simply IS no more oil, than the price is not important.
I don't think that the eia figures are based only on current prices. There is no disclaimer saying so.
The Canadian tar sand is included, and as of Jan. 2003 (with a lower oil price than today) it was perhaps not a good idea to explore it. Nevertheless it appears in the statistics.
"NORAD existed to protect us from a foreign military air strike. "
That is not quite true. One of their tasks is also to intercept in case of emergency. They regularly train to intercept in case of hijackings. Routine procdures failed on 9/11.