Wikipedia is not the best source. Not necessarily the worst either but still.
The phrase "Peak Oil" has become much more than a statement that at some point in time the human production of oil will. For example, one of the primary boosters of the phrase was the website "Dieoff.org" which anticipates the death of most people on the planet. And you've demonstrated this yourself by jumping to the Hubbert curve...
The thing about a Hubbert curve is that it is base on regional data. Production in various regions has, rather roughly, indeed expand exponentially and then gone down exponentially. But where this behavior has been roughly seen, the exponential decline has happened because the particular sources have been replaced by cheaper sources elsewhere. Since this cannot happen on a world scale, there is every reason to expect world-scale production on existing fields to go down gradually rather than exponentially. Further, as the GP notes, more oil is being discovered even into the declining range.
This relatively slow decline will provide some impetus for alternative energy sources - it already has to an extent.
The world has quite a few problems but approach that our "Peak Oil" friends use for framing these problems is not useful.
As I wrote, the Wikipedia link refers to a source - which is a report from the US government.
The cheapest and most efficient sources have already been found. They're in the middle east, and many of them have recently reached the point where production is declining despite all technical efforts. And those efforts to sustain a very high production rate from a diminishing source mean that the decline could indeed become quite steep.
As for new discoveries, the problem is that they, too, are declining (and have done so for over 2 decades).
The phrase "Peak Oil" has become much more than a statement that at some point in time the human production of oil will. For example, one of the primary boosters of the phrase was the website "Dieoff.org" which anticipates the death of most people on the planet. And you've demonstrated this yourself by jumping to the Hubbert curve...
The thing about a Hubbert curve is that it is base on regional data. Production in various regions has, rather roughly, indeed expand exponentially and then gone down exponentially. But where this behavior has been roughly seen, the exponential decline has happened because the particular sources have been replaced by cheaper sources elsewhere. Since this cannot happen on a world scale, there is every reason to expect world-scale production on existing fields to go down gradually rather than exponentially. Further, as the GP notes, more oil is being discovered even into the declining range.
This relatively slow decline will provide some impetus for alternative energy sources - it already has to an extent.
The world has quite a few problems but approach that our "Peak Oil" friends use for framing these problems is not useful.