What are your thoughts on the "peak oil" debate?

[LPA]

FUD aside, I think the folks who are talking about the price of oil rising as supplies dwindle have it right. $2/gallon gasoline isn't just going to run dry one day. Long before the oil runs out, competition to buy the shrinking supply will raise prices to where (some of) the alternatives will become economical. So for example, Kunstler's predictions of abandoned high-rises and a return to family farming are quite ridiculous. They'll just run with electricity generated by wind, geothermal energy, hydropower, tidal currents, nuclear powerplants. One alternative fuel that clearly is a net energy loser is hydrogen, but if oil is $400 a barrel and nuclear power is cheap and plentiful, we'll find that we can afford to build the infrastructure to use it in our vehicles. More of my thoughts on that here (blogspot.com).

There was a time when people thought that the massive investment to create a petroleum economy could never happen either.

[BKM]

FUD aside, I think the folks who are talking about the price of oil rising as supplies dwindle have it right. $2/gallon gasoline isn't just going to run dry one day. Long before the oil runs out, competition to buy the shrinking supply will raise prices to where (some of) the alternatives will become economical. So for example, Kunstler's predictions of abandoned high-rises and a return to family farming are quite ridiculous. They'll just run with electricity generated by wind, geothermal energy, hydropower, tidal currents, nuclear powerplants. One alternative fuel that clearly is a net energy loser is hydrogen, but if oil is $400 a barrel and nuclear power is cheap and plentiful, we'll find that we can afford to build the infrastructure to use it in our vehicles. More of my thoughts on that here (blogspot.com).

There was a time when people thought that the massive investment to create a petroleum economy could never happen either.

The problem is that there is nothing on the horizon that can really replace the energy density of petroleum. Unless we establish a breeder reactor program, for example, uranium is not inexhaustable, either (it has its own Hubbert Peak) not to forget the impacts from mining and processing the fuel. Wind energy and solar are not energy dense enough to support a society of 300-500 million hyperconsumers, either.

I agree the doomsayers seem a little extreme, but I also think that the post-oil era will not see us motoring around in suburbs in electric cars, either.

[Michele Zone]

I agree the doomsayers seem a little extreme, but I also think that the post-oil era will not see us motoring around in suburbs in electric cars, either.

Dreaming:

I want a solar car.

[Nor Cal Planner Girl]

forget about oil.... ride your bike or walk

[Michele Zone]

forget about oil.... ride your bike or walk

I would love to agree. But reality is that not everyone can do that. Historically, I did get around that way at times. But my health in recent years has not been up to that, even if I had been living someplace where things were in walking distance (which isn't the case, unfortunately). The reality is that many Americans cannot do that and may not ever be able to do that. And not necessarily because they are "too old" or "too lazy". I am 39. But it is real simple: modern life has dramatically reduced infant and childhood mortality. A hundred years or so ago, half of all children died before their fifth birthday. It is a truism that the weak die first, so many of those infants who would have died but now do not have minor abnormalities that would have killed them 200 years ago (like me and my oldest son).

The miracles of modern medicines also mean that many people survive cancer and other horrible things -- but are generally left permanently impaired by the ordeal. I know this all too well: my sister and mother have both survived breast cancer (at early ages: 40 and 50, respectively) and my father survived colon cancer. No, they cannot do all that they could before they endured chemo, surgery, and radiation. That doesn't mean they cannot be productive: my mom still works and is past the age of qualifying for Social Security and my sister is presently the primary breadwinner for her family (while going through treatment for breast cancer for the second time in 5 or 6 years, sigh). But they aren't going to start biking to work. Ever. (My sister never even mastered riding a bike, if I recall correctly. She wasn't "athletic" like I was. But she used to be able to walk me to death.)

[hymalaia]

Most of my friends and family are sprawled out over 400 miles on the eastern seaboard. I see them little enough as it is. No car would likely mean I'd never see any of them. Sorry, biking 200 miles for a wedding is not an option. My social network would fall completely apart. The only viable option is a QUALITY rail system. Even still, I'd rather drive. I'm as big a proponent of rail as anyone, and if it was time + money efficient I'd use it. But I'm still going to be "pissed off" if I can't take a long drive to get away on my own every once in while, and gather my thoughts. I'm an un-apologetic @$$ about this. It's sort of like once you've had a taste of the freedom an automobile gives you, you just can't go back. I feel as if I am not alone, thus the prospects for the future really bother me...

I would love to agree. But reality is that not everyone can do that. Historically, I did get around that way at times. But my health in recent years has not been up to that, even if I had been living someplace where things were in walking distance (which isn't the case, unfortunately). The reality is that many Americans cannot do that and may not ever be able to do that. And not necessarily because they are "too old" or "too lazy". I am 39. But it is real simple: modern life has dramatically reduced infant and childhood mortality. A hundred years or so ago, half of all children died before their fifth birthday. It is a truism that the weak die first, so many of those infants who would have died but now do not have minor abnormalities that would have killed them 200 years ago (like me and my oldest son).

The miracles of modern medicines also mean that many people survive cancer and other horrible things -- but are generally left permanently impaired by the ordeal. I know this all too well: my sister and mother have both survived breast cancer (at early ages: 40 and 50, respectively) and my father survived colon cancer. No, they cannot do all that they could before they endured chemo, surgery, and radiation. That doesn't mean they cannot be productive: my mom still works and is past the age of qualifying for Social Security and my sister is presently the primary breadwinner for her family (while going through treatment for breast cancer for the second time in 5 or 6 years, sigh). But they aren't going to start biking to work. Ever. (My sister never even mastered riding a bike, if I recall correctly. She wasn't "athletic" like I was. But she used to be able to walk me to death.)

[BKM]

Most of my friends and family are sprawled out over 400 miles on the eastern seaboard. I see them little enough as it is. No car would likely mean I'd never see any of them. Sorry, biking 200 miles for a wedding is not an option. My social network would fall completely apart. The only viable option is a QUALITY rail system. Even still, I'd rather drive. I'm as big a proponent of rail as anyone, and if it was time + money efficient I'd use it. But I'm still going to be "pissed off" if I can't take a long drive to get away on my own every once in while, and gather my thoughts. I'm an un-apologetic @$$ about this. It's sort of like once you've had a taste of the freedom an automobile gives you, you just can't go back. I feel as if I am not alone, thus the prospects for the future really bother me...

As long as when you do get "pissed off" you don't reach out to the nearest apocalyptic politician who promises to punsih those "to blame" for the coming debacle. Not saying you personally would, but there is a strong sense of entitlement among the American middle class that will be sorely tested.

[hymalaia]

As long as when you do get "pissed off" you don't reach out to the nearest apocalyptic politician who promises to punsih those "to blame" for the coming debacle. Not saying you personally would, but there is a strong sense of entitlement among the American middle class that will be sorely tested.

Don't worry, I'm not the type to push my anger on to other people, nor would I look for a scapegoat. People who would do that really have my ire because that's the easy way out. At the same time I don't feel I deserve any "blame" for being born and socialized into an inefficient, privileged way of life. I certainly didn't ask for it, but now that I've got it and am used to it, I'm not going to merely accept it being taken away. But my solution would be to find the nearest gorge and "remove" myself from the human experiment... survivalist mentality makes me ill.

On the other hand this is all theoretical speak. Though I'm cynical, I can see benefits to a post peak society. For now it's best to take it day by day and see what happens...

[metroboi]

In reading through this thread I wonder how many of you who have spoken in terms of dire consequences, we are in our final decade ( of our current way of life), etc actually lived through the oil shocks of the 1970s?

Adjusted for inflation we are still quite a ways from the price of gasoline that existed by the end of that decade. And gasoline taxes are much higher now which has nothing to do with the availability of oil. No one is speaking now of gas rationing, closed gas stations, gas lines, and days when you simply could not buy it. When this was going on, the same arugments were being made about the end of society as we now know it, but it never happened. People bought very fuel efficient cars, you could get gasahol in almost any gasoline station, and oil use started to drop. As we all know gasoline didn't go to $10/gallon as was predicted then, instead it fell to 65 cents/gallon by 1986.

I don't think anyone knows for sure when the Peak will occur, but the predictions of it being very close and furthermore ending society as we know it are very premature. We heard it all before 30 years ago and until we reach the 1970s level of pain, I'm not inclined to believe that we are anywhere close to this happening.

[BKM]

In reading through this thread I wonder how many of you who have spoken in terms of dire consequences, we are in our final decade ( of our current way of life), etc actually lived through the oil shocks of the 1970s?

Adjusted for inflation we are still quite a ways from the price of gasoline that existed by the end of that decade. And gasoline taxes are much higher now which has nothing to do with the availability of oil. No one is speaking now of gas rationing, closed gas stations, gas lines, and days when you simply could not buy it. When this was going on, the same arugments were being made about the end of society as we now know it, but it never happened. People bought very fuel efficient cars, you could get gasahol in almost any gasoline station, and oil use started to drop. As we all know gasoline didn't go to $10/gallon as was predicted then, instead it fell to 65 cents/gallon by 1986.

I don't think anyone knows for sure when the Peak will occur, but the predictions of it being very close and furthermore ending society as we know it are very premature. We heard it all before 30 years ago and until we reach the 1970s level of pain, I'm not inclined to believe that we are anywhere close to this happening.

metroboi has a good point. There is, one has to admit, some moralizing going on in the debate (not saying our debate). Big cars and living in the outer suburbs are not just foolish to Kunstler and many people-they are morally EVIL!

BUT: the 1970s were an artifical crisis (created by the U.S.' own internal Hubbert curve). I'm not sure the upcoming one will be as easily "solved."

[boilerplater]

Did anyone hear that Princeton geology professor on NPR this morning? He just came out with his 2nd book on Hubbert's Peak, which is more about his predictions for the post-oil world. He thinks the peak will be THIS NOVEMBER! It was mostly a discussion of what alternative technologies are available, and he seems to think we'll end up burning a lot more coal. Ah, the good old days of sooty, ash covered cities will be back!

[Mee]

I read about that...just like a sand dune protects from ocean storms, or the rapidly disappearing bayou south of New Orleans once protected that city from hurricanes.

I also read that. There's one area in Thailand which attacked by tsunami but it had just a little damage due to protection of sand dune. According to the article I ream, the resort hotel owner had decided to keep this natural sand dune instead of destroying it and expanding new buildings. It proved that keeping natural can protect you from natural (hazard).

[BKM]

Kunstler apprantly places his essays in a blog format. I found this discussion pretty interesting (JHK himself rarely participates in the blog). [url]http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/cluster****_nation/2005/04/the_vapors_of_s.html#comments

(Note: Type the "f-word" into the **** to access the blog. Darn work-safe nanny program prevents pasting the semi-naughty title of the blog

[metroboi]

Re: Coal

When these exact same discussions were being held 30 years ago about Peak Oil usage, one fact mentioned that is being overlooked now so far is the 300+ year supply of coal sitting under West Virgina, western Penn., etc. It is relatively simple to convert this coal into oil that can be refined into fuel for vehicles. Hitler did it in WWII so we are not talking about anything exotic. It just isn't economically feasible at the moment, but this is the United State's insurance policy in regards to dealing with post peak oil production. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is a fact to consider in these discussions.

People always make a lot of money writing books that describe doom and gloom.

[Pride of Place]

Re: Coal

When these exact same discussions were being held 30 years ago about Peak Oil usage, one fact mentioned that is being overlooked now so far is the 300+ year supply of coal sitting under West Virgina, western Penn., etc

The further destruction of the Allegheny mountains will surely be unpleasant for those of us who enjoy their beauty.

Given the current administration's energy and environmental policies, one can only imagine how more "mountain topping" or MTR (mountain top removal) will create a wasteland in vast areas of Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

MTR permanently destroys mountains, river and stream valleys, and small communities in mined areas. Entire mountaintops and ridgelines are literally sliced off to allow easy access to the underlying coal seam. The resulting topsoil, vegetation, rocks and destroyed trees, are then dumped into the valleys and streams nearby. In the past decade, these "valley fills" have buried nearly 1,000 miles of rivers and streams in West Virginia alone. As a result, catastrophic flooding has become all too familiar downstream of mined areas. Talk about playing God with Topography!

I am suddenly reminded of my favorite John Prine song, Paradise:

"And Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County,
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking,
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away...

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
Well they dug for their coal till the land was foresaken,
And they wrote it all down as the progess of man."

Odd, it was written in 1971. I guess we'll never learn. Sorry MZ, not feeling very optimistic today.

[metroboi]

Yeah. It won't be pretty.

[circusoflife]

Yeah. It won't be pretty.

Most of US coal comes from Wyoming. Strip coal mining around Gilette.

[ablarc]

A clear exposition:

Experts: Petroleum May Be Nearing a Peak

By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer, May 28, 2005

Could the petroleum joyride — cheap, abundant oil that has sent the global economy whizzing along with the pedal to the metal and the AC blasting for decades — be coming to an end? Some observers of the oil industry think so. They predict that this year, maybe next — almost certainly by the end of the decade — the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.

None of this will affect vacation plans this summer — Americans can expect another season of beach weekends and road trips to Graceland relatively unimpeded by the cost of getting there. Though gas prices are up, they are expected to remain below $2.50 a gallon. Accounting for inflation, that's pretty comparable to what motorists paid for most of the 20th century; it only feels expensive because gasoline was unusually cheap between 1986 and 2003.
And there are many who doubt the doomsday scenario will ever come true. Most oil industry analysts think production will continue growing for at least another 30 years. By then, substitute energy sources will be available to ease the transition into a post-petroleum age.

"This is just silly," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Winchester, Mass. "It's not like industrial civilization is going to come crashing down."

Where you stand on "peak oil," as parties to the debate call it, depends on which forces you consider dominant in controlling the oil markets. People who consider economic forces most important believe that prices are high right now mostly because of increased demand from China and other rapidly growing economies. But eventually, high prices should encourage consumers to use less and producers to pump more.

But Deffeyes and many other geologists counter that when it comes to oil, Mother Nature trumps Adam Smith. The way they see it, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway and other major producers are already pumping as fast as they can. The only way to increase production capacity is to discover more oil. Yet with a few exceptions, there just isn't much left out there to be discovered.

"The economists all think that if you show up at the cashier's cage with enough currency, God will put more oil in ground," Deffeyes said.

There will be warning signs before global oil production peaks, the bearers of bad news contend. Prices will rise dramatically and become increasingly volatile. With little or no excess production capacity, minor supply disruptions — political instability in Venezuela, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico or labor unrest in Nigeria, for example — will send the oil markets into a tizzy. So will periodic admissions by oil companies and petroleum-rich nations that they have been overestimating their reserves.

Oil producers will grow flush with cash. And because the price of oil ultimately affects the cost of just about everything else in the economy, inflation will rear its ugly head.

Anybody who has been paying close attention to the news lately may feel a bit queasy at this stage. Could $5-a-gallon gas be right around the corner?
"The world has never seen anything like this before and so we just really don't know," said Robert L. Hirsch, an energy analyst at Science Applications International Corp., a Santa Monica, Calif., consulting firm.

Still, he added, "there's a number of really competent professionals that are very pessimistic."

The pessimism stems from a legendary episode in the history of petroleum geology. Back in 1956, a geologist named M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970.

His superiors at Shell Oil were aghast. They even tried to persuade Hubbert not to speak publicly about his work. His peers, accustomed to decades of making impressive oil discoveries, were skeptical.

But Hubbert was right. U.S. oil production did peak in 1970, and it has declined steadily ever since. Even impressive discoveries such as Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, with 13 billion barrels in recoverable reserves, haven't been able to reverse that trend.

Hubbert started his analysis by gathering statistics on how much oil had been discovered and produced in the Lower 48 states, both onshore and off, between 1901 and 1956 (Alaska was still terra incognita to petroleum geologists 50 years ago). His data showed that the country's oil reserves had increased rapidly from 1901 until the 1930s, then more slowly after that.

When Hubbert graphed that pattern it looked very much like America's oil supply was about to peak. Soon, it appeared, America's petroleum reserves would reach an all-time maximum. And then they would begin to shrink as the oil companies extracted crude from the ground faster than geologists could find it.

That made sense. Hubbert knew some oil fields, especially the big ones, were easier to find than others. Those big finds would come first, and then the pace of discovery would decline as the remaining pool of oil resided in progressively smaller and more elusive deposits.

The production figures followed a similar pattern, but it looked like they would peak a few years later than reserves.

That made sense too. After all, oil can't be pumped out of the ground the instant it is discovered. Lease agreements have to be negotiated, wells drilled, pipelines built; the development process can take years.

When Hubbert extended the production curve into the future it looked like it would peak around 1970. Every year after that, America would pump less oil than it had the year before.

If that prognostication wasn't daring enough, Hubbert had yet another mathematical trick up his sleeve. Assuming that the reserves decline was going to be a mirror image of the rise, geologists would have found exactly half of the oil in the Lower 48 when the curve peaked. Doubling that number gave Hubbert the grand total of all recoverable oil under the continental United States: 170 billion barrels.

At first, critics objected to Hubbert's analysis, arguing that technological improvements in exploration and recovery would increase the amount of available oil.

They did, but not enough to extend production beyond the limits Hubbert had projected. Even if you throw in the unexpected discovery of oil in Alaska, America's petroleum production history has proceeded almost exactly as Hubbert predicted it would.

Critics claim that Hubbert simply got lucky.

"When it pretty much worked," Lynch said, "he decided, aha, it has to be a bell curve."

But many experts see no reason global oil production has to peak at all. It could plateau and then gradually fall as the economy converts to other forms of energy.
"Even in 30 to 40 years there's still going to be huge amounts of oil in the Middle East," said Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

A few years ago, geologists began applying Hubbert's methods to the entire world's oil production. Their analyses indicated that global oil production would peak some time during the first decade of the 21st century.

Deffeyes thinks the peak will be in late 2005 or early 2006. Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons puts it at 2007 to 2009. California Institute of Technology physicist David Goodstein, whose book "The End of Oil" was published last year, predicts it will arrive before 2010.

The exact date doesn't really matter, said Hirsch, because he believes it's already too late. In an analysis he did for the U.S.

Department of Energy in February, Hirsch concluded that it will take more than a decade for the U.S. economy to adapt to declining oil production.
"You've got to do really big things in order to dent the problem. And if you're on the backside of the supply curve you're chasing the train after it's already left the station," he said.

For example, the median lifetime of an American automobile is 17 years. That means even if the government immediately mandated a drastic increase in fuel efficiency standards, the conservation benefits wouldn't fully take effect for almost two decades.

And though conservation would certainly be necessary in a crisis, it wouldn't be enough. Fully mitigating the sting of decreasing oil supplies would require developing alternate sources of energy — and not the kind that politicians and environmentalists wax rhapsodic about when they promise pollution-free hydrogen cars and too-cheap-to-meter solar power.

If oil supplies really do decline in the next few decades, America's energy survival will hinge on the last century's technology, not the next one's. Hirsch's report concludes that compensating for a long-term oil shortfall would require building a massive infrastructure to convert coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels into combustible liquids.

Proponents of coal liquefaction, which creates synthetic oil by heating coal in the presence of hydrogen gas, refer to the process as "clean coal" technology. It is clean, but only to the extent that the synthetic oil it produces burns cleaner than raw coal. Synthetic oil still produces carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse warming gas, during both production and combustion (though in some scenarios some of that pollution could be kept out of the atmosphere). And the coal that goes into the liquefaction process still has to be mined, which means tailing piles, acid runoff and other toxic ills.

And then there's the fact that nobody wants a "clean coal" plant in the backyard. Shifting to new forms of energy will require building new refineries, pipelines, transportation terminals and other infrastructure at a time when virtually every new project faces intense local opposition.

Energy analysts say coal liquefaction can produce synthetic oil at a cost of $32 a barrel, well below the $50 range where oil has been trading for the past year or so. But before they invest billions of dollars in coal liquefaction, investors want to be sure that oil prices will remain high.

Investors are similarly wary about tar sands and heavy oil deposits in Canada and Venezuela. Though they are too gooey to be pumped from the ground like conventional oil, engineers have developed ways of liquefying the deposits with injections of hot water and other means. Already, about 8 percent of Canada's oil production comes from tar sands.

Unfortunately, it costs energy to recover energy from tar sands. Most Canadian operations use natural gas to heat water for oil recovery; and like oil, natural gas has gotten dramatically more expensive in the past few years.

"The reality is, this thing is extremely complicated," Hirsch said. "My honest view is that anybody who tells you that they have a clear picture probably doesn't understand the problem."

[dobopoq]

^ If Hubbert's prediction for U.S. oil peak was correct to within a few months, not even knowing about Alaska's oil deposits, then it would only be rational to take seriously the claims of geologists using the same methodology, about the immanence of world oil peak.

Peak oil is a perfect demonstration of what's wrong with mainstream economic thinking which assumes that if prices go up, more oil will be pumped. It totally ignores the reality that oil is a non-renewable resource, just as it ignores "externalities" like pollution which affect everyone. This flawed thinking is revealed by the way oil is referred with terms like: Production and Supply. This language gives the illusion that oil companies "manufacture" oil. Part of the reason why this deceptive language is used is that, while a country still has oil, it wants to insure that people continue to buy it until it is all gone. If OPEC and other producers emphasized their so-called production as "extraction" expressed as a fraction of known "reserves", people would consume less oil and start developing alternatives, because the timeframe until depletion would be apparent. So it is in the interests of the producers and distributors to keep people in the dark.

If you take a look at the chart here, you'll see that in 1930, world oil consumption was less than 3 gigabarrels per year (or about 8 million barrels per day). Right now, in 2005, the world consumes about 83 million barrels of oil per day which works out to about 30 gigabarrels per year. This means world oil consumption has increased tenfold in only 7 1/2 decades. The rate of increase was clearly slowing down by the 70's, magnified by the oil shocks. With the Alaskan North Slope, North Sea Oil and a few other sources coming online in the 1980's, the world continued to enjoy low oil prices even as consumption increased through the rest of the 20th century. But the graph also shows that the rate of increase in extraction from more recent oil bonanzas is leveling off. Once the peak is passed, oil prices, and in fact the cost of living in general will go higher and higher.

Regarding America's well being, only a dramatic rescaling of our lives to use less energy, and an all-out Apollonian effort to develop renewable alternatives over the next couple of decades will prevent the onset of a depression far greater than that of the 1930's. At least that's what I make of it all.

[BKM]

^ If Hubbert's prediction for U.S. oil peak was correct to within a few months, not even knowing about Alaska's oil deposits, then it would only be rational to take seriously the claims of geologists using the same methodology, about the immanence of world oil peak.

Peak oil is a perfect demonstration of what's wrong with mainstream economic thinking which assumes that if prices go up, more oil will be pumped. It totally ignores the reality that oil is a non-renewable resource, just as it ignores "externalities" like pollution which affect everyone. This flawed thinking is revealed by the way oil is referred with terms like: Production and Supply. This language gives the illusion that oil companies "manufacture" oil. Part of the reason why this deceptive language is used is that, while a country still has oil, it wants to insure that people continue to buy it until it is all gone. If OPEC and other producers emphasized their so-called production as "extraction" expressed as a fraction of known "reserves", people would consume less oil and start developing alternatives, because the timeframe until depletion would be apparent. So it is in the interests of the producers and distributors to keep people in the dark.

If you take a look at the chart here, you'll see that in 1930, world oil consumption was less than 3 gigabarrels per year (or about 8 million barrels per day). Right now, in 2005, the world consumes about 83 million barrels of oil per day which works out to about 30 gigabarrels per year. This means world oil consumption has increased tenfold in only 7 1/2 decades. The rate of increase was clearly slowing down by the 70's, magnified by the oil shocks. With the Alaskan North Slope, North Sea Oil and a few other sources coming online in the 1980's, the world continued to enjoy low oil prices even as consumption increased through the rest of the 20th century. But the graph also shows that the rate of increase in extraction from more recent oil bonanzas is leveling off. Once the peak is passed, oil prices, and in fact the cost of living in general will go higher and higher.

Regarding America's well being, only a dramatic rescaling of our lives to use less energy, and an all-out Apollonian effort to develop renewable alternatives over the next couple of decades will prevent the onset of a depression far greater than that of the 1930's. At least that's what I make of it all.

Luckily , my family doesn't live very long on average. Hopefully, I won't see it.

[Trinity Moses]

Avian Flu or some other high kill-rate super-disease could solve the "demand" side of peak oil...the peak moves into the future if a signifigant amount of the worlds population dies off...particularly in the high oil-consuming parts of the world.

Of course there are other issues associated with mass mortality in a short period of time.

In any case it seems like that SAIC study implies that Peak Oil will be a form of "economic black plague" ...the world we have known comes to an end and another one emerges on the other side.

[Michele Zone]

I did a search and no one appears to have brought this up: Energy bill offers rich rewards for hybrids

The new energy legislation includes a bigger credit for hybrids that save the most fuel compared with 2002 models and those expected to conserve the most fuel over the life of the vehicle.


It also applies to the new generation of fuel-saving diesel cars that are expected in the next couple of years, Friedman says.

<snip>

The bill "is meant to be a jump-start" to spur hybrid sales, <snip>

As I said earlier in this thread (and in other threads): the "impending doom" of the Hubbert Peak will fuel the switch to alternative fuel technologies, making them more appealling and more affordable. Tax credits are one way to do that. It may sound like a drop in the bucket, but as some foreign acquaintance once said to me: drop by drop by drop, the river grows. I don't happen to believe that monolithic solutions are generally very good solutions. I think gradually building a variety options for a new way of life is healthier and more sustainable.

I debated starting a new thread but felt there wasn't really enough substance to the article for a new discussion. However, it seems to fit well as a footnote to this conversation -- one which might be worth revisiting since the Hubbert Peak is hardly over yet.

[Luca]

I have v. limited time so I will make a few quick points.

1. MichelleZone is, economically speaking, so far the most astute poster in this
thread. Congrats.

2. Nuclear power (oh yes), biofule, etc. will rapidly substitute oil IF it ever
becomes seriosuly scarce

3. The issue, right here right now, is how much money do you want to spend (or
not make) today to forestalll a future, theoretical risk of spending later? The
choice is not always straightforward

4. One key reason why envorionmentalism / car-hatred, etc. are not mainstream
views is that their proponents are not so much motivated by genuine concern
as by some diffuse sense of guilt-dislike of wealth and ouput, a sort of
plutophobia -- theya re not looking for a solution, just jeremiadic ganishing of
teeth. I see a lot of that posted here

[boilerplater]

jeremiadic

?
OT:
What does that mean? The online dictionary doesn't list it. Is it a reference to the Jeremiah of the Bible?

Looks like its time to start shopping for a hybrid.
The current National Geographic has a good article about what is next in the way of energy sources. It says that for biofuel to meet out needs, the amount of land currently in ag production would have to be doubled. The available nuclear sources would last about 60 years. There is still the possibility of "breeder" reactors being developed to reprocess nuclear fuel. Also interesting is the graphic illustrating how much land would be required to power Manhattan with solar panels, wind and nuclear.

[BKM]

I did a search and no one appears to have brought this up: Energy bill offers rich rewards for hybrids

As I said earlier in this thread (and in other threads): the "impending doom" of the Hubbert Peak will fuel the switch to alternative fuel technologies, making them more appealling and more affordable. Tax credits are one way to do that. It may sound like a drop in the bucket, but as some foreign acquaintance once said to me: drop by drop by drop, the river grows. I don't happen to believe that monolithic solutions are generally very good solutions. I think gradually building a variety options for a new way of life is healthier and more sustainable.

I debated starting a new thread but felt there wasn't really enough substance to the article for a new discussion. However, it seems to fit well as a footnote to this conversation -- one which might be worth revisiting since the Hubbert Peak is hardly over yet.

To me, these tax benefits are yet another giveway.

Many of the new hybrids coming on line have little or no benefit for gas mileage. The Toyota Highland hybrid, for example, offers ZERO real world increase in fuel mileage. It just offers more power and acceleration. Maybe that's a benefit fro the technology in that it reduces increased consumption, but the net effect on total gas consumption right now is zero.

Even the more "green" hybrid cars have proven to be disappointing in real world gas mileage.

So, why should our tax dollars be subsidizing a soccer mom who wants to drive to the mall a little quicker?

(BKM, who is sadly quite lead footed in his fuel-gulping Subaru)