Peak Oil
 

what will you do with your benzes when the price of gasoline goes to +$20/gallon within the next 18 months?

Bring it on, I'll just start running all of mine on cooking grease.

Thats sort of a narrow view of how important oil is to this country and society as a whole. We simply cannot continue our current way of life without a steady supply of cheap oil. And the days of cheap oil are coming to an end quickly. As just one example...most of the gains in food production over the last fifty years are a result of modern fertilizers and pesticides. Most fertilizers and all pesticides are a product of crude oil. Think about what that implies for the future...as our population continues to swell our ability to produce food will be shrinking. Peak OIl is coming and it won't be pretty or fun.

Sure is going to be interesting when the Great Cleansing hits.

Maybe then we'll embrace the concept of a sustainable economy.

Use the German model for our future. In WWII we deprived Germany of oil. The primary reason for the Stalingrad campaign was so Germany would secure its oil supply. Soviet victory at Stalingrad and British victory in Africa (with some American assistance) doomed Germany more than any number of B-17's.

Because of that loss of fuel, Germans figured-out how to distill fuel from coal that would burn in engines. They also went to steam power.

Burning coal has some huge environmental costs, far worse than oil. But when the economics of oil are unteneble for fuel, we will suddenly discover the many virtues of coal from which we can derive fuels. FYI, the USA has some of the largest coal reserves on the planet.

Its an entropy thing. As society increases in complexity it will require increasing amounts of energy per capita to maintain itself.

It will be interesting to watch the process unfold.

I suspect that discussing Peak Oil in an automotive forum is a little like discussing Bar-B-Que techniques at a PETA meeting.

Because of this, as we reach and get beyond Peak Oil, it will become imparative that this society become more localized. It will become economically unfeasible to ship food or other goods across the country or world the way we do now.

See James Howard Kunstlers website for further info.

We will also "discover" that nuclear power has many virtues. But both coal and uranium are stop gap measures, as they to are natural resources that are just as beholden to Hubberts curve as is oil.

So you`re a fan of Jim`s also heh? He`ll be glad to know he`s got some play here.

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary11.html

You just have to accept that everything runs down eventually. Energy supplies will all be depleted, the Sun will go dark, matter will disperse and energy will dim deep into the infrared. Its the nature of nature.

I don't see what the big deal is about it. Entropy is not so much a problem to be solved as a fundamental rule of existence. The general trend of life on Earth is that organisms that most efficiently convert energy into replication of that genome are the organisms that populated the planet. Humans do it best so we rule. That's life.

There is no great virtue or sin in energy utilization. Its just a function of life. Want to be biologically successful? Figure-out how to use energy to more effectively insure your reproductive success and the survival and thriving of your offspring. In our society we use money as the analogue for energy.

B

$20 per gallon in the United States will have some interesting ripple effects in the global economy, so that figure, at least in the near term is just a scare tactic.

Prices will go up. Consider that costs of production, not just from security issues, will rise. It's just getting more costly to efficiently pump the stuff. Combine that with global competition for fuel from the 800 pound gorilla of economies . . . China, getting more thirsty for fuel to mobilize its workforce. All the Catepillar and other heavy equipment they're buying to build infrastructre like roads and dams aren't going to be used by bicyclist and scooters.

Maybe I should buy a car with a big block and a few carbs while oil is still around!:D :cool:

And just wait till a billion or so chinese people want to trade in their bicycles and scooters for SUVs.

The Chinese are about to put the finishing touches on their brand new, German designed, F-1 capable race track in Shanghai for the September Grand Prix

http://www.realcities.com/images/rea...7038897312.jpg

BTW, on the tiny resort island of Lanai, here in Hawaii, regular unleaded hit $3.07 per gallon at the only gas station on the island. :eek: