Total energy consumption and production...?

[AniThyng]

It also occurs to me that in this situation the world will see people fleeing to places where they percive to have greater energy reserves. I imagine many countries with self-sustaining energy capacities will enact tighter border controls to prevent being overwhelmed as refugees try to flee before thier countries collapse...or is this being a tad too far fetched?

How are these hordes going to get here? Flap their wings and fly? Any kind of mechanized transportation will cost a fortune after the oil crash.

Perhaps they will just die trying to float over to australia from SEA in a rickety boat or something. It's certainly been done before. The elite who see the writing on the wall would probably have flown themselves out beforehand, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.

I am disturbed by this because I am now forced to evaluate if my country will be able to ride this crisis out, or if my childhood growing up in a time of relative plenty will remain a memory in a much more difficult adulthood.

At least it will be exciting.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

It also occurs to me that in this situation the world will see people fleeing to places where they percive to have greater energy reserves. I imagine many countries with self-sustaining energy capacities will enact tighter border controls to prevent being overwhelmed as refugees try to flee before thier countries collapse...or is this being a tad too far fetched?

Yes, rampant inflation in one's own home country might motivate him or her to eventually try their hand at immigrating to a country where the opportunities are greater and the resources are abundant. So, yes, the haves will probably enact a lot of border security measures to keep out the have-nots . . . though if the have-nots are big and bad enough to decide to invent accusations of terrorism, then the haves might still have a problem.

Some of the have-not nations may do all they can to encourage emigration, since anyone who leaves is one less mouth to feed and one less person to keep warm in the winter. On the same token, some of the nations with abundant resources might encourage certain people from suddenly-less-fortunate countries to immigrate. You might see a Venezuela, a Brazil, a South Africa a Turkey, or a France offering incentives to the best and brightest among people in the United States or Canada to leave their homeland and come live and work in a new country, putting their education to good use improving the energy situation in their newly adopted countries.

This will, of course, cause no small amount of consternation in places like the United States, which will have enough problems on its plate without having to worry about a sudden, severe case of brain-drain.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

All I'm saying is this: When there's such a great need that every other scientist in the country is working on clean, renewable energy, when the currently insurmountable political barriers have been thrown aside, when the corporate complex throws its entire weight behind these efforts instead of in front of them, change will happen a lot faster than current predictions indicate.

Several problems with this scenario. First, research and development kludges and economically feasible prototypes are not the same thing. For another, taking a technology from a few gee-whiz prototypes and replacing decades of infrastructure with them will take . . . decades to accomplish. And this is under the best of circumstances. No amount of pushing will overcome the sheer inertia involved in constructing all new factories and tooling, nor will it alleviate the initial cost overruns, delays, shortfalls in production, and first-run bugs that affect every new venture. It certainly won't solve the interfacing headaches of getting the new pieces to play well enough with the old, since you couldn't possibly replace all infrastructure everywhere in one fell swoop. It won't overcome the need to train people how to install, inspect, remove, and service/repair these marvelous new technologies.

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to rip out old infrastructure and replace it with new. But if the public is faced with the prospect of giving up their modern lifestyles and ammenities, the amount of political will would be enormous. Any politician that couldn't convince people he or she would do more than anyone else to solve the problems would be shitcanned in the blink of an eye. The stock of any company thought to have a pre-crisis business model would become worthless overnight. The political climate would be nothing at all like the apathetic, take-it-up-the-ass climate we have now.

And it will happen before we're even in the midst of a serious crisis. Intelligent entrepreneurs who stand to make an assload of money on the infrastructure changeover will whip the public into a worried frenzy and create the conditions I described.

Of course, add to that the fact that you'll have to build in the dramatically rising cost of oil into every industrial step in the process (from powering the factories, to shipping/extracting the raw inputs, to constructing the initial runs of parts, to paying a liveable wage to your workforce (whose purchasing power will be dropping as fast as the cost of oil rises) and to getting parts shipped from the factories out to the relevant sites,) and progress slows further still.

This isn't going to be anywhere near as easy as sending a man to the Moon. It's going to be about forcing entire nations to undergo a fundamental transformation of their basic infrastructure utterly alien to the human experience (As J pointed out, in the past the 'alternative' power sources were already ready and raring to go when the in-vogue sources were waning. For most of us, this is nowhere near the case.) Some will make it. Some won't.

None of this is going to happen for decades. By the time the crisis hits, the technology will be ready.

Greater emphasis on nuclear is already starting. New plants in the U.S. are being planned for the first time in decades, and the price of uranium yellowcake is ten times what it was 5 years ago.

Nuclear power combined with cars running on diversified fuels can solve most of our energy problems with today's technology. Between ethanol, bioethanol, biodiesel, propane, natural gas, greater use of regular diesel, kerosene (I didn't know cars could run on that either until I went to Chile), and electric cars, and with a much greater percentage of the population using mass transit, there's no energy problem.

Screeching Greenpeace anti-nuke ultra-green neo-Luddites won't go away just because the oil is running out. Anti-nuke howlers will be just as implacable about having a nuclear power plant in their backyard as they are now. They'll probably continue to be this way until enough rolling blackouts, being shot by police/National Guard/federal troops, or lynchings by their neighbors convince them to shut up. Not to mention nuclear power doesn't begin to provide even a sixth of the world's power. Just four nations get the majority of their power from nuclear power-plants. Just sixteen get more than a quarter of their power from nuclear powerplants.

Greenpeace types have never been politically relevant, so it doesn't really matter how they'll react. Use of nuclear power will increase greatly over the next couple decades, judging by current trends. We're not going to run out of oil tomorrow, so the current ratio of nuclear vs. coal / oil power isn't really relevant.

And this is completely ignoring the fact that nuclear plants take not-insignificant amounts of time, effort, and material to build. The costs of all of which are going to feel the pinch imposed by rising energy costs.

As far as all those "alternative" fuels are concerned, they're not really oil alternatives, they're oil derivatives. Ethanol, and biodiesel require the sort of high-impact farming only made possible by the fossil-fuel based Green Revolution of the 1950s. Natural gas production will peak and decline not too long after oil does. Not to mention many power-plants are, in fact, fired by natural gas. And you're going to be needing that electricity to power the factories so you can perform your massive infrastructure upgrades and construct those scads of nuclear powerplants you're talking about.

Most of the plants will have already been built by the time the oil supply reaches critically low levels.

Not to mention diesel and kerosene are refined products of petroleum. Not as refined as gasoline, yes . . . but these are still dead dinosaur juice. Sure diesel and kerosene might stretch out the oil supply on the account that they cost less to refine, and on the account that diesels bitch-slap gasoline motors in efficiency; but it's literally solving the oil crisis by burning more oil.

When you refine oil, you get gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc. all at once. If you're using them in more even proportions, then you're being more frugal with your oil. The longer you make the oil last, the longer and smoother the transition to a renewable society.

The only things stopping this scenario are that consumers don't want to have to choose between cars that use that many different fuels and political resistance, both of which will melt away in a bad enough crisis.

If human history has taught us anything, it's that the average citizen, and the politician she votes for, will tolerate a lot of bullshit before she deems it "bad enough," or a genuine "OMG we're all gonna DIE" crisis. I mean, look at the excesses of King George the Wonder-Chimp and the overwhelmingly "blah" reaction it's elicited from the voting public. In a post-oil world, citizens won't be choosing between flex-fuel and hybrid cars, they'll be giving them up entirely and learning the virtues of walking, bike riding, and mass-transit. The only time personal motorized transportation will again be within the realms of the typical consumer is when electric cars and fuel-cell powered vehicles can be produced cheaply on non-fossil-fuel inputs.

People tolerate Bush's bullshit because they're apathetic and easily manipulated about issues they don't understand and don't think affects them. 20 dollars for a gallon of gas is something everyone can understand, "We're laying you off" is something everyone can understand, things costing twice as much as they did before is something everyone can understand.

I don't disagree that we're headed for a major economic splash, one that could be worse than the Great Depression, but when there's that much of a pressing need, things will change fast, and they won't stay like that for more than a decade or so, certainly not long enough for our lifestyles to regress to resemble pre-WW2.

Snapping enough of the public out of its complacency will require a decade of things going into the shitter, or a suitably shocking market panic. Getting the public into sensible crisis-management mode and out of stupid "ZOMG PANIC roffle" mode will take another decade by itself. Infrastructure replacement will take decades, unless you happen to live somewhere where the territory is small enough, and the reliance on fossil fuels light enough, and the government and corporate structures flexible enough, that the change-over can be phased in not-so-painfully (in short, move to France. )

Ten years my ass. It takes one day to snap a population out of complacency. An extraordinary day can see entire populations with a completely different outlook than when the sun rose that morning. How many years did it take 9/11 to change the way people thought about the world?

[Morilore]

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to rip out old infrastructure and replace it with new. But if the public is faced with the prospect of giving up their modern lifestyles and ammenities, the amount of political will would be enormous. Any politician that couldn't convince people he or she would do more than anyone else to solve the problems would be shitcanned in the blink of an eye. The stock of any company thought to have a pre-crisis business model would become worthless overnight. The political climate would be nothing at all like the apathetic, take-it-up-the-ass climate we have now.

And it will happen before we're even in the midst of a serious crisis. Intelligent entrepreneurs who stand to make an assload of money on the infrastructure changeover will whip the public into a worried frenzy and create the conditions I described.

You're missing the point, which is that regardless of how much political will you can muster, the rate-limiting step here is the physical requirements of building new infrastructure.

None of this is going to happen for decades. By the time the crisis hits, the technology will be ready.

Try one decade.

Greater emphasis on nuclear is already starting. New plants in the U.S. are being planned for the first time in decades, and the price of uranium yellowcake is ten times what it was 5 years ago.

Most of the plants will have already been built by the time the oil supply reaches critically low levels.

The oil doesn't have to reach "critically low levels." It just has to reach the point where every year is 1973. Irrational and counterproductive human behavior will then cause an economic crash, well before oil actually "runs out."

People tolerate Bush's bullshit because they're apathetic and easily manipulated about issues they don't understand and don't think affects them. 20 dollars for a gallon of gas is something everyone can understand, "We're laying you off" is something everyone can understand, things costing twice as much as they did before is something everyone can understand.

I agree with you that people will get pissed when the economy goes to shit, but I think you have too much faith in people's ability to understand where their own interests lie. The Republican-voting American populace is an object lesson of people who blame precisely the wrong things for their woes, and take precisely the wrong courses to solve them.

Ten years my ass. It takes one day to snap a population out of complacency. An extraordinary day can see entire populations with a completely different outlook than when the sun rose that morning. How many years did it take 9/11 to change the way people thought about the world?

The whole tragicomic point is that the day the public wakes up is precisely the day it becomes absolutely too late to do anything productive.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to rip out old infrastructure and replace it with new. But if the public is faced with the prospect of giving up their modern lifestyles and ammenities, the amount of political will would be enormous. Any politician that couldn't convince people he or she would do more than anyone else to solve the problems would be shitcanned in the blink of an eye. The stock of any company thought to have a pre-crisis business model would become worthless overnight. The political climate would be nothing at all like the apathetic, take-it-up-the-ass climate we have now.

And it will happen before we're even in the midst of a serious crisis. Intelligent entrepreneurs who stand to make an assload of money on the infrastructure changeover will whip the public into a worried frenzy and create the conditions I described.

You're missing the point, which is that regardless of how much political will you can muster, the rate-limiting step here is the physical requirements of building new infrastructure.

None of this is going to happen for decades. By the time the crisis hits, the technology will be ready.

Try one decade.

Not even close. Even at current breakneck consumption, there's enough oil left to last 50 years, which is more than enough time.

Greater emphasis on nuclear is already starting. New plants in the U.S. are being planned for the first time in decades, and the price of uranium yellowcake is ten times what it was 5 years ago.

Most of the plants will have already been built by the time the oil supply reaches critically low levels.

The oil doesn't have to reach "critically low levels." It just has to reach the point where every year is 1973. Irrational and counterproductive human behavior will then cause an economic crash, well before oil actually "runs out."

Never disputed that there would be major economic disruptions. But we won't be forced to live like it's 1901, either.

People tolerate Bush's bullshit because they're apathetic and easily manipulated about issues they don't understand and don't think affects them. 20 dollars for a gallon of gas is something everyone can understand, "We're laying you off" is something everyone can understand, things costing twice as much as they did before is something everyone can understand.

I agree with you that people will get pissed when the economy goes to shit, but I think you have too much faith in people's ability to understand where their own interests lie. The Republican-voting American populace is an object lesson of people who blame precisely the wrong things for their woes, and take precisely the wrong courses to solve them.

The public doesn't understand shit, but a lot of well-positioned people will stand to make a lot of money if the infrastructure changes early. They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to rip out old infrastructure and replace it with new. But if the public is faced with the prospect of giving up their modern lifestyles and ammenities, the amount of political will would be enormous. Any politician that couldn't convince people he or she would do more than anyone else to solve the problems would be shitcanned in the blink of an eye. The stock of any company thought to have a pre-crisis business model would become worthless overnight. The political climate would be nothing at all like the apathetic, take-it-up-the-ass climate we have now.

And it will happen before we're even in the midst of a serious crisis. Intelligent entrepreneurs who stand to make an assload of money on the infrastructure changeover will whip the public into a worried frenzy and create the conditions I described.

You're missing the point, which is that regardless of how much political will you can muster, the rate-limiting step here is the physical requirements of building new infrastructure.

None of this is going to happen for decades. By the time the crisis hits, the technology will be ready.

Try one decade.

Not even close. Even at current breakneck consumption, there's enough oil left to last 50 years, which is more than enough time.

A couple points. Firstly yes, at current consumption. Let's magically get every economy on the planet to freeze where it's at right this very moment, to make the oil last as long as possible. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that on the backside of the oil curve, every barrel of oil pulled out of the ground will cost more to extract than the one before it. And that cost is before the speculative forces of the market get to it. Once the decline is undeniable, it won't be long until skyrocketing prices induce crippling, runaway inflation. That point will hit well before we ever 'run out' of oil.

Greater emphasis on nuclear is already starting. New plants in the U.S. are being planned for the first time in decades, and the price of uranium yellowcake is ten times what it was 5 years ago.

Most of the plants will have already been built by the time the oil supply reaches critically low levels.

The oil doesn't have to reach "critically low levels." It just has to reach the point where every year is 1973. Irrational and counterproductive human behavior will then cause an economic crash, well before oil actually "runs out."

Never disputed that there would be major economic disruptions. But we won't be forced to live like it's 1901, either.

The point were every year is like 1973 will set in a year or two after production begins to decline. Barring some miraculous price-control scheme, which the oil-exporting nations will in no way support, small declines of 3% to 5% will cause costs to spike up by 400% like they did in 1973. And the declines are only expected to get worse by the year. In quite a few countries which have become ultra-reliant on oil, severe measures of austerity will be required.

People tolerate Bush's bullshit because they're apathetic and easily manipulated about issues they don't understand and don't think affects them. 20 dollars for a gallon of gas is something everyone can understand, "We're laying you off" is something everyone can understand, things costing twice as much as they did before is something everyone can understand.

I agree with you that people will get pissed when the economy goes to shit, but I think you have too much faith in people's ability to understand where their own interests lie. The Republican-voting American populace is an object lesson of people who blame precisely the wrong things for their woes, and take precisely the wrong courses to solve them.

The public doesn't understand shit, but a lot of well-positioned people will stand to make a lot of money if the infrastructure changes early. They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

The time for some well-positioned entepreneurs to try to market massive changes in our energy economy was thirty years ago, after it was demonstrated just how badly even a piddling temporary 4% cut could fuck us up the ass. Not to mention the evidence that this would all come back to bite us in the ass again one day soon was there, even thirty years ago. The fruits of such efforts should've been coming online in substantial quantity and quality right now. Then they'd have made a real killing when Peak Oil hit.

Now, no such entrepeneur is going to scream the story from the hilltops. Big Oil is only now finally, publically, admitting it . . . and they're doing it in the most banal non-threatening, non panic-inducing way they can. The only ones screaming the story from the hilltops are industry insiders, environmental science types, bloggers, and advocates of off-the-grid, small, self-sustained communities.

And again, no plucky entrepeneur with a miraculous solution and the heroic derring-do will be able to magically handwave away the dual problem of economies of scale. No miraculous crash-program is going to be able to face down all the headaches any new industrial effort normally faces and the economic upheaval post-Peak Oil is going to bring. Nor will any combination of energy and petroleum alternatives produce enough energy fast enough to enable us to sustain the world's population and growth-rate as it is now.

[Darth Wong]

They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

You can't "interject solutions into the public consciousnes" if they don't want to hear them, retard. The public only hears what it wants to hear. There are already plenty of scientists shouting from the rooftops, to no avail. There are companies trying to develop solutions, and no one cares. No one will care until it costs $500 to fill your gas tank, at which point it will be too late to solve the problem without massive upheaval.

And just saying "Oh well, there will be massive upheaval" is no answer; the objective of social policy is to minimize such tragedy, not to shrug one's shoulders and say "oh well, it will happen, all hail the free market".

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Not even close. Even at current breakneck consumption, there's enough oil left to last 50 years, which is more than enough time.

A couple points. Firstly yes, at current consumption. Let's magically get every economy on the planet to freeze where it's at right this very moment, to make the oil last as long as possible. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that on the backside of the oil curve, every barrel of oil pulled out of the ground will cost more to extract than the one before it. And that cost is before the speculative forces of the market get to it. Once the decline is undeniable, it won't be long until skyrocketing prices induce crippling, runaway inflation. That point will hit well before we ever 'run out' of oil.

It will still take more than just 10 years before that happens. And in the mean time, prices will start going up and up gradually until the demand for solutions begins to dominate political discourse. It will also become more and more obvious that investing in things like nuclear power is the way to go. Will there be widespread economic damage and depression and periods of several years with severe rationing of things we take for granted? Almost certainly. But the technology will be there, and the move to the new infrastructure will already be moving forward by that time. It may take years before things get back to normal, but it won't take decades. The free hand of the market isn't magical, but it will at least do that much.

Never disputed that there would be major economic disruptions. But we won't be forced to live like it's 1901, either.

The point were every year is like 1973 will set in a year or two after production begins to decline. Barring some miraculous price-control scheme, which the oil-exporting nations will in no way support, small declines of 3% to 5% will cause costs to spike up by 400% like they did in 1973. And the declines are only expected to get worse by the year. In quite a few countries which have become ultra-reliant on oil, severe measures of austerity will be required.

See above.

The public doesn't understand shit, but a lot of well-positioned people will stand to make a lot of money if the infrastructure changes early. They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

The time for some well-positioned entepreneurs to try to market massive changes in our energy economy was thirty years ago, after it was demonstrated just how badly even a piddling temporary 4% cut could fuck us up the ass. Not to mention the evidence that this would all come back to bite us in the ass again one day soon was there, even thirty years ago. The fruits of such efforts should've been coming online in substantial quantity and quality right now. Then they'd have made a real killing when Peak Oil hit.

Now, no such entrepeneur is going to scream the story from the hilltops. Big Oil is only now finally, publically, admitting it . . . and they're doing it in the most banal non-threatening, non panic-inducing way they can. The only ones screaming the story from the hilltops are industry insiders, environmental science types, bloggers, and advocates of off-the-grid, small, self-sustained communities.

Those people don't matter. When people with a lot of money realize they can make a lot more money by investing in renewables and nuclear power and then throwing the weight of the lobbyists behind it in the political arena, that's when you get change.

And again, no plucky entrepeneur with a miraculous solution and the heroic derring-do will be able to magically handwave away the dual problem of economies of scale. No miraculous crash-program is going to be able to face down all the headaches any new industrial effort normally faces and the economic upheaval post-Peak Oil is going to bring. Nor will any combination of energy and petroleum alternatives produce enough energy fast enough to enable us to sustain the world's population and growth-rate as it is now.

You're the one talking about miraculous crash programs, not me. I'm talking about strong but gradual shifts in investment trends which eventually turns into a make-or-break political issue.

They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

You can't "interject solutions into the public consciousnes" if they don't want to hear them, retard. The public only hears what it wants to hear. There are already plenty of scientists shouting from the rooftops, to no avail. There are companies trying to develop solutions, and no one cares. No one will care until it costs $500 to fill your gas tank, at which point it will be too late to solve the problem without massive upheaval.

The public isn't listening because $3 a gallon is still not enough to cause more than grousing and grumbling. But I find your contention that no one will care until the prices reaches absurd levels ridiculous. When the price goes high enough that it has a large impact on most peoples' lives, it will create strong market pressures away from gas. The higher the price, the stronger the pressure. And here's something no one has pointed out: as these solutions start to come to fruition, it lowers the demand for gas and reduces the crisis. Major economic upheaval and possibly a few years of severely hard times? Yes. $500 for a tank of gas with no alternative in sight? No.

And just saying "Oh well, there will be massive upheaval" is no answer; the objective of social policy is to minimize such tragedy, not to shrug one's shoulders and say "oh well, it will happen, all hail the free market".

True, but we both know public policy will be sitting there with its head up its ass regardless of what it should do.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Not even close. Even at current breakneck consumption, there's enough oil left to last 50 years, which is more than enough time.

A couple points. Firstly yes, at current consumption. Let's magically get every economy on the planet to freeze where it's at right this very moment, to make the oil last as long as possible. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that on the backside of the oil curve, every barrel of oil pulled out of the ground will cost more to extract than the one before it. And that cost is before the speculative forces of the market get to it. Once the decline is undeniable, it won't be long until skyrocketing prices induce crippling, runaway inflation. That point will hit well before we ever 'run out' of oil.

It will still take more than just 10 years before that happens. And in the mean time, prices will start going up and up gradually until the demand for solutions begins to dominate political discourse. It will also become more and more obvious that investing in things like nuclear power is the way to go. Will there be widespread economic damage and depression and periods of several years with severe rationing of things we take for granted? Almost certainly. But the technology will be there, and the move to the new infrastructure will already be moving forward by that time. It may take years before things get back to normal, but it won't take decades. The free hand of the market isn't magical, but it will at least do that much.

Prices won't go up gradually. The moment the futures market realizes that the decline is, in fact, permanent, prices will spike, dramatically just as they did for the Arab oil embargo. And that was just a piffling cutback in supply that only lasted until the Arabs turned back on the taps. With peak oil, there will be no taps to turn back on, and since we've started out so far behind the curve in terms of oil alternatives, there will be nothing to take up the slack for a minimum of two or three decades under the most optimistic conditions. With spikes in oil prices causing massive price increases across the board, we'll be struggling to make the transition while faced with a potentially hyper-inflationary economy.

The public doesn't understand shit, but a lot of well-positioned people will stand to make a lot of money if the infrastructure changes early. They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

The time for some well-positioned entepreneurs to try to market massive changes in our energy economy was thirty years ago, after it was demonstrated just how badly even a piddling temporary 4% cut could fuck us up the ass. Not to mention the evidence that this would all come back to bite us in the ass again one day soon was there, even thirty years ago. The fruits of such efforts should've been coming online in substantial quantity and quality right now. Then they'd have made a real killing when Peak Oil hit.

Now, no such entrepeneur is going to scream the story from the hilltops. Big Oil is only now finally, publically, admitting it . . . and they're doing it in the most banal non-threatening, non panic-inducing way they can. The only ones screaming the story from the hilltops are industry insiders, environmental science types, bloggers, and advocates of off-the-grid, small, self-sustained communities.

Those people don't matter. When people with a lot of money realize they can make a lot more money by investing in renewables and nuclear power and then throwing the weight of the lobbyists behind it in the political arena, that's when you get change.

Again, how will these people and all their bling magically overcome the dual spectres of inflation and economic contraction? You need a growing economy with low inflation so you actually have something to invest. Hard to do when your billions-on-paper is losing its purchasing power by the day. Sure, government might be able to arbitrarily attempt to force change, but such unprecedented deficit spending in an inflationary period will quickly leave even government insolvent. Especially when the Chinese start trying to get us to pay up all the government debt they've already bought from us.

And again, no plucky entrepeneur with a miraculous solution and the heroic derring-do will be able to magically handwave away the dual problem of economies of scale. No miraculous crash-program is going to be able to face down all the headaches any new industrial effort normally faces and the economic upheaval post-Peak Oil is going to bring. Nor will any combination of energy and petroleum alternatives produce enough energy fast enough to enable us to sustain the world's population and growth-rate as it is now.

You're the one talking about miraculous crash programs, not me. I'm talking about strong but gradual shifts in investment trends which eventually turns into a make-or-break political issue.

Unfortunately, the only action that's going to save our asses are miraculous crash programs. Not even ordninary, non-miraculous crash programs that don't invoke the assistance of mythical god-men will help prevent us from getting into a whole world of hurt. All they'd do is make the coming sodomization hurt less. Unfortunately nobody on any level that matters is even trying to legislate such a program into existence. The time for gradual action passed decades ago. The market, and our society are woefully unprepared for post-peak oil. In fact, the only ones ready for Peak Oil are rich oilmen like George W. Bush, whose Crawford, TX ranch is an environmentalist's wet-dream and exists completely off the grid.

They'll be the ones to shout about the impending crisis from the hilltops, and they'll be the ones to interject solutions into the public consciousness.

You can't "interject solutions into the public consciousnes" if they don't want to hear them, retard. The public only hears what it wants to hear. There are already plenty of scientists shouting from the rooftops, to no avail. There are companies trying to develop solutions, and no one cares. No one will care until it costs $500 to fill your gas tank, at which point it will be too late to solve the problem without massive upheaval.

The public isn't listening because $3 a gallon is still not enough to cause more than grousing and grumbling. But I find your contention that no one will care until the prices reaches absurd levels ridiculous. When the price goes high enough that it has a large impact on most peoples' lives, it will create strong market pressures away from gas. The higher the price, the stronger the pressure. And here's something no one has pointed out: as these solutions start to come to fruition, it lowers the demand for gas and reduces the crisis. Major economic upheaval and possibly a few years of severely hard times? Yes. $500 for a tank of gas with no alternative in sight? No.

Were you even alive for the Arab oil embargo? Gas prices got so ridiculously high and fuel supplies so ridiculously short that people had to wait in fucking line to buy gas. Was there a move away from gas then? Fuck no. People just went to smaller gas-powered cars. At no point did they seriously clamor for alternatives to gasoline.

Hell, recently, when gas prices were racing towards $3.00 per gallon, people were snapping up SUVs almost as fast as the big automakers could build them. They only started shying away when it became clear prices weren't going back to those in the good ol' days. And even then, those who bought SUVs before are still hanging onto them.

And once again, for these solutions to be deployed in anything resembling a timely fashion requires a strong economy where it is possible to produce the investment capital needed to build-up such solutions. It will be hard to do in a contracting, inflationary economy.

And just saying "Oh well, there will be massive upheaval" is no answer; the objective of social policy is to minimize such tragedy, not to shrug one's shoulders and say "oh well, it will happen, all hail the free market".

True, but we both know public policy will be sitting there with its head up its ass regardless of what it should do.

Yes, they will. And right now, what the consumer wants is what is driving the market. Not what the consumer will need twenty years from now. For that reason, we're boned.

[SWPIGWANG]

So let me get this straight: The oil market is inelastic and oil is heavily under-priced given the limited supply.....

I don't know how civilization is going to survive the incoming problems, but I think I have a solution to my life time income....... (who is with me? few things like helping an important market correction while profitting from it)

If all the alarmist (?) things said are true, we are staring at a point of mass delusion here....

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

It will still take more than just 10 years before that happens. And in the mean time, prices will start going up and up gradually until the demand for solutions begins to dominate political discourse. It will also become more and more obvious that investing in things like nuclear power is the way to go. Will there be widespread economic damage and depression and periods of several years with severe rationing of things we take for granted? Almost certainly. But the technology will be there, and the move to the new infrastructure will already be moving forward by that time. It may take years before things get back to normal, but it won't take decades. The free hand of the market isn't magical, but it will at least do that much.

Prices won't go up gradually. The moment the futures market realizes that the decline is, in fact, permanent, prices will spike, dramatically just as they did for the Arab oil embargo. And that was just a piffling cutback in supply that only lasted until the Arabs turned back on the taps. With peak oil, there will be no taps to turn back on, and since we've started out so far behind the curve in terms of oil alternatives, there will be nothing to take up the slack for a minimum of two or three decades under the most optimistic conditions. With spikes in oil prices causing massive price increases across the board, we'll be struggling to make the transition while faced with a potentially hyper-inflationary economy.

Prices don't spike and stay that way. They spike because people over-react and panic. Eventually they settle, even if the taps don't get turned back on. Then a few years later they spike again harder and settle at a higher state, etc. Gradual might not have been exactly the right word, but the sudden and permanent leap in price you're describing just doesn't happen.

Those people don't matter. When people with a lot of money realize they can make a lot more money by investing in renewables and nuclear power and then throwing the weight of the lobbyists behind it in the political arena, that's when you get change.

Again, how will these people and all their bling magically overcome the dual spectres of inflation and economic contraction? You need a growing economy with low inflation so you actually have something to invest. Hard to do when your billions-on-paper is losing its purchasing power by the day. Sure, government might be able to arbitrarily attempt to force change, but such unprecedented deficit spending in an inflationary period will quickly leave even government insolvent. Especially when the Chinese start trying to get us to pay up all the government debt they've already bought from us.

Bush's economic antics will certainly make things more difficult as we have to finally pony up for the Iraq war and "Rapture-ready" spending, but once prices settle after the first spike there will be money for investment. The people who saw it coming and invested early will make an absolute killing and the stock prices of renewable and nuclear companies will spike. Then everyone will be talking about them the way they talked about tech stocks in the late 90's, and renewable / nuclear will be firmly on people's minds. The oil companies will make the biggest profits they've ever seen, of course, but eventually they'll diversify and jump ship before the black gold runs out.

You're the one talking about miraculous crash programs, not me. I'm talking about strong but gradual shifts in investment trends which eventually turns into a make-or-break political issue.

Unfortunately, the only action that's going to save our asses are miraculous crash programs. Not even ordninary, non-miraculous crash programs that don't invoke the assistance of mythical god-men will help prevent us from getting into a whole world of hurt. All they'd do is make the coming sodomization hurt less. Unfortunately nobody on any level that matters is even trying to legislate such a program into existence. The time for gradual action passed decades ago. The market, and our society are woefully unprepared for post-peak oil. In fact, the only ones ready for Peak Oil are rich oilmen like George W. Bush, whose Crawford, TX ranch is an environmentalist's wet-dream and exists completely off the grid.

See above.

The public isn't listening because $3 a gallon is still not enough to cause more than grousing and grumbling. But I find your contention that no one will care until the prices reaches absurd levels ridiculous. When the price goes high enough that it has a large impact on most peoples' lives, it will create strong market pressures away from gas. The higher the price, the stronger the pressure. And here's something no one has pointed out: as these solutions start to come to fruition, it lowers the demand for gas and reduces the crisis. Major economic upheaval and possibly a few years of severely hard times? Yes. $500 for a tank of gas with no alternative in sight? No.

Were you even alive for the Arab oil embargo? Gas prices got so ridiculously high and fuel supplies so ridiculously short that people had to wait in fucking line to buy gas. Was there a move away from gas then? Fuck no. People just went to smaller gas-powered cars. At no point did they seriously clamor for alternatives to gasoline.

There weren't any feasible alternatives then. And there aren't now either, but there will be in the next 10 years. The Tesla roadster is an electric car on the drawing boards that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds flat and go 250 miles with no recharge, to name one.

Hell, recently, when gas prices were racing towards $3.00 per gallon, people were snapping up SUVs almost as fast as the big automakers could build them. They only started shying away when it became clear prices weren't going back to those in the good ol' days. And even then, those who bought SUVs before are still hanging onto them.

When gas prices hit $5.00 a gallon, people won't be buying SUV's anymore. When they hit $10.00, people will be converting their existing cars and SUV's to other fuel sources. Even a force as powerful as consumer stupidity and irrationality has its limits.

And once again, for these solutions to be deployed in anything resembling a timely fashion requires a strong economy where it is possible to produce the investment capital needed to build-up such solutions. It will be hard to do in a contracting, inflationary economy.

You're still assuming that none of this will start to happen until we're already in the middle of a crisis, when in fact it's already happening now.

True, but we both know public policy will be sitting there with its head up its ass regardless of what it should do.

Yes, they will. And right now, what the consumer wants is what is driving the market. Not what the consumer will need twenty years from now. For that reason, we're boned.

I don't know what else to say without sounding like a broken record, other than "let's check back in ten years and see who was right".

[Darth Wong]

By the way ...

Ten years my ass. It takes one day to snap a population out of complacency. An extraordinary day can see entire populations with a completely different outlook than when the sun rose that morning. How many years did it take 9/11 to change the way people thought about the world?

Actually, the problem with the American reaction to 9/11 was that it did not change the way Americans looked at the world. In fact, it hardened their preconceptions of how to deal with it. Even 5 years later, people are still not adapting; they're still thinking the same old way. That's why America is currently trying to fight Islamic extremism the same way they fought communism.

Don't be so confident in the intelligence of the American voter. I lost faith in that a long time ago.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I don't have faith in the intelligence of the American voter. That part of the debate was me getting sidetracked. I have faith in the ability of the rich to keep making money. Individual companies and CEO's may be short sighted, but the super rich of this country are not going to collectively push themselves off the cliff's edge when there's an obvious way out staring them dead in the face.

[aerius]

I don't have faith in the intelligence of the American voter. That part of the debate was me getting sidetracked. I have faith in the ability of the rich to keep making money. Individual companies and CEO's may be short sighted, but the super rich of this country are not going to collectively push themselves off the cliff's edge when there's an obvious way out staring them dead in the face.

When the rich and super rich realize that money's going to be harder to come by, and that their finances may be threatened, they're cashing out and moving to Cancun. If I'm worth a billion bucks and I see that the future of my company's on shaky ground, I'm cashing out all my assets into hard cash and moving to some tropical resort to live out the rest of my life in luxury.

[aerius]

Were you even alive for the Arab oil embargo? Gas prices got so ridiculously high and fuel supplies so ridiculously short that people had to wait in fucking line to buy gas. Was there a move away from gas then? Fuck no. People just went to smaller gas-powered cars. At no point did they seriously clamor for alternatives to gasoline.

There weren't any feasible alternatives then. And there aren't now either, but there will be in the next 10 years. The Tesla roadster is an electric car on the drawing boards that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds flat and go 250 miles with no recharge, to name one.

Tesla roadster's about $100k the last time I checked, make it $50k with volume production. 210 million cars in America and that works out to over $10 trillion. I also worked out in a previous thread that we'd need about 150 new nuke plants to generate the electricity to power all those cars. There's currently 100 or so nuke plants in the US. And the power grid has to be massively upgraded too. It's doable, but only with an emergency crash program starting in the next few years.

[Darth Wong]

Such boundless optimism in the foresight of a power elite that overwhelmingly supports the party of deficit spending.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I don't have faith in the intelligence of the American voter. That part of the debate was me getting sidetracked. I have faith in the ability of the rich to keep making money. Individual companies and CEO's may be short sighted, but the super rich of this country are not going to collectively push themselves off the cliff's edge when there's an obvious way out staring them dead in the face.

When the rich and super rich realize that money's going to be harder to come by, and that their finances may be threatened, they're cashing out and moving to Cancun. If I'm worth a billion bucks and I see that the future of my company's on shaky ground, I'm cashing out all my assets into hard cash and moving to some tropical resort to live out the rest of my life in luxury.

The majority of any company's holdings is their real estate and equipment, which can't be cahsed out so easily. Same for the majority of someone's personal holdings. And if the economy collapses hard, the value of that cash will also plummet.

There weren't any feasible alternatives then. And there aren't now either, but there will be in the next 10 years. The Tesla roadster is an electric car on the drawing boards that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds flat and go 250 miles with no recharge, to name one.

Tesla roadster's about $100k the last time I checked, make it $50k with volume production. 210 million cars in America and that works out to over $10 trillion. I also worked out in a previous thread that we'd need about 150 new nuke plants to generate the electricity to power all those cars. There's currently 100 or so nuke plants in the US. And the power grid has to be massively upgraded too. It's doable, but only with an emergency crash program starting in the next few years.

The Tesla roadster will be followed up by a $30K sedan, according to a recent interview with the creator. In 10 years that sedan will have been on the market for several years, and other companies will undoubtedly be introducing their own models. By that time, the number of electric cars on the road might be 5-10% or so, which doesn't seem like much, but can take some of the pressure off of oil consumption. Nuke plants are already being planned in the U.S. for the first time since the 70's, and I expect that trend to continue. I expect the biggest investors to be oil tycoons looking to continue their dynasties, and they'll have a lot of profit to invest when the price goes way up.

Meanwhile, when the price of oil hits certain points, it will become profitable to retrieve it from new sources. As these new sources come online, the increases in the price of oil will slow. If the new sources are significant enough, the price increases will stop and settle to a new equilibrium. If oil is still the cheapest source of power at this point, the building of new nuclear plants and renewable sources will also slow and possibly stop, but there will still be a lot more than there are today.

Will this all happen fast enough to avoid shortages of a duration and magnitude that's hard to predict? Probably not. But it will happen timely enough that industry won't suddenly grind to a halt, people abandon their cars, and the lights go out.

Based on what? The fact that there have never been businesses which stubbornly ignored warning signs before? Like Ford signing a generous and incredibly short-sighted deal with the UAW in the early 90s in order to put the screws to GM, based on their utter conviction that the SUV boom would last forever? Despite more than a decade of knowing that the Japanese were going to steamroll the American auto industry unless it got its act together? How about Enron? If you're going to put your faith in rich people to be smarter than everyone else just because they're rich, you're relying on a faith-based plan, and faith-based plans are not too fucking reliable.

That's why I added the disclaimer "as a group, not necessarily as individuals". Incompetently managed companies will most definitely ignore all warning signs and plummet to their doom. And you're right in that corporations do have herd mentalities and do exhibit collectively stupid behavior, which is why I predict that they'll be a day late and a buck short when it comes time to take the required steps. But they won't be a proverbial month late and a thousand bucks short. Eventually, even a complete idiot will realize the obvious, and only by grossly overestimating the quickness of economic collapse based on even the most pessimistic of accepted studies can one conclude that there won't be enough time to save us from the doom and gloom scenario.

Every generation has had a doom and gloom scenario that they think will come to pass in the next few decades, and elements of those scenarios do come true, but the world doesn't stop turning, the social order doesn't go inside out, and the super-wealthy don't take their boots off the throats of the middle class. I don't see this as any different.

Note: I didn't see any point to having the same debate in two different threads, so I replied to your post in this one.

[Darth Wong]

That's why I added the disclaimer "as a group, not necessarily as individuals".

You're missing the point. It wasn't just the occasional executive here and there who fucked up. The entire American auto industry has had its fucking head in the sand since the 1980s. It is quite possible for entire industries to suffer from collective groupthink "ignore the problem and it will go away" idiocy.

Every generation has had a doom and gloom scenario that they think will come to pass in the next few decades, and elements of those scenarios do come true, but the world doesn't stop turning, the social order doesn't go inside out, and the super-wealthy don't take their boots off the throats of the middle class. I don't see this as any different.

Of course the rich will still be richer than everyone else if the economy goes to hell. Of course the world will still turn, the social order will remain. How the fuck is that a consolation? Gee Margaret, my standard of living has plummeted but the rich are still doing better than we are, so the social order is intact! Praise!

[Faqa]

210 million cars in America and that works out to over $10 trillion.

Are all these cars NECCESARY? America is not known for being conservative with resources.

What percentage of these cars is trucks, cargo holders, vital? Private ownership of vehicles is hardly a neccesity. So long as public transport is upscaled, and I DO rely on the free market for that. It's the expansion oppurtunity of a lifetime for buses and trains.

I'm not gonna shed tears if little Jimmy takes a bus to school instead of the parents dropping him off. Which is understating the problem, but nontheless. No one's saying we can upkeep our current standard of living. But can we upkeep a more severe, austere existance without reverting to Shep-Solutioned Amish?

Well, the odds on it aren't terrible.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That's why I added the disclaimer "as a group, not necessarily as individuals".

You're missing the point. It wasn't just the occasional executive here and there who fucked up. The entire American auto industry has had its fucking head in the sand since the 1980s. It is quite possible for entire industries to suffer from collective groupthink "ignore the problem and it will go away" idiocy.

True, but it hasn't happened with a problem as obvious and as severe as this one, and it doesn't account for the fact that new nuclear plants and a rise in other alternative solutions are already starting to happen.

Every generation has had a doom and gloom scenario that they think will come to pass in the next few decades, and elements of those scenarios do come true, but the world doesn't stop turning, the social order doesn't go inside out, and the super-wealthy don't take their boots off the throats of the middle class. I don't see this as any different.

Of course the rich will still be richer than everyone else if the economy goes to hell. Of course the world will still turn, the social order will remain. How the fuck is that a consolation? Gee Margaret, my standard of living has plummeted but the rich are still doing better than we are, so the social order is intact! Praise!

That's not what I was talking about.

[Darth Wong]

True, but it hasn't happened with a problem as obvious and as severe as this one, and it doesn't account for the fact that new nuclear plants and a rise in other alternative solutions are already starting to happen.

Yes it does. The American auto industry wasn't literally just sitting on its hands and ignoring the threat from foreign automakers. They were improving their manufacturing quality, redesigning their vehicles, and worrying about their cost structure. They just didn't have enough of a sense of urgency about it to do anything on a timeframe that would actually solve the problem or to put these concerns above more immediate worries. People are expressing the concern that the same situation will recur here.

That's not what I was talking about.

What were you talking about? I agree that some of the people talking about Mad Max post-apocalyptic technological regression are going over the top, but that doesn't mean there won't be changes to the way we live.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I think we're arguing over pretty fine details, here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we both think that there will be a crushing blow to the economy, possibly rivaling or exceeding the Great Depression, but that it is unlikely to take more than a decade to be alleviated.

I was primarily arguing with the people who think that it will turn into a scenario where the highways are empty and so are the airways, and people don't use appliances or electronics unless it's absolutely necessary.

[Darth Wong]

I think we're arguing over pretty fine details, here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we both think that there will be a crushing blow to the economy, possibly rivaling or exceeding the Great Depression, but that it is unlikely to take more than a decade to be alleviated.

I was primarily arguing with the people who think that it will turn into a scenario where the highways are empty and so are the airways, and people don't use appliances or electronics unless it's absolutely necessary.

Ummm, that's what happens when people can't afford to buy gas, which is what would happen if we go through another Great Depression. You do understand that people during the Great Depression had trouble buying food, right? What the fuck makes you think people would still be tooting around in their cars, using electrical appliances with abandon despite much higher electricity costs, and taking vacations in planes?

[Bounty]

Things like running your air conditioning from May to September will become a memory. The "highway freedom" lifestyle will become a memory for all but the wealthy. Even things like electric lights will be used much more sparingly, with people relying far more heavily on natural sunlight for illumination. Appliances will become far more expensive, so people will have far fewer convenience devices in their homes. People will start buying food from local farmers. Bicycles will become a more viable mode of transportation, especially since the now-empty roads will need only one occasional-use lane for motor vehicles and the rest can be reserved for bicycles. People will start using their backyards for growing vegetables instead of competing to see who can grow the flattest and most uniform patch of totally useless grass.

Apart from the lack of appliances, that's already how I - and most of the people I know - live today. Where I can't walk, I ride a bike. Where my bike doesn't take me, I take a bus that runs on biodiesel, or a train that indirectly runs on nuclear power. I have no airconditioning, I do my dishes by hand, I buy most of my vegetables directly from a farm, or get them from my grandparents' yard.

What you've just described is already a viable lifestyle for a great deal of people. If that's what a post-oil collapse society looks like, bring it on I say.

Or am I too optimistic?

[Darth Wong]

It's not really that bad; we're just incredibly spoiled. I remember how my parents would scrimp and save, owning just one car and only having one TV and never leaving lights on unless they were necessary etc., and then I look at how the average thirty-something lives today; it's ridiculous.