The inexorable march of Oil prices: $145/bbl +.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

For reference, by the way, the GDP cost of energy in the US circa 1973 was around 4%. It is now around 14%.

No doubt. Society has proved more resilient than many people once believed, for instance the German survival in WW1, but the damage gets to be.. Extensive, at a social and political level, as that example also equally demonstrates. I wonder when we'll have our first "potato winter"?

[Darmalus]

We're going to see most of the developing world slip into warlordism before we have military dictatorships in Western Europe and America, however.

I thought they were already there, and just putting on the pretense of bureaucracy? See: Zimbabwe.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No doubt. Society has proved more resilient than many people once believed, for instance the German survival in WW1, but the damage gets to be.. Extensive, at a social and political level, as that example also equally demonstrates. I wonder when we'll have our first "potato winter"?

I don't know about crops, but for the UK and some of the rest of Western Europe, one harsh winter now could cause serious heating issues. The same can also be applied to the US who's now competing for the 15 megatonnes of extra LNG capacity ExxonMobil and Qatar are bringing to the market. The UK will get first pick, so long as they pay a premium (the lack of long term storage outside the Isle of Grain and the recent news that the Norwegians do not see the UK market as a priority, no matter the cost, is alarming. However, one wonders if their continental Europe pipelines may suffer an "accident" in the near future should they play hardball. Then they'd have no choice but to use the Interconnector for us).

I also hear stories of many who can still afford to move, bugging out of the likes of New England because of the potential heating oil costs they will face this winter.

[Raptor]

Aren't we going to constantly to try and react to this situation now, and never really get to grips with it. With OPEC unable to meet demand and expected future demand, western goverments expect maybe Russia and the US as they have greater domestic supplies, are going to keep playing catch up. With us in the U.K. warned with recession ahead, further and constant fuel price rises, are either going to keep us getting out or keep economic growth severley stunted. Is this going to happen to most of Europe and the US. While social collpase here is unlikley, I was thinking about oil rich nations. Mentioned on here, their using more oil domestically and exporting less. As less oil is sold, will the high price keep things pretty much the same, or cause them problems. Just thinking of major economic problems added to Saudi and Iran may not be pleasant. Or will they be laughing as we had money over fist. Our problem is how long is it going to take for us to switch to alertnatives (nuclear, the greens can shove wind and solar up their arse), and longer we hold off, as the goverment is shit scared of the green lobby and puts out stupid statements( electric cars Brown? powered off a national grid of wind I suppose? Twat)and buy time we're running out of is just going to but us deeper in trouble.

[Surlethe]

I agree. It's a solution in the sense that it preserves the human race and civilization and makes the problem go away, but it's not a humane solution. Right now, any decent leader recognizes that we are almost past the prevention stage and entering the mitigation stage: how can we use government resources to preserve minimum living standards and work toward a workable solution? If we put off leadership

Survival of the fittest, I do believe. We used to think that only happened to Third World shitholes.

We here in the US have never been under that impression. Seriously, though, I fully expect that some sort of Darwinian economic selection process will be in place sometime in the next decade, at least in the US. Our right wing won't let it be any other way.

The kicker is that if we'd been proactive about it, triage and mitigation wouldn't be problems and we'd be living happily. But now that we are entering the oil contraction, keeping the solution humane will probably prolong the depression: money spent on keeping the vast impoverished masses alive and useful to society is money not invested into the infrastructure reconstruction.

These questions and more were looked at with rigour in the '70s. If we hadn't found Prudhoe Bay or the North Sea, we'd likely have addressed all these issues long ago and led more frugal lives, rather than spend our inheritance on toys and the stock market or property, which breathed some life into the doomed economic model we have now.

I don't think you need to turn your back entirely on the growth model. It is possible to have a stock market, property, capital investment, etc., and still maintain some level of frugality and prepare for the future. France seems to have done it reasonably well, for example. I don't see any reason to not incorporate the best aspects of controlled economies and free-market ones.

This problem has always been totally avoidable. It's actually a piece of piss to solve, the problem was it would mean less riches and materialism in the world and more focus on sustainability and steady state economies, which the current growth model abhors. Sorry guys, but we need to fuck the people and planet over to make our Xmas bonuses.

You wouldn't even have to give up growth; you'd simply have to temper it with foresight and proactive policies.

This is probably apropos:

• Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.
  
  All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.
  
  The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'
  
  The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.
  
  Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen, and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold, and snow began to fall.
  
  The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do? Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me some food from that larder of yours!'
  
  The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.
  
  It is wise to worry about tomorrow today.

Damn shame, isn't it? That's the problem with having an effective plutocracy.

That said, there have been some instances of genius. Chirac started a plan to electrify ALL the SNCF by 2026 and make intercity and intracity connections via rail too. This system is well on its way and is definitely helped by the French love for nuclear, something the rest of the chickenshit OECD nations have avoided since '86, if not before.

God, I wish we could be like France. I would happily take surrendering to any passersby for their electrified rail network and nuclear reliance.

[Alferd Packer]

I also hear stories of many who can still afford to move, bugging out of the likes of New England because of the potential heating oil costs they will face this winter.

I could see this being the case. My dad's already fretting about the coming winter; he's been spending at least some time every weekend since March chopping wood and getting it stowed away in the garage. He's rather unique, though, in that he can adequately heat 75% of his house from a single woodburning fireplace. Last winter, which was cold but not especially so, he burned 650 gallons of oil and a cord of wood to heat his house. At $4.50 per gallon, assuming the same usage, he'll be spending $3000 to heat his house this winter. Small wonder he's chopping wood now.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Seems like the crude is tumbling like a rock atm. Interesting to see how far that goes. If it drops below 130 $, color me surprised.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's not breached the 40 DMA yet, and these kinds of swings are to be expected of around 10% either way. That would be the froth Soros and others refer to when they talk speculation bubbles.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I also hear stories of many who can still afford to move, bugging out of the likes of New England because of the potential heating oil costs they will face this winter.

I could see this being the case. My dad's already fretting about the coming winter; he's been spending at least some time every weekend since March chopping wood and getting it stowed away in the garage. He's rather unique, though, in that he can adequately heat 75% of his house from a single woodburning fireplace. Last winter, which was cold but not especially so, he burned 650 gallons of oil and a cord of wood to heat his house. At $4.50 per gallon, assuming the same usage, he'll be spending $3000 to heat his house this winter. Small wonder he's chopping wood now.

How much more than $3,000 does an electric heating system really cost?

I don't know since they've simply been standard at every apartment and house I've ever lived in, and oil seems to be to be some sort of wildly primitive thing out of the 1950s or even earlier.

[Alferd Packer]

How much more than $3,000 does an electric heating system really cost?

I don't know since they've simply been standard at every apartment and house I've ever lived in, and oil seems to be to be some sort of wildly primitive thing out of the 1950s or even earlier.

Funny you should bring that up; the house was originally built with electric(boogie-woogie-woogie) baseboard heating. The first winter in the house (this was in 1978, before I was born), their December electric bill was $600. So what would that be, thirty years later? $900 per month? $1000? Regardless, my parents installed other sources of heating. When I was growing up, we used a coal stove to heat the house in the winter, because good coal is available in Northeastern NJ for about $150 per ton, and two tons would more than last us the winter.

Eventually, the soot and ash and general ickiness of the coal stove, coupled with cheap oil of the 1990s, cause them to switch from electric baseboards and a coal stove to an oil furnace and a coal stove. Eventually, the coal stove was hauled away. Now my dad's griping that he should've stuck with the electric baseboards, but at least he has a solid wordburning fireplace with an electric fan installed, which exchanges the hot air near the stove for the cold air of the house.

With my help (the poor guy's 57 and has a bum back), he expects to have around 4-5 cords of properly seasoned wood for the winter. It's not as good as a pellet stove, but it should be enough to keep the oil bill somewhat sane. After all, deadfall is free, as long as you're the one doing the cutting/splitting.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You should probably look into a heat pump if you have the ability to afford it--they're pricey, but one unit can completely replace A/C, heating, and your hot water tank, and the electrical costs for the unit are extremely low since it garners most of its energy from the ground itself.

[Alferd Packer]

You should probably look into a heat pump if you have the ability to afford it--they're pricey, but one unit can completely replace A/C, heating, and your hot water tank, and the electrical costs for the unit are extremely low since it garners most of its energy from the ground itself.

I've heard that those cost upward of 100 grand? Also, my dad's house is built directly on the bedrock. Would that cause problems for drilling or whatever they have to do?

I've told him several times that his best bet is to get the house properly insulated and sealed up. Lord knows what they put in the walls 30 years ago, and at what depth. But, that's work that he'd need to hire someone to do, and while it would save him money in the long term, it's somewhat difficult to justify the expense now, in these tough economic times.

[aerius]

Assuming that electricity costs around 10 cents/kWh, you're slightly better off going to an electric heating system given the current cost of heating oil. A good furnace is around 90% efficient and electric heating is effectively 100%, so once you know how many gallons of fuel you're burning through in a winter you can look up the energy content of heating oil and convert it to the equivalent in electricity and arrive at the price for the latter.