A truth that must be discussed as it will effect all of us.

[MaxM]

Firstly I would like to apologies to the moderator as this is copied from another thread which I replied to earlier. please excuse the repast I'll only do it once.

 

Hi, thanks for your reply.

 

Im now going to give an indepth report on what I have found out in nearly one year of learning this subject. I encourage you to not believe what I say believe in the facts and data which are available on the net. Just google an information point from here and look for data not that corrisponds to what I have said, but information that should corrispond to facts i have pointed out.

 

Peak oil information goes far and deep but still surprisingly little compared to the effect it will have on everyones lives.

Supply and demand work fine with adaquate alternatives. However there is no alternative to oil. There is alternatives to energy but not oil. Oil's energy density, ease of transport, and existing inverstructure, and diversity have no alternatives. Also not only do alternatives need 50 years of inferstructure to implement but massive investment and capital is required and in this day and age it's a bit late and were all a bit poor unless your Singapor, China, Russia, and suadi arabia, whom are all already on that road.

 

The reason were all poor is also because of peak oil. Yes it's that important. Oil is the life blood of an economy. As economy grows, so must oil consumption and when oil becomes expensive specifically over $100 a barrel it sends economys into recession and contracts an economy. If you look up the facts (which your should, and don't believe me read the data) every recession has happened when an oil shock or price jump has occured. And yes I know correlation is not always causation but in this case it is the data supports it. With Saudi Arabia being on the cusp of revoluion who knows what'll happen to oil as Quatar is the largest known oil reserve on the planet and literaly every super power wants it desperately. All money is basically a representation of resources so it helps to think of money as oil especially the dollar which is only backed by oil. oil will never run out just get really expensive and eventurally when it takes more oil (money, energy, investment ect) to get oil as in oil extracted, then it's no longer economically viable to produce. This is a hard scientifict fact ~exponential growth cannot go on forever~ the law of entrophy. If fact growth is bad after a point nothing can grow forever. youtube

Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy.

for a great easy lesson on this.

 

No one in the main stream are willing to admit were gonna have to change our culture and way of life. Prices of oil quadrupled in 10 years. in 20-40 years only the super rich are going to be able to fly in a plane were are in depletion rates of 8% per year globally. This is faster than anyone anticipated. The scarier fact is that oil is not only the lifeblood of economies but populations too. As oil consumtion increased world population has too and it's my personal opinion that globaly more people will die in the next 200 year that ever before or ever again because of the lack of energy to keep as all alive. Maybe we'll all imbrace food forests and permaculture as it only takes 5-10 years to set up and have a limitless supply of food providing the environment can support it but will we be in time. No one knows.

 

After researching this for nearly a year i have learned that good things to do is own your home no mortgage, have a garden, farm animals, and basically get as off grid as much as possible while creating redundencies, own precious metals as savings. Also it's better to be a producer than in the service section and having a diverse skill list is vastly more usefull than a specialised one. I recommed learning these skills also they're very interesting to.

Tree trainig, animal husbandry, permaculture, fishing, repair work, butchery, cooking. These are a few skills that will help. Im fucked because im 23 with no resources to my name hoping to get experience in these areas and marry into a permaculture family hahah. Good Luck to you all and I hope you take this information and inquire into peak oil as it will effect your life dramatically directly and indirectly.

 

p.s inquire with me if you want clarification on a premis or something and i'll help.

 

Hey if us philosophers handle the crisees? better than the matrix users than were gonna have a great chance to 'preach the truth with scientific validity'. aka Philosophy.

 

Doesn't that sound sexy.

 

Peace~

[Alan C.]

As oil becomes more scarce, the price will increase to reflect that scarcity making alternatives financially lucrative. If the State imposes price controls on oil then it will become unprofitable to refine crude and the supply will disappear. The concept of "peak oil" was coined by people who don't understand economics.

 

Poverty results from an absence of productivity; not peak oil.

 

The recession was caused by cheap credit from the Federal Reserve; not the price of oil.

[Duderio]

goodbye

[ribuck]

There was a time when whale oil was used to light lamps. With the growth in lamplighting, it was feared that the whale oil would run out.

 

The whale oil pretty-much ran out, but the world survived peak whale-oil just fine. Today we have more and cheaper lighting than ever.

 

The world will survive peak fossil-oil just fine too.

[MaxM]

Solid points people. Thanks for your input and willingness to discuss your ideas and points of view. Allow me to rebutle.

 

Yes thankyou for pointing out there is a real dooms day feel and historically we have overcome these obsticles in the past with transisional ease whale oil ect. While I completly agree that with the return of real pricing and abolishment of subsides population will normalise. However it is the normalising of population rates that will cause problems. Oil has subsidised the cost of food not government eg fertilizer, cheep energy for irigation, in fact agriculture is second to transportation in fossil fuel use and as oil get more expensive food will get more expensive. Note that oil is taxed in virtually all oil importing countries not subsidised and has still increased 4 X in the last decade.

 

I am awear of peak everything thanks for adding it in. In fact at current rates of uranium use the data says we will run out in 50 years and also note that the process of unranium enrichment is heavily industrial and requires massive amounts of fossil fuels in the lifespan of a nuke plant.

 

In regards to oil activists not understanding economics. With the premis. "poverty is created with the absence of pruductivity not peak oil." This claim is false and misleading. Im sorry I failed to define peak oil in my previous post let me clarify. Peak oil is not a theory. It is a fact. Shit runs out when there is no replacement and that replacement can't be created. We can all understand that. Peak oil tries to analise the data and understand what the outcomes of this crisis are and it is a massive quandry for all of us. The problem with your earlier premis is that productivity and oil/fossile fuels are so imbedded it could be argued that they are one in the same in todays modern world. The dollar is literally a representation of oil. Oil is what gives value to the dollar without Quatar the dollar would be paper. How is one most productive. By producing things. What is a fundamental requirement for production of anything in the universe. Energy. Enegy is required fundamentaly in the act of transportation. To fail to notice the link between oil and productivity is not uncommon because we set up society to make it invisible that is the only explenation that can explain why we "as a people" have not acknoledged this crisis yet.

 

It is important to realise that when looking in the past and using historical human experiences to changing energy resources eg sun, wood, whale oil and then fossil fuels to determin what will happen in the future not going to give the right answers in this case. The reason for this is because the transision of energy will be one we as a human race have never gone through before. Throught out all of humans time on the planet we have to from a less enegy intense resouce to a greater energy resource untill now. Now we will go from a greater energy resource to a lesser one and experience an energy backwarddation. The outcomes of that are unknown.

 

I know gas, heavy oils, coal and even nuclear will be around for some time yet but oil is essential to us in transportation and industry in particular and the existing wells are drying up.

 

Im sure we'd all go back to sailing ships and live how we once did but it is the lack of knowledge and preparation that is very worrying.

[Duderio]

goodbye

[Naer]

I'm going green. bike and public transportation only. I live in the city, so I have that luxury 

[LovePrevails]

I see a validity in the criticism of free markets for peak oil, isn't it basically saying we can enjoy the privelage  of cheap prices now so our children will have to pay several times as much cash for the cheap things that we take for granted.

[MrCapitalism]

It's saying entrepeneurs aren't willing to delay present income in the expectation of greater profits sometime in the future.

[ribuck]

I see a validity in the criticism of free markets for peak oil, isn't it basically saying we can enjoy the privelage  of cheap prices now so our children will have to pay several times as much cash for the cheap things that we take for granted.

 

Cheap energy now enables us to improve technology so that our children will pay even less for the things that we take for granted.

 

The imposition of massive debt onto our children might break them. High energy prices will not.

[MaxM]

Thanks for the input Thomas and others.

 

Ingnorince really is bliss and thinking about these things is bloody depressing. I think the healthy and sane thing to do is to be informed and go on living in the now and not in the future and adapting to whatever may come our way, when I first find out I totally freaked, which was probably the fault of the media hype in the scene but I guess in my short live span i'v realised everything must be done in small steps not big leaps. Sorry for metaphors on a philisophy site haha. So I'm going to go on with living life normally in my current location and make hobbies out of things that are self investments in the direction I want to go in. things like gardening, tree training and fishing ect.

[tasmlab]

Chris Mortenson's 'Crash Course' is very entertaining.  Sort of a powerpoint movie about peak energy, government debt and fiat currency and something else.  Particularly interesting is his application of exponential growth to these issues.  You'll be assured of your certain death by the end of the video.

 

http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

 

Life without oil does seem pretty desperate if you think about how we grow food and distribute every single consumer product under the sun, not to mention the glut of plastic products we depend on.  I think every grocery my family consumes now comes in a ziploc or tupperware.

 

I don't know if peak oil is upon us.  "They" have been promising it for forty years.  I also do a little work in the industry and they are a pretty crafty and inventive bunch.

 

Besides having the self-sufficient cabin in the woods, I *think* another viable strategy is too keep your income in top fifth percentile or so.  Even in a dust-bowl depression the wealthier manage to get their hands on the limited goods.  There's probably a case to be made to make connections in the government.

[FiddlertheLeper]

I can say nothing with surety.  But with how visible and espoused peak oil and the energy crisis are, i find it hard to believe that not one of 7 billion? (or is it more now?) people have been able to, or will be able to, find an alternative means for energy able to supplant oil and other modern energy.  That does not mean the switch from a fossil fuel based society to something else will be smooth or easy.  But, i would ask those who believe it will be the end of the modern world, how many previous crisis have been billed as such during there times? I don't believe a problem such as this one can be insolvable, only that current power structures have invested so heavily in the industry's surrounding fossil fuels, that it will require a very specific set of circumstances before any solution is allowed to be adopted and applied.  As long as oil is more profitable in the short run, it remains in the interest of those in power to keep the world dependent upon it.  When either the oil supply dwindles to the point where extraction and refinement of the necessary amount to continue our oil based economy is of greater cost than profit, when prices raise to high for any but the rich to access it, or price fixing is introduced as the standard, it will be amazing how quickly new solutions begin to show up.  The other possibilities i see, are the discovery of an easily controllable supply of energy that is more efficient in its gathering is found, one that allows the oil based corporations and governments to both increase profits without losing control of the energy market comes along, the same kind of shift will be seen.  The other remaining possibility i see, which in truth is not really possible (at least not in any way i am willing to endorse) is the removal of those in control who benefit from the oil based economy.  I am no energy expert, nor am i a scientist, i cannot speak to the efficiency or availability of alternative energy sources, nor any negative impact's their adoption might pose, but with the way technology and science have progressed in the past, i find it hard to believe that the same kind of improvements in the energy industry are impossible.  This has all been a very long winded way of saying i don't believe Peak oil to be anywhere near the catastrophe it is often painted as, but merely a tool for both price gouging as well as pushing inefficient and expensive alternatives to those who have been convinced of the severity of the danger.  In other words, while i do not in any way deny the limited supply of oil, nor the near unlimited demand for oil.  I do deny that oil is the only source of energy which could run our world and economy.  My personal believe is that the alternative energy solutions that have been found or proposed so far, suffer (in the eyes of our leaders) from one of two problems.  Either economic inefficiency or they are too difficult to maintain strict control over.  So for as long as oil provides a means of control, and a profit, it will remain, when these two things begin to change in any way the leaders cannot control or stop, we will quickly see alternative energy sources i believe.  Because while the transition from an oil based economy to an economy not dependent on oil will be a staggeringly costly endeavor, attempting to keep the economy dependent on a resource that is no longer available, or for which the price of extraction, refinement, and marketing far exceeds the price the end users are willing to pay for the benefits it provides would be an even more costly and devastating choice.   

 

Again everything i have written here is about as far from expert opinion as can be imagined.  So take it all with a grain of salt.  I just don't think that those who benefit from oil are unaware of this problem, nor are they likely to simply choose to continue running towards the edge of the metaphorical cliff without some plan of action for what they will do at or before that fateful last step. 

[tasmlab]

I just don't think that those who benefit from oil are unaware of this problem, nor are they likely to simply choose to continue running towards the edge of the metaphorical cliff without some plan of action for what they will do at or before that fateful last step. 

 

A cold comfort may be that the edge of the cliff or the fateful last step won't just happen in a day.  It may be a slow slide for 200 years a gradually increasing scarcity.  Or oil exploration and extraction technology just stretches out oil's viability way longer than we can imagine.

 

Another separate point is to look at how quickly other infrastructures can be built.  Global cell phone infrastructure has been deployed in a few decades and is upgraded on a cycle of years.

[FiddlertheLeper]

A cold comfort may be that the edge of the cliff or the fateful last step won't just happen in a day.  It may be a slow slide for 200 years a gradually increasing scarcity.  Or oil exploration and extraction technology just stretches out oil's viability way longer than we can imagine.

 

Another separate point is to look at how quickly other infrastructures can be built.  Global cell phone infrastructure has been deployed in a few decades and is upgraded on a cycle of years.

I agree, it's not a really comforting thought.  But i do think it's pretty reality based.  If there's anyone who disagrees (and i hope there is) who can help inject some greater reality, or logic into my admittedly non-expert ramblings on the issue i would appreciate it.Now i do think this is a major issue, just not for the same reasons as some here have said.  I don't think this is a major issue because of the possible effects of the crisis for the end user, i think it's a major issue because i believe oil (energy) is one of the main ways governments and corporations maintain their control over the populations of the world.  It's this believe that leads me to the proposition that they will revolutionize the energy market when they have to rather than lose control by attempting to keep the world on an oil based market past it's economic efficiency. I think what you said about how quickly Infrastructure can be built or updated when the people at the top of the pyramid decide to do so, is a key thing to keep in mind when looking at the energy situation.  This is exactly the kind of change i foresee in the energy markets once the metaphorical cliff edge looms too close. Granted i think switching from oil to an alternative energy source is going to be a much larger change in basic infrastructure than almost anything we have seen in the past, the industrial revolution may be the closest change in infrastructure. (at least that i can think of off the top of my head) I just don't see it as an insurmountable problem. Though this is all dependent on the idea that the general state of things remains the same, if the world population declines greatly, or Statism is shrugged off, or many other possible changes in the basic social/economical environment of society would change the likely outcomes greatly.  But to depend on this kind of change puts the cart before the horse in my opinion.  I believe that for the most part, we'll see only shallow changes when the energy market finally revolutionizes, though on this point i hope to be proven wrong.