Thread: Peak Oil

I just found this little quote a second ago. It sums up peak oil mentality.

We can believe:

(a) the impossible

(b) the contradictory

© the first thing we're told on a new topic

(d) the lies

But we cannot believe that which we are not prepared to believe.

I wouldn't be too worried. We've pulled through 'disasters' before and this will indeed be no exception.

EDIT: If you're reading this a thousand years in the future, where the entire world is in bunkers underground because of a lack of power and they need to escape nuclear winter too, please, please don't quote me as saying "we've pulled through disasters before". It'd be really embarrassing. Thanks.

Alternative fuels need oil to be produced. We're not even close to mass producing alternative energies.

Cecil, the source of all wisdom. (Also recently helped me win an argument about whether earthworms are native to North America or not--yes, they are, in case you're wondering.)

Manifold, I think there are lots, well at least several, things that could cause total economic and social collapse. No sense worrying about them, nothing you can do about it and really can't prepare unless you are willing to devote all your resources to something that may or may not happen and you may or may not survive and you may or may not want to anyway. There are lots of things that could happen to anyone at anytime individually, you never know. I think you should live your life as you planned and hope for the best and try to have fun, don't over-plan yet don't be totally hopeless about the future either. It may happen long after we're all gone. When I was a kid they said there were only about 20 years left of oil and now it's like 30 years later and people go on. Probably something nobody say coming is what will be the end of us all.

Cecil, the source of all wisdom. (Also recently helped me win an argument about whether earthworms are native to North America or not--yes, they are, in case you're wondering.)[/b]

You read The Straight Dope too? +5 coolness points.

Originally Posted by Kaniaz

You read The Straight Dope too? +5 coolness points.
[/b]

It is much better since the invention of the internet and you can search it. Almost anything you wonder about is in there.

Kaniaz said this won't be an exception. How can you be so sure? This is a problem humanity has never faced before. We've faced a lot of problems before that were pretty much the same, and pretty much easy to pull through.

But modern humanity is COMPLETELY dependent on oil. I mean EVERYTHING is dependent on oil. If oil goes, everything else goes.

People keep bringing up alternative fuels...Don't you understand that these take oil to produce and then maintain? All those wild ideas about energy are not ready to be used. We have waited too long to begin incorporating alternative energies.

Bah. I might make a thread in extended discussion.

Kaniaz said this won't be an exception. How can you be so sure? This is a problem humanity has never faced before.[/b]

Sure, just like every other problem? Banging two rocks together was a new challenge we might not have been sure on how to accomplish. Influenza was, once upon a time, the latest and greatest. The Depression and Wall Street Crash were new mountains that needed to be climbed. Smallpox. Cold war. World War II. My point is, civilisation isn't going anywhere for a long while yet. Besides, I don't know what rates high on your disaster-scale, but those count pretty high for me compared to such a thing as "no oil" (you know, the problem easily solved with things like nuclear power, if you read the article).

An example, you ask, of a fuel running out? Well, wahey:

Fact is, the U.S. has been here before and we got through it OK. During the 19th century the chief U.S. fuel source was wood extracted from the country's vast forests, which were logged off at a rate that takes one's breath away even now. As early as the Civil War conservationists warned of a coming "timber famine." The crisis never materialized. Total U.S. wood consumption peaked in 1907 and declined steadily thereafter, yet the economy hummed on. What replaced wood? Why, fossil fuels, mainly coal. (Coal, incidentally, remains relatively plentiful--Hubbert thought peak production might occur in 2150.)[/b]

(From the Straight Dope article linked earlier).

Now I'm not saying that running out of oil isn't a big deal. It is. It's going to be a right pig when it comes around. But is not a disaster looming on the horizon, if you ask me, and it's certainly not worth worrying about. Especially not when, and I quote, "[there is enough uranium] to last hundreds and likely thousands of years.". I'm feeling quite cosy. Gotta think twice when it comes to believing the first thing you read on a topic.

Kaniaz, you're blindly accepting everything that article has to say. It suffers because it's ignoring the fact that nuclear power plants take 10 years to build and a plentiful oil supply to build and maintain. Also, the oil we are depending on now has a very high invested energy return. It takes energy to get energy, and in cheap oil's case, you get A LOT of energy out of investing it. For some alternative sources, you will actually be in the negative.

Conserving energy won't help anything either. Our economy is dependent on growth. You should read about Jevon's paradox (wiki it).

If you start pointing to huge finds in oil, those won't last very long. Remember that find in the Gulf of Mexico? If you do the math which misinformed public never does, it will last maybe 6 months, and that's after they drill something like 6 miles underground which will take years. And in years time, the economy will be much worse.

Do you see?

Oh and where did you get that figure about uranium lasting that long? Sounds like a totally bogus and made up statistic.

Kaniaz, you're blindly accepting everything that article has to say.[/b]

It's true, while I could go out and measure all the oil myself or go to sites that claim to be the "truth" (when in reality they're usually written by psychos where hysteria's reaching fever pitch), I've opted not to. I'm not a scientist or economist, and I don't claim to be, but I think I know a more dependable source when I see one.

Conserving energy won't help anything either.[/b]

If you start pointing to huge finds in oil[/b]

I really never did mention these. Like you say, they won't help, I'm not denying that.

Oh and where did you get that figure about uranium lasting that long? Sounds like a totally bogus and made up statistic.[/b]

It's in the article that I am now going to have linked you three times.

The figure itself was calculated by the late M. King Hubbard, who's referenced in the article, and indeed he came up with the wonderful peak oil bell curve theory. Read about him after reading the article I've given you, then read about his wonderful oil peak theory. What I find particulary striking is this guy first predicted a peak in 1970. He was off by one year: 1971. That can be accounted for by general economic 'fuzziness', new finds and the like. He predicted a world peak in 2000, that probably hasn't happened yet (although some dispute that fact). But this the entire world, so the statistic is going to have a lot more leeway. Bear in mind, anyway, this is a bell curve. Oil won't run out 'overnight'. It will be phased out. It's going to have to be, unless you want to freeze to death.

Either way, after reading those, I think a good time will be had by all, and you needn't have to be such a doomsayer. You will have a future. Well, unless of course, you want to save up some sort of oil crisis piggybank.

Being self employed I make a large effort to put money into IRA accounts. I also have to dump a lot of money into Social security. What ever the Gov. puts in I have to match.

With that said I am scared as hell thinking that all this work and effort will not be here when the time does come.
One good note - Generation after generation has pointed out that the shit is going to hit the fan. Everyone thinks they live on the brink of a collapse.

a bad note - My father who is seventy, pointed that above fact out to me. The bad part is that he and many others his age are saying, "I would not want to see what is going to happen 20 years form now."

I know too many individuals personally that do not or did not have enough money to even buy a flower arrangement for their funeral.
I know that sound odd. But is that the way you want to go out?

Maybe it would not matter once your dead....Maybe I should spend money as fast as I make it . like they did.

uuug. I hate this topic

I'm more worried about the sushi market collapsing in 2040. A world without sushi... oh no.

I'm more worried about the sushi market collapsing in 2040. A world without sushi... oh no.[/b]

God yes. And that is something we cannot solve with nuclear fission.