Peak Oil

[Meatpie]

World oil production has entered terminal decline. Asian countries like China are experiencing a temporary economic boom, creating their own oil-based economies.

But this will only last for a few more years.

Depletion of oil will push inflation and that in turn will initiate a chain reaction of the various feedback mechanisms in the global market that will lead to a collapse of global industrial civilization, potentially leading to large population declines within a short period.

Smaller nations will be ripped apart first - social unrest and war likely.

 

[markfive]

Maybe. It's a possible scenario. But it's also possible that higher prices will bring more oil from hard-to-reach areas to market, and make alternative energy sources more competitive.

 

[Meatpie]

Alternative energy all sounds very nice but it's not happening. People here still prefer cars over biking even for short distances.

 

[Snerdguy]

I want to convert my car to run on wood, a renewable energy source. But, I haven't found a gasifier small enough to fit in my glove box.

 

[Tecpatl]

Blue State wind turbines. I don't know if it's a sign of the future or a sign of the apocalypse. Last month I drove through northern Indiana. Just two years ago it was empty plains. Just farms. Now? Hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines. With hundreds and hundreds more to go up in the next year. For those from outside the US this is northern INDIANA not granola-eating, tree-hugging northern California! This is where everybody would just as soon sleep with their gun as their sister-in-law and they believe the world is only 6,000 years old and Adam and Eve ate dinosaur for Sunday Dinner! And it's full of fucking wind turbines!!!!!

Either some conservative business with a butt load of money is thinking alternative energy is gonna get competitive real soon, or Jesus is coming back next week and send me to hell. And I don't know which!!!???

Oh, and apologies to the three or four actual rational people who live in Kokomo or Rensselaer.

 

[Snerdguy]

Many of the wind farms are being constructed because power companies are required to use renewable resources to provide ten percent of their power. About twenty miles north of where I live in Ohio, a solar energy farm was built two years ago. It converts the sunlight falling on many acres of what was once farmland into electricity. Ohio is hardly what you would call a sunshine state. Word has it that another one is being planned to be built near the existing one. I don't see how they can sell enough energy to be profitable.