I'm gonna miss all of you...

[sublime]

This is a long read, but very interesting, and I hope other people, much wiser than me, will read this with a grain - even a handful - of salt, and let us know what they think.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I'm convinced, but don't know what to do about it, or even if I'll do anything at all.

[pdantic]

When I was an engineering senior student in 1978, I had a well-renowned professor (Albert A. Bartlett) who came up with a similar and very convincing argument that the mid-80's were going to be really, really bad. We were going to run out of oil, the economy was going to collapse, and if we moved to nuclear energy to offset the loss of oil as a major energy source the planet would literally overheat by the early '90s...

Needless to say, it didn't happen. It's not to say that we shouldn't be conserving our dwindling amounts of oil, but I think everyone should realize that people ARE working on viable solutions now that will mitigate or eliminate a lot of these fears.

Within the next decade Detroit and Japan will convert most vehicles to hybrid energy sources that are much more efficient. Several of the automakers have already stated that they're going to have SUVs (Ford will have one this year!) powered by hybrid engines very soon. As oil prices continue to creep up, you can be sure that people will start flocking to more and more efficient vehicles. Aircraft are much more efficient than they used to be, home heating systems are more efficient, and even personal computers and monitors use a lot less power than they used to. The building that I work in (completed in 1959) was retrofitted in the mid-90's and is now an EnergyStar-compliant building. It uses less than 20% of the power to heat and cool that it did originally, thanks to new technologies in place (district cooling plants, using heat from lighting to heat the building, window coatings, better insulation). I retrofitted my mid-80's house with new windows last year and have realized a 25% decrease in the amount of natural gas used to heat my home...

As for fossil fuels, we have huge untapped reserves of oil shale and oil tar sands in North America. These simply haven't been economical to develop at this point, but if oil prices keep increasing they will be. Coal bed methane is still widely untapped. There are even huge seabed deposits of methane "ice" under tremendous pressure that we don't know how to tap - but will if the price is right.

And if electricity prices creep up, photoelectric panels will start to sell like hotcakes. Passive and active solar heating systems will become popular again, like they did in the 70's and early 80's when there was concern about energy supplies. Wind farms for power production are becoming commonplace and even more would be built if they become more economically viable.

Last but not least, there's always the plan that Princeton professor Gerard K. O'Neill had back in the 70's - solar power satellites beaming electricty back to the earth. Once again, if energy prices get high enough, other sources become very viable and will be exploited.

I rank this website right up there with all of the sites that were absolutely sure that we'd be living in caves one month after January 1, 2000...

[foldedspace]

I still have faith in technology and American capitalisim. Oil prices will begin to increase at some point when new supplies become harder to obtain, but at that point it will be economically feasible to put money into alternative sources. Any transition to alternative energy sources will take place over several years and while they might not be comfortable, I don't see the social upheaval the author does.

[sublime]

The article says that it will be too late for us to implement alternative means of electricity in such a short span of time, so I wouldn't be sitting comfortable with the thought that if anything goes wrong, somebody will just fix it. From what little I know about Malthus, his ideas of humans acting as a virus shows it face clearly in this article, and holds more sway over me as a result.

As for a discussion, though, I think we're screwed either way. If you don't believe it, you'll be sticking your head in the sand. If you do believe it, you'll be a radical loonie like Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory."

[Talldog]

This article is of the same type that predicted back in the 70s that half the world would die of starvation before the year 2000. pdantic's post contains several excellent points about why this kind of scaremongering is nonsense.

[bdegroodt]

I found the article more believable if you substitute "oil" with "peanut butter." :twisted: