Living Car Free - Ok, the oils gone so you CAN'T use a car..now what?

I recall about 30% of the input energy is available for actual work.

Which would put it on par with an internal combustion engine... BEFORE you take into account all the energy expended in pumping, processing, and transportation of the gasoline...

The only difference, again, being that we didn't have to figure out a way to produce the 70% (or more) of energy that we just wasted. :(

Right--this is the practical or functional definition. Since we didn't have to do much work to get the oil, it is for all practical purposes "free" energy, or as I like to call it, magic juice.Well, if ya wanna go into energy required to access other energy, fission is pretty much the hands down winner. 10000+ times the energy per mass that oil has. That being said, availability is also of importance. Even though electricity from wind may have an EROEI of ~20:1 compared to ~3:1 for oil, we can't choose when the wind blows. This is why we're seeing a lot of interest in hydrogen, since it would allow for storage and transmission of energy from variable renewables w/o huge grid connections and storage like pumped hydro/etc if the infrastructure is present. We're at the point where people don't know what the next big thing will be, since it depends on how well different tech performs in different ways. What's the point in investing in hydrogen infrastructure if Tesla motors can build a four door sedan w/ a pack that'll last ~200-300k miles for $40k?

Which would put it on par with an internal combustion engine... BEFORE you take into account all the energy expended in pumping, processing, and transportation of the gasoline...I'm pretty sure the average auto is only ~15% efficient well to wheels, and this is boosted by having engines pushing around huge SUVs, so the only way auto efficiency has been this high is because we consume even more than we need to increase the efficiency of "use". Although, some would argue that using a 8 person vehicle to transport one person 90+% of the time isn't very efficient. ;)

That being said, Hydrogen is only decent w/ wind energy AFAIK.

Well, if ya wanna go into energy required to access other energy, fission is pretty much the hands down winner. 10000+ times the energy per mass that oil has. That being said, availability is also of importance. Even though electricity from wind may have an EROEI of ~20:1 compared to ~3:1 for oil, we can't choose when the wind blows. This is why we're seeing a lot of interest in hydrogen, since it would allow for storage and transmission of energy from variable renewables w/o huge grid connections and storage like pumped hydro/etc if the infrastructure is present. We're at the point where people don't know what the next big thing will be, since it depends on how well different tech performs in different ways. What's the point in investing in hydrogen infrastructure if Tesla motors can build a four door sedan w/ a pack that'll last ~200-300k miles for $40k?


There are many possibilities on the horizon. The most efficient or cleanest technology won't necessarily be the one chosen. In the early 20th century, electric cars, turbines and steam cars were just as possible as ICE cars. ICEs weren't chosen because they were the best technology, but because they were backed by the smartest business models.

There are many possibilities on the horizon. The most efficient or cleanest technology won't necessarily be the one chosen. In the early 20th century, electric cars, turbines and steam cars were just as possible as ICE cars. ICEs weren't chosen because they were the best technology, but because they were backed by the smartest business models.

The most efficient or least crappy technology won't necessarily be the one chosen. In the late 20th century, Macs, Unix variants, and OS2 were just as possible as MS boxes. MS boxes weren't chosen because they were the best technology, but because they were backed by the smartest business models.

Just thought I'd add another example.

Think about this - how long does it take to make a new or even a fringe technology palatable for the masses? For example, take the hybrid car. It was initially developed in 1901 by Ferdinand Porsche and was called a *smirk* Mixte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_electric_hybrid_vehicle) and now, in 2007, we have a Camry, a Prius, and some other hybrids that occupy only a small percentage of sales in the US (I keep this scope in the US for clarity's sake). Clinton developed a program to push this vehicle in 1993 and it just now begins to make ripples in teh market, a difference of when gas was $0.96 a gallon to now at $3.00 a gallon.

Solar, wind, tidal power is in its infancy. We have yet to market this in any serious industrial way. My folks hometown in West Texas has a windmill farm. No real change in that town since the military base dried up and went away. How long to take a focused build-out to make that the primary source of power, anyone?

So, realistically speaking, it would take thirty years (Assuming a time frame that starts with inital development of mass marketing to a salable product) to mature a technology to introduce it into consumer living. So, we go back to gas that costs too much, and cars that need too much. Any one see An Inconvienent Truth? We produce the lowest gas-mileage vehicles anywhere. China does better than we do. Sad, but true.

How would I deal? I read a guy in So. Cal. grows his family's food on a 1/4 acre land lot. His back yard. I tried a small version here in So. Texas, and I had corn, squash, and beans all summer long (they combine into a protein when eaten together, like beans and rice do) anc chickens do well here. My old pit bull could tow a few hundred pounds easily, so a single dog provides both security and burden duty. My little chihuahuas kept the vermin out of my patch, too. They all eat table food from dinner - and they are all healthy animals.

I can scavenge a trailer to get food from the farmer's market down the road. I can pedicab downtown for cash or barter if needed. Or trade food and supplies for hauling, as was mentioned earlier. I can cook outside (world class BBQer here) and I know how to keep chicken. My cousin's a FFA grad - he's got several edible pigs and breeding stock out in the next county - trading is good, bacon for chicken breast.... LOL.

The water table is below, and has more water than all the surface lakes in Texas. Well water is good. Who needs electricity unless to stay online. TV sucks....

I think I'd be ok. BTW - I am a teacher, I have skills to barter for food. EDIT: oh, yeah. I know how to brew real alcohol. I got skills, baby... LOL

ICEs weren't chosen because they were the best technology, but because they were backed by the smartest business models.The problem with the smartest long-term business models is they also tend to be the worst in that they insure there is a market for decades if not centuries, even if they do more harm than good at some point. I don't believe in socialism, but I do think we need to take profit out of the picture as a source of social control in order to ease or eliminate most of the problems we see now.

I'd be doubly screwed as I am a PC Tech and as the city went dark from a lack of power there wouldn't be a need for the fixer of broke PCs. As for food. some things would get more expensive. If through some miracle I could keep my roof over my head and my mortgage out of default. I'd co-ordinate with my neighbors to produce food in a series of back door gardens to offset food expenses..

I'd go live in a van down by the river. :D

Good point. Let's then say that we want to move said fertilizer. How many bikeloads will it take to fertilize this orchard? How many people will pull these trailers for say a nice close (by today's standards) 200 miles from plant to point of use for some apples in payment? The energy expended on pulling the trailers will be greater than payment received.


Well, you might do it that way if you were an idiot. If you were a good farmer, you'd start thinking of your farm as an ecobiological system. You'd use plants Nitrogen-fixing legumes) and animals (manure and other "wastes") to fertilize the crops and deal with pests.

The science of organic farming is MUCH more advanced than the science of ammonia fertilizer and monoculture. Yields per acre are higher with organic methods, and the quality of the food is better too. Organic farming is more labor intensive, and it's technologically difficult, so farmers need more education to practice it. But with the billions of people in the world who are suffering idly in slums, that is not such a bad ting.

Think positively.
There would then be a need for cycle powered PC's.
That combines both of your skills.

Think opportunity.
CE

That totally sums up my opinion. To paraphrase KS Robinson, "The problems we face are so terrible that we can't afford the luxury of pessimism."

I think there's a reasonable chance that our species and biosphere will be destroyed by our own bad conduct. But, there is an equally reasonable chance that we'll rise to the occasion and adopt sensible and sustainable behaviors. Until the last fish is fried, it's just stupid to give up hope and do nothing.

Think positively.
There would then be a need for cycle powered PC's.
That combines both of your skills.

Think opportunity.

CE

:roflmao: That is definitely the optimistic view! Some how I think if I had to pedal to produce enough power to surf the net...I wouldn't:p I can think of better things to put my energies into...like food production.

Aaron:)

The science of organic farming is MUCH more advanced than the science of ammonia fertilizer and monoculture. Yields per acre are higher with organic methods, and the quality of the food is better too. Organic farming is more labor intensive, and it's technologically difficult, so farmers need more education to practice it. But with the billions of people in the world who are suffering idly in slums, that is not such a bad ting.

I'm not sure about the overall yield of organic vs. industrial farming. I think overall they're about the same given the amount of work input, but in general organic farmers can get higher yields because their farms tend to be smaller, so the amount of work is more concentrated. Also, organic farming is still dependent on tractors and the whole industrial distribution system (at least, large-scale organic farming is).

You should look up Permaculture.

Essentially, it deals with cultivating ecosystems where most of the plants are oriented either towards meeting human needs or improving the health of the ecosystem. In a permaculture system, all the annuals are replaced with perennials, so once the system is up and running, there's only maintenance and harvest to deal with. For example, hazelnuts are nutritionally equivalent to soybeans, and they produce similar amounts of oil. Chestnuts are a suitable replacement for corn. An acre of apples can produce 25% more ethanol than an acre of corn, plus with the apples you can intercrop other foods between the trees. However, like organic farming, permaculture takes some training and knowledge. The idea behind permaculture is "thoughtful and protracted observation rather than thoughtless and protracted labor."

I finished up my own permaculture design course a month ago, and my outlook on the future has been vastly altered now that I understand better what is achievable. Often, when I see photos or video of starving children with distended stomachs and flies covering their faces, the ground around them is bare, open soil, and it makes me crazy to think someone could do a small permaculture planting in that space (or, better yet, teach those people how to plant it themselves) and start to get those people from being dependent on charity.

To contribute to the thread: how would I deal? I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about this very subject. I have a stack of books taller than me on topics such as gardening, nutrition, blacksmithing (a great use for the metal in your car if the oil were to disappear overnight), food preservation, shoe making, weaving, ... I'd start a library, with the condition that anyone who borrows a book must use the knowledge they get from it to contribute to the good of the entire community and not just himself or his immediate family. I'd help everyone convert their yard to permaculture-based food production using plants started in my own yard (my backyard looks like a plant nursery in preparation for "permaculturing" my yard next spring), and try to get the community to come together. I'm lucky in this regard; on the whole, I think the people in my town would rather raise a barn than burn it down.

Ever notice that all "solutions" to the oil problem always include a
"car" of some kind powered by some sort of wonder fuel?

As long as the mindset is still focused on the "car" nothing new
or interesting will happen to really resolve the issue of transporting
masses of people & goods from place to place in a planet friendly
way.

It's like they say.......
"Ya can't expect different results when Ya keep doing the same things."

Big Oil will just keep on keep'en on.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

A 'car' is Ok so long as it's an appropriate 'car'. Electric tech is being explored here in NZ because we get the bulk of our electricity from renewable energy sources (Hydro, Geothermal, Wind) and serious research is going into electricity generation via the tides and wave action. I don't think most folk who own a humungous SUV actually need such a vehicle. And please if you do regularly have to haul tonnes of stuff up the side of a mountain I'm not trying to get at you. I'm thinking of my neighbour who has an aged rough running example that seems to be used exclusively to go down to the local fish and chip shop, - which is only a short bike ride away in case you're wondering.

I'd loooooove to own one of these :D For someone like myself and my elderly Mum who have mobility issues this wee electric car would be lovely.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6696/smoothsterxy2.jpg

http://www.nevportal.com/members/premier_member.php?url=www.berlinecart.com&check_id=346

#1 What aggravates me is that I feel like when I am saving gas/oil and not polluting, I am only making more gas available to the slobs that could care less... meaning, it's extending the lifespan of peak oil for jerks that could care less.

#2 A bulk of electricity at this point is unfortunately made with oil, coal and other horrible means. Yes renewable energy has been in the works forever, but governments are effectively paid to snuff them out. The U.S. is surprisingly the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world, but that system hasn't been maintained and is slowly dying... Iceland is the perfect example of proper maintenance and creates awesome hot springs to boot.

#3 But back to the original posters point about oil running out and surviving... it wouldn't be pretty since jobs, economy, and other factors would make living a bit harsh for the average "first world" dependant consumer. Food for one thing would be an issue real fast. Here in NY I think our food supply would last 72 hours... we are absurdly dependant on shipping.

#1 What aggravates me is that I feel like when I am saving gas/oil and not polluting, I am only making more gas available to the slobs that could care less... meaning, it's extending the lifespan of peak oil for jerks that could care less.

Doesn't bother me that much. I have saved thousands that those other slobs are still paying. If that's how they want to spend their money, that's their business.

Point taken.

So what's so bad about this "car" you speak of?
It depends on oil, which pollutes, and creates foreign dependency.

Make an electrical car, it's still not enough for you. What IS enough?
Living in a cave with a loin cloth and never consuming anything and
never reproducing?

Yes, there's the tired argument that electrical cars pollute just as
much, make you vote libertarian and beat your kids. I don't buy it.

There will be electric cars and they will likely dominate in time.
Deal with it. They are a major improvement, if it's not enough for
you, too bad.

CE

It might not be realistic to assume that there's enough power (from any source) to make personal vehicles available for everyone in the world who wants to make a quick slurpee run.

But if thinking universal cars are eternally possible helps you make it through the night, don't let us stop you. Maybe if you think it really really really hard, it will come true!

Remember that the vast majority of people already are carfree. You just happen to live in an aberrant society where this is not the case. So enjoy it while it lasts, sweet dreamer.

"It might not be realistic to assume that there's enough power (from any source) to make personal vehicles available for everyone in the world who wants to make a quick slurpee run. "

This is more true than one might think. It's possible that humans are past the time when crop
land can be built on or paved over and still feed the masses.

Just ask yourself.....how much land is under the interstate/road that I'm on that would be better
used to grow food?

Then ask.......how much land is under the suburb/mall that I'm in that would be better
used to grow food?

THAT total is staggering.:eek::eek::eek:

Let's see, until I need parts...:eek:...isn't rubber, the main ingredient of tires part of the petro-chemical industry?

Let's see, until I need parts...:eek:...isn't rubber, the main ingredient of tires part of the petro-chemical industry?

Rubber originally came from trees. ;)

Yes, they use some petro-chemical substitute now, but they could probably go back to something that's not oil based.

Bottom line is: What is a better use for a gallon of oil?

1) Burn it running down to McDonald's for a heart attack in a sack
2) use it to make bike tires

Oil isn't going to disappear overnight.... it's going to get more and more expensive... and hopefully they'll start using it where it's more useful.

"Bottom line is: What is a better use for a gallon of oil?

1) Burn it running down to McDonald's for a heart attack in a sack"

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::beer:

I really feel bad for you. It must be tragic to live life without hope, without imagination, with out
dreams. I will not be a fatalist, I will dream of a better world without compromise.

So enjoy your loincloth, point the accusing finger at all technology (it never did us good
anyway). Go sleep in your cave and dream of a failed society, get warm and fuzzy
fanticises about you being Will Smith in "I am Legend". I will welcome you back into
society when you finally realize that live will go on and not everyone has to be just like you.

CE

I was thinking more along the lines of taking the bus or train, walking more and riding bikes. But, now that you mention it, I guess swinging on a vine is another form of alternative transit that we should consider.

Seriously, don't you think there are alternatives somewhere between the vine express and big cars for everybody?

As soon as they come up with a nuclear powerplant that fits in the engine compartment of my 1968 DeVille Convertible, I'll be sure to buy one!

I'd start a bike taxi/rickshaw business!

In the not to distant future the oil tap may either run dry
or get shut off in some fashion. Either way there is NO
fuel to buy and it's so bad that vehicle fuel tanks are
getting siphon dry by theives.

Were talking down & dirty no fuel "you walk or else" life.

What would/could you do to get by??

(I post this because I'm tired of all the whining about
"not being able to" when "all would have to" when there's
no fuel except for the military & gov't officials)

The question is moot for us because this situation won't likely happen in our lifetimes. :)

"Some apocryphal Victorian, so the story goes, looked at the rate at which the number of horses on city streets was increasing and assured his peers that their capital would soon be knee-deep in horse manure. He got it wrong, largely because he failed to predict the imminent rise of the automobile. That brought its own problems, of course, but the point was that Victorians were blindsided by the future — which, as any would-be Cassandra soon learns, is seldom what it appears to be."
http://www.phrenicea.com/oops.htm

The question is moot for us because this situation won't likely happen in our lifetimes. :)

And this somehow free us from any responsability to future generations?

The question is moot for us because this situation won't likely happen in our lifetimes. :)

This I simply don't believe. The indications are that it is slowly happening right before our eyes. Most people aren't even bothering to look at the warning signs however.


"Some apocryphal Victorian, so the story goes, looked at the rate at which the number of horses on city streets was increasing and assured his peers that their capital would soon be knee-deep in horse manure. He got it wrong, largely because he failed to predict the imminent rise of the automobile. That brought its own problems, of course, but the point was that Victorians were blindsided by the future — which, as any would-be Cassandra soon learns, is seldom what it appears to be."
http://www.phrenicea.com/oops.htm

The question then is, what would free us from our dependence on on fossil fuels? There is no obvious answer as of yet - any potential technologies either have scalability problems, or have technical things that need to be worked out before they are ready for the mass market. Something may yet come along, but if time is running out (as I suggest above), we don't have huge amounts of time to wait for developments of one sort or another.

It may well be that the replacement will simply be more expensive than the combination of the automobile and cheap gasoline, which would suggest that as a society we will have to adapt.

The question is moot for us because this situation won't likely happen in our lifetimes. :)

Lest I forget......
Tell this to the men & women soldiers now fighting the first of many oil wars so that "it won't happen
in our lifetimes" All for oil paid for with blood!!!

The indications are that it is slowly happening right before our eyes. Most people aren't even bothering to look at the warning signs however.
When changes come in slowly, there's time to prepare and there's time to find alternatives. This is already beginning to happen.

The changes will include developing alternate sources of energy, conserving and making lifestyle changes on individual and society levels.

If the change were to happen suddenly — moving from today's oil supply to none at all within weeks or months — we would have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable and messy social problems. But that's not how oil depletion will play out. It won't happen instantly and we won't run out. Instead, the oil remaining in the ground will become more and more difficult to extract and therefore more and more expensive.

When changes come in slowly, there's time to prepare and there's time to find alternatives. This is already beginning to happen.

The changes will include developing alternate sources of energy, conserving and making lifestyle changes on individual and society levels.

If the change were to happen suddenly — moving from today's oil supply to none at all within weeks or months — we would have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable and messy social problems. But that's not how oil depletion will play out. It won't happen instantly and we won't run out. Instead, the oil remaining in the ground will become more and more difficult to extract and therefore more and more expensive.

Depends on how slow it happens. If you read the Hirsch report (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report), they essentially say that mitigation must begin a certain amount of time ahead of oil peaking in order to avoid economic problems:
Mitigation efforts will require substantial time.

20 years is required to transition without substantial impacts
A 10 year rush transition with moderate impacts is possible with extraordinary efforts from governments, industry, and consumers
Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences.


and

"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

As to the question of when is the peak? Obviously some uncertainty exists, but some believe that we peaked in 2005, and others believe that peak will be in the 2010-2011 timeframe. We probably won't know with certainty until we are a number of years past the peak.

When changes come in slowly, there's time to prepare and there's time to find alternatives. This is already beginning to happen.

The changes will include developing alternate sources of energy, conserving and making lifestyle changes on individual and society levels.

If the change were to happen suddenly — moving from today's oil supply to none at all within weeks or months — we would have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable and messy social problems. But that's not how oil depletion will play out. It won't happen instantly and we won't run out. Instead, the oil remaining in the ground will become more and more difficult to extract and therefore more and more expensive.

This would be true if everyone was willing to share what oil was left on an equal basis - but when faced with oil scarcity, the larger/more powerful nations will seize and fight over what remains and leave the less powerful nations "dry", and there won't be a very long warning period for that (of course, oil prices will have been increasing steadily up until this point, prompting at least some change towards reducing oil dependency). This is already beginning to happen. Take a look at the oil pipeline built from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan, the militarization of Afghanistan and Iraq, and massive foreign investment in Saudi Arabia and Iran. These are actions taken with long-term agendas in mind.

You're right, though, we will never completely run out of oil. As soon as it takes more energy to extract oil from the ground in a particular field than is released from burning said oil, the field is deemed "dry".

There is a good documentary on the History Channel tonight at 8pm EST. It is called "Crude - the incredible journey of oil", and was originally broadcast on Australian TV last year. It has also appeared at film festivals around the country.

http://www.history.com/shows.do?episodeId=260656&action=detail

http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/

Tonight at 8PM EST (2-hour show). Check local listings for local time.

Earlier this week, I downloaded the flash video of the whole show (link to Australia is too slow to watch directly from the website), and have seen the whole thing - I have seen many movies about peak oil, and this one is definitely a good one. They follow the path of a single carbon atom from the Jurassic period through today, and the conditions under which oil bearing rocks are created. The show discusses both peak oil and climate change.

From the show website:

From the food on our tables to the fuel in our cars, crude oil seeps invisibly into almost every part of our modern lives. It is the energy source and raw material that drives transport and the economy. Yet many of us have little idea of the incredible journey it has made to reach our petrol tanks and plastic bags.

Coming in the wake of rising global concerns about the continued supply of oil, and increasingly weird weather patterns, award-winning Australian filmmaker, Dr Richard Smith takes us through time: from the birth of oil deep in the dinosaur-inhabited past, to its ascendancy as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. Filmed on location in 11 countries across five continents, Smith consults the leading international scientific experts to join the dots between geology and economy and provide the big-picture view of oil.

When changes come in slowly, there's time to prepare and there's time to find alternatives. This is already beginning to happen.

The changes will include developing alternate sources of energy, conserving and making lifestyle changes on individual and society levels.

If the change were to happen suddenly — moving from today's oil supply to none at all within weeks or months — we would have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable and messy social problems. But that's not how oil depletion will play out. It won't happen instantly and we won't run out. Instead, the oil remaining in the ground will become more and more difficult to extract and therefore more and more expensive.

I'm not a peak oiler, since I don't think there will be a catastrophic problem with oil supply in the near future, at least not in the sense that we will "run out" of oil. However, we already see the impact of the huge and rapidly increasing demand for oil, resulting in strained production, volatile markets and bloody attempts to secure markets for the benefit of one nation or another.

I'm not a peak oiler, since I don't think there will be a catastrophic problem with oil supply in the near future, at least not in the sense that we will "run out" of oil. However, we already see the impact of the huge and rapidly increasing demand for oil, resulting in strained production, volatile markets and bloody attempts to secure markets for the benefit of one nation or another.

Peak oil doesn't say that there will be a catastrophic problem with supply - merely you reach a point that supply can no longer increase, and starts to decline by a few percent each year.

It might not sound like a lot, but the indications are that oil prices are fairly inelastic - in other words a 10% increase in oil prices yields a drop in demand of far less than 10%, and this implies that oil prices will have to go up considerably before oil demand is reduced to match what can be produced.

You get into questions of alternatives - whether any of them can realistically scale up to meet the gap between supply and demand. The subject gets very large and complicated very quickly.

Peak oil doesn't say that there will be a catastrophic problem with supply - merely you reach a point that supply can no longer increase, and starts to decline by a few percent each year.


Then what gives with all the terrifying predictions of war, famine and plague, or for that matter even the title of this thread? Clearly some peak oilers believe there will be "a catastrophic problem with supply."

Then what gives with all the terrifying predictions of war, famine and plague, or for that matter even the title of this thread? Clearly some peak oilers believe there will be "a catastrophic problem with supply."

Even though oil production will only decrease a few percent each year, it does add up over time. So it isn't that there is a sudden catastrophic decline in oil production (I suppose some would argue that any decline is catastrophic, but thats another matter). The consequences to us are largely as a result of how we use it in everyday life, and what it means if we were to have to use less.

Countries have gone to war in the past. Japan invaded Indonesia during WWII in order to capture the oilfields. And Germany invaded Russia in part to capture the oilfields in Romania. One can make a strong argument that part of the reason we invaded Iraq was to gain control over the oil there. So I guess I don't see why that seems so unlikely to you.

Regarding the question of famine, it is certainly possible. Much of the food we eat these days is farmed using petrochemical inputs, and as prices climb, then food prices will climb as well. Either that or farmers will try and raise food without, which *may* imply lower yields. Whatsmore, we have set up an arbitrage between food and oil prices through corn ethanol - as oil becomes more scarce, there will be a strong urge to try and use up more corn to make more fuel.

The difficulty is that predicting the future is always difficult, but predicting the distant future is always going to be more difficult than predicting the near future. What we can do is try and identify and anticipate the types of problems that we will face so that we don't get blindsided.

ericy...thanks for the link to Crude. A very informative look at our past, and our potential futures. I ended up watchng most of the segments online (no TV) this afternoon.

Whether the down turn of peak oil will be as catastrophic as predicted or not, I think, is dependant on many factors. And I also think that will be contingent (IMO), on our ability of foresight and a proactive approach.