Peak Oil

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  • VanDerFull

    After reading a book a few months back about peak oil and it's catastrophic consequences, the big picture has slowly started sinking in, and it's occurred to me that this is actually something that could happen in our generation's lifetime.

    There's so much conflicting information everywhere regarding this that you don't know what to think, and the whole issue hasn't really been covered that extensively in the media.

    I'm pretty sure governments are also doing some damage limiting lobbying in the media to avoid heavy shifts in the market due to the effects of the public reacting...

    Found this pretty interesting article:

    http://www.consumerenergyreport.…

    The first comment after the article is pretty spot on, "I feel like a deer caught in the headlights."

    I guess it's time to start learning being more self-sufficient and preparing that 'off the grid', post-oil world cabin in the forest... :)

    Anyone have any more educated info on this and the consequences on the global economy?

  • akrok0

    hm, wish i didn't had to drive to work.

  • CanHasQBN0

    Kunstler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam… has a lot to say about this.

    "He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere (1994), a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency (2005), where he argues that declining oil production is likely to result in the end of industrialized society as we know it and force Americans to live in smaller-scale, localized, agrarian (or semi-agrarian) communities. He has written a science fiction novel conjecturing such a culture in the future, World Made by Hand in 2008. He also gives lectures on topics related to suburbia, urban development, and the challenges of what he calls "the global oil predicament" and a resultant change in the “American Way of Life.” He is also a leading proponent of the movement known as "New Urbanism.""

  • Orbit0

    The scale of humans and their equipment digging for oil on planet earth is proportionally a shit load smaller than a baby mosquito digging a full grown human's arm for blood.

    Given that oil is merely old vegetation, and vegetation has been living, dying, decomposing and getting buried here for many billions of years, and given that we are barely getting below the outer derma with miniscule pin-pricks that cover less than 0.001% of the earth's surface (Ignoring its immense depth completely for the moment) its safe to say that peak oil is pretty much a man-made fear.

    This planet is a giant cask of oil, we're just very small creatures, that's all and we've only been looking for it for a mere 200 years or so. But we are tenacious and inventive and this planet will be like a brittle balloon by the time we've exhausted its supplies of oil.

    • * Sticks another V8 on race carbs in the van, for a laugh.Orbit
    • the worlds consumes 85,000,000 barrells of oil a day. the fact that we are physically "small creatures" is irrelevant...CanHasQBN
    • ...as we sure don't behave or consume like small creatures.CanHasQBN
    • Yes we do, it just doesn't look that way from our point of view.Orbit
    • oil is only good to us if we can access it.rosem
  • VikingKingEleven0

    I would highly encourage people to watch this documentary.

    I don't agree with every but it does have some great insight.

    The guys name is Mike Ruppert.

  • rosem0

    Have you ever seen the documentary Collapse? The guy makes a very good point about how much oil is actually used in the produce you buy from the store.

    It's planted with oil (tractor), grown with oil (fertilizers), picked with oil (tractor again), wrapped in oil (plastic), brought to the store with oil (truck), picked up with oil (car), etc..., etc...

    Most of the worlds population is only here because of oil — when we run out a shit ton of people are going to starve.

  • rosem0

    Have you ever seen the documentary Collapse? The guy makes a very good point about how much oil is actually used in the produce you buy from the store.

    It's planted with oil (tractor), grown with oil (fertilizers), picked with oil (tractor again), wrapped in oil (plastic), brought to the store with oil (truck), picked up with oil (car), etc..., etc...

    Most of the worlds population is only here because of oil — when we run out a shit ton of people are going to starve.

  • whereRI0

    thanks for that link, was interesting watch.

  • raf0

    In the 70's an elitist organization called The Club of Rome predicted that we'd reach peak oil in 2003. This of course did not happen, but has always helped in keeping the prices high.

    As it turns out today, there's still plenty of oil left:

    "Giant new oil fields have been discovered off the coasts of Africa and Brazil. The new oil sands projects in Canada now supply more oil to the United States than Saudi Arabia does. Oil production in the United States increased last year, and the Department of Energy projects further increases over the next two decades.
    The really good news is the discovery of vast quantities of natural gas. It’s now selling for less than half of what it was five years ago. There’s so much available that the Energy Department is predicting low prices for gas and electricity for the next quarter-century. Lobbyists for wind farms, once again, have been telling Washington that the “sustainable energy” industry can’t sustain itself without further subsidies. "
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/2…

    Interestingly, theory of abiotic (or abiogenic, non-organic) origin of oil (Mendeleev et al) was never proven false.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abi…

    What does that theory mean? There is a strong likelihood of reserves of oil in deeper layers of the planet being many multiple times larger than we ever suspected. There is even a possibility of oil being a renewable energy produced constantly at extreme depths.

    Let's not focus on whether or not this theory is true (we have no way of checking anyway, just like with the theory you already knew).

    Could you imagine what would happen to oil prices if abiotic theory was taught alongside the official one, which is just as unproven? If everyone didn't think oil was scarce?

    • I do believe peak oil is fraud. Like global warming. But we still need to do something about itVikingKingEleven
  • Dodecahedron0

    Hemp for biofuel!

  • byname0

    and hemp for hashish or space cake's :)

    • hemp ain't going to get you highDodecahedron
    • also you can't make thousands of oil based products from zero point energy.Dodecahedron