What will happen, when the oil is gone? Options

[GhostofTHECHICKE...]

Read a book recently that showed evidence of how the oil production has just reached its peak (or will very soon) around the world. Which means that we have pretty much gotten half of all the oil around the planet (and also the Easiest half to get out of the ground economically), which estimates show could be used up in as little as 10 years at current growth of demand. Oil and gas production already peaked in north america back around the 70's. Combine that with the fact that 60% of all Oil left is in arab countries (and a comparable amount of the natural gas)... and i guess my question is:

What does everyone think will happen when the oil supplies run out (or at least start to get so low that we can't viably use it as we do now)? Our entire economy is based off of it... from fertilizers made from natural gas (which enable our massive production of food, aka corn that would be used to make ethanol), to fleets of trucks that supply: walmart, target, ups, schools busses, etc. Not to mention cars.

Will the economy revert back to the 1900s of horse and buggy?

Will it basically be armageddon from all the countries fighting for the last supplies of oil along with deseases etc brought on by the inability to fight them w/o oil.

Will we still have most comodities just a big hardship from not having the transportation, and or alternative fuels to make up for the loss (aka nuclear, wind, water, solar)

or will we be saved by things that appear to be pipe dreams currently (like hydrogen fuel cells that would either require oil to produce OR nuclear energy which we dont have much of)?

or do you not see any problem at all for what ever reason that you should elaborate on?

[Seeker]

the gov might finally quit whacking everyone who invents free energy devices

[GOB]

coal

[GhostofTHECHICKE...]

coal

so you think coal could be processed into synthetic oil on the scale we live on today and in the short time we have (in which right now we are doing very little of in terms of preperation to turn coal to a fuel for cars etc). And you think they could mine the amount of coal required, produce the tempatures and pressure required for changing coal into oil and ship it across the nation for a low enough price to not cost the consumer huge amounts which in and of its self would alter our living style?

While i agree we will use coal as a one of the fuel sources in the future, it is doubtful it could possibly replace the oil infrastructure we have today.


and in other words nothing will change because of the loss of oil in your opinion?

[Psykopath]

please...mother of GOD, not coal.
Burning that on a mass scale?! AHHHHHHHH THE ACID BURNS!

Seriously though, yeah...nuclear, solar, wind, hydro (obviously many of these are regional)...things like that will do just fine. Obviously it will take a feeling out period to get used to the technology, and to get used to Exxon-Mobile and others no longer having our balls in vices...

This post has been edited by Psykopath: Mar 18 2006, 01:25 AM

[Seussninja]

Hopefully it will be some sort of delicious FuturePast where we all carry swords along with our cell phones

[Psykopath]

Hopefully it will be some sort of delicious FuturePast where we all carry swords along with our cell phones

Now...Greg's got the idea!!!

[Seussninja]

Where everything is powered by our newfound magical abilities and then the earth gets mad at us and starts revolting and shit and we're like o hay sorry bout that and the Earth goes "hey man its cool just tone it down k"

[GhostofTHECHICKE...]

please...mother of GOD, not coal.
Burning that on a mass scale?! AHHHHHHHH THE ACID BURNS!

Seriously though, yeah...nuclear, solar, wind, hydro (obviously many of these are regional)...things like that will do just fine. Obviously it will take a feeling out period to get used to the technology, and to get used to Exxon-Mobile and others no longer having our balls in vices...

well it almost goes without saying that those alternatives will be fallen back on FOR ELECTRICTY. But sadly there isn't enough nuclear power plants in the united states to produce the clean fuel (besides radio active waste which is actually small, you just need a place to put it) and it takes A LOT of fossil fuels to build a nuclear power plant.


PLUS that only takes care of Electricity... which i believe the number was that it only accounted for 30ish% of total energy consumption... the rest being cars with fossil fuels.

Which you could say that if we got the nuclear power plants up in time to put out electricity, then we could use that power for electric (battery) cars and the production of hydrogen.

I guess my question is Do you THINK we will be able to get this stuff done in a quick enough time period so that alternative fuels are actually available to replace oil before the entire economy shuts down from things like goods can't be transported to where they need to go because of lack of fuel (or exorbent cost of fuel)?


oh, and synthetic oil made from coal would effectively become high grade oil we use today already... so i believe the acidity of it can be removed... but the whole process takes energy to make coal into oil

This post has been edited by GhostofTHECHICKEN: Mar 18 2006, 01:40 AM

[Seussninja]

I think as long as we cling to the proverbial teat of mother oil companies we're doomed to drown in our own ignorance.

My hopeful answer? Yes, i think we HAVE THE ABILITY to do it.

Will we? No, we wont.

This post has been edited by Seussninja: Mar 18 2006, 01:43 AM

[Psykopath]

Hmmm, well then I don't know if we can necessarily beat a time period involving relative chaos (economic downturn and the like) at this point. Our dependency on oil is too great. I dare say that people are practically brainwashed into thinking that fossil fuels are the only means for transportation energy, and that "Hey, it'll never run out in my lifetime...so why worry??"

I think that we must start implementing alternative energy sources now so as to at least lessen the blow, so to speak.

[Seussninja]

lessen the blow or not, a punch to the face still leaves a mark, brass knuckles or not.

[GhostofTHECHICKE...]

I think as long as we cling to the proverbial teat of mother oil companies we're doomed to drown in our own ignorance.

My hopeful answer? Yes, i think we HAVE THE ABILITY to do it.

Will we? No, we wont.

so you think america (as well as most of the rest of the world) will act to late to prevent a major disaster and we will be in for a long depression while we try to build this stuff we should already have up without the oil infrastructure to help us?

[Seussninja]

Personally i welcome our new robot overlords

[Seussninja]

so you think america (as well as most of the rest of the world) will act to late to prevent a major disaster and we will be in for a long depression while we try to build this stuff we should already have up without the oil infrastructure to help us?

This is an accurate assumption. Accurate as it may be however i don't see it as being a precise one. It will take something much more chaotic than economic depression to change our view of things.