If a real gas shortage were to happen tomorrow ...

luv2run wrote:

However, just about everything you buy is shipped and that at some point involves a vehicle that runs on gas.

That may be true, but the more people we have on bikes and out of cars the better. Of course some stuff will need to be transported with gasoline into the near future, but think of the effect on gasoline prices if a significant number of people started riding their bikes to work instead of driving.

If a real gas shortage were to happen tomorrow ... I would take full advantage and pretend that I really am an environmentalist!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

I live 1½ miles from work

my wife is 3 miles from work

kids are 1½ miles from school

1 mile to the hospital

3 miles to all the shops and grocery store

old mutha f'er wrote:

I live 1½ miles from work

my wife is 3 miles from work

kids are 1½ miles from school

1 mile to the hospital

3 miles to all the shops and grocery store

Congratulations, you are reasonable insulated from personal gas prices.

However you still have to buy your food -> higher gas prices means higher food costs

You still have to heat your home -> do you heat your home with nuclear power?

You still run the AC in the summer -> Electricty prices go up even if you get your power from non oil (wind, coal, nuke etc)

etc etc

Its still gonna cost you money even if you don't pour it in your gas tank.

Thats just for now.

Wait 5-10 years.

Inflation rises, your savings get wiped out.

The global economy stagnates, then actually declines. You lose your job.

Food becomes viable only if locally owned. Hope you don't live in a big city.

Why aren't people worried about this?

The key is to make strides in multiple directions. The reality is that we need oil now and for the next few decades, we're dependent on it. America needs to increase wind power, solar power so that electricity is generated cleanly. We don't need hybrids persay, we need economical cars-smaller, lighter, 4 cyl cars. Larger, heavy duty vehicles and diesel cars can run on biodiesel, which also helps solve the transportation of goods problem. We need to eat local produce. By decreasing our petro demand by 20% we've eliminated the need for middle east oil. We cannot wait for the "miracle" cure hydrogen, this is not an "all or nothing" challenge.

As many businesses are starting to learn, going green not only the right thing to do, it's a way to save money.

well my diesel can burn vegtable fat so I don't really give a shit about gas prices...

F u c k your diesel, gas prices are dropping like crazy. All these chicken little's can go to hell. Prices are normal again so I'm gonna drive my big Ford Excursion everywhere and laugh at all you dumb f u c k ers on your bikes. You think you're really changing the world or something don't you?!

Man, you guys really need to stay awake during an economics class.

First, this thread has nothing to do with geoology and everything to do with economics.

When oil becomes short relative to demand, the price rises. This discourages use. It also ensoruage conservation more exploration. Ths leads to more supply and less demand so the price falls.

The thing that will take care of the pending oil crisis is the price of oil. Let the markets work.

Consider this:

For all you envornomentalist, and liberals, you forgot how your arguments were completely discredited 16 years ago.

http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_simon.html

In 1980, economist |Julian Simon| and biologist Paul Ehrlich decided to put their money where their predictions were. Ehrlich had been predicting massive shortages in various natural resources for decades, while Simon claimed natural resources were infinite.

Simon offered Ehrlich a bet centered on the market price of metals. Ehrlich would pick a quantity of any five metals he liked worth $1,000 in 1980. If the 1990 price of the metals, after adjusting for inflation, was more than $1,000 (i.e. the metals became more scarce), Ehrlich would win. If, however, the value of the metals after inflation was less than $1,000 (i.e. the metals became less scare), Simon would win. The loser would mail the winner a check for the change in price.

Ehrlich agreed to the bet, and chose copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten.

By 1990, all five metal were below their inflation-adjusted price level in 1980. Ehrlich lost the bet and sent Simon a check for $576.07. Prices of the metals chosen by Ehrlich fell so much that Simon would have won the bet even if the prices hadn't been adjusted for inflation. (1) Here's how each of the metals performed from 1980-1990.

Peak oil is real, BUT NOT FOR THE PLANET! It is beleived the planet is still making crude oil (not sure how it's made and where it comes from. We use to think they came from decaying dinosaurs, hence the name "fossil fuels", but we now know this is not the case).

Peak oil applies only to a specific oil field. Just like when you pull the stopper on a bath tub, oil fields do run out of oil. Current technology allows us to only pump about 60% of a typical field, the other 40% is unrecoverable. At that point the pressure drops too low and the field cannot be pumped. They can try and raise the pressure by pumping saltwater in the field, but that only has limited effects.

Examples of peak oil. Production of crude oil in Oklahoma peaked in 1927 (no typo!), the US in 1970. The largest only field, the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia (5 to 6 million barrels a day are pumped from this field), peaked in production in 1981 (it is now estimated that ARAMACO, the Saudi oil company now pumps 2 to 4 million barrels of salt water a day into the field to keep the pressure up. ARAMCO does not give public stats, these are guesses.)

The other problem is demand. This is NOA A US story, it is a world story. China and India demand more and more everyday. No amount of US conservation can offset their growing appetite for oil.

For example the US has 40,000 miles of highway. In 1989 China had 150 miles (one highway between Shanghai and Bejing). By 2008 it will have 50,000 miles of highway. So, in the last 19 years, China has built a highway system greater than the U.S. and they are not even close to being done!

Another stat, the US has 9 cities of more than 1 million in population. China has 156, India has 65!!! They all want cars.

If new sources are not found, the US could competely stop using oil and the price will still top $100. China, India and the third world account for the vast majority of new demand. SUVs are a rounding error.

Bio-fuels are not now, or will be, feasibile. If the entire world-wide corn and sugar crop where used for energy, it would only account for 20% of US demand, 5% of world demand. Of course if this happened, food would be unaffordable and millions would starve. But hey gas would be cheaper.

Hydogren can never work, ever! To make fuels cells, you have th "crack" hydorgen. This requires heating it up. Where do we get the energy to heat it? Crude oil! So to make hydogren cells equivlent of 1 million bearrels of crude oil requires you to burn about 1 million barrels of crude oil in the first place. In the end you wind up using more energy under hydogren, exactly the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

It's a tough problem. One the US cannot solve alone. The answer is in China and India. They need to go back to living in mud huts, walking and riding bicycles. Their desire to own a car is the problem, not our desire to drive SUVs. Somebody needs to stop Bono, if Africa gets their act together, they will want cars too and many million of barrels will also need to go to them.

Matt Simmons wrote:

It's a tough problem. One the US cannot solve alone. The answer is in China and India. They need to go back to living in mud huts, walking and riding bicycles. Their desire to own a car is the problem, not our desire to drive SUVs. Somebody needs to stop Bono, if Africa gets their act together, they will want cars too and many million of barrels will also need to go to them.

Your post was really good until here. The solution is not to have them "go back to living in mud huts...". As far as I'm concerned, step 1 should be to get most of our electrical power sources off of fossil fuels. Solar, hydroelectric, and wind are all nice. We need more nuclear power too.. unfortunately Joe American doesn't want that in his backyard.

Bob & Bob wrote:

Your post was really good until here. The solution is not to have them "go back to living in mud huts...". As far as I'm concerned, step 1 should be to get most of our electrical power sources off of fossil fuels. Solar, hydroelectric, and wind are all nice. We need more nuclear power too.. unfortunately Joe American doesn't want that in his backyard.

Thanks. I was getting tired of writing and wanted to wrap up. You're right the last part does suck.

And you're also right, the best alternative is nueclear power. All tranmission power (that power transmitted to the soruce) should be nueclear. 75% to 80% of France's electric power is nueclear, so you can get it in a liberal country. It has no waste or pollution (other than steam) to envirnomentalists should love it. Why they don't is beyond me (I think the reason is purely political but I'll save this for antoehr converstaion)

The planet should embark on a program to make 100% of electric power nueclear. This means building hundreds of plants. It would make a difference.

Is it safe? In the free world, nueclear power has killed no one, zero! Three-mile Island was almost 30 years ago. Chernobel was run by a failed regieme in the first place. The Soviets failed at everything (not to mention killing 50 million of their own citizens for political reasons) so it not surprising this happened to them, they did not care about safety in the forst place. Safety standards are so much better it really should not be an issue.

Wind and solar power are not feasible in the big picture. They can help in remote areas (so you don't have to run miles of power lines to get electricity to them) so they fill a specific need. But, in total, it won't matter that much.

On the demand side, traffic control is a big problem. City planners have utterly failed in setting up efficient traffic patterns and synching traffic lights. Unfortuntely they have done a good job of blaming the driver and not the Mayor/Dept. of Streets/City Planners for conjestion. Making traffic patterns more efficient can save more energy than all the hybrids in the world.

Public transportation is a failure too. Why don't you ride the bus? Because it slow, uncomfortable, doesn't go where you want and, if you live in cold climate, freeze your ass off waiting for it. If we privatized this, it would be more efficient. Right now it's a joke, nothing more than another punishment for being too poor to drive.

Bob & Bob,

You're right in pointing out a uniquely American point of view. Dick Cheney has indicated that the "American way of life is not negotiable". A White House reporter once asked, "Does the president believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the president believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?" Ari Fleischer replied, "That's a big no. The president believes that it's an American way of life."

He then called the country blessed with a bounty of resources.

The reality of these statements faces us with the fact that American hegemony will not be shortly halted.

It's interesting to take note of the April 2002 coup d'état in Venezuela, particularly after CIA involvement was shown. The reason for this is that Venezuela, should its very heavy and difficult to extract Orinoto bitumen be considered on the list of available oil resources, would catapult Venezuela above Saudi Arabia in potential oil resources. The would-be president in the coup, Carmona, was the head of Venezuela's largest business owners association, and the would-be VP was (former?- don't remember) head of an oil company.

The current thing in Washington rhetoric is the vilification of Chavez. He was elected democratically by a landslide, took away media censorship (though private stations remain strongly funded as evidenced by the deceit of the masses during the coup), has begun to educate the masses, and is working actively to equitably distribute the oil wealth to the 80% of Venezuela's population living in extreme poverty. This seems, in fact, to be a special case in the world today, where democracy, as an ideal, is in full effect.

It's thus fascinating to see Washington purposely play him up as supporting Cuba, calling Bush the devil, etc., all because his new oil policies are such that the people of Venezuela benefit. Of course, the main thing is simply that the Venezulean oil, it's been hinted, will begin to be posted in the Euro as opposed to the dollar. We have seen what happened in Iraq, and what is about to happen in Iran when countries want to trade oil in the Euro. Since the "war on terrorism" could not explain an explicit and public invasion of a Latin American country like it does a Middle Eastern one, the back door, as indicated by the coup, is the easiest way.

All this being said, it is interesting and somewhat saddening to see explicit American support (or more often, unawareness) of what is called imperialism by every other country in the world. The reason for this is that it places at very grave danger the remaining citizens of the world, particularly in developing countries. Why? The policies of Anglo-American oil (notice how England does not use the Euro) are such that all developing countries must be kept that way, whether by invasion or economic strangulation. With positivism, one can see that all these things require circumvention of law, and by Natural Law, these are merely unacceptable infringements of the basic rights of all people. Furthermore, it is most paradoxical that the population base of the current policy is proudly Christian, because Christianity is based on Jesus' anti-Roman imperialism of his time. It's in the basic theology of Christianity to reject imperialism such as the US practices today for the hegemony of the dollar as the world's only reserve currency, but it is wholly embraced because of domestic promises that easily blind one to the realities of the world beyond the borders of the United States.

In a related note, for those who get the History Channel they have a show on at 1pm Eastern on renewable energy.

Thanks!

Matt Simmons wrote:

The planet should embark on a program to make 100% of electric power nueclear. This means building hundreds of plants. It would make a difference.

Ignoring the rest of your statements, this one here isn't too well thought out.

Energy demand is not constant. It rises in the morning, goes through some peaks and then drops in the evening. To meet this demand, utilities need to fire up and bring online more generating capacity.

Plants like coal or natural gas are good at being able to be brought online in short order to respond to changing demand. Nuclear plants, while steady providers, can't be switched on or off as easily, taking much longer to ramp up.

They're great for meeting the base demand, the amount of electricity society at a minimum is always demanding, but you need a mix of sources (maybe solar, wind and hydro thrown in there as well) to be able to effectively supply enough power in a consistent manner.

There is no single "100%" solution.

I can't believe that people are still writing about peak oil right after the huge find in the gulf (of Mexico). This just shows that when the price goes high enough that oil co.'s will risk money to find more oil in new places and in new ways.

Also, all those wonderful countries in the mideast run their own oil companies. Like most state-run stuff, the oil fields run by these companies are terribly inefficient. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but private oil companies could extract MUCH more oil from these fields. If their oil production really started going down, I'm sure these countries would try to get outside help to save their sorry butts.

The conference of evil dictators this last week honestly reminded me of something out of Austin Powers -- except that those jerks are threats in the real world. If you note that the picture outside those evil actors includes such greats as the Saudis, and that China is muddying the picture even more, it becomes even more obvious that this is not just an environmental but a national security issue.

The guy who was talking about needing varied sources was right (and not just from the standpoint that nuclear can't be flexibly turned on and off). We need to comprehensibly try to switch to non-petroleum sources of energy. Environmentalists need to get real about this. Again, I wish I had the info. in front of me, but the enviros are blocking a new coal fired plant from being constructed somewhere in the US. No matter that it has the same emissions as the plant it is replacing but produces much more electricity ...

I am extremely interested in things like wind energy, but there is no way that that alone will supply our country's needs. I wish people would be real about this. I'm all for conservation, I turn off the light when I leave a room an dall that stuff, but the fact is that capitalism drives these new clean technnologies. Yes, that American lifestyle (whatever that is -- non socialist?) is driving better and better innovations that are cleaning up the world, so be careful what you badmouth. Of course it was obligatory that some conspiracy theorist bring Cheney or the prez into this, so I guess it should have been expected.

At least there are other options, alt. fuels, wind power, etc. What happens when the world runs out of water? There is no alternate water, no other options to renew it. There is a very limited supply, think about how you are using it.

I'm not sure what you meant by the charge of being a conspiracy theorist. The members of the current administration were just a couple easy examples to remember since it's recent history, but I can see how it appears there's a "left" tilt, if that's what you mean. This is well beyond the limited spectrum of American left and right politics, and foreign policy in regards to the dollar, and thus oil, is constant regardless of which party is in power.

I think the reason people are still talking about Peak Oil is because the amount of oil recently found in the Gulf would sustain the United States for about three years at our present rate of consumption. Since, however, the population is growing and demand is thus increasing, this does not put a dent in the concept of Peak Oil. In addition, this calculation is only assuming we're talking about Americans. If we include the other 6+ billion people in the world, the dire need for other energy sources becomes evident.

We got a bleeder! wrote:

Its easy to bike places now because no one rides a bike. Think of the mess you'd have with everone haveing bikes with carts and no real speed regulations (my concern being all the fat slow people).

It's time for alt fuel.

Well it would be easier to bike if there were no cars.