[Revi]

If you have a solution that can ensure cheap motoring into the next century and is actually based on facts, then tell us what it is. This isn't any kind of a political rant. We are just looking at what's left divided by the number of vehicles to come to 210,000 miles left.

[DesuMaiden]

If you have a solution that can ensure cheap motoring into the next century and is actually based on facts, then tell us what it is. This isn't any kind of a political rant. We are just looking at what's left divided by the number of vehicles to come to 210,000 miles left.

You are right. All of the so-called "alternatives" to oil are pathetic compared to oil. Everything ranging from hydrogen cars, electric cars, ethanol, biofuels and etc are plagued with their own limitations which make them unsuitable for replacing oil. This has already been proven without a doubt.

[Revi]

I have friends who are farmers who are giving up their cars already. They have a ton truck, which does hauling and picks up hay and firewood, but they need only one car. I think this will become more and more common as the whole thing plays out. Gasoline and diesel will be used for things that get you more BTU's, and taking trips around for fun will be a thing of the past.

[Pops]

IGasoline and diesel will be used for things that get you more BTU's, and taking trips around for fun will be a thing of the past.

I think you're right, it's the old 'use less to pay more' theory of reducing waste and increasing utility.

It's funny, my daughter gave me a hard time for being a Peaker but buying another big pickup with a big diesel anyway. I told her it ain't to haul my coffee cup! It doesn't use any fuel sitting in the drive but when I need it it is big enough to haul just about anything - and in fact just about everything I've got. I didn't say, but she understands, that means it is the classic Bug Out Vehicle.

[KaiserJeep]

Sometimes we forget that we can after all make a reasonable gasoline substitute - about octane 110, suitable for aviation fuel even - from coal for about $10 per US gallon. We can also run vehicles on compressed natural gas or LPG in that same equivalent price range.

We have lots of coal and natural gas. Basically tripling vehicle fuel costs will certainly hurt but it is not going to amount to TEOTWAWKI.

[Pops]

$10/gal fuel doesn't sound all that bad does it? Here in a relatively good economy...
But what about in an economy where $10 is the average daly wage?

The whole point of PO Doom is that increased cost for fuel will in fact cause TEOTWAWKI - you hadn't realized that was what we are talking about?

LOL
;^)

Personally I'm not really sure how long it will take for the more "desperate" schemes to come about. CTL, GTL may be the next big thing or they may be what happens after a rather long period of shedding waste from the economy that can't handle $10/gal fuel. My theory is price will fall on average as the economy contracts but then rise after we begin to actually get closer to actually realizing the true utility of FFs - chainsaws and wood haulers as Revi says.

[KaiserJeep]

I simply do not have that much faith in wood as a fuel. Here in Silly Valley about the only time I cannot stand the outdoors is when we get one of the Winter temperature inversions going in the valley and it traps all the wood smoke down low. Step outside and you shed tears and start coughing.

Wood has to be cut, dried, hauled, and split. Then it has to be protected from rain when stored, then you are left with severely alkaline ashes which make lye when they get wet.

I mean I have a fireplace now - I don't use it, although I would if it had a gas log. But truth to tell I just consumed the last of the wood fuel I bought for Y2K - in 2012 which was the last time I had a fire in the fireplace.

[Pops]

There isn't much need for any heat over there - not really here in the foothills either.

But hauling firewood was just the example at hand, plug in firetruck, ambulance, trucking in cornmeal grits, etc.

[KaiserJeep]

Yeah but I am moving to Wisconsin. Even after I took her there between Thanksgiving and New Year, she still wants to go. Either we end up living outside of Madison - basically on the plains, or on the West coast of Lake Michigan. Both are cold.

[wake]

Driving an hour or two outside of Madison, I forget which side, maybe both, is the only place I have ever been in the US where I could not get a radio station. It's a long drive to anywhere.

Although that was some years back.

Minnesota is also cold but has great little lakes and cabins everywhere and the twin cities are great

[Revi]

I get really scared when I read Shortonoil's posts about the end of oil. I realized that it could happen much quicker than we think. The EROEI of oil is what will cause it to happen. The backside of Hubbert's Peak is bound to be steeper because we can't afford to get oil that doesn't give us at least 10-1. Short of that we needn't bother. We may all be walking sooner than we think!

[Revi]

We're all going to have to live in towns and get around in something smaller. Or, be a farmer and get to town once a month to trade and buy supplies. Sorry, but that's called reality. When farmers went to town 50 years ago they tucked all sorts of things to trade in the trunk, and bought and sold things. We're all going to have to think like them again.

[Quinny]

We go to town about once a week [40 mile round trip] and always plan our trips to minimise fuel usage. This is not environmental, but wallet driven. So for instance appointments and shopping are scheduled on my college day. At one time I wouldn't have dreamt of being so prescriptive as to how we spend our time.

[Revi]

Quinny you sound like the kind of person that will make it in the future.

[Outcast_Searcher]

If you have a solution that can ensure cheap motoring into the next century and is actually based on facts, then tell us what it is. This isn't any kind of a political rant. We are just looking at what's left divided by the number of vehicles to come to 210,000 miles left.

Really? With innovations like fracking coming out of nowhere to surprise the globe with an oil glut and dropping the oil price $50ish a barrel -- your ilk is going to tell us "how much is left"? With conventional discoveries and technology changes happening many times a decade?

Sure. I'll buy that.

How many times must a doomer incorrectly cry "wolf" before he/she stops believing their own stories?

As a moderate, I'm actually concerned about overpopulation, pollution, climate change, BAU growth, and a climate of "I want all I can get, and to he** with everybody else". On the other hand, science and the ability to adapt keeps things from going completely off the rails decade after decade after decade. So some sort of muddling along seems to be the normal course of things. (Nothing to be proud of, but it's what happens).

I just can't see how projecting that we're "on our last cars" makes a lot of sense when the current concerns are with a glut threatening to fill available storage by summer, and that additional production of gasoline by refineries due to high margins will help alleviate that. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... n-85-years

Not that the trend to buy larger and more powerful cars and trucks and SUV's, and drive more since gasoline is "cheap" is a good sign.

But still...

[Quinny]

Is there an oil glut?

[Subjectivist]

Is there an oil glut?

Do you count a temporary surplus as a glut? That will answer your question with a bit of context.

[Revi]

Revi, it seems you (and your ilk) will get little more from Outcast other than a political rant. His suggestion that Bakken heralds BAU decade after decade after decade is pure delusion.

I never realized that I had an "ilk". Cool. Anyway all I did was divide the amount that is supposed to be left by every vehicle on the planet at 20 mpg and came up with 210,000 miles.

Now I know I am not all that scientific, but my "ilk" likes to look at things as they are. As Stephen Colbert says, "reality has a liberal bias".

[kanon]

Now I know I am not all that scientific, but my "ilk" likes to look at things as they are.

I think it is a great way to look at depletion. I saw somewhere that the known oil reserves are roughly equal in volume to the water in Green Bay, off Lake Michigan. I don't know if this is true, but the point is simple graphical or practical descriptions really help to put things in perspective, if they are accurate. Critics should focus on accuracy, rather than talking points. By my reckoning, your calculation shows "happy motoring" has about 10 years, if that. The 210,000 miles implies about 20 years, but when the end is more clearly in sight the happiness part will change.