[DesuMaiden]

Peak oil has huge ramifications. Here's a summary of the ramifications of peak oil:

The most important consequence of peak oil is that the population bubble will burst. In 1900, there was only 1.6 billion people on the Earth. And 115 years later, there are now over 7 billion people. These extra 5 billion people exist on this planet ONLY because of fossil fuel energy. The Green Revolution dramatically increased the amount of food produced around the world. As a consequence, the population dramatically increased. But the Green Revolution was made possible only because of abundant fossil fuels. If you take away the fossil fuels, food production around the world would plummet. Leading to mass famine and starvation that has never been experienced by the human race. The population will crash from 7 billion plus people to under 2 billion people within the span of a few decades. This is undeniable to people who truly understand peak oil. There is no way in hell the Earth can support the current population--much less the population in another 20 to 30 years--without abundant fossil fuels. No amount of technology and human ingenuity can prevent this population collapse from happening.

There are ten calories of fossil fuel energy used to produce every calorie of food in the industrialized world. If you take the fossil fuels away, you take away the food, and if you take away the food, the population goes away. It is that simple.

Also, virtually every technology invented since 1859 (when oil was first drilled for by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania) was made possible only because of oil. Everything ranging from cars (and other transportation technology), computers (like desktops, laptops, video game consoles, cellphones, ipods, etc), plastics, shoes, clothing, cosmetics, food and countless other products exist only because of oil. If you take the oil away, virtually all modern technology will cease to exist. If you take the oil away, we are going back to the Middle Ages, quiet literally. This is no exaggeration.

Here are a few things you take for granted that will cease to exist without oil. Say bye bye to cars, airplanes and other modern transportation devices. You are going back to bicycles, horses and walking as transportation in the post-oil future. Say go bye to computers and the Internet, which are also petroleum products. Yes, this website exists only because of oil, too. Say bye bye to most of the human population, which exist only because of oil. Say bye bye to industrial civilization, which exists only because of oil.

I don't care if this post offends anyone. These are just facts. Denying facts don't make facts go away.

[ROCKMAN]

D - Doesn't hurt my feelings. Just all part of the POD.

[vtsnowedin]

There is one thing (at least) you forget. There is a great body of scientific knowledge that exists and won't go away when fossil fuels are depleted. We will not return to the middle ages with religion dictating that the word is flat and the center of the universe. Trees will still grow ,paper and books produced and libraries kept open with some computers run on renewable energy. The future may be a lot harder then the present but it will be a new future not a return to the past.

[DesuMaiden]

There is one thing (at least) you forget. There is a great body of scientific knowledge that exists and won't go away when fossil fuels are depleted. We will not return to the middle ages with religion dictating that the word is flat and the center of the universe. Trees will still grow ,paper and books produced and libraries kept open with some computers run on renewable energy. The future may be a lot harder then the present but it will be a new future not a return to the past.

Of course, I hope people in the future will not end up returning to religious dictatorships. Nevertheless most technologies invented since 1859 (when oil was first drilled) will cease to exist. We certainly will not be to even recycle most petroleum products because the process of recycling even requires a great deal of energy that mostly comes from fossil fuels.

[vtsnowedin]

I think you are off on that as well. The technologies will survive and those that require an energy input to function will have an alternative source of energy supplied. There may well be a lot less of it due to limitations on alternate sources of energy but the energy we do have will be applied with the highest level of technologies available.

[dolanbaker]

There is one thing (at least) you forget. There is a great body of scientific knowledge that exists and won't go away when fossil fuels are depleted. We will not return to the middle ages with religion dictating that the word is flat and the center of the universe. Trees will still grow ,paper and books produced and libraries kept open with some computers run on renewable energy. The future may be a lot harder then the present but it will be a new future not a return to the past.

Of course, I hope people in the future will not end up returning to religious dictatorships. Nevertheless most technologies invented since 1859 (when oil was first drilled) will cease to exist. We certainly will not be to even recycle most petroleum products because the process of recycling even requires a great deal of energy that mostly comes from fossil fuels.

Most technologies can operate without oil, but, the main issues are feeding an oversized population that is where the real energy crunch will come (decades away).

As for most of the rest, modern living would be possible with a far lower consumption of fossil fuel with some fairly basic changes to our "western" lifestyle. The principal changes would be to have smaller centres of employment & habitation, just think of the old style Soviet Union company towns where the population didn't need cars as they all worked close by and everything that was needed was close to hand. Education and the retention of knowledge (data storage) requires relatively small amounts of energy that can easily be obtained from renewable energy (solar/wind etc).

Industry will be forced to change to reflect the reductions in input energy, this could easily be achieved by the manufacture of "durables" as opposed to "consumer" goods, in other words like the old East German washing machines that had a design life of at least 30 years.

It seems to me that the future may be communist in style, and I'm no communist!

[DMarsh]

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I don't care if this post offends anyone. These are just facts. Denying facts don't make facts go away.

Some have said that peak oil isn't about running out, but rather having less. Your examples tend to be of running out, as opposed to using less.

[ennui2]

If you factor in global warming entering a feedback-loop, I would not count on the future 100-200 years from now being very livable. The world of the future will not just be the 1800s over again if the biosphere is collapsing. It will be more like Cormac McCarthy or Mad Max.

[dolanbaker]

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I don't care if this post offends anyone. These are just facts. Denying facts don't make facts go away.

Some have said that peak oil isn't about running out, but rather having less. Your examples tend to be of running out, as opposed to using less.

Peak oil is really about passing a point in time when we have the most oil that we are ever going to have for consumption. We're already a long way past the per capita peak, mainly due to the number of consumers doubling and production not doubling since the 1970s.

The absolute global peak in production is looming about now (or so it appears).

Increases in efficiency has allowed the oil to do more work for more people, but eventually, the quantity available will decline to the point that energy substitution or doing without will be the only solution. The point when we "run out" is probably at least 100 years into the future by which time almost every oil consuming process will have migrated to alternative forms of energy or abandoned.

[vtsnowedin]

Peak oil is really about passing a point in time when we have the most oil that we are ever going to have for consumption. We're already a long way past the per capita peak, mainly due to the number of consumers doubling and production not doubling since the 1970s.

The absolute global peak in production is looming about now (or so it appears).

Increases in efficiency has allowed the oil to do more work for more people, but eventually, the quantity available will decline to the point that energy substitution or doing without will be the only solution. The point when we "run out" is probably at least 100 years into the future by which time almost every oil consuming process will have migrated to alternative forms of energy or abandoned.

It is true that there is as much oil under the second half of the curve as there was on the first half and it will last for about 100 years. But we are starting the second half with seven billion people not the one point five billion we started the first half with. Then you must take into account we have used up all the easy to get or cheap oil first and the second half's oil will get progressively more expensive in both terms of EROEI and in capital expenditures. The net of these combined factors is quite serious. Once total oil production makes it's first five percent decline the western economies that are addicted to it will go into a deep recession, commodity prices will rise sharply and surpluses in the system will disappear. Aid exports to third world countries that are not oil exporters will stop because the west will no longer have any surplus to give away or even sell at fair prices. Wars over remaining oil supplies will intensify and increase in number wiping out large numbers of poor people that have the misfortune to have oil under them the west wants.
I don't see this coming down to a peaceful adjustment period at all. chaos , war and famine are much more likely.

[dolanbaker]

I don't see this coming down to a peaceful adjustment period at all. chaos , war and famine are much more likely.

That's already happening to a certain extent, currently there are no supply issues and yes that could change quickly as the bellcurve has not really turned out the way it was expected to. There is (& will be) huge amounts of production that would be extracted on the final 30% of the curve that is being extracted earlier, so the shark fin is more likely than ever before. This is more true today as it is clear that the expected extremes in high oil prices didn't materialise and producers shut down when the price falls below the profit line.

[ROCKMAN]

"I would not count on the future 100-200 years from now being very livable." A viable prediction IMHO given that there are countless millions who today don't find their existence "very livable". Like the millions who die yearly from easily curable diseases and infections. And then there are the countless millions surviving today on near-starvation level diets. Of course, if the prediction is directed towards those who will get pushed down the pyramid by the POD then yes: the future would look bleak.

[sparky]

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On the subject of technology survival , that's an interesting one
technology need its environment to survive , some will be worth investment to keep alive
ball bearings are critical , electrical welding , plastics , light emitting diodes , three phases motors
large iron smelting , tires , steam technology , digital machine tools ...etc , etc

those are important , but a tech can only survive if its support system and manufacturing base is able to be renewed
else the last item is made when the first vital component fail and cannot be replaced ,
I can imagine integrated circuits and electronic components being hoarded as vital national resources
to fix the machines which make the stuff
there would be large and increasingly desperate recycling , then scavenging

There is also the problem of the erosion of the knowledge base , the survival of the text is not the problem , the survival of an education system forming people who have a theoretical and practical ability to understand and use the knowledge is not a given , even if it prolong itself , some short time and long time decay can be expected

Some example of lost knowledge , in the Aegean , following the Minoan civilization ,they forgot writing
invaders and local destroyed the administrative and religions class
post Roman North Africa forgot the wheel ,
the increased disrepair of the road , shrinking of the urban network and the decrease in internal trade made animals caravans a better options

PS . in case you wonder why ball bearing , they drastically reduce friction when moving large loads , they allow transition efficiencies of near 100% , tires make flat road surface possible , iron bound wheel would destroy a road network in a few decades , roads are one of the largest investment in energy saving in a society , no good roads , no good trade

[Sys1]

Well, it's not that simple.

- First, you can slowly decrease population with a 1 children Policy just like China did. A collapse of population would not necessary mean an extermination.
- Second, almost 90% of food production is dedicated to animals which are then eaten by humans. If this food production is used directly for humans, we would need FAR LESS food than today. Moreover, a lot of culture is used to produce useless things like sugar for sodas/processed sugar food or biocarburant. In modern countries, more than 30% of food ends in trash, lot of food comes from other side of the planet even if it's useless, not tasty, and energy intensive. Future of humanity will be vegetarians eating local.
- Third, a lot of oïl is spoiled in personnal cars while oil should be used only for trucks,police, emergency and public transports.
- Forth, all the production today has only one purpose : consume more. We need to stop with growth. We can live very well without growth when we live in a country already too developed.

My conclusion is that the consequences of peak oil will be very slow. Actually so slow that we won't notice it. It will be only in several decades that we will Wake up seeing all the things that have changed since the beginning of the millenium.
Note that all of that is an hypothesis, we could also end up waking up a morning with a crash of world economy then 1 year later with a full scale thermonuclear war.

[ROCKMAN]

"First, you can slowly decrease population with a 1 children Policy just like China did". A common misconception that China has decreased its population. Since they initiated the one child policy in 1980 their population has increased by 430 million. IOW they've added more to their pop then the entire current US pop.

"The family planning policy, known as the one-child policy in the West, is a population control policy of the People's Republic of China. The term "one-child" is inexact as the policy allows many exceptions and ethnic minorities are exempt. In 2007, 36% of China's population was subject to a strict one-child restriction; an additional 53% was allowed to have a second child if the first was a girl. The policy is enforced at the provincial level through fines that are imposed based on the income of the family and other factors. "Population and Family Planning Commissions" exist at every level of government to raise awareness and carry out registration and inspection work."

"My conclusion is that the consequences of peak oil will be very slow. Actually so slow that we won't notice it. It will be only in several decades that we will Wake up seeing all the things that have changed since the beginning of the millenium." I suppose we all have different perception of the consequences of our energy depletion. I look back at the countless thousands of lives lost and $trillions spent in just the last 25 years and the escalation we see happening today and see anything but a slow dynamic.

[vtsnowedin]

"
"My conclusion is that the consequences of peak oil will be very slow. Actually so slow that we won't notice it. It will be only in several decades that we will Wake up seeing all the things that have changed since the beginning of the millenium." I suppose we all have different perception of the consequences of our energy depletion. I look back at the countless thousands of lives lost and $trillions spent in just the last 25 years and the escalation we see happening today and see anything but a slow dynamic.

Watching events unfold in Greece, the Ukraine and across the Arab world in the Arab Spring including the rise of ISIS. I have to disagree. Our economies are too delicately balanced and over leveraged to absorb any shock without collapsing. Such events are becoming more frequent and more severe.

[ROCKMAN]

vt - Indeed. BTW that wasn't my comment. It came from Sys1...must give credit where it's due. LOL.

[Pops]

There is (& will be) huge amounts of production that would be extracted on the final 30% of the curve that is being extracted earlier, so the shark fin is more likely than ever before.

Along with the possibility of "systemic tipping points" the shark-fin is the biggest threat of peak oil, IMO. It changes the meaning of peak oil from simply the high point to; The Seneca Point, The Willie E. Overlook.

I feel a little like that is where we are now.

PO itself has always been about rate. On the left side of the curve, the up side, rate is constrained by demand; the rate of extraction is in practice limited only by the amount of demand. A Hubbert curve where "all other things are equal" would be nice and smooth on the left side; more and more demand creates more and more wells would make more and more oil. That same Hubbert peak (isolated from "other things") would show a nice smooth, gradually accelerating decline to a long smooth tail as fewer and fewer new wells extracted less and less oil.

But of course all things are not equal.

My knee-jerk is that "bankers' will take every advantage including simply making things up in order to make a buck – and so will the average Joe. Read some of Michael Lewis's books, The Big Short, Flash Boys or Liars Poker or Quants by Scott Patterson to get an idea of what "finance" has become. The biggest rip off in history took place in the oughties and no one went to to jail — because everyone was complicit. I don't pretend to know what goes on in financial markets but there is no doubt in my mind that the extra trillion or two in oil price paid over the last few years didn't go toward diesel to run frack pumps.

The negative effects of >$80 oil are obvious. Governments around the world are borrowing from investors to make money "easier" — you know; like it was in '05. But by keeping interest low, they are effectively taking money from every other savings account and asset class and transferring it to consumption—burning the furniture.

Even so they can't offset the higher cost of oil to the economy. And now, drillers of the only new oil available are forced to pack it in at <$80.

DaDum DaaDumm DA DUM!


When people have said PO is only about transportation I always shake my head.
Transportation defines our economy. It defines the modern world.
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Spending past income is the hallmark of the oil age it occurs to me
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