Peak Oil News and Message Boards

steam_cannon wrote:...
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
"There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day."
http://tinyurl.com/32hol3

1) most members of Western Industrial Civilization are about to enter a ‘Bottleneck’ of historical magnitude and significance;

2) a confluence of various events is acting to cause the Bottleneck;

3) some of those events are: the peaking of production and ultimate decline of cheap, readily available exosomatic energy resources; the economic bankruptcy of nations; the depletion of water, soil, critical minerals, sea life; etc.

3.1) The entire basis upon which Western Industrial Civilization is built, — growth, and ‘Capitalism’, as a form of political economy, is based on the theoretical construct of ‘perpetual resource discovery, acquisition, development and exploitation’; and thus, as finite resources decline and ultimately deplete — as they must, capitalism and perpetual growth must decline and ultimately cease also!

4) humans are but one of numerous life forms and follow the same biological laws as do those other life forms;

5) humans thus, have no more probability for ‘perpetual existence’ than do other life forms;

6) the central banks of numerous nations have run the printing presses so fast and so long of late, that the world is awash with ‘liquidity’ (some 18-24% increase globally during 2003/2006), such that it allows false price-sensing for things like stocks and real estate; but few realize that the more dollars they hold the less they are worth; thus, there exists an intellectual disconnect for many between one’s real economic status/lifestyle, and one’s perceived economic status/lifestyle. This makes global economic collapse more probable than most realize.

7) “international resource wars” — wars fought to secure for the victor natural recourses — have begun in earnest, and the preemptive subjugation of weaker nations by other nations is now part of the permanent natural resource acquisition and exploitation scenario;

since some categories of weapons are so cheap (for their perceived ‘benefit’), these wars will be fought with ANY weapons available, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the prospect for Nuclear, Chemical or Biological ‘Winter’ is more imminent than ever before;

9) while some individual humans will of course pass through the Bottleneck, most humans, and their highly complex cultures, civilizations and societies will not;

Plantagenet wrote:From the link: "An annual resource depletion rate of 15% gives one just ~6.6 years until the energy resource is, for all practical purposes, GONE!"

This initial assumption is almost certainly completely wrong. Please learn a bit about the Peak Oil theory. M. King Hubbert analyzed empirical data from actual oil fields and regional oil production histories and devised a clever way to predict the pattern of peak oil depletion after peak oil is reached. Hubbert's work (and all more recent analyses) indicate that its highly unlikely that all oil will be gone in six years after peak oil, especially as the peak apparently already occurred in late 2005 to 2006.

Analysis and Proofs: 1) Current “all liquids + NG” depletion rates running at 15% per annum (or more) means the effective end of the ready availability of cheap fossil-fueled energy resources (except some coal) in seven years or so, i.e. ~2014!

The loss of liquid fossil fuels will contemporaneously cause the loss of coal also. Think ‘trains’: Coal-hauling trains (in the U.S.) run on diesel fuel (not coal — or anything else). Trains haul coal from the mines to coal-fired electrical generating plants, in many cases, hundreds of miles from the mine mouth. Depleting oil production means less diesel fuel with which to run coal-hauling trains.

Armageddon wrote:Economic collapse will happen before PO ever sets in.

Plantagenet wrote:Peak oil may already have occurred. It seems to have happened in 2006 or possibly late 2005. We've been living off "excess capacity" in terms of oil production, but the absolute peak of production, based on the numbers, seems to already be in the rear veiw mirror unless something unusual is going to happen with the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia.

eastbay wrote:

Peak oil may already have occurred. It seems to have happened in 2006 or possibly late 2005. We've been living off "excess capacity" in terms of oil production, but the absolute peak of production, based on the numbers, seems to already be in the rear veiw mirror unless something unusual is going to happen with the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia.

You're right Plantagenet. Armageddon, the catalyst for the collapse will definitely be PO, but with just about everything else falling into terminal depletion, PO thankfully just beat the others (water, food, metals, overshoot, etc...) to the punch.
Initially, the masses will generally have no idea why their economies are collapsing, as evidenced by the fact we're two years past and most are clueless. But in a fairly short period of time it will become obvious to even the most deluded. It's all about the oil running out.

Tyler_JC wrote:? Not true... Diesel fuel will be redirected towards coal trains by market forces. Think about it.
1. Diesel becomes more expensive.
2. The least efficient uses of diesel will cease to be profitable.
3. Diesel fuel will be redirected towards the most efficient uses.
4. Transporting coal to produce electricity is and will continue to be highly profitable.
What could be more profitable in a world of ever-increasing electricity prices than producing more electricity? Rail road companies specializing in transporting coal to power plants will outbid everyone else and secure their supplies of fuel. The writer of that article either doesn't believe in the theory of economics or he doesn't understand what the heck he's talking about.

Novus wrote:The only reason collapse won't happen because of PO is if climate change gets us first. This ongoing drought is threatening America's food supplies in ways most can hardly comprehend.

static66 wrote:Hey Armageddon, whats up with your avatar? she is looking at me with those buffalo eyes.... I can't really concentrate on the end of Western Civilazation with her staring at me like that! I read this when it came out and thought it was fantastic... can you give me a timeline on the real shit hitting the fan? you seem to know what your talking about...

The great tribulation as the bible speaks of ?