[OilsNotWell]

I've been reading a few books that propose energy taxes, that consumption of energy should be taxed, not labor, as is currently the case. Then there would be an incentive to minimize use of energy and to increase the amount of labor, which would help with employment. Because that would be a regressive tax, raising the prices of goods derived from processes that use energy (meaning just about everything), the poor would be paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes. So everyone gets an energy credit. This would be similar to a minimum salarly below which one is not taxed.

Interesting idea. Kind of like a national sales tax where those who buy things pay more tax. With your idea, those who use more of their energy credits, pay more tax? So if you eat a steak, that would be taxed more than a bowl of rice? And driving a car more than riding the bus?

I think you meant progressive, not regressive, though.

It's interesting, but it is so unlikley to happen based upon our cultural underpinnings, and would require us to completely face our problems. Humans don't generally do that. We're better at exploiting things.

I instead see a transition to the "energy slaves" idea. The poor(er), and that's what going to be most of us soon, will be required to produce a certain amount of "net energy" for the state(elite). Orwellian nightmare cometh. Even in our death, our bodies will be thrown into the furnace to create energy! Yes, that's how the energy credits will work.

My god, I've got a great book idea. Fiction, but who knows?

[Barbara]

Oilsnot well,
that's not fiction: in Europe we have sales tax! When you buy something, you pay about 20% tax over the stuff. It's included in the price, so you don't even see it (and easily forget). And yes, it's progressive: on food, as an example, you pay only 4%, and also on cultural products, like books. Gasoline is taxed 65%, that's why it's so expensive here!
As you can see, we don't have spare room for more taxes here...

[backstop]

With respect I'd differ with the premis of this view that energy taxes must perforce target the consumer, in the regressive and false assumption that "the polluter must pay." How many heroin addicts are freed by facing higher prices for their drug ?

What is needed, in my humble opinion, is

a/. massive investment in sustainable energies (such as methanol from medium cycle coppice woodland at around 800 Ts /sq ml /yr) (stuff the so-called "Renewables" such as Battery-Chicken-Dung Power: we can't afford their immorality or their impacts).

and therefore:

b/. the exponentially rising transfer of Research, Exploration and Development budgets by Fossil energy interests into the Sustainables' production and usage.

and therefore:

c/. a revenue-neutral tax on shareholder profits from energy production and usage corporations (e.g. Shell & Texaco, BMW and Ford) according to the ratio of their Fossil : Sustainable Budgets for Research, Exploration & Development.

The acronym would thus be a BRED Tax.

This could directly influence the shareholders who profit from present fossil fuel usage/depletion/pollution, and who have the only practical control over the corporations' strategic planning.

Far from being punitive towards them, a revenue neutral BRED Tax could help them (and the rest of society) avoid bankruptcy.

In this context, (and that of the topic "When will it hit) I'm puzzled by the painstaking effort ASPO invests in identifying theoretical oil-production decline-curves over many decades, without (as far as I've yet found) a parallel effort to identify the resulting highly potent iterative geo-economic stresses. After all, bankruptcy is normally a horribly sudden event.

The brittleness of our present industrialized societies was perhaps epitomized by the result of a single tree which, growing under 33%-raised airborne CO2, unexpectedly reached a significant power line and blacked out much of the east of the USA.

Since the global economy runs on intangible investor-confidence, and this is now stressed both by oil-depletion and by climate destabilization (whose present $100bn /yr damage costs are rising at around 10% per year, removing assets' insurability and so their collateral value), can we reasonably expect an orderly economic decline, or something more akin to a cliff ?

If the latter is the probability, I'd ask not "When will it hit" but which of the sustainable energy technologies will be best able to endure such a crash and assist with future development ?

[flyin-sauca]

1994

[Guest]

The sh*t has hit the fan

Draconian times are here until 2045 (i.m.h.o.)

The market's invisible hand will take care of this matter... Most of the industrialized countries are not willing to let some of their present healthy way of living.

It's gonna be a painful lesson, so get ready to party

[jato]

I am going to revise my date from 2010 to 2006. I am going with ASPO's model. Next year should be interesting.

[Guest]

I go for next year as the date

but we might scrape through it if prices hold below around $70 and get a years 'grace'
there is new supply due next year after all
So the official year could be '06 but 'peak oil' for me is the day the world actually admits its got a problem
We are oil addicts!

I hope this is true anyway. I need another year to clear my debts!

Martin

[chris-h]

I do believe that oil production will remain flat for the next 5 years and then it will start to fall.

[tmazanec1]

Chris-h
Then the price of oil will tend to rise as demand tends to grow with flat production, or else the economy will decline to lower demand and close the gap.

[Licho]

2004!!

It already happend, we are post peak, this is it, the apocalyptic world after peak!

Current conditions are post-peak conditions (demand higher than supply), and even if productions manages to raise next year, it won't catch demand, so situation is exactly same as on "downhill" part of the curve..

[Jenab]

Wrong. Now. Peak really won't matter now, since demand is currently outstripping supply, and any future production will be relatively neglible and won't be able to bridge the gap. It will become ever more apparent.

That may be so, but there will be relatively sharp falls over relatively steep parts of the downslope. The final blackout, for example, as the power grids fail never to come up again. At some point, the masses of people will become generally aware that there isn't going to be enough food to feed everybody, and then the panic will leap in magnitude, not merely gradually rise. And, of course, there will be that first winter just prior to which those living in northern latitudes, say around Halloween, finally understand at the bottom of their very being, that they ain't getting no fuel oil, coal, propane, LP, or kerosene this year, or ever again. EeeeeeK! "Children died, days grew cold, a crust of bread would buy a bag of gold. I wish we'd all been ready. There's no time to spend your dime, the power's off and you've been left behiiiind."

Anybody want to guess which year the president will make himself a dictator by activating those executive orders that say he can grab everything you have, split up your family, and send you off to a labor camp as a slave? It may be that the survivors will be those who successfully break anti-hoarding laws, concealing their stash of food and petrol, and even themselves and their homes, from the scrutiny of overflying government planes and reconaissance satellites. Mind your thermal emissions; a lot of those recon satellites are sensitive to infrared.

Jerry Abbott

[a2_fan]

" .....there isn't going to be enough food to feed everybody, and then the panic will leap in magnitude, not merely gradually rise."

At the moment i see many overweight americans - so a little diet would do no harm

One could also see it the other way round .

People learn to live with lightweight HPVs insulate themselves and dont eat
meat in such unhealthy quantities like before . Living becomes more intelligent and natureconform and the change into that livingstyle creates new domestic jobs .

And suddenly the energy for that way of living is enough ( as it has been for our ancestors we are now a little bit more similar ) and comes most of our own country itself and ( as you can often see in the faces of "underdeveloped" countries ) all are smiling even though we are more "poor" than before in the old sense of the developed countries .

[Coolman]

I would have to say decline starting in 2005 or 2006.

[Ayoob]

Oil peak could be 2006, 07, 08... any of those years. We'll probably see a subsitution to natural gas for vehicles some time soon. There's a lot of room for substitution at this point so we'll see increasing energy awareness among the public. It could be quite some time before we see the economy collapse. When gas hits $5 or $6 in the US, we'll probably see people start to substitute public transportation for car transportation, and maybe we'll see less commuting.

There are electric-assisted bicycles out there as well as biodiesel, ethanol, etc. I know, I know... these things aren't complete solutions to the problem, but they should ameliorate the crash for some time. We'll see all kinds of things come and go.

Coal fired electric plants are being constructed as we speak. Yes, it's an environmental nightmare. Yes, it's dirty, and we shouldn't do it. But we will.

Electric cars will probably become more common as they come back online. Hybrids getting 60-80mpg should help a little.

Part of the problem is that China and India are just STARTING to ramp up. They have ten times the population of the US and they want their piece of the pie. I think they've already picked up a head of steam on this and it'll become increasingly difficult to maintain anything as they add a couple million cars a year to the world vehicle population.

It's hard to say. Peak oil in 07, subsitution beginning in 06/07, hard economic times in 08-10, and economic depression starting somewhere between 10 and 20.

[trespam]

So with all the guesses proposed so far on this thread, let's face it.

1. Nobody knows exactly when oil will peak. Today? Twenty years? BP comes out to say that non-OPEC production will peak within the NEXT decade.

2. Nobody knows exactly how peak oil will play out. There are people who WANT it to play out a certain way. Racists want it to play out through genocide or separation. American Nationalists want it to play out through American Hegemony. Earth-First types want it to play out with everyone returning to the garden of eden. Anarchists want it to become their favorite mad max movie.

Fact is: We don't know. How many years will people continue to speculate on this board about how peak oil will play out? Suppose we've got ten years. Will the same people be posting, day-in, day-out, with the same speculation. "Maybe 2012?" "No. I think 2013."

Just some food for thought. With a little more fuel efficiency, a little more turning the thermostat down, and a little more production out of Saudi Arabia and stability in Iraq and Venezuela and Iran, we could be looking at five years of $40-$75 oil.

[dhickerson]

It is currently my opinion that by mid-year of 2005 we should be at the "peak". Of course if I learn anything that changes my opinion I'll be sure to mention it.

[smiley]

1. Nobody knows exactly when oil will peak. Today? Twenty years? BP comes out to say that non-OPEC production will peak within the NEXT decade.

The non-OPEC conventional production already appears to be in decline since the beginning of this year. Campbell seems to acknowledge that since he has kept the conventional peak at 2005.

The real question is OPEC. Mexico has peaked last year. China and Russia will peak before 2007 (if we believe the officials).

After 2007, OPEC production growth needs to offset the decline of the rest of the world AND deliver the production growth. That means that they have to grow faster than any point in history. 2 OPEC members are already in decline and unable to meet their production quota (Venezuela and Indonesia).

After 2007 the remaining OPEC countries need to add 3-5 mbd per year to keep on growing, more than at any point in their history. I don't see them doing that. Perhaps the production will plateau for a few years, but in 2007 it will basically be a run race.

[0mar]

I'm thinking 2004 or 5 if a miracle occurs in Iran/Saudi Arabia that allows them to ratchet up production by a few mbd. Otherwise, decline is going significantly play a larger role than straight production.

Dick Cheney has said that by 2010 we will need an additional 50 million barrels per day due to demand and depletion. Matthew Simmons has said this as well.

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/depletion.pdf
http://www.peakoil.net/Publications/Che ... il_FCD.pdf

I just don't see that happening.

[dduck]

I'll go for 2005.
I'm not sure that the time of the actual peak of production will mean that much. The actual shape of the curve is influenced by a number of factors. The pronounced Russian double peak was caused by infrastructure collapse when the Soviet Union came unglued.
The Middle East production could be severely impacted by a focusing of terrorist activity on pipelines, refineries, tanker-handling, and storage facilities. Over the longer term, this would be reflected as a plateau or mild (maybe) double peak.