Peak oil...or not? (I'm expecting $3.50 gas by this spring and summer)

[Arragonis]

I worry about Peak oil but I won't be running to find a bunker in the hills for a while. I have a hope that we can solve a lot of the issues with tech but not a blind faith in it. e.g. even if we embraced EVs tomorrow we still have to make tyres for them and that needs oil. Even recycled ones.

My worry is that our society is wired up to produce and consume very quickly. In the industrialised world we are running with a 4 day food supply, and that supply is all in trucks driving to our supermarkets.

And that is less sustainable and more brittle than it needs to be.

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

e.g. even if we embraced EVs tomorrow we still have to make tyres for them and that needs oil. Even recycled ones.

Interestingly, there is an effort by some tire manufacturers to wean the tire ingredient list away from petroleum-based products... I can't recall which manufacturer it was ... one of the big ones ... which already has a racing tire on the market made without any oil, and claims to be testing a consumer tire made similarly to be on the shelves in 2012...

Even if they do not eliminate all petroleum products in their tire products, most manufacturers are looking at reducing the %age they use in order to protect themselves against the fluctuating oil prices anyway...

[Laurentiu]

Tires made of Orange peel

[NachtRitter]

Ya, that's one approach the manufacturers are taking...

[Arragonis]

Yep, but we know we can't grow enouigh oil to replace what we use and have enough food to eat, especially as a lot of agriculture depends also on oil.

Its a kind of vicious circle.

Maybe it can be made to work, its a challenge worth watching.

[jkp1187]

Hmm. Well, it's well into summer, and the prediction in the OP does not seem to have come to pass. (Not to say it won't eventually, just not "by this Spring and Summer [2010.]"

Not that $3.50 is really that significantly high a price for gasoline. Wake me up when it hits $6.11/gallon, like I paid in Europe in 2009.

[texanidiot25]

If I'm not mistaken, most of Europes fuel price comes from taxing.

[Laurentiu]

Originally Posted by texanidiot25

If I'm not mistaken, most of Europes fuel price comes from taxing.

Oh, no, you're not mistaken at all.

World Gas Prices By Country | Gasoline Petrol Price & Hybrid Sales

also, here is a table of the fuel excise rates (tax) for EU countries

fuel excise.JPG

If you want to read more, you'll find a whole big PDF on the matter,

HERE

[jkp1187]

Originally Posted by texanidiot25

If I'm not mistaken, most of Europes fuel price comes from taxing.

No, I don't think you're mistaken.

Which is why $6 or $7/gal gasoline will be a significantly high price in the USA.

Of course, it also means that since they have managed to survive with those kind of prices, I am not terrified of them should they come here (as I suspect they will eventually.)

[solarguy]

I am in some middle camp on peak oil. Yes, I think it will be serious, especially with agriculture. Millions of people will starve. Shoot, they're starving now. It will get much worse.

On the other hand, I don't think humans will be extinct in 30 years as some have proposed.

On the third hand, I don't think natural gas will save the day. The U.S. is already a net importer of nat gas, mostly from canada. Canada's reserves have been dropping steadily, if not rapidly. Here's a non-hyperbolic analysis;

Peak Natural Gas

Ten minutes of reading on a google or bing search for peak natural gas should convince anyone that "just" switching to nat gas is not "THE" answer.

Yes, I have seen oil wells where they are burning off natural gas. I used to work in the oil field in the 80's. The reason they do it is that it is uneconomical to recover the gas at that well. Pipeline is too far away, quality isn't good enough, whatever.

That's the whole point of peak oil, it's not that we run out of oil, it's that we run out of cheap/easy/high quality oil. Ditto natural gas. If it costs more, in energy, to build a pipeline out to that isolated well, you CAN'T make any use of the natural gas.

Without gigantic amounts of conservation, peak energy will be bad for most humans.

HTH,

troy