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

[Bicycle Bob]

Governments are not really looking out for people. Politicians have come to depend upon Corporations, the amoral immortals. Has anybody noticed production actually rising since '06? You can never know you have a peak, only that you had one. King predicted the U.S. peak, and the industry still took years to stop calling the downslope a temporary slump. They see more profits in a crisis situation, so they fight anything sustainable.

[Dave's Civic Duty]

Boy, am I glad I have my VX. At least us ecomodders have done something to help out our wallets. Most people are clueless, at least here in the states.

Time for me to finish my biodiesel processor!

The problem of the visible sign of the price of a gallon, that also allows the prices at the grocery, parts, department, stores, & what have you, to go up as well.

Some of the experts a few years back were saying that 2010 was going to be the peak of production, stating that oil is getting more difficult to find, if there is anymore. Who knows for sure?

Dave

[Laurentiu]

Originally Posted by MadisonMPG

wow, how much is that for you? Like, what does a loaf of bread cost, or just something where I can judge how much more it is.

Ok, few examples off my head, these are supermarket prices (places similar to Walmart in US) , not the small shops where prices are much more, sometimes more than double...but I don't buy much from these unless I need something at 2 AM:

Bread load (1-1.5 lbs) - 2 EUR ~ 3 USD
1 liter Milk (quart) - 1.3 EUR ~ 2 USD
12 Eggs - 2.4 EUR ~ 4 USD or
Carton (30 eggs) - 6 EUR ~ 8.5 USD
0.5 kg (1 lb) brown sugar - 2 EUR ~ 3 USD
1 kg (2 lbs) flour - 1 EUR - 1.45 USD
1 kg (2lbs) apples - 1.7 EUR - 2.5 USD
1 kg bananas - 2 EUR ~ 3 USD
1.5 liter Pepsi/Coke bottle - 1.9 EUR ~ 2.7 USD
250 grams (1/2 lb.) Cadbury Choc. Bar - 2.5 EUR ~ 3.65 USD
500 grams (1lb) Cheddar/Gouda Cheese - 4 EUR ~ 6 USD
1 lb beef (for bbq) 5-6 EUR ~ 7.5-9 USD
1 lb Chick. Breast 3.5 EUR ~ 5.5 USD
2 Bed apt. (furnished) rent + expenses - 650 EUR (950 USD)
.......
For going out to places like TGI Fridays, Bennigans (yes, Bennigans is still alive and well in Cyprus ) at least 25 EUR/person for one appetizer + main + one soft drink (not including tip)
......
1 liter of gasoline now went up to 0.967 EUR/liter yesterday which is about 5.35 USD/Gallon
.....
Clothing, electronics, pretty much everything else is MUCH more than the States...I lived there and believe me, every time you think you're getting ripped of for something in the States, think again, thank God you were born there of somehow managed to get to live there. Life in (most ) other places in the world is much harder and costly.
Oh, and if you're wondering how are the salaries over here , in Cyprus...well..they start at about 700 EUR (obviously full-time which here is most of the time 48 hr instd of 40 with no overtime paid) and anything above 1500 is considered a great wage. I earn somewhere in between, closer to the bottom
That's my main reason for squeezing every km out of my gas tank...I also hate wasting no matter what it may be, food, gas, etc. This planet can barely support us...

[Laurentiu]

Originally Posted by Dave's Civic Duty

Some of the experts a few years back were saying that 2010 was going to be the peak of production, stating that oil is getting more difficult to find, if there is anymore. Who knows for sure?

Dave

Interesting to read (if you haven't yet) :
Predicting the timing of peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Even if peak oil hasn't been reached yet for a few years , which I personally don't think to be so, the remaining oil out there is much harder to get to and more costly to extract/refine which will still drive the costs up.

As the wikipedia article mentions, especially for countries like US, Canada, Australia, with most people living mostly in communities (suburbs) spread in patterns which are not easily accessible by public transport something's gotta give....Most people in the US rely on their private transport to get to work, get their kids to/from school , etc. and it will obviously continue like this until a point at which the fuel spending will be so high that alternatives will have to be found, such as pooling, public transport, ultimately redesigning the way North America's communities are located/spread.

When I was living/working in the States (FL) for a short while (less than a year) some of my colleagues from work used to commute to work up to 100-150 miles per day (back and forth) some of them owning cars such as Toyota Tundra and the like , this was back in 2004-2005, I remember gas prices were hovering around 2$/gal.

Now Imagine driving something like that in Netherlands where gas is about 8 USD/gallon, let's say that person was hypermiling with the Tundra , and managing to get 18 MPG combined, for the 150 miles commute, they would have to fork out 60-70 USD (EUR equivalent) every day to get to work and back....Unless they were some CEO's or the like, not many could afford or would think to spend that.

That's why you hardly see anybody commuting long distances in most European countries and if they do, they will probably drive some turbo-diesel smallish car that gets 4.5 liter/100 km (50+ mpg)

[Dave's Civic Duty]

Hi L,

I totally agree on how much better we have it here in the states. I have a close friend that moved to Spain, we have conversations along those lines. He keeps telling me on how his american dollar is worth less against the euro.

When you put it along those lines we are doing OK, but if I base it on things that have affected me here in the last 8 or so years, it's not as good as it once was like during the 90's. Times they are a changing & much too quickly.

Dave

[Laurentiu]

ya, well you must think that resources are getter scarcer and scarcer, cheap labour like the one that was available in the 90's is harder to find (e.g. China's economy, standards of living has increased dramatically, thus increasing production costs for everything produced in these countries..)
What I'm trying to say is that we all must leave behind the idea that we can live/spend/consume without thinking of the consequences and without regards to where those resources come from and how sustainable they are produced.
IMHO, the "oil problem" that we all see in the media and that has been discussed from so many angles is only the very small tip of the iceberg, there are other resources much more important that we need to think about, such as clean air , fresh water, clean oceans, global warming,forests, endangered species, intensive farming and so much more.... Of course the oil plays a major role in this intricate "play" and right now it's one of the main actors, the point of focus...I'm more worried about what will happen after that, as other more important resources become more and more scarce...even though I'll probably be gone by then or too old to care

L.E. was joking about the "too old to care part"..it's never too late for anything...

[Dave's Civic Duty]

I'm with you on that. It ain't easy going green!

[MetroMPG]

A US-centric tidbit: the DOE's Energy Information Administration predicts the average national price/gallon for gasoline to top $3 again this summer:



Source: EIA - Short-Term Energy Outlook via ABG

[Dave's Civic Duty]

Nice.

The only thing we can do is drive our ecomodder's & make our own Biodiesel, if applicable, to keep our own daily cost of transportation down.

Dave

[NeilBlanchard]

So, the CEO of Toyota USA says their working assumption for peak oil is 2020 (~2017-2025).

Richard Branson says peak oil in 2015: Peak Oil in 5 Years: Virgin Boss Branson's Warning : TreeHugger

So, the range is 5-15 years!

My kids will drive electric cars...