But that certainly wasn't the case during past recession..oil prices plummeted

 

Here's an article I wrote on the subject a year ago. It was published in a non-profit organization's publication, so no weblink citing is required......

___________

 

Falling oil prices lull America back to sleep

Low price should buy U.S. time to prepare for oil shortages

By Ken Prendergast

 

In the past five years, prescient energy scientists and other analysts have postulated that as the world gets closer to peak oil production, there will be wild swings in oil prices. As a result of this volatility, global economic conditions will also experience a wild rollercoaster ride.

 

Scientists like Kenneth Deffeyes, professor emeritus at Princeton University, have called this the Queuing Theory of oil prices. And, unlike rollercoasters, the Queuing Theory isn’t fun. In fact, it’s incredibly dangerous for the world’s most oil-dependent economies. And none is more gluttonous when it comes to oil than the United States.

 

In 2009, new President Barack Obama can quickly address this by going back to his original plan of a “green economic stimulus” which promotes alternative energy, walkable neighborhoods, public transportation and, of course, high-speed rail. Instead, when oil prices fell, billions of dollars in new-capacity highway expansion proposals found their way into the federal stimulus package – projects that will only spur more sprawl, worsen our dependence on oil and release more carbon into the atmosphere.

 

“[The] Queuing Theory predicts that queues behave in a noisy and chaotic manner when demands approach the system capacity,” Deffeyes wrote in 2008. “Instead of energy prices rising to a new stable level, wild price oscillations will result from short-term changes in demand. There will be a tendency, the first time that prices go down, to announce that the crisis is over and oil and gas are now cheap and abundant again.”

 

Such apathy emerged as oil prices collapsed from $147 per barrel in July 2008 to below $40 in December. Prior to the drop in price, Americans were reducing their driving at a rate not seen since the gasoline rationing of World War II. Meanwhile ridership on the nation’s buses and trains were at their highest levels since before construction began on the Interstate Highway System more than 50 years ago. But in the last few months of 2008, sales of gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles rose for the first time in several years.

 

“A false sense of smug security could set in if prices drop and stay there, and some oil-exporting nations have already announced a slacking off of investments in the oil industry, if prices continue to be depressed. So eventually when the oil demand would pick up, we would have even less oil than now,” wrote James Leigh in the Oct. 3, 2008 edition of the Energy Bulletin. Leigh is an assistant professor of cultural geography at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus.

 

According the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), high oil prices and the economic downturn caused worldwide oil consumption to decline by 50,000 barrels per day. A worsening economy in 2009 could cause global oil consumption to fall by 450,000 barrels per day and keep oil prices down. It would be the first time in three decades of two consecutive years of falling oil demand.

 

“Volatility is in some ways an even worse problem than high prices, because sustained high oil prices make long-term investments in alternative energy sources and public transportation look sensible – whereas periodically collapsing oil prices discourage such investments,” wrote Richard Heinberg on July 30, 2008 for the Post Carbon Institute. Heinberg has authored eight books on oil depletion and its effects on the global economy.

 

Oil companies are being hit with a double-whammy – collapsing oil prices and the global credit crunch. Companies which mine the Canadian oil sands, which supply America with more than 5 percent of its daily oil supply, need oil prices of at least $50 per barrel to break even. The reason is the costs of mining and processing oil sands are so high. The same holds true for tapping deepwater oil reserves. Most of the easy-to-get, low-cost oil in the world has already been found. Oil companies won’t tap the remaining oil unless they can secure financing for these multi-billion-dollar oil recovery projects.

 

Oil field financing and development is as critical as promoting conservation and alternative fuels to delay peak oil for as long as possible. Peak oil is the point at which an oil field, a region, nation or the entire planet reaches a maximum level of oil production and falls no matter how much additional investment is made to yield more oil. That point can only be determined in hindsight. In the United States, peak oil was reached nearly 40 years ago.

 

In November 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) produced a very important report that was barely noticed by the media and the public as oil prices fell. Called the World Energy Outlook, the IEA’s report made some startling statements, especially for an historically conservative watchdog group for the planet’s largest energy-consuming nations.

 

The report showed that oil production from the world’s largest oil fields may decline by as much 9 percent a year in the next two decades. To offset these depletion rates, the world will need to find 64 million barrels per day of new oil production by 2030. That’s the equivalent of finding the production of four new Saudi Arabias. The chance of that is virtually zero, as worldwide oil discoveries dwindled from a peak in the 1960s to a trickle today despite zealous exploration efforts. In the absence of new discoveries and investment in costly deepwater wells, oil sands and other non-conventional sources, the IEA predicted worldwide oil shortages were possible by 2015.

 

As global peak oil “is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically,” wrote Robert Hirsch in his landmark 2005 report “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management.” Dubbed the Hirsch Report, it was produced at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE delayed releasing the unsettling report, which forecast dire global economic consequences from peak oil if the world failed to prepare for it at least 20 years in advance.

 

Few nations need more time to prepare than the United States. The U.S. has just 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes 25 percent of its oil. That’s a holdover from 100 years of America being the globe’s larger producer of oil. That ended in 1970 when America’s oil production peaked.

 

Instead of curbing our oil-fueled lifestyle of automobile over-dependency and wasteful suburban sprawl in unison with falling domestic oil supplies, America intensified its oil appetite. Such gluttony was made possible by importing oil, including from some politically unstable nations. Today, America imports two-thirds of its oil to fuel a lifestyle it can no longer support on its own.

 

Worse, America is bleeding itself economically. The importing of so much oil means that we sent $1.2 trillion of America’s wealth overseas in the past three years, according to data from the EIA. $500 billion of that wealth transference occurred just in 2008.

 

Hirsch predicts that the U.S. will need to invest $20 trillion from a mix of governmental, corporate and personal sources to convert our economy from one dependent on oil to one less dependent on all sources of energy. Yet the remaining energy sources could include electricity from the usual litany of renewables – wind, solar, hydrological. Plus there are problematic but promising energy carriers and sources like hydrogen, nuclear and ethanol.

 

The federal stimulus program is becoming a wasted opportunity. It is littered with new-capacity highway projects – billions of dollars worth in the Midwest alone. Funding new and wider highways for more petroleum-burning cars is less money that can be invested in weaning our nation off petroleum.

 

“It’s a lot of more of the same,” said Robert Puentes, a metropolitan growth and development expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington who is tracking the stimulus legislation. He was quoted in a Dec. 29, 2008 Bloomberg article. “You build a lot of new highways, continue to decentralize” urban and suburban communities and “pull resources away from transit.”

 

“We should not cling to crude down to the last drop,” wrote Faith Birol, IEA chief economist in an opinion piece in the March 2, 2008 edition of The Independent. “We should leave oil before it leaves us. That means new approaches must be found soon.”

 

“So our future affair with oil may be within an overall trend of declining supply and rising demand, with volatility of prices from the anxiety of the market in which demand surges higher over supply,” Leigh said. “But the prices will be intermittently buffeted up and down by the fluctuations of economic growth and its levels of fluctuating demand for oil. As investors vie for advantage, they too will aggravate the gyrating price trends.”

 

The most effective alternative fuel is the one that isn’t consumed. That means conservation. Unfortunately, too many assume that conservation means less economic development and fewer jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, the money saved from driving and spending for foreign oil can be used domestically for buying locally grown foods, starting a small business, making your home more energy efficient, or saving up to buy your own home for the first time instead of renting it. Indeed, many Americans are locked into lower standards of living because they must own a car (a depreciable asset) to reach a job and rent housing (an appreciable asset) instead of owning. That prevents many working-class and low-income Americans from building equity and wealth.

 

The actual use of trains and transit is more energy efficient than driving, according to recent U.S. Department of Transportation data (using very conservative, if not inaccurate data that assumes an average of just 20 riders per Amtrak train). But even more efficient are the types of supportive land use which trains and transit need to generate more ridership – walkable, densely developed, mixed-use neighborhoods built around transit stops and train stations. By comparison, much of the nation’s suburban sprawl is built up around state highways and federal interstates. Most of the trips (nearly all by car) in those communities don’t involve the highway. They are on city streets to the store, school, coffee shop, bank, post office, etc.

 

In walkable communities built tightly around trains and transit, those trips are no longer made by car. Instead, they are made on foot from an upper-floor townhouse to a first-floor bank or drugstore, or to the restaurant across the street, or on a bicycle or bus to the park a mile away on the other side of the neighborhood.

 

“What everyone needs to remember is this: the fundamental cause of the recent oil price spike has not gone away,” Heinberg said, referring to a lack of growth in global oil production. “The current brief respite from the hammering effect of new oil price records being set almost daily is not an occasion to go back to sleep, but an opportunity to consolidate efforts toward energy conservation and transition.”

With the per barrel price topping $81.00 today...it would be interesting for you to write a followup piece to this fine story.

Thanks for the compliment, but someone already beat me to writing an updated piece (but before oil jumped $2 today)........

 

2010: The Year For Making Contact

Posted by Nate Hagens on January 3, 2010

 

Another year. Another decade. Older, wiser and on an unchanged trajectory.

 

Though it may not feel like it, 2010 puts us 5 years beyond the annual peak in world oil production. 2005 was also the inaugural year of this website - devoted generally to exploring the details, constraints and opportunities accompanying energy depletion.

 

Just behind oil's apex was credit's peak, and as energy and debt have been the two primary drivers of economic growth, GDP won't be far behind in declining from all time highs, though it has been temporarily supported by sovereign debt infusions masking public/private credit decline. Though I suspect 2010 will be a watershed year for many in dealing with reality, a new year also allows for some self-reflection, and perhaps a reassessment of purpose and tactics, both as individuals and as a culture.

 

The below essay is a short summary on where we are, what brought us here, and some resolutions for the coming year.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/6072#more

Iraq Could Delay Peak Oil a Decade

 

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6101

Oil Shortages to Reappear in 2011, Goldman Sachs Says

By Grant Smith

 

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said that shortages will reappear in the crude oil market as supply fails to keep pace with a recovery in demand.

 

Global oil consumption will return to levels seen before the financial crisis by the third quarter of this year, Goldman analyst Jeffrey Currie said in a presentation in London today. At the same time, projects to bring new oil to consumers are still lagging as a result of the credit crunch, he said.

 

By 2011, the market is back to capacity constraints, Currie said in slides shown with the presentation. The financial crisis created a collapse in company returns which has significantly interrupted the investment phase.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=axnm2BeGMveI

25 million cars to 140 million in 10 years... and that's just in China.  Upward pressure on oil prices for sure...

 

 

Why we’ll pay for China’s car obsession

Stuart Fagg, ninemsn (Australia)

The world’s most populous country has caught the car bug, and we’ll be picking up the tab.

 

By 2020 there will be around 140 million cars in China and according to Chinese government estimates there will eventually be 250 million cars traversing China’s rapidly growing network of highways. There are currently 25 million cars in China.

 

In the western world, car ownership boomed in the 1950s. Mass production drove prices down and cities were planned around the private motor car. As Japan emerged from the ashes of World War II, it too was planting the seeds of global car market domination.

 

Back then, if you’d suggested that China would one day be the world’s biggest car market you’d more than likely have been carted off to the local loony bin.

 

But as we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, China has just overtaken the US as the world’s number one buyer of cars. And they’re buying big, western cars, helped in part by the Chinese government, which has been subsidising sales of SUVs and pickups as part of its economic stimulus package...  [snip] 

 

Read full article here:

 

http://money.ninemsn.com.au/Blog.aspx?blogentryid=584880&showcomments=true

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/01/28/oil-bigs-to-obama-get-real/

 

Oil bigs to Obama: Get real

Posted by Adam Lashinsky, Senior Editor at Large

 

The CEO of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, lashed out at the Obama administration Thursday, lamenting the oversupply of “rhetoric”  from major oil-consuming nations regarding energy independence. Without naming the U.S. president directly, Khalid Al Falih couldn’t have been clearer who he was referring to. He called pervasive talk from nations that want to wean themselves from an addiction to foreign oil, a common trope in U.S. environmental circles, “unachievable and misleading to the public.”

Considering who said it, that's probably not going to go over very well with the American public....  :|

That Saudi guy can kiss my sass!  Energy independence in a national security issue first and foremost and the fact that we get oil from countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuala is exactly why we need to become more energy independent. 

 

Is he seriously concerned that he won't find a buyer for his oil if we don't take it?  Please...

 

  The United States has 4% of the world's population and consumes 20% of the world's oil. The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day, of which 9 million barrels comes from the United States and 11 million barrels are imported.

 

  The United States is going to continue to purchase oil until she is no longer able to. Calling for energy independence really is misleading the public.

True, but they'd rather buy into myths about energy independence than accept that either voluntarily or otherwise, eventually they'll drastically reduce their consumption. :|

 

  No one likes to hear bad news.

 

  If our president told us that within 50 years, automobile ownership will be reduced to 10% of the population, airlines will be all but gone, and Social Security will be bankrupt, how do you think the electorate will respond?

Oh you're just a peak oil doomer!!!  :evil:

So is this guy........

 

 

World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO

Posted on February 4, 2010 - 10:15am

 

Mr. Gabrielli, the CEO of Petrobras, gave a presentation (see: http://www2.petrobras.com.br/ri/pdf/usp_01-12-09.pdf) in December 2009 in which he shows world oil capacity, including biofuels, peaking in 2010 due to oil capacity additions from new projects being unable to offset world oil decline rates.

 

Gabrielli states in his presentation that the world needs oil volumes the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every two years to offset future world oil decline rates.

 

This is a stronger statement than the one he gave in January 2009 in an interview with Business Week when he said the following:

 

According to the company's projections, production from existing fields will fall from a little over 80 million barrels a day to maybe half of that even if new techniques are used to slow their rate of decline. So just keeping global production flat is going to require lots of new fields and requires the world to replace one Saudi Arabia per three years.

 

Gabrielli is clearly concerned about declining future world oil production. His statements are now in alignment with those of other oil company executives including Sadad al-Husseini, former Aramco executive, who states that world oil production is on a peak plateau, and Total's CEO, Christophe de Margerie who doesn't see global oil production ever exceeding 89 million barrels per day (mbd). World oil production in December 2009 was only slightly lower at 86 mbd.

 

READ MORE AND SEE TRANSLATED CHARTS AT:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6169

Iraq Could Delay Peak Oil a Decade

 

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6101

If I didn't know better, this would look like a good reason to invade Iraq.

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D9-JNTtRKgs/S0AwzBBUVqI/AAAAAAAAAMg/I9C6ykZfByY/s1600-h/Picture+117.png

 

:)

True, but they'd rather buy into myths about energy independence than accept that either voluntarily or otherwise, eventually they'll drastically reduce their consumption. :|

 

Drastically reduce their consumption of what?  Oil?  Sure.  But energy, writ large?  I see no reason to believe that that will have to happen.  Granted, the energy of the future may be harder to access than the energy of the past--but we're also going to be more than a hundred years more sophisticated than when we first began to rely on fossil fuels.

 

  Umm, the average car in 1970 got 10 or so miles per gallon. Now the average is 20 or more. Using that logic, we should be using half as much oil as we did in 1970.

 

    However, we are using MORE oil than we did in 1970, despite the improvement in technology. The reason is clear: we have more cars, and we drive them more miles.

 

 

 

  Umm, the average car in 1970 got 10 or so miles per gallon. Now the average is 20 or more. Using that logic, we should be using half as much oil as we did in 1970.

 

However, we are using MORE oil than we did in 1970, despite the improvement in technology. The reason is clear: we have more cars, and we drive them more miles.

 

 

 

The oil drum has a good post about Jevon's Paradox: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2499

So other than changing the configuration and power source for the car, how peak oil really change our transportation system?  It's feasible that the changes will only be slight if we all go alternative.

There are no alternatives that equal oil's energy density, portability and, yes, it's affordability. It's amazing stuff.

 

Maybe there will be something renewable someday that's just as prolific. But we've yet to ID it despite all the promise of other alternatives. Unless we do, as oil's cost of retrieval goes up and its availability goes down, our economy will likely shrink in unison. I can live without plastics and so many cars, but I do need to eat -- as do 6 billion other people. If it wasn't for oil, the population of the planet would certainly be much much less.

 

 

  "It's feasible that the changes will only be slight if we all go alternative."

 

    There are no true alternatives to petroleum. There are alternatives that can be built in the lab, but not at the scale needed to replace the world's automobile fleet.

 

    For example, battery-powered electric cars might be competitive in certain applications in terms of energy use, but they are more expensive to build. Replacing a fleet of 150 million conventional gasoline-powered cars that cost $25,000 each with a fleet of 150 million electric cars that cost $50,000 each is not a viable option. We might be able to replace a fleet of 150 million conventional gasoline-powered cars with 75 million electric cars, but then 50% of Americans that currently have a car will have to go without one. That's what peak oil is all about.

 

 

 

 

  "It's feasible that the changes will only be slight if we all go alternative."

 

There are no true alternatives to petroleum. There are alternatives that can be built in the lab, but not at the scale needed to replace the world's automobile fleet.

 

For example, battery-powered electric cars might be competitive in certain applications in terms of energy use, but they are more expensive to build. Replacing a fleet of 150 million conventional gasoline-powered cars that cost $25,000 each with a fleet of 150 million electric cars that cost $50,000 each is not a viable option. We might be able to replace a fleet of 150 million conventional gasoline-powered cars with 75 million electric cars, but then 50% of Americans that currently have a car will have to go without one. That's what peak oil is all about.

 

 

Yes, which is why the threat of it is seriously overhyped.

 

First, many Americans do not have just one car; they have two or three or even more.  Therefore, while there definitely are some Americans that would have trouble getting just one car, more families would simply have to live with fewer, not none at all.

 

Second, the waning of oil as a transportation fuel is a change that will not happen all at once.  It will happen gradually, though there will obviously be intermittent price spikes alongside the more gradual upward trend.  The practical result of this is that there will be used electric cars on the market down the road that will make it easier for those of lesser means to switch to alternative-fuel vehicles in the future more easily than they could do so today.  This is also an argument for not rushing the transition with needless anti-fossil-fuel regulation today.

 

Third, the price of the electric car still has a good deal of room to come down and the quality still has a good deal of room to improve--the diminishing returns curve is far less exhausted with electric cars than with gasoline-powered ones.  I predict that those who are saying that the electric car will remain an expensive oddity will, in 30 years, look very much like <a href="http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp">Ken Olsen of Digital Equipment</a>.

 

Fourth, don't discount the effects of economic growth.  While $50,000 cars might be beyond the reach of most today, I wouldn't be so sure that they'll be out of reach of the majority of people by the time oil gets sufficiently expensive--and this is assuming that the price doesn't come down, an assumption that I think is deeply flawed.

 

I still have trouble envisioning capacitors strong enough to move semis and buses, but given how many times those who have said "that'll never happen" have been proven wrong when it comes to American technological innovation (and we're hardly the only center of major engineering breakthroughs anymore), I tend to bet on being pleasantly surprised.

 

Bottom line: Those who say peak oil is a fact are probably right, though exactly when the moment of peak production will happen is open to debate.  Those who push for major public policy reforms motivated by the fact have a somewhat steeper mountain to climb.  Peak oil is going to be like Peak Atari.  Some people will miss it, but most will be happy to move along to something better once the marketplace offers it, which it will.

Some people will miss it, but most will be happy to move along to something better once the marketplace offers it, which it will.

 

The market cannot offer a more resource-rich planet. Yes, we can use resources more efficiently. But there are only so many humans this planet can sustain.

Some people will miss it, but most will be happy to move along to something better once the marketplace offers it, which it will.

 

The market cannot offer a more resource-rich planet. Yes, we can use resources more efficiently. But there are only so many humans this planet can sustain.

 

Over the next 300, maybe 400 years, perhaps, though we've barely begun to scratch the earth's crust or the ocean's floor for resources.  Beyond that, I wouldn't rule out being able to mine near-Earth objects for resources.  Also, even if what you were saying was true, which I sincerely doubt (I see no practical reason why the planet could not support a population of more than a trillion, as long as the growth rate to get there is manageable), what would be the point?  I honestly don't care what you believe as long as you're not out there trying to force me, through government action, to change my way of life based on your misperceptions.

^ A trillion??? Our oceans would be polluted with all that waste.

I honestly don't care what you believe as long as you're not out there trying to force me, through government action, to change my way of life based on your misperceptions.

 

Don't worry, I will. It will be fun watching you squirm, being forced to actually be responsible.....  :-o

 

Seriously though, have a nice life. See you in the lines waiting at gas stations starting around 2015 -- as I walk on by...

^ A trillion??? Our oceans would be polluted with all that waste.

 

What makes you say that?  We seem to handle our waste pretty well, at least in the US.  The liquid waste is processed and pumped back into the environment and the solid waste can be used for a number of things from fuel to fertilizer.

I honestly don't care what you believe as long as you're not out there trying to force me, through government action, to change my way of life based on your misperceptions.

 

Don't worry, I will. It will be fun watching you squirm, being forced to actually be responsible..... :-o

 

Seriously though, have a nice life. See you in the lines waiting at gas stations starting around 2015 -- as I walk on by...

 

First, as long as those gas lines are caused by market forces and not government intervention (i.e., restrictions on how much gasoline people can buy at a time or other rationing), that's fine.  People make choices and live with the consequences.

 

Second, I'm defending the right of others to make their own decisions here.  I walk ten minutes to work every day, and if I can keep that true for my entire working career, I'll be more than fine with it.  That said, I also drive from Akron to Kent fairly regularly to see my girlfriend, and she makes the drive in the other direction a fair amount, too, both to see me and to volunteer at one of the major hospitals in downtown Akron.

 

So jump to what actually matters: What exactly are you proposing we do about this grave threat of oil getting pricier later?  Make it pricier now?  How will that solve anything?  Put some specific policy agendas out there, not just random fearmongering.

I have. Read more of this site.

There's a fine line.  While artificially inflating the price of gasoline/oil will reduce consumption and possibly delay oil shortages it could also have a large negative impact on our economy. 

 

I'm more on the side of letting the market take care of itself, but oil shortages would have a huge impact on the United States economy and the quality of our lives.  There are some things we can do to make the transition a little easier and one of those is slowly and artificially increasing the price of gasoline in the United States.  The point is to avoid a possible scenario where supply drops off a cliff and the price spikes causing the US economy to screech to a halt.

 

It's obvious to me that we rely to heavily on oil for transportation and it's time to diversify.  Our transportation policy is too risky right now and we need to come up with some ways to diversify our portfolio before the stock price tanks...

^ A trillion??? Our oceans would be polluted with all that waste.

 

If a trillion people materialized out of thin air on Planet Earth tomorrow, absolutely.  But it we get there over the course of 500+ years?  Keep in mind that if 18 million people had materialized out of thin air in what is now the New York-Newark metro area in 1800, it would have spelt ecological catastrophe.  It can handle that population today, however, because we're both wealthier and more scientifically advanced, particularly in critical civil engineering fields like sanitation.  Wealth is important because some of the major infrastructure builds in the NY metro area would have been financially impossible if we were still as poor as the Colonists (who were relatively wealthy by 18th-century standards but who would have been mostly paupers today), just like major engineering leaps forward like hydroponic vertical farming and arcological structures are too expensive to be justifiable today but could easily become so in the future, when we'll be both more able to build them and more inclined to do so.

See you in the lines waiting at gas stations starting around 2015 -- as I walk on by...

Wow, you are cynical.  You drive a car just like 99% of us...oil shortages are quite real challenges that need to be dealt with, but spare us the "you-should-feel-guilty-for-driving-a-car" nonsense.

 

  Just for fun, a trillion people in 500 years would take a doubling period of about 62 years. The yearly growth rate would be about 1.1% per year. The following sequence illustrates the growth. 

 

    2010  6  billion

    2072 12 billion

    2134  24 billion

    2196  48 billion

    2258  96 billion

    2320 192 billion

    2382  384 billion

    2444  768 billion

    2506 1536 billion = 1.5 trillion

         

    1.1% is about what some economists think our current growth rate is, and that's in this depressed economy.

 

    With these assumptions, in 2506, there will be 250 people for every one person today. To keep the same average standard of living, we need to come up with 250 times today's resources.

 

    Proportionally, Ohio's population would be 2.7 billion, a little less than half of the world population today. Could you cram half of the world's population today into Ohio? 

 

   

^ Viruses would prevent that from EVER happening.

My question is: how will BRIC plus Korea deal with the reality of Peak Oil?

Into 0.33-acre surface lots, no.

 

Into arcological structures with automated subterranean infrastructure (for waste processing, etc.)?  Absolutely.  It would be a radically different world, of course, but would you expect 2506 to resemble 2010 any more than 2010 resembles 1504?  I would also suggest that one of the hundreds of billions of people who would live and die between now and 2504 would find ways of colonizing the ocean floor, dramatically increasing the available area for human habitation, while others would find ways of terraforming the deepest deserts and the barren tundra of Canada and Russia.  You can't confine your mind to the technology of 2010 when you speak of 500 years in the future.  We might well even be off-planet by then.

 

In addition, it may not be accurate to suggest that the growth rate of 1.1% will be constant for the next 500 years.  After all, not so long ago, it was much higher.  It tends to drop in proportion with how well an economy develops.  Suppose in another 100 years, the average life expectancy is 250, people are fertile until 80, but people have to basically work for 30+ years in order to be able to afford a decent sized amount of space in a good area.  Childbearing rates would plummet substantially.  That's probably an exaggeration of what will happen, but then again, it's just a restatement of what's already happened in America, just using larger numbers for this hypothetical future iteration.  Take a quick survey sometime: How many people have 5+ kids today vs. how many people have/had at least one grandparent from a family of 5+ kids?

 

It is a fallacy is to treat humans as only consumers, not producers--liabilities rather than assets.  This can be true but need not be true, and the creative energies unleashed by capitalist economies make people far larger assets than liabilities.  That figure of 1.5 trillion people is not just 1.5 trillion mouths to feed, not just 1.5 trillion consumers of resources.  It's 1.5 trillion scientists, engineers, teachers, computer programmers, doctors, nurses, construction workers, heck, probably billions of people in professions that don't even exist yet, any more than "computer programmer" existed 100 years ago.  It's 1.5 trillion people who will very likely be able to capture all of their memories in 5-sense recorders in real time and record them, regrow lost limbs, control computers with their thoughts (computers that will be tens of thousands of times stronger than they are today), and very likely even manufacture anything they want on 3-D printers tens of generations more advanced than the primitive prototypes exhibited at scientific conferences and conventions today.  The Age of Oil will be as distant to them as the Age of Sail is to us.

^---"it may not be accurate to suggest that the growth rate of 1.1% will be constant for the next 500 years."

 

  Well, there's one thing we agree on.

My question is: how will BRIC plus Korea deal with the reality of Peak Oil?

 

Would that be the BRICK?

 

(I had to.)

 

I imagine they'd deal with it the same way everyone else would: Use oil under something more efficient came along, then use that.

WTF? Perhaps more than just a tad ironic since the North Sea oilfield is past its own geographic peak oil. I think this one falls into the category of "time to fish or cut bait." Looks like they're cutting and running....

 

Shell could sell over $10 billion in assets: report

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) could sell more than $10 billion of assets including its North Sea oilfields operations, the Sunday Times reported, citing sources close to the company.

 

Shell has hired Credit Suisse to sell its $1 billion European liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) arm, the paper said, adding first-round bids of about $500 million have also been lodged for a network of petrol stations across Africa.

 

Shell, Europe's second-largest oil company by market value, declined to comment.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61D1EV20100214

One more.......

 

Branson warns that oil crunch is coming within five years

• Virgin chief and fellow business leaders call for action

• Energy crisis threatens to be more serious than credit crunch

Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 20.18 GMT

 

Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years.

 

The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the ­coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch.

 

"The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," Branson will say.

 

"Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. "Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."

 

Other British executives who will support the warning include Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy group, and Brian Souter, chief executive of transport operator Stagecoach.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/07/branson-warns-peak-oil-close

World Oil Production 2003-2009 (Oct.) in MBDs the "Bumpy Plateau"

 

The amazing part of about that graph is that it hit the plateau starting in 2005 when there was still economic growth occurring -- and oil production couldn't grow with it despite that the Canadian oil sands were going full tilt and the Saudis were pumping for all they're worth.

Slowly but surely:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/15electric.html?em

 

  Tesla Roadsters at $100,000+ are not going to get us out of Peak Oil. Tesla Roadsters are for the rich.

 

    On top of that, California people are buying hybrids because they can drive in the HOV lanes. We don't know what the market would do without the HOV lane rule.

ROFL Of course Tesla Roadsters are only for the rich.  However, you might have missed the part in the article about "As automakers prepare to introduce the first mass-market electric cars late this year ...," with <a href="http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2010/01/11/chevrolet-volt-nissan-leaf-other-electric-cars-to-star-at-detroit-auto-show/">GM</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gCSWQ5QkWJNeHR7rjM41z5BT4ssgD9DQ97D80">Nissan</a>, and others poised to push into the electric market soon.  In addition, assuming Tesla survives (they've not had the best of years, since they're definitely a luxury manufacturer), they're planning on introducing a high middle-market car in the near future, too.  That one will still put a hit on one's wallet in the neighborhood of $50-$60k, but high-end SUVs and luxury-nameplate cars from the major manufacturers are pushing into that range already.

 

The issue isn't where things stand, it's where they're headed.  I think it was Wayne Gretsky who said that you skate to where the puck will be, not where it is.  Do you really think electric car technology has peaked?

 

  I look forward to seeing more electric cars, but I doubt that electric cars wil ever replace conventional gasoline powered cars.

 

  For one, our highways are primarily funded by the gasoline tax. Our highway departments from the federal to local level are all in budget trouble, and they are facing declining revenues. Electric cars are going to do nothing to enhance our highway budgets. If our highway system declines, utility of automobiles is going to decline with it, and it doesn't matter how the vehicle is powered.

 

   

 

  I look forward to seeing more electric cars, but I doubt that electric cars wil ever replace conventional gasoline powered cars.

 

For one, our highways are primarily funded by the gasoline tax. Our highway departments from the federal to local level are all in budget trouble, and they are facing declining revenues. Electric cars are going to do nothing to enhance our highway budgets. If our highway system declines, utility of automobiles is going to decline with it, and it doesn't matter how the vehicle is powered.

 

 

 

If you have electric cars as a substantial amount of the fleet, I suppose the only way to impose end user fees on road use would be tolls or GPS

 

    ^---- Which would put the decisions on pricing in the hands of politicians.

 

    Besides the comparitive technology advantages between various modes of transportation, automobiles have a significant POLITICAL advantage: they are generally free of price controls.

 

 

 

  I look forward to seeing more electric cars, but I doubt that electric cars wil ever replace conventional gasoline powered cars.

 

For one, our highways are primarily funded by the gasoline tax. Our highway departments from the federal to local level are all in budget trouble, and they are facing declining revenues. Electric cars are going to do nothing to enhance our highway budgets. If our highway system declines, utility of automobiles is going to decline with it, and it doesn't matter how the vehicle is powered.

 

I'll take you up on that bet.  Gasoline has higher energy density for the moment, but as soon as we come even close to parity, gasoline loses much of its lustre because of all the other equipment necessary to have under the hood to convert that stored chemical energy into kinetic energy.  An electric car basically requires just a battery and a motor.  There are promising technologies in prototype form already that lead me to believe that we're not far from that day.  It would not take too long for Americans to come to think of charging their car overnight the same way they charge cell phones.  In addition, once oil starts to trend upward again (which it will, and I'm saying this as someone who thinks KJP is giving himself needless hypertension on the peak oil issue), the price-per-mile spread will expand again.

 

As for the gasoline tax: The government will be forced to adapt.  It won't be the first time, and it may not come easy, but the ability of the government to restrain the invisible hand of the market has limits.  The government still has the advantage because it has to subsidize electrics ($7500 tax credit).  Once electric cars are sufficiently market-competitive enough that people prefer them to gasoline-powered alternatives even on a level playing field, the government will find another source of revenue.  It can do that.

 

I look forward to seeing more electric cars, but I doubt that electric cars wil ever replace conventional gasoline powered cars.

 

For one, our highways are primarily funded by the gasoline tax. Our highway departments from the federal to local level are all in budget trouble, and they are facing declining revenues. Electric cars are going to do nothing to enhance our highway budgets. If our highway system declines, utility of automobiles is going to decline with it, and it doesn't matter how the vehicle is powered.

 

 

 

If you have electric cars as a substantial amount of the fleet, I suppose the only way to impose end user fees on road use would be tolls or GPS

 

In this day and age, it wouldn't be too hard to have a mileage fee without GPS.  Any discrepancies due to underreporting would be sorted out as soon as a person tried to sell the car or otherwise had to do anything involving the title.  That said, I wish they'd just do away with the system and fund transportation out of the general budget.  It doesn't need its own dedicated revenue stream.