How much oil does the world need?

So what does an ordinary schmuck do facing odds like this? Buy a hybrid? Fine, if you can afford it. Take a bus to work? Not a bad idea, but not many people are doing it in Cranbrook. Ride a bicycle or walk to work? Great idea from a health and fitness point of view but again not entirely practical in Cranbrook.

When I last lived in Kimberley and gas hit $1.40-a-litre (that’s about $6-a-gallon and close to $100 to fill the tank) I started to take the IHA “Health Connections Bus” to work because at $5-a-pop round trip between Cranbrook and Kimberley it was a lot cheaper than driving my small (I should be ashamed to say this) SUV to work every day. But the IHA bus was only twice-a-week and my family and I finally settled the issue by moving to Cranbrook.

But getting back to peak oil, the Pacific Institute in California says the U.S. passed its peak water supply level in 1970 and clean, accessible water has become more expensive ever since. But when you’re talking oil, the rise in price is expected to be much quicker and more extreme than water.

According to M. King Hubbert, who created the first computer models for peak oil, the aggregate production rate of an oil field goes up exponentially until the supply peaks and then declines — sometimes rapidly — until the field is depleted. No one knows for sure how rapid the decline will be, but considering the great thirst modern industrial civilization has for oil there’s good reason to believe the decline could be dramatic.

We may have passed the peak oil point already or it may be 30 years hence — most experts don’t see it any further away — but wherever that point is it’s going to change our civilization like it’s never been changed before.

DailyTownsMan