[MrBill]

I came from a small town. I knew a few that peaked too early in high school. Were mediocre at university. Have done little notable since. And vice versa. Some of them found it hard to accept that they were no longer the smartest in the class. Big fish in little ponds so to speak.

That is not just academically. Also good local hockey players that never went anywhere after they went away to play. Lot's of natural talent. But they were no longer the local hero and the competition was much harder.

In the context of post peak oil resource depletion it is very difficult to say exactly what combination of skills will prove to be the most successful coping strategy with discontinuous change? I would suggest that for many that combination will be both different and in some cases illusive.

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vaseline2008', 'I')f the idea that oil came from the biological remains of all past species who have roamed Earth and died (dinosaurs and company) then perhaps it will be the billions upon billions of human carcasses from the downslope side of the bell shaped curve that will create the next "oil boom" in another ump-teen million (or billion) years or so.

[BrazilianPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '
')
Amazing graph, BrazilianPO. Just throw in fresh water and topsoil while you're at it. Course many would strongly dispute that we only have 19 years of uranium left, for instance. I'm waiting for some of your free energy - Polywell fusion or Venter's oil pooping bacteria - closest thing to a free lunch on the menu.

[dorlomin]

Extraction rates will also be influenced by energy available, and cost of energy. I am sure that for many of the minerals the easiest stuff has already been gotten so we may be about to hit increasing costs for energy and increasing energy costs of extraction.

However it is far from all bleak. I am sure that many new sources of minerals are yet to be uncovered and for aluminium and iron we appear to be in cornucopian heaven. All we need is energy sources to extract and smelt it.

Increasing prices of copper will be something of a brake on industrial growth. A situation to ponder perhaps. Although if net energy availible falls it will not be the dominant brake but it will be an important part of wind turbines, tidal power generators and the like. Not to mention old fashion coal power stations.

I wonder if railways use copper or aluminium for overhead power lines?

[cube]

I guess this is really going to put the brakes on electric cars.

Forget peak oil. Are we facing peak lithium?