[OilyMon]

As oil prices set new record highs today, membership at PeakOil.com skyrockets, national and local news media dances around the issues and the price of oil for the near-term future contract makes the general news (not financial) almost every night, awareness of the subject of petroleum depletion and the implications is slowly settling on the general masses. The theory has gained tremendous credibility over the last few week as the aptly name "peak oil perfect storm" crests the horizon, and the first light drops of petroleum depletion precipitation start to fall. What has been made abundantly clear by the circumstances of the last few weeks is that we are, more than ever, along the edge of a knife.

At this point in our history, half-way through the first decade of the 21st century, we are more vulnerable to catastrophe then we have ever been before. The "perfect storm" analogy can be extended - the oil markets are pitching like an old brigatine on a choppy sea. All it will take to capsize is a wave that is the right size, that hits at the right angle - now is the right time. Even small supply disruptions are felt by the market - the closure of an unloading station for the day due to a moderately strong tropical depression. A larger ripple will shake the whole system to it's knees.

It really seems as though events have slowly been building like a crescendo over the last year and that sooner or later a jarring and significant collapse is inevitable, like a fire that starts in a waste basket and eventually engulfs the whole building and burns it to the ground.

Am I a doomer? Is this an overtly emotional reaction to a problem that requires rational and pragmatic thinking? What is it about my personality that causes me to think so negatively when so many other see so much promise in new technologies, and hope for the future of this society?

I'm not educated about these issues except by the research I have done personally and through communications on this board. This makes me completely biased about a situation I have little expertise in, no practical experience with, and not even any related education or experience. So how can I, like so many others here, proclaim with the utmost of certainty that "it's all comming down man!"? How dare I assume to know!!! The gall of such an assumption is staggering to me even now! All I know is what I percieve others are telling me, and that I'm seeing consensus among the few of us who frequent this place seeking to know more.

If anyone who lives in southern Ontario would like to get together, please PM me and we can arrange a meeting. I'm sick and tired of being an observer!

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilyMon', 'A')m I a doomer?

[gego]

Fortunately for those of who plan to survive, the majority will pull the covers over their heads at night and hope that the bad man will not get them.

This is just too unbelievable to get people to act to save themselves.

[Free]

Yeah right, but we will have the last laugh when they finally reveal the secret zero energy engine and you sit there in the hills with your guns and your goats and your soy beans! HA HA!

[Sys1]

Zero energy engine is pretty easy to craft. It's nothing more than a SUV without oil

[Liamj]

Oilymon, i share your difficulty with absolutely believing an accumulation of evidence one can't really test personally, but i think the peak case at least fits the rest of reality.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Free', 'Y')eah right, but we will have the last laugh when they finally reveal the secret zero energy engine and you sit there in the hills with your guns and your goats and your soy beans! HA HA!

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Free', 'Y')eah right, but we will have the last laugh when they finally reveal the secret zero energy engine and you sit there in the hills with your guns and your goats and your soy beans! HA HA!

[Leanan]

I don't think it will be sudden: a big wave, then we go under. I suspect it will be a long time before everyone admits that there's been a paradigm shift.

At first, it will seem like just another recession. Then it will seem like the Great Depression. People will still think it's temporary.

When the magnitude of the problem is clear, there will be a nationwide effort to fix it. Either invading and occupying OPEC countries, or launching an Apollo-like program to develop alternative energy. Maybe both.

We'll probably pour a lot of our GDP into researching solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, etc. Maybe go on a "building nuclear power plants" spree. Eventually, though, we'll no longer be able to afford it. It's at that point people will begin to realize they're witnessing the twilight of the American empire.

[Eli]

I agree with Leanan.

It will not be an overnight kind of thing it will take awhile for the crash and PO has more to do with our economic system than with oil.

Look at what the London attacks are doing, they are causing the markets to wobble and go up and down if we fall into recession first PO is going to be masked and not going to be obvious at first it will take years for it become apparent.

Of course peak Natural Gas is here now without a doubt and we may see shortages this winter in that case all bets are off and we could very well crash big time.

[Mower]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilyMon', 'I')f anyone who lives in southern Ontario would like to get together, please PM me and we can arrange a meeting. I'm sick and tired of being an observer!

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', ' ')Maybe go on a "building nuclear power plants" spree. Eventually, though, we'll no longer be able to afford it. It's at that point people will begin to realize they're witnessing the twilight of the American empire.

[OilyMon]

Thanks Mower I sent an e-mail.

I don't really think that there's going to be a huge crash necessarily, it's just that the entire world is wound up so tight that it won't take much to snap. One major supply shortage - a strike, ghwar dies, a major terror attack etc, and I think the overly sensitive market will skyrocket and cause significant problems for the western industrialized countries, and anybody else who is dependent on oil for economic health.

[kelee877]

Add to the facts, that Cindy just hit and Dennis is on its way, how will that influence prices and a big drop..and the attacks on London, England today...it was in the news that if the USA got hit with to many hurricans this season it would influence the price of oil...and now number 2 is on its way and it is so early in the season

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kelee877', '.')..it was in the news that if the USA got hit with to many hurricans this season it would influence the price of oil...

[savethehumans]

Today was interesting--prices got over $62, then word of the bombings came out, and prices dropped below $60. Yet by the end of the day, in spite of everything, the closing price was STILL OVER $60!

If there were hopes (among certain unnamed PTB) that the bombings would knock things down below $60 and keep them there awhile, these hopes were dashed. Peak oil, supply/demand woes and fears, tropical storms and hurricanes aiming for offshore oil rigs, high gasoline prices, and all the other usual suspects were too potent a force for even something as shattering as the bombings.

Again, conventional economic wisdom has been defied. How long before the gurus--or at least the people who believe in them--start smelling something fishy in the State of the Planet?

[Jdelagado]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilyMon', 'A')m I a doomer?

[OilyMon]

What I mean by 'is here for everybody' is that it seems indisputable that world oil production is extremely strained, and all nations that are petroleum dependent are experiencing some effects of rising oil prices. These effects are only likely to accelerate. I too can still afford to pay for gas and electricity, as well as many consumer comforts if I so desired, but disposable income is decreasing...