[gt1370a]

I don't see how GDP (or whatever measure you want to use) could just gradually decrease down an exponential trend matching oil depletion. If you don't have a growing economy, loans aren't paid back, new loans aren't taken out, investment doesn't take place, and the whole thing doesn't work. I think (although there is a lot of good debate about this on both sides) that once it is realized that we are past peak and no alternatives are going to make up the difference, there will be a massive collapse. Oil producers will suffer just as much because demand won't just go down 2-3% per year to match depletion, it will fall off a cliff. I have no idea how much it might fall; I have no idea where all the money might go (hyperstagflation?); I have no idea if something resembling "growth" starting back at 50 M barrels/day might happen afterwards or if the die-off will happen.

Of course people won't just wake up one day and say "Well we're past peak and there's no hope for alternatives, let's just shut 'er down." It will happen over a period of time, and it may have already started. Business investments (capital purchases, land, equipment, etc.) are not exactly stellar, which means they are not optimistic about the future... some of that has to do with rising interest rates and the prospect of future increases of course, but high oil prices, volatility, uncertainty, and maybe peak oil have something to do with it to....

[gego]

If you are planning to rely on the decline in US oil production as a model, there are at least two things that I can think of that will make the curve differ for world wide decline.

First, US oil production declined while there was oil from foreign sources to replace it. This allowed the US production to decline in an orderly fashion. When worldwide production starts to decline, there will be no substitute source of oil, so I expect that the worldwide decline will be much more disorderly. Maybe there will be oil left in the ground because the economy dependent upon the oil will go haywire.

The second thing that occurs to me is that the technology has changed somewhat and today's oil fields are being pushed to the max with things like water and steam injection. We are in a rob Peter to pay Paul situation so the peak will probably occur later than it would have without the current technology accelerating production. When the inevitable happens and production cannot be forced any longer, the decline likely will be sharper initially than the US decline.

It looks to me like we will not follow a nice bell curve shape, but rather the curve will look on the left side like a bell curve, with an extended topping area, followed by an accelerating fall off of a cliff.

[sammybolthead]

Gego,

Not so sure about the cliff analogy. One thing I've been simmering on is the fact that humanity at it's very core is not a roll-over-and-die kind of organism. I believe that while there is a segment that will just throw up it's arms in despair, the majority will always strive for advancement regardless of the bleakness of the scenario. So while there will be a decline, I envision it as a sawtooth sort of thing with the optimists trying to push it up while it naturally goes down. People will always try to find the best way to deal with whatever is at hand and by trial, error, and re-discovering lost ways of doing things, it should mitigate a cliff scenario.

[lutherquick]

gt1370a,

I guess I like to compare economic decay to the "half life" of radioactive decay. Albert Bartlett was looking at exponential growth and a popular view is to look at the doubling time. Well, with decay of radioactive stuff, the inverse of "doubling" is "halving" as in 1/2 or .5 So, instead of doubling we look at half, or "half life"...

So I think, posibly, that we would see a hard crash, meaning right away the economy would drop in 1/2 then 1/4 then 1/8, etc... as things became "CALM"... it will not mirror the growth of history, because we would scamble to conserve and nuke places like Iran, you know, for democracy (shhhh, it's the OIL stupid)....

Anyway... I agree with you that nobody would invest, right away... but after the truama and blood letting in the economy, the demand destruction would free up some reosurces and a subpar economy could exist in the US... Since we like markets, thinking and planning would not be used in averting this.... crash and burn will be our America methode...

[gego]

Sammybolthead,

My post was in reference to what the oil production curve would look like.

You are talking about how humans deal with the decline in available oil.

I agree that most will do the best they can to avoid death. I also see the dieoff as a sawtooth type pattern. I divide the estimated 170 dieoff period into three phases. The first phase will be a period of conservation and substitution which will offset the oil decline. At first the decline in production will be the least. There will be dieoff, but it will not be the worst part of the dieoff. The second phase will occur when substitution and conservation no longer work, plus we will be further down the depletion curve, so the were be much less annual production. This is where the biggest part of the dieoff will occur. The third phase should be a the longest part of the dieoff, but not a severe as the second phase, simply because once populations levels approach sustainability there will be the smallest excess population, and the least need for a dieoff to bring humankind into balance with nature.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'I') also see the dieoff as a sawtooth type pattern.

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', '
')Anyway... I agree with you that nobody would invest, right away... but after the truama and blood letting in the economy, the demoand destruction would free up some reosurces and a sub type ecopnomy could exist in the US... Since we like markets, thinking and planning would not be used in averting this.... crash and burn will be our America methode...

[RonMN]

Your exponential decline leaves out the "human factor".

The stock market crash in 1929 left alot of people jobless...if the stock market crashed today i believe MANY major American cities would be burnt to the ground within a week.

Also, would you put $100 in a bank with a promise of getting only $80 back out? No? Me neither...That means all banking & investing crashes & burns in a day or 2.

Growth is the key...if we even stand still, our economic engine siezes.

[lutherquick]

RonMN,

Great Scott !!!!!

You are eluding that a crash will not happen because it's not humane.

This is ridiculous... I get this kind of thinking by my PNAC friends. They claim, if your think positive, good things will happen. It's why Cheney says the American way of life is not negotiable.

Guess what? Nature and mathematics couldn't give a rats azz about the "Human Factor".
The laws of physics and nature specifically will happen, no negotiation process will even start, this for Mr. Cheney.

I don't get it.
Why must exponential growth always be a right or why must it "be"?

The system that is in place today, be it dollar hegemony and US exponential growth have all reached their limits. It's time to die. No cryonics, vitamins, hoses, tubes, wires, CPR, insulin, adrenalin, or organ transplants will save your life or money, it's over.

Dollar hegemony was successfully used to burn the US economy white hot and thus creating a fantastic draft for energy, and no matter how much DRAFT we create now, the energy supply is about to BROWN OUT and eventually BLACK OUT...

Hopefully a new system will arise. Hopefully some of us smart ones will move and huddle in countries with energy, and make a new life, and avoid these idiots waiting for dividend payments, recovery, or abiotic oil.

If you look at it topologically, the closer you are to sources of energy the wealthier you will be. The farther you are the colder and dimmer things will be, and the less safe.

Whatever RonMN, and there are wmd in Iraq... and after the last space shuttle blew, we were go for Mars... Like George Carlin said, these people think if the language is changed that the condition will change... Maybe, that's what the DoDo bird thought... The "Human Factor" is nothing...

[linlithgowoil]

Living in the middle east post peak will be a 'new world of peace'? Are you mad? It will be even worse than it is now.

As for predicting economic decline just forget about it. no one ever knows when these things are going to happen, its all just lucky/unlucky guesses.

Also, the 'human factor' is nothing? What are you going on about? Please dont go on about how 'mother nature' always wins in the end and all that and how humans are actually brainless imbeciles, its soooo tired and old and every other doomer on here goes on about it non stop whilst sipping away on their factory produed diet coke, surrounded by plastics, chemicals, and probably owing their lives to human ingenuity and medicines. Sad, very very sad.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 'K')ingcoal,

The world is going to just fine.
I only try to predict where the most energy inefficiant economy is going to go. Knowing that, and you can be rich.

In my opinion, being in a 3rd world country or the US is going to be miserable. Living in the Middle East once American foriegn policy has no more energy to "fire" and "power" it's creativity, that's going to be a new world of peace... as well as living in countries that can befreind middle east nations...

[RonMN]

Luthor, you're reading me wrong.

I think a crash WILL happen, and i think chances are good it will happen like i said in my previous post.

I just don't beleive it will be a "decline"...i think it will be sudden & very painfull. Then add chaos & rioting ontop of it all.

[lutherquick]

linlithgowoil

Honestly, once peakoil makes the American militatry industrail complex back off, back into her corner, yup there will be peace... it will not be peace as American knows it (cheap energy, suv, big homes in US), it will be peace in the ME... Hamas is democracy, more than 75% of Iraqis hate America, that's DEMOCRACY...

As long as America has a little oil to keep eyeing all that OIL in the ME, yup, it will be war... But once America can't project her miltary, then the world will be peaceful...

So linlithgowoil, don't miss understand me, I don't see doom, I see prosperity and peace, just NOT in the US.

Everything the US has been doing is double standard, hypocritical and completey distored with fairy tales, delsuions, and hallucinations...

There are no wmd, it's not about war on Terror, Saddam didn't do 9/11, Enron ain't profitable, Tyco was only doing the same as Yukos, the dollar ins't wealth, and Bush is a nut job that only got my first vote but not my second. I as a republican was aloyal, and have no give up on this jig, it's over... The market will will because the market overcomes the human factor or planning... the market is nature...

And ME will have peace when you cut out the cancer called America. Remove this American factor in the equation and the ME would be a great place.

PO is a global issue and if America fell into a depression PO will be put to sleep for a short 15 years... but America has proven how desperate a nation can get.

[gego]

If you look at the overall picture, the human population entered the steep part of a growth curve about 500 years ago. While cause and effect are difficult to prove by coorelation, there certainly is a coorelation between that human population growth and per capita energy consumption.

In human history we first used energy from wood and similar products like peat. We made some refinements to enhance wood into charcoal, and eventually replaced wood with higher energy content coal; then came oil and natural gas. Finally, we made a forey into nuclear energy.

As we unwind this progression, we will probably try again, or continue to use nuclear. We will also revert to heavier dependence on coal, both to burn directly, and to liquify as a portable fuel. As coal is depleted, we will depend upon wood again.

Running down the right side of the long energy use curve will not be beneficial as was running up the left side of the curve. As we try to revert, we will not have the excess energy to make the transition to a less and less potent energy source. Human population should follow the reduced energy use as the energy curve and the human population curve have a cause/effect relationship.

If the human population that can be supported is under 1 billion then somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.5 billion is the excess population that must be eliminated over the next 150 years or so. This works out to about 37 million per year population reduction on the average to get back to being able to fuel our existence as a species on a sustainable basis. Of course there will be births during that time frame, so the death rate will need to be even higher to yield a net reduction of 37 million per year.

This long term view provides the background against which economies will disintegrate. The decline will not be uniform. Humans will struggle against the forces of nature; we always have, even in good times. In the end nature will win.

[lutherquick]

gego,

Nice post... I guess I'm trying to understand what this "half life" decay will be... You said 150 years to lower the population... this asumes simitry... and since the avarage American consumes almost 8 litter per person per day of energy equivilant, while EU population is at 4, and Eastern Europe is more like 2, demand destruction in both energy and population will not be easy...

For example, you calc that 37 million poeple need to be removed from the population... I would say it will be mostly from 3rd world countries, because they don't consume that much... as important, 3rd world countries don't have weapons and nukes and creative foreign policy, you know, for democracy or NGO funding... So maybe the west will lower it's pop by 5 million per year, the 3rd world will need to do more like 50 or 100 million ... Reason is that if the 3rd world loses a large chunk of population, energy consumption will hardly drop because they don't use much to begin with...

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i') think it will be sudden & very painfull. Then add chaos & rioting ontop of it all.

[RonMN]

That would be an IDEAL time to offer cushy cushy comforts for the low low price of ones soul.

[JustinFrankl]

If you couple an exponential decay in the US economy with the information in this thread [peakoil.com] on the large segment of the US economy that is foreign-owned, it would not bode well for the rest of the world, either.

[DesertBear2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', 'P')eople will go awol when they lose their jobs, pensions, social security benefits, can't afford gasoline, or electricity. I'd wager to guess many will be at a loss of what to do other than steal what they need to live.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', 'P')eople will go awol when they lose their jobs, pensions, social security benefits, can't afford gasoline, or electricity.

[SoothSayer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DesertBear2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AmericanEmpire', '
')Electricity should stay on- the TV net must function to pacify the masses. Pensions will be absorbed by the Feds and paid off with funny money. Likewise social security. Gasoline would be rationed. And there will be gubbermint trucks outside of Walmart with free Velveeta Cheese, potatoes, and wonderbread and long lines of the hungry.