It seems to always START with "40 years left", funny its' always that number. There must be something about it.
However this is a stark admission. Even though its' wildly optimistic, I'm suprised its' been talked about this openly.
PeakOil is You
Airline: "only 1 - 2 % decline in air travel by 2021"
Re: "only 1 - 2 % decline in air travel by 2021"
by Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 04:57:03
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Re: "only 1 - 2 % decline in air travel by 2021"
by IslandCrow » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 05:09:53
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('advancedatheist', 'T')his seems to falsify the idea that "economic incentives" make people change their behavior, not to mention make them try to anticipate and plan for the future.
Maybe we have not got a good hold on just what "economic incentives" are needed. Too often we think in linear realationships, say oil goes up $x a barrel so consumption goes down y million barrels, where there is a simple relationship between x and y. However, there is something that economists call "elasticity of demand", whereby people value the goods so much that price changes do not effect demand too much. It seems that the run up in oil prices so far have not produced much demand destruction. The big question is when will the elastic stretch to its maximum, and then we will see demand reducing with rising prices. One of my fears is that the price of oil will have to rise so high to make an 'economic incentive' that when the change comes there will be a huge crash.
For me, I try to calcualate my energy costs going forward a number of years - and even a small yearly rise gives me enough incentive to try and reduce demand. At least this gives me some time to make changes. I think most people look just at today's costs and so when the time comes to make lifestyle changes they will not have the time or money to do so (eg. the long communte means either selling out and moving nearer work, or loosing the job, but would one be able to afford a house nearer work?)
I know this is a side track from the 1 -2 % decline in air travel - but I believe that it would be much faster than that. People would forgo that to keep their cars going. So more tele-commuting, and more local holidays (not flying off to the sun)
We should teach our children the 4-Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rejoice.
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Re: "only 1 - 2 % decline in air travel by 2021"
by AirlinePilot » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 13:01:39
"The big question is when will the elastic stretch to its maximum, and then we will see demand reducing with rising prices. One of my fears is that the price of oil will have to rise so high to make an 'economic incentive' that when the change comes there will be a huge crash."
And there in lies the crux of the problem. It is becoming rapidly more evident to me that there will be a crash. Oil is too interwoven into the fabric of everyday life, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation to show much elasticity at all. Other things get cut out to alow it's consumption to continue. I fear that no one can predict the "tipping" point where things come crashing down. At some point I think the only way to reduce demand is to have a global depression brought on by a collpasing world economy due to high energy costs. I just don't see any slowdown without it.
And there in lies the crux of the problem. It is becoming rapidly more evident to me that there will be a crash. Oil is too interwoven into the fabric of everyday life, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation to show much elasticity at all. Other things get cut out to alow it's consumption to continue. I fear that no one can predict the "tipping" point where things come crashing down. At some point I think the only way to reduce demand is to have a global depression brought on by a collpasing world economy due to high energy costs. I just don't see any slowdown without it.
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Re: "only 1 - 2 % decline in air travel by 2021"
by SoothSayer » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 13:14:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', '"')The big question is when will the elastic stretch to its maximum, and then we will see demand reducing with rising prices. One of my fears is that the price of oil will have to rise so high to make an 'economic incentive' that when the change comes there will be a huge crash."
And there in lies the crux of the problem. It is becoming rapidly more evident to me that there will be a crash. Oil is too interwoven into the fabric of everyday life, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation to show much elasticity at all. Other things get cut out to alow it's consumption to continue. I fear that no one can predict the "tipping" point where things come crashing down. At some point I think the only way to reduce demand is to have a global depression brought on by a collpasing world economy due to high energy costs. I just don't see any slowdown without it.
And there in lies the crux of the problem. It is becoming rapidly more evident to me that there will be a crash. Oil is too interwoven into the fabric of everyday life, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation to show much elasticity at all. Other things get cut out to alow it's consumption to continue. I fear that no one can predict the "tipping" point where things come crashing down. At some point I think the only way to reduce demand is to have a global depression brought on by a collpasing world economy due to high energy costs. I just don't see any slowdown without it.
Very likely I think.
Everyone says "Oh, I'll pay a bit more for fuel" ... but they forget that the foundry down the road is on a 2% margin, and will go bust soon due to fuel costs. This will cause layoffs, and parts shortages. The ripple effect might then cause a trucking company to close etc etc The ripple can spread quite wide.
At first everyone will try to "hang on" possibly even going into debt to keep their business going. However the expected fuel price reductions never come ... so one day ... PING ... one of the highly stressed linked business collapses, which takes out several more, and then several more as the wave spreads.
As you ask, when will this "tipping point" be reached? Will there be just one collapse? Or a whole series of smaller collapses, industry by industry?
Technology will save us!
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by malcomatic_51 » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 13:51:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', '.')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think we can safely assume that this is not going to be good news.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think we can safely assume that this is not going to be good news.
You can safely assume, that I hope, that someone will show that I have made some stupid neophytic type of error. If not, we are not going to be sliding down the long slippery slope of post peak oil. We will be falling off.
Why don't you send your work to RockDoc123? He's a pretty smart guy and knows the oil business (as far as I can determine from reading his posts). Colin Campbell would also be a useful peer reviewer. If you've really got a good idea, next stop would be "Nature" or "Scientific American". At least then you can say you warned people.
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