[Denny]

I used my trusty time machine today and returned with a high school history book. I opened it up to a chapter near the end, titled "The Petroleum Age".

The Petroleum Age

This era in history marked the ascent of petroleum as the major source of fuel in the western world, from the point in time of the First World War until the 2040 Emergency.

It may seem peculiar to us today, but petroleum energy was fairly inexpensive, and new technologies for exploring and refining it brought its price down for the first half of the Petroleum Age. A typical worker in 1970 could buy one liter of refined petroleum with just three minutes of labor. Alongside this expansion in fuel supply was the corresponding growth in the automobile industry. It is difficult to understand in our terms today, but in the middle of the era, the use of personal vehicles became so widespread that one in six workers in America was attached to producing automobiles or maintaining them.

The strange physics behind the notion of the personal use of automobiles did not seem to register as such with the western world's people in the petroleum era. A typical worker might commute 30 kilometers to work each way using the "car" as it was nicknamed. A car would typically weigh in at 20 times or more the weight of the sole occupant. Even larger excesses were found in the peculiar vehicles curiously named "Sport Utility Vehicles", popular at the end of the 20th century, which could be 50% bigger than a car and not particularly attractive. It was almost like the people of the era took personal pride in driving the largest and most ungainly vehicles. And, the fuel (usually a light distillate, then curiously called "gas" in America) consumed in these vehicles was enormous.

A driver commuting from home to work and back would consume, typically, 2,300 liters annually just for that one purpose. That would be 30 times their average weight for the petroleum consumed.

When we consider the vastness of the petroleum consumption level we are astonished that most people of the petroleum age thought such consumption could continue. But, we know in history that each era sees itself as unique, and its own practices to be eternal in their essence. Their steam age predecessors believed the buffalo on the Great Plains were so numerous as to be inexhaustible, no matter how severe was the hunt, year after year.

The attachment to the automobile was long lasting, if illogical. The basic technology for the electric bicycle and quadricycle was well understood in the petroleum era. Though the bicycle designs of the era were not as refined as those we commonly use today, one from the turn of the 21st century could attain an acceptable speed for commuting or normal errands. Such a bicycle would weigh 20 kilograms in the battery powered design and 8 kilograms in the simple pedaled version. Yet, the general public remained attached to the automobile for several decades later, even as it absorbed a far greater share of a worker's income. It was a triumph of style and pride over practicality.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his era in history marked the ascent of petroleum as the major source of fuel in the western world, from the point in time of the First World War until the 2040 Emergency.

[bodigami]

that asumes some form of cornucopian decade long soft landing... if a die-off happens and some survive, the mistakes of the Petroleum Age will be remember as what NOT to do.