[zoidberg]

Jesus it looks just like the late 70's and early 80's. Its a shocking graph really. And it matches the late 2005 start of the peak and subsequent plateau.


Fortunately past experience shows that it'll pick up again after a few years.

Seriously though does anyone have an idea of where the dividing line between 'low hanging fruit' in terms of eliminating miles driven ends and tough economic losses begin? Cant help but find out I suppose.

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') see this as great news!

Less oil consumption, fewer miles driven, and yet no zombie hordes.

[frankthetank]

According to this article:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')I recently had an interview with Marcel Coutu, the chair of Syncrude – the world’s largest oil sands plant. Syncrude has now been in operation for 30 years, and it has gone through a great deal of debottlenecking and expansion. It now produces 350,000 barrels of light, synthetic oil per day.

I asked Marcel for his thoughts on peak oil, and he gave me a few comments that summarize things precisely.

All OPEC can now do is raise prices by cutting production,” he said. “They cannot lower prices by increasing production because they don’t have the capacity. We are in a very pure free market situation, with prices being set by supply and demand. When I look at that dynamic, I have stopped worrying about the demand side. No matter how much the US goes into recession, for any period that is important to any of us, any decline in consumption there will be offset by increased demand elsewhere – in China and India, but also in developing countries that produce their own crude oil. Those countries generally subsidize oil products, and subsidies accelerate demand growth.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KillTheHumans', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'I') see this as great news!

Less oil consumption, fewer miles driven, and yet no zombie hordes.

[Troyboy1208]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'T')his has to be at least the 3rd thread on this very same thing.

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', '
')
Have you calculated how much the currency has been debased?

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', '
')
No, YOU just do the math.

The American government and her people are basically buried in debt and bankrupt now due this so-called 'economic growth'. It was actually just borrowing and printing massive amounts of money that created this 'growth'. What an absolutely ignorant and moronic statement.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Ok.
Well, last year around this time the average gasoline price in America was about $3.38/gallon. This year when that article was written it was around $3.88/gallon. As of yesterday the price climbed a bit higher to $3.93/gallon.
Now, the coefficient of demand inelasticity for gasoline is such that for every 14% rise in price, demand falls about 1%. Note that (this year's average price - last year's average price)/ last year's average price = $.50/$3.38 = .1479. Actually that would lead one to expect just a 1% decline in demand rather than a 4.3% decline.
Well, this article just mentioned the number of miles driven not the percent change in demand. Also diesel has gone up much more so that may account for the difference.

Actually, it is a good thing that Americans are beginning to reverse the trend over the last 20 years to drive ever larger vehicles, faster, farther, more often. Would like to see the number of miles driven fall off over 90% in the next few decades.

g

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Troyboy1208', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'T')his has to be at least the 3rd thread on this very same thing.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'w')e are now living in an economically contracting world. The numbers speak for themselves.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', 'I')'m still waiting for peak OilFinder2 posts.

[syrac818]

Quick question on this.

Doing some fairly rough math, a 4.3% decline in US driving averages out about 473,000 per day.

This is a pretty significant figure. I have been following this subject for almost 5 years now, and this is by far the biggest evidence of actual demand destruction I have seen.

Now I know people say that such a reduction in American consumption will be offset by increases in Chinese and Indian demand. Does anybody have any figures on Chinese and Indian oil consumption growth?

Thanks.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TreebeardsUncle', 'N')ow, the coefficient of demand inelasticity for gasoline is such that for every 14% rise in price, demand falls about 1%.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', ''')peak' number of posts from you. Ah, never mind.