[OilyMon]

There are 600 million internal combustion engines on the planet. 1 out of 10 individuals will be affected by rising gasoline prices in one way or another.

[RobintheDruid]

Oilymon, 1 out of 10? That good huh? Surely a rise in gasoline prices will affect transportation, which means rising prices in the shops, food, clothes, etc etc. Hmmmm

[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RobintheDruid', 'O')ilymon, 1 out of 10? That good huh? Surely a rise in gasoline prices will affect transportation, which means rising prices in the shops, food, clothes, etc etc. Hmmmm

[OilyMon]

There are millions of people in places like China and India and other poorer parts of the world where gasoline engines are as rare as they were in New York at the turn of the last century. These people are your nine out of ten. As for the rest of us who depend on our transportaion networks... we can kiss our cozy over-consuming life good-bye.

Not to say the the people living without gasoline will not feel an affect on their lifestyle. However, any affects that they do feel will mitigated by their lifestyle and dependencies. Most of these people do not participate in the "global" economy. For all intents and purposes they can be considered isolated self-sufficient communities that will each individually, depending on their exact economic circumstances, geographical circumstances and political circumstances, feel the affects of peaking oil production differently, much like I will experience it differently in Toronto, and you will experience it differently in wherever.

These nine out of tens will feel an extremely minimal impact on their life style when peak oil related problems begin to accelerate. Also remember some of them live in the US, Canada and Europe. Not everybody feels the need to own a car, and for many it is still a luxury item - not a necessity.

But you're right - gas prices and energy prices in general need to be much higher than they are, in order to encourage conservation, and alternative lifestyles.

[RobintheDruid]

4 years ago I set up as a self-employed gardener. Being ambitious, I wanted to be able to do most things that my clients garden's required, and that meant getting a vehicle, power tools etc as well as finding some place with storage so I could stash my tools out of the way of thieves. I had hoped that the bank would give me a loan, but the measly bastards wouldn't and because of high accomodation rents, council tax, the rigours of keeping my vehicle on the road and clients disappearing during the winter I'm now seriously in debt.

In order to try and alleviate this, I'm downsizing by moving to a room in a friends house, £70 pw all inclusive. But since reading about PO I've come to realise that I should be downsizing anyway, and to be realistic, the way things are going, I'm going to have to pack in my business anyway soon because people are going to be too far concerned with keeping their vehicles together and maintaining their high consumption lifestyles to be thinking about employing a gardener.

Basically, I'm stuffed. But there again, I've been at the bottom before, as was until recently an environmental activist, and so I know I can live sustainably. I'll be able to adapt relatively easily. For those with lots of consumer crap, who live in large houses, who are completely divorced from the land and nature, it's going to be a real shock.

So, in the long term I should be breathing a sigh of relief really, because its people like me who are going to be in the best position. Assuming the blasted system falls.

[OilyMon]

Sometimes, I pray for the collapse of the system. I don't think it works well, and I think that inauspicisous beginnings have wrought terrible consequences because the people at the beginning - the pioneers of our society - did not have the experience necessary to do it any other way. Tomorrow, when we look back at what was society was, what will we see as the major problems with the model and how will we incorporate those realizations into the design of a new society? I wouldn't worry too much about the survival of the species - just your own ass. Also, I would plan for what you would like to be able to do with said ass after the collapse. Make sure that you are as educated, and in as good shape as possible.


Maybe this is off-topic? The only thing that is not going to help you after the collapse is a large amount of unservicable debt, and a fucking automobile! They usually go hand-in-hand...

[JBinKC]

Before one can make a judgment regarding oil prices in the US being comparatively low one must consider the entire picture of taxation. Since no European cared to itemize what other taxes and percentage of income they pay to their respective governments I don't pity your situation. All I can add is a gasoline tax is a more easily modified variable cost unlike the fixed cost taxes imposed on the US residents.

[Dan1195]

The ultimate effect on transportation will depend on the ability to replace crude oil with sustitutes and at what rate. Once decline starts to set in, the equivalent of 4-5 mbd would be needed to sustain economic growth at the current rate(assuming the economy is still intact), and you would would need the have the vehicles already in use that could use the replacement "fuel". Since people en masse wont consider alternative fuel vehicles, and hence auto makers wont make the amount of effort to produce them in sufficient numbers to make a real impact in reducing crude oil demand until the crisis is upon us, I simply cannot see this first scenario occuring.

This does not even consider the ability to ramp up the production/generation of replacement energy.

[mgibbons19]

Don't forget urban planning either. There is no reason that late western humanity has to be organized to use as much transportation as we do. Considering that much of our cities could be rebuilt to be more accomodating and require fewer cars, that provides at least one potential avenue for growth.

[amorando]

Now I've seen two posts that people in other country's have paid high gas prices for a long time and still haven't changed their transportation practices. Some differences though might explain that the parallels are not valid. For one, most cities in Europe arose well before the automobile. Most cities in the US arose after the automobile. IN point of fact cities where the population of the US has grown the most in the last 30-40 years all in the Southern part of the country, where car dominates. Shopping centers are miles and miles apart. There is very poor mass transit. An hour's commute time from home to work is common. THere are many large gas guzzling cars. 30 mpg is considered an economy car.
People may not give up their cars on the future but they certainly will change their use patterns. For example I would say that the age of the far out suburbance 3,000 sq foot house is over and the age of close in multi-family residence is here. There will be more demand on mass transit to serve mostly those close in concentrations of people. shop distribution may change, with advent of small neighborhood shops again.
All this assumes that the US maintains over time a viable economy. If we piss off the Chinese too much or continue to piss off the Arabs we could have trouble. After all our military runs on oil, without oil it is dead in the water.

[ArimoDave]

How's this for fuel efficiency (2003, 2004 results require a Spread Sheet that can use/convert Microsoft's Excel data.)

SAE Supermilage

OK, its only a glorified recumbant tricycle and only goes about 15mph. But, 1867 mpg minus a 120 mpg penalty (or 1747mpg) is still rather amazing. The car went only 14.9 mph around the record laps rather than 15 mph.

Note that the second place car was not that far behind.

I hope the link does not require membership to SAE. Let me know if it does, and I will try to post the data some other way.

ArimoDave

[reggieUK]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('reggieUK', 'W')ill peak oil/higher oil prices limit car use
The immediate response would probably be Yes, Dickhead!
But it might not be true.

Tom

[OilyMon]

There is absolutely no way that the North American economy could absorb higher gas prices, if they changed suddenly. Slowly working up to 6 dollars a gallon over 10 years might alleviate some of the stress the price increases put on the system, but even that would be extremely painful to an American public and culture that lives marginally.

If the average American car get 25 mpg, and drives 10,000 miles per year, an extra $1600 would be spent on fuel alone, if gas prices rose from 2 to 6 dollars/gallon. Multiply that by 200,000,000 internal combustion engines and that's an additional 320 billion dollars a year that Americans would spend on gasoline and not other commercial products - or 320 billion dollars that would be taken out of the American economy and effectively shipped to Saudi Arabia.

If this were to happen over say even three years, that's 108 billion dollars a year lost or 432 dollars for every citizen per year. Maybe that doesn't seem like a huge deal, but when it's compounded by 250 million people, that's a lot of lost purchasing power, and a huge blow to the American retail and service economies, that rely on volume for profit. Without the volume, the economics of scale cease to function, and Americans stop driving cars.

[jimmyz]

I'm not a trucker but if it's still cost less to idel my truck to keep WARM than a motel room i'm going to do it...just give me wifi

[jimmyz]

i didn't read all the thread but i'm sure truckers are hit hardest! that rig is using tons more fuel than i am even if i was driving a hummer...humm...hummer that sounds good

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('chris-h', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('reggieUK', '
')
Americans are under a huge misapprehension that gas prices hitting $5 a gallon would be some sort of Armageddon. Not true, here's why.

[EnergySpin]

Probably not .... if you read this : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4642981.stm
Apparently people are still buying the Stupid Useless Vehicle
I asked one of my patients today (runs a small construction and repair business in a inner city semi slum) how he is coping with the oil prices $2.45 here in the Midwest). He said that 1) he switched to an old minivan that gets 40mpg (did not know they were such things out there) 2) hopes things do not get ugly (but added that he expects $3 pg before the end of the year).
Cincinnati Enquirer ran a front page story about the price of gasoline 2 months ago. Per story: People changed their habbits ... but it is the poor ones that did (the story had a pic of 240+ lb Registered Nurse who said that due to the price of the gasoline she stopped going to KFC every night and had to walk 1 mile to work). (btw 2-4 miles per day is the recommended minimum walking/exercise by the American Heart Association)
A friend of mine (3 kids 200k/yr income) who lives in a monstronsity in the middle of nowhere discontinued cable/DSL net access due to the high price of gas and gasoline. He kept the BMW/Explorer/pick up and is ready to drive a Korean war jeep this 4th July in the wasteland-back yard that used to be prime time farmland.
I volunteer to work in the hospital on the 4th so more colleagues could go and waste gasoline on jeep and speed up Peek Odulvai

[I_Like_Plants]

A core problem in this thread is understanding that the US and Europe are VERY different.

US'ians are completely, utterly, pathologically, attached to their cars. The whole infrastructure and years and years and years of brainwashing go into this, as most Americans need a private car about as much as they need a hole in the head.

A neighbor of mine is saying he'd just get rid of his car but he has to go like 2 miles to work - horrors!! I have a feeling there are buses going very often from here to his work esp. during commuting hours, I think a bus goes up the street here, up around by Yahoo, then around and down Lawrence, right by his work. But no, he's gotta have the car. And the car payments.

For a lot of US'ians, walking or biking are physically unpleasant. They grew up as sedentary kids, and are now overweight, often grossly overweight, adults. The more I look around and SEE, the more I see that normally proportioned females are rare in the US. US'ians nowadays tend NOT to have grown up as kids who walked, ran, climbed, biked, swam, roughhoused, climbed and built treehouses that were accessable by climbing only, etc. They grew up in front of the TV.

It's almost like there's something in the AIR. Europeans and other foreigners move here and they balloon up nicely. Americans go there and slim down. I was in Germany for a few days, less than a week, and you guessed it, when I had a day free I walked. All around the English Garden and so on, covered miles.

The utter dependence on cars here in the US is indeed hard to understand, but it is a real thing, and every bit as strong as every American who describes it says it is.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's almost like there's something in the AIR. Europeans and other foreigners move here and they balloon up nicely. Americans go there and slim down. I was in Germany for a few days, less than a week, and you guessed it, when I had a day free I walked. All around the English Garden and so on, covered miles.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'T')he US will invade Iran and Saudi and take all their oil...