by TonyPrep » Fri 07 Aug 2009, 06:03:31
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'T')ony, I'm afraid it is you who doesn't get it.
Let's say you and pstarr are right, and we have reached and passed the peak of oil production. Oil will get increasingly expensive over time. Nobody wants to pay a lot of money for oil, and many can't even afford to. There's a good reason why you've got nations like Pakistan using a lot of NG for their transportation rather than oil: Oil is too expensive for most people there to afford. So, they've been switching to natural gas, which they have large reserves of their own and is considerably cheaper.
Now, let's say the same thing starts to happen to Americans. Let's say you're right and, being past peak, oil will start to get more expensive. Even many Americans will not want to pay that much for it, and/or they can't afford to pay that much for it. What to do? Give up and die? Hardly. They will "transition to a different state" - one dominated by natural gas (and other alternatives). You can't tell me people will go about BAU while gasoline rises to $5, 7$ and then $10 a gallon. No fool would. Of course they'll do something.
When did I ever suggest that people wouldn't want to do something, or even try to do something? Of course I get it.
However, I don't just simply accept, as you do, that such a change will happen overnight. There will be a great reluctance to build another infrastructure alongside the oil one and, even if the attempt is made, it will take a long time to do. I also don't expect a serious attempt to do so, until oil is extremely expensive. When will that happen? Neither you nor I know. But here's a scenario.
No serious attempt to build a parallel infrastructure will be made until the economy recovers to something near pre-recession levels. What happens then? Oil will become increasingly expensive. What event will that cause? A recession, of course. Will a parallel infrastructure be attempted then? Probably not. It would likely take one or two more oil price induced recessions to get governments to sit up and take notice to provide incentives to build a parallel infrastructure. How long might that take? To make significant inroads into oil use, probably quite a few years.
So it's not unreasonable to not expect a parallel natural gas infrastructure for maybe a decade and a half. That's two infrastructures to maintain, because the oil one will take a lot longer to go away. And what would be the cost of building such an infrastructure? Especially if oil is very expensive, and possibly scarce, at the time? Would it ever get built?
All this assumes that natural gas can be produced and delivered at the required rate, which will slowly increase, many many years after oil has peaked and, quite possibly with a world wide natural gas peak looming within another decade (that is, a decade after the natural gas parallel infrastructure has been built) or so. It also assumes that all the major natural gas exporters will play nice.
So I think there is a major question mark over your optimism about natural gas and its ability to keep BAU going for a further decade or two. I realise, though, that your belief system will not allow you to consider alternatives to your rosy scenario. Hopefully, others might.