[katkinkate]

I've just heard a 5 minute talk on peak oil and its implications for Australian society, on a Radio National program called Perspectives. There will be a link to the transcript on the page below sometime over the next day or two.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective/

But I thought you might be interested to hear about a strategy that was suggested, that I haven't read about on this site yet. Basically, the speaker laid out a plan of rationing, by dividing up the expected available energy for the year between all adult citizens, businesses, Government departments and anyone else who needs the fuel.

Anyone who doesn't need the energy can sell it to people/organisations that do. So every year or month, or whatever time scale they choose, you are entitled to use a certain amount of fuel, but you can buy extra or sell your surplus fuel according to your need. Of course you'd still have to pay for the actual fuel to use it, you're only trading entitlement to buy the fuel.

It would be very much like the carbon trading idea for global warming mitigation, and the water trading system that has been started up for the Murray/Darling river system, here in Australia (for irrigators, towns and environmentalists).

So, what do you think? Doable?

[BigBear]

I believe the reason you not have heard about this topic before is that it is completely foreign to most younger minds. But rationing was used during WW2 when populations were smaller and people's expectations for energy use were less demanding. It was far from being a success as it was abused in many ways--from counterfeiting ration cards to the rich being able to still buy what they needed while others ---the working folks --went without. Tires, gasoline and oil were all rationed--as well as other consumer goods--including food.
It would be a very expensive and difficult system to bring on line--but who knows what the future may hold.

[airstrip1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigBear', 'I') believe the reason you not have heard about this topic before is that it is completely foreign to most younger minds. But rationing was used during WW2 when populations were smaller and people's expectations for energy use were less demanding. It was far from being a success as it was abused in many ways--from counterfeiting ration cards to the rich being able to still buy what they needed while others ---the working folks --went without. Tires, gasoline and oil were all rationed--as well as other consumer goods--including food.

[katkinkate]

The transcript for the talk has been published online now. It can be found on the link in my post above (at the top). Its the talk for Monday 2/5/05.

[fred2]

Other government-directed changes will of course happen prior to rationing - primarily use of the tax system to reduce oil consumption. E.g. significant tax advantages of energy efficient vehicles, home insulation, etc. Not forgetting increased taxes on fuel itself, to discourage discretionary travel and to provide public resources for investment in improved rail infrastructure etc. There is considerable scope for reducing oil consumption through such means, once people are given the right incentives to do so.

Rationing itself is inevitable at some point, because governments will have to ensure certain public services have priority. But this is a long way off.