[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'P')starr, that is basically what I was trying to say.

But I guess I need a realistic example to explain what I mean.

Ok.

Oil costs $60 a barrel.

Solar costs, say, $180 per barrel of oil equivalent. (Let's just pretend that this is the case for the purposes of this example).

Right now, oil is 1/3 the cost of solar and I can get one Oil-Barrel-Of-Energy for $60.

Oil suddenly costs $200 a barrel. Solar somehow stays at $180 per Oil-Barrel-Of-Energy.

Is solar now cheap?

NO!

An Oil-Barrel-Of-Energy has tripled in price!

We would have to spend 3x more on money energy than before when oil was cheap. Our society would still end up suffering an economic recession regardless of the fact that we now had a solar based rather than an oil based economy.
(Even if you ignore the relationship between the price of solar energy and the price of oil)

Deciding to drink champagne rather than water because water prices have gone up doesn't leave you better off financially. You are still spending a much larger % of your income on beverages than you were when water was cheap.
(Even ignoring the relationship between the price of champagne and the price of water)

[DantesPeak]

In regards to coal distribution within the US, reports are that the internal US coal by rail transportation system is near its limits. Granted that for the first time in many years, rail lines are being extended and improved - but it would be difficult to deliver the incremental coal needed to accommodate a sudden surge in coal liquification demand accross the country.

BTW I am not saying this is a bad idea, just that the infrastructure should be developed now if it is to work.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jonathan_Hoag', 'Y')ou guys are funny! $500/bbl? Long before oil prices even begin to approach that level (more like around $100 or even before) alternatives will be utilized. Things like Fischer-Tropsch (coal liquification) or nuclear.

[Micki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')TW if we ever do transition to a solar based economy you can forget about getting "free" services off the interent. Something tells me if google had to pay triple the price for electricity to feed their energy hungry servers we wouldn't have a free search engines and email.

[gg3]

Quote Monte: "Unless your work is in (whatever sectors that collapse)... Doing what for work (in the future)? Making bicycles?"

Imagine equivalent discussion 50 years ago, speculating about life in the early 21st century:

"Unless your work is in the factories... the machine shops... the foundaries... Doing what for work (in the future)? Pushing paper? Selling second-mortgages?"

Folks, we've already gone through an equivalent shift. Most of the jobs right now are in the "financial services industries," creating, shuffling, and disposing of debt, or preventing people from seeing doctors, and the mountains of paperwork that go along with, and the tendrils of supporting-jobs in industries (if you can call them "industries") that feed off this paper ecosystem.

This is not to say we're not headed off the cliff: clearly we are.

But consider that by the standard of any sane economy, most of the "work" that gets done today is ephemera whose only purpose is to support unneeded layers of complexity.

---

Extreme disparity in distribution of wealth, combined with inability of the majority to subsist, leads directly to violent social upheavals. Thus the choice between fascism and communism. Fascism can only hold so long as there are foreign territories to successfully conquer, and so long as the privation of the majority is either keyed to such wars, or does not become so extreme as to prompt them to revolt.

Seems to me that fascism must inevitably break down into some form of communism. In fact it seems to me that complex societies must inevitably break down into something like tribalism (for good or for bad) with flattened distribution curves, which is to say, neoprimitive communism.

The difficult road, and the one we have got to try for with all our might, is the road of reversion to village scale where the institutions of secular democracy and freedom of enterprise can continue.

You would rather be a Jeffersonian yeoman farmer or craftsperson, than a serf on a mega-farm whether it's run by Halliburton or by the all-powerful state.

The question is whether you want to avoid serfdom enough to do something about it.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Unless your work is in the factories... the machine shops... the foundaries... Doing what for work (in the future)? Pushing paper? Selling second-mortgages?"

Folks, we've already gone through an equivalent shift. Most of the jobs right now are in the "financial services industries," creating, shuffling, and disposing of debt, or preventing people from seeing doctors, and the mountains of paperwork that go along with, and the tendrils of supporting-jobs in industries (if you can call them "industries") that feed off this paper ecosystem.

[Newsseeker]

The highlight of this article is peak oil. Of ten forecasts done, 6 put it at 2007. Oil increased 4% from 2003 to 2004. From 2004 to 2005 it increased 1.1% and from 2005 to 2006 it increased .17%. These are the highlights of the article. It certainly does seem as though things are coming to a head. I just wish Duncan had said how he arrived at these figures. I also wish he had said more about 2008 which is his cliff event.

Oh well.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'B')ut consider that by the standard of any sane economy, most of the "work" that gets done today is ephemera whose only purpose is to support unneeded layers of complexity.

[SD_Scott]

Simmons commented in his Bloomberg interview that some people around the world were paying $300 per barrel for finished product.

[retiredguy]

This observation may be somewhat tangential to the topic, but have you noticed how the media increasingly focuses on entertainment? Other than entertainment, the other stories that get broad coverage are those that have a human-interest element: natural disasters, man-made disasters, etc.

Investigative journalism is almost dead.

Couple this with the fact that levels of depressioin, particularly among the young, are at an all-time high. Look at the ads for anti-depressants. My doc pushes them like candy.

Also, despite the recent stock market boom, most Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction.

Do you think all this indicates a deep, subconscious feeling among the general population that something is amiss? That drugs and entertainment serve as a distraction from the gnawing feeling that all is not well?

[chris-h]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('retiredguy', 'T')his observation may be somewhat tangential to the topic, but have you noticed how the media increasingly focuses on entertainment? Other than entertainment, the other stories that get broad coverage are those that have a human-interest element: natural disasters, man-made disasters, etc. Investigative journalism is almost dead.
Couple this with the fact that levels of depressioin, particularly among the young, are at an all-time high. Look at the ads for anti-depressants. My doc pushes them like candy. Also, despite the recent stock market boom, most Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction. Do you think all this indicates a deep, subconscious feeling among the general population that something is amiss? That drugs and entertainment serve as a distraction from the gnawing feeling that all is not well?

[grabby]

When the class two can't fulfill the class three obligations, the class three will get up, and take over the class two positions, houses, and goods.
much easier than starving.
Problem is class one and class two really think we are going to be ok with technology.
they will be blindsided and loose control of their immature children.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'Q')uote Monte: "Unless your work is in (whatever sectors that collapse)... Doing what for work (in the future)? Making bicycles?"

Imagine equivalent discussion 50 years ago, speculating about life in the early 21st century:

"Unless your work is in the factories... the machine shops... the foundaries... Doing what for work (in the future)? Pushing paper? Selling second-mortgages?"

Folks, we've already gone through an equivalent shift.

[AirlinePilot]

What Monte just said I believe to be the single most important part of what is coming. I dont believe mankind has faced a problem of this magnitude since we climbed out of the primordial soup.

This is what is going to make it so ugly. No where do more than a small fraction of us understand that things can and likely will go very far south of where they are now. I just dont see the large majority of folks, even really bright ones, grasping what might go down. Its because of this very reason, the inability to acknowledge that things could get so ugly compared to what we have, that will make the fall harder than it needs to be. Its a failing of Western civilization, the thought that we are somehow invinceable and nothing bad on a grand scale could possibly happen to homo sapiens.

We will flail away at more expensive and dwindling energy supplies as oil marches down the back side of the slope. We'll do it because we dont believe, we WONT BELIEVE. that this could happen. Modern man should be able to get through this with technology and ingenuity they'll say(and they're doing it now too). I see it every day and I fear it almost more than depletion itself.

Its going to cripple us for the real work over the long haul.

[NWMossBack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', ' ')This is what is going to make it so ugly.

[AirlinePilot]

Oh, I dont think its going to be a total case of "no chance at all". I also definitely do not believe we will go Mad Max either.

What I see happening is a (hopefully) slow economic contraction which leaves us in a depression like state across the globe sometime within the next 5-7 years. Thats just a hunch really and Im not basing it on any real analysis other than what i have learned right in these forums.

Its depressing and ugly because of what i mentioned. I just do not see anything good coming from the results of peak. Maybe far down the road, like 20-30 years we may have figured out a way to be somewhat sustainable, but I doubt it. The path from now to then is going to be rocky at best.

I just don't see how it could be smooth. We are not getting out of this without some serious pain IMHO.

[hi-fiver]

Major change is in the air, no doubt. How things unfold is a matter of timing. Some events are predictable, like peak oil or climate change; but it is the sequence that these events occur that prime the pump of prognosticators. What if our housing market imploded as seriously as some speculate. Who holds all these morgage backed securities? Could major players include foreign interests? China holds major US debt... Could we see 20 million Chineese moving into recently vacated US homes due to forclosures? Just a thought.

[Jonathan_Hoag]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')
You must understand the meaning of that statement you just made.

Wow, water got really expensive! Now I guess I have to make soup with champagne! Good thing champagne is so cheap!:roll:

[Jonathan_Hoag]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')think what Tyler_JC is trying to say is that the cost of everything is pegged to the cost of petroleum.

[NWMossBack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', 'O')h, I dont think its going to be a total case of "no chance at all". I also definitely do not believe we will go Mad Max either.

What I see happening is a (hopefully) slow economic contraction which leaves us in a depression like state across the globe sometime within the next 5-7 years. Thats just a hunch really and Im not basing it on any real analysis other than what i have learned right in these forums.

Its depressing and ugly because of what i mentioned. I just do not see anything good coming from the results of peak. Maybe far down the road, like 20-30 years we may have figured out a way to be somewhat sustainable, but I doubt it. The path from now to then is going to be rocky at best.

I just don't see how it could be smooth. We are not getting out of this without some serious pain IMHO.