[Markos101]

I'm talking about 200 years time, for several reasons:

(1) You can't continuously replace renewable energy sources because they will need oil (in most cases) to continously keep them going for 100s of years into the future
(2) The current state of affairs has only been around for 50 years. Take a look at a 5000 year timescale for fossil fuels. All the devices I've talked about have existed in an eyeblink.

Mark

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', 't')issues, toilet paper, no coins...

[Markos101]

Yeah okay I am exaggerating a bit !

[Cyrus]

Techno.....

[Markos101]

On a more serious note however, I'm only 23 at the moment, and if I wish to retire at say the age of 65, that will happen in the year 2047. By the year 2047, according to ASPO charts, there will be 30% of gas and oil supplies compared to current levels. That's a severe growth inhibitor.

At the same time, for current levels of growth to be sustained, i.e. 2-3% per year growth in energy demand, would lead to exponential growth in real terms of 1.025^42 = 282% of current energy demands.

With 70% reduce supply by that time, that's over 350% deficit. That's a lot.

There is not a chance that with gas and oil going down, coal, nuclear and solar or any of these others will both replace oil and gas, and make up for this extra demand.

Without economic growth, returns on investment disappear, and a debt-based economy becomes unviable due to its inherent requirement to grow via compound interest. Our currency becomes unviable. So any investment becomes impossible to value in terms of debt-based currency anyway. With no growth, everyone must labour in order to survive. At the same time, de-electrification will likely start to occur and that will have tremendous social reprocussions compared to our current 'grid' lifestyle.

So there's pretty slim chances of survival in old age for a lad of my age.

Mark

[ubercynicmeister]

Uh, "youthenasia" is actually spelt "euthanasia", but I think you got most of the list right - assuming we have a sudden decline in Energy Supply of all forms of energy.

Therein lies the problem - are we gunna see a very sudden deline...the "Thelma And Louise Off The Top Of The Cliff" scenario?

Or is it going to be more like a slow decline..."Thelma and Louise Get a Parachute"?

In any case, the lemming-like nature of the Yuppie Executives will ensure that if ONE leaps off the top of the cliff, most of the rest will follow. I can't say I'd miss them, but I am not sure that this is the best way of exterminating the disease-ridden rodents who are chewing away at the supports of our society.

Oh, and I vote for Jack Kevorkian to become White House Physician.

[Markos101]

And imagine at say, the age of 30, a lad my age has a couple of kids. By the time they were 65, the year would be 2077. By that time, according to most geological charts, oil and gas will be at (for all intents and purposes) at negligible levels, let's say 95% drop in supply levels.

At the same time, for current energy demands to be satisfied, that would mean 1.025^68 = 536% times current energy levels. That's a deficit of 630%.

There's not a chance that nuclear, coal and renewables will both replace this lost supply of oil and gas, and feed this extra demand. Like it or not, by 2050, things are going to be very different. Especially since many of these replacements, in order to be maintained, require oil based products.

Mark

[MicroHydro]

Cheer up. My 4th great grandfather lived 97 years as a western New York farmer before the oil age. His father, a trader, commuted between the Caribbean and New England on a sailing ship. Many people lived good lives before the oil age and were as happy as anyone today. Once the dieoff takes population back to sustainable levels, and the excess CO2 is gone, life will be good.

[kevincarter]

Not worried about the “not list” but about the “yes list”, I’m fearing: concentration camps, barcode tattoos, totalitarian regimes back in fashion, media manipulation beyond what we’ve known (yes.. it’s possible to go further ). ID plates and taxes on bicycles, remaining power used for technological surveillance of the average people, increases of suicide, drug use, depression and violence, more nationalism, caciques ruling small areas, police abuse (I mean more), internet laws (before it goes down), less freedom... aarrrgggg!!!! I need to get me a farm!

[Ghog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', 'y')outhenasia at 60, financial crisis, no aircraft, no heat in homes, no medicines, no long-haul personal transport, huge numbers of empty houses from excess construction over the past 40 years, no long-distance communication due to de-electrification, business failiures, no steady income sources, less food, no long-distance travel, no growth prospects, social unrest, no feasible nuclear replacement due to need to continuously replace nuclear power plants every 30 years in a declining fossil fuel economy which cannot happen on a continual basis unlimited into the future, no television (not such a bad thing), no computers due to loss of base materials and mass electrification, possibility of loss of remaining reserves through conflict for remaining supplies being destroyed, no plastic, no organic chemistry, no glass, no base metals due to need for oil-based mining, no wood because we've already chopped all the stuff up, no fire(!), no gardens due to need to use land for food, no internet, no fireworks, no trains, no ink pens or inkjet cartridges, no varnish, no refridgeration for food(!) due to need for mass electrification, no nitrogen sources due to no gas, no pesticides due to oil derivative, no fertilisers due to no nitrogen, no paper due to need for oil-based transport for importation (!), no underwear or man-made fibre based clothes, no waterproof clothing, no caravans (due to need for petrol based transportation), no tents (due to need for oil-based man-made fibres), no music due to need for mass electrification (!) - we'll need to play naturally created music again, no top 100 pop music charts, no radio shows, no air conditioning due to need for electrification(!), no solar panels or wind turbines due to need for continous renewal which is impossible on a long-term basis in a declining energy economy and into the arbitrary future, no new books, no candles due to need for oil based parafin, no light (!) at night (!), no radiators, no golf due to need for huge land masses and wastage of resources, no marmite, no new zealand butter, no wine due to lack of transport to countries without the right climate, no bananas, no sweet potatoes, no deodourant due to oil based derivatives making it uneconomic, no anti-perspirants for same reason, no hot bathes or showers (!), no....

Care to continue?

Mark

[venky]

A recent document from the US Army war college (March):link

Some of its salient points:
*Educate the American public, explaining we must prepare to use military for guarantee access to oil
*Use of US military force to secure oil fields, pumping stations, terminals and critical ocean choke points.
*A precipitive use of the military...trigger..escalation in hostilities..anti-American sentiment...UN sanctions..fracture friendships and alliances. But compared to the economic effects of an oil shortage, such risk are acceptable.
*It must assure sustained economic growth.
* A national effort on the scale of the Manhattan Project is required.

A clear call to more aggressions; only hope such thinking does not permeate among the majority of policy makers.

[lutherquick]

The Queen of England was this adamant, this forceful, and this enthusiastic in the 1770's for holding on to the 13 colonies...
My bet, no matter what language or what force America uses, the degree of success today of reaching for world energy will be about as successful as England's hold on the 13 colonies. Right now it's a brouhaha, a storm of threats and accusations and fake missions of democracy.

Like I eluded in other posts, it's a heck of allot easier to hold on to your oil (as in Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) than to take (as in the US, UK, EU).
Nukes or no nukes, those with oil just need to dance like Mohammed Ali until the empire starves and the threat reseeds using simple attrition.

Will America resort to inhumane methods? Will America become ugly, primitive, evil, maybe...
When I look at Bush and co, I think we already have.
Yet, I hope, as the American public accept peak oil, that we will step back and regroup and come out of this better.
I think the good side (of America) will make it right.

[mrobert]

But what will happen when there will be no OIL?
What will happen when the cost of producing oil + the cost of military actions to obtain it, will be at an "unusable" price.
I believe spending $1000 and the life of a few soldiers for a barell of oil ... it's not a great deal.
Offcourse ... it's a good deal on the short term ... but a very short one.

Every damn day I think of this :
How STUPID mankind is. We have the (technological) solution for everything ... yet we choose not to implement it.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mrobert', 'B')ut what will happen when there will be no OIL?

[mrobert]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '.').. the US is turning half the world's grain supply into ethanol to fuel luxury SUVs...

[lutherquick]

mrobert,

Exactly !!!!

About 300 billion dollars has been blown on "Operation Secure the Wmd From Saddam for Doing 9/11".
All that 300 billion is from tanks, and munitions, and infrastructure, the military industrial complex, EVERYTHING made from cheaper oil... In fact, much of the current consumables really are leaning also from cheaper oil (food for the mil, and others)...

What would all this cost if we had to make all those tanks and aircraft carriers, and aircraft with expensive oil?

If the accountants were clever, they would keep the numbers based on REPLACEMENT cost, not what it cost "years" ago...

Manufactured goods, equipment, and even newer output, MOST come from older infrastructures...
Whatever the life span or inertia of the economic BASE, however that effects today's costs, I don't think we are seeing YET the true effects of peak oil... Today, right now, this minute, we may still only be experiencing 1998 $10 / brl in terms of our HARDWARE... The consumables like what goes in our SUV tanks, is more REAL TIME... But the bulk of the economy and the military machines is about to implode on expensive energy. On second thought, even my gas station and the tankers, most were build pre-70$ oil...

We ain't seen nothing yet !

[mrobert]

lutherquick : you are damn right.

Unrelated to PeakOil, a while ago I was saying :
In the past 10 years, this country hasn't built what it used to do before in 1 year.

Even the building I am in, at this very moment, was built on $20 crude.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mrobert', 'E')ven the building I am in, at this very moment, was built on $20 crude.

[lutherquick]

rwwff,

OK, you see allot of constuction...
But...

The trucks those guys are driving... much of the steel in them came from a few years ago... The mills that made the steel, came from a decade ago... The mines that the ore comes from, the more expensive infrastructure of those mines was setup 15 - 20 years ago. (certainly the main shafts)..

Now look at the wood and cement for the construction... Same thing, maybe the wood is fresh, but the infrastructure, the trucks, land and the forestation, all of it old... it's tax base, the maintenance, all of it was made on cheap oil...

There is a hysteresis that is not reflected in our economy (more like the accounting), some delay... Expensive oil, we are seeing in the gasoline, but not yet is it effecting the infrastructure... The hysteresis is not a happy thing, and honestly, corporate profits tend to mask "old supply", "old costs", "old prices". "New demand", "today's demand", is being satisfied by "old supplies". Matt Simmons said something to that effect... and I will add, that the accounting systems do NOT take this into account. But to repeat, corporations and tax laws don't want to...

Most of what we see in our economy right now, is "history"... Even if you go to a farm and pick a fresh tomatoes, realize, that last year, some crop was planted, fertilizers were set with anticipation of this years crop. The farm land had years of preparation.. If today, you took a forest and cleaned out, turned into farm land, it would cost allot more... Granted, you have more machinery, but, that took more energy to make..

My gut feeling is that we Americans will ignore allot of foundation of our economy... slowly things will look like crap, performance and reliability will drop... mechanical tolerance (accuracy) will slip... this will iterate and make things accumulate over time...

we will see...
But things are very complex...

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', '
')My gut feeling is that we Americans will ignore allot of foundation of our economy... slowly things will look like crap, performance and reliability will drop... mechanical tolerance (accuracy) will slip... this will iterate and make things accumulate over time...