[Twinsen]

This post will probably result in me being declared insane but ill ask anyway? How important is oil to our society? I certianly believe that peak oil is inevitable and probably imminent but we will the effect be as apocolyptic as predicted?

Oil is used mainly for transportation, plastics and agriculture with the great majority being used for transportation. I think that if we develop efficent public transport systems, reduce car useage and improve car efficienies we can go a long way towards reducing demand for oil in transportation. Ditto with plastics...simply by slowly stopping to consume so mindlessly trinkets that we just don't need. Agriculture is more complex but I"ll get to that.

What is far more important than oil to our current way of life is cheap and reliable electric power. Our mas tranist runs of electricity. So does most industrial machinery. Ditto for our houses and hospitals. With reliable electric power our society will collapse within weeks...maybe even days. It seems to me the real issue is how we will produce electricity...not how we will power our cars or make new gadgets.

Peak oil may cause a great depression because of how lean it will force us to become, but we can live fairly well without so many cars, with less travelling and with less gadgets...and even with less food. Enormous amounts of food go to waste in the western world.

But we can't live without electricity. Gas, Coal and Nuclear power provide the majority of electric power, gas is running out, coal is to damaging to the environment and fission has many of its own problems. We are not ready with renewables yet.

So are we missing the real point???

[linlithgowoil]

electricity is more important than oil and i'd definetly rather do without oil and oil based products than electricity though.

oil is essential for the amount of transport modern civilisation has though. without oil, kiss goodbye to traffic jams, the standard daily commute by car that many people do and the quick tip down to the shops that are half a mile away in your car.

i think the biggest problem though is the economy. we have built an economy that actually relies on people wasting a lot of resources/money etc. e.g. the service sector. Rich westerners usually pay people to do stuff for them that they cant be bothered to do themselves. When they arent so rich anymore, they wont pay people to do the same stuff anymore - and therefore that person loses their job and the economy contracts and there is less money filtering through the system.

We actually require to have a lot of waste etc. in order to keep the economy growing. If people start to conserve a lot and not waste/spend so much, then the economy quickly goes into recession.

I read an article in a paper the other day and there was an economist complaining that the government wasnt doing enough to encourage people to save less and spend more, and it was affecting retail etc. I just shook my head and had a quiet laugh to myself. We have actually grown our economies, especially in the last decade or so, by means of solely relying on people spending lots and lots of money (normally on credit) on things that they dont need.

So, when times get hard and people cut back on things they dont need, the ecnomy that has built up reliance on that spending will contract, causing a domino like effect.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twinsen', '
')So are we missing the real point???

[waegari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twinsen', ' ')Oil is used mainly for transportation, plastics and agriculture with the great majority being used for transportation. I think that if we develop efficent public transport systems, reduce car useage and improve car efficienies we can go a long way towards reducing demand for oil in transportation.

[Ludi]

I voted "oil." Most of us who eat now buy our food at the store, very little food is locally grown but must be transported. Virtually all of our transportation uses oil.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

Oil of course, without it pretty much anything we see as "modern" becomes impossible. Counter to what many seem believe being able to produce a bit of electricity doesn't change this.

[elroy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's')imply by slowly stopping to consume so mindlessly trinkets that we just don't need

[Backtosteam]

You can make electricity with oil and oil with electricity. You can ship with oil and you can ship with electricity. So I guess if you can get the end product of electricity that's all that matters. So I vote electricity. I don't care how it's generated.

[Wildwell]

Electricty is more important than oil, although they are both important. Oil is special because it makes an excellent liquid fuel which is important for road vehicles and essential for air. Trains and ships can run off other things of course - coal, wood, electricty, gas, biomass, wind (either directly or via generators making electricty); historically oil isn't important to those modes.

But it is important to realise the major growth in oil for transportation is a post war phenomenon - the growth of personal transportation and fast international traffic.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE ... _48_1.html

The other major use of oil is in agriculture and plastics. The green revolution is a petrochemical based enterprise. So the answer is today it is very important but pre-war was much less so. Overall electricty is more important for running machines, computers, pumping water, lighting, heating…although electricty is of course an energy carrier and can be generated from oil.

[donshan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('waegari', 'I') did not even mention the fact that the global economy increasingly depends on sea and air transport: there is no viable alternative for oil in that field. Which even affects electricity supply. You need oil to transport uranium. You need oil for long distance transport of coal. You need oil for long distance transport of bio fuel. LNG harbor facilities make no sense as soon as oil gets too expensive to have LNG shipped at all.
.

[Ludi]

I guess I misunderstood the question. I thought the original poster was asking how important is oil to our society, not how important is oil to some other society with a completely different infrastructure, economy, etc.

My big fat mistake.

[donshan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') guess I misunderstood the question. I thought the original poster was asking how important is oil to our society, not how important is oil to some other society with a completely different infrastructure, economy, etc.

My big fat mistake.

[elroy]

You also can't forget oil is a major part of chemical stuff and other products, besides being an energy source.

[waegari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donshan', ' ')This is one of the best analyses of peak oil I have read-Strongly recommended!

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/1/22/04219/1102

[Leanan]

I voted for oil.

We need oil for agriculture, and food is one thing we cannot give up.

We also need oil for electricity. We use oil to mine the copper, iron, concrete, etc. we use to build power plants and electric lines. Nuclear, solar, wind...unless you're planning to build an old-fashioned Dutch wooden windmill, it all takes oil.

Things like glass and steel used to be luxuries reserved for the rich, because it took so much fuel to make them. We are going to be hard-pressed to put a solar panel on every roof without cheap oil.

[leyman]

Hi, everyone.

I vote for electricity.

I just bought a 15 acre spread with a ranch home and pole barn that i am trying to make sustainable.

I have enough trees on the land that if managed properly, will provide adequate heating fuel (with a little barter-based assistance from my neighbors - - i know how to brew alchohol, and i know they'll trade some good homebrew for wood to make up any seasonal deficencies i may find myself in the future). However, the blower on my furnace needs e- to run. Also, although my set up has a heat exchanger which uses some of the wood nrg to heat my waterheater to some degree, it will probably be insufficient to provide 100% hot h2o needs... the e- will be necessary if i want temps above tepid by the time the plumbing gets to my shower. And i require a good hot shower once a day (although i can do it very quickly).

Water. I have a reliable water table here, but the pump runs on e-. I could conceivably drill a separate well which operates on a hand pump, but i have not the $$$ to do so. It *is* something i realize i need to do. So for now H2O = e-.

Laundry. I like having clean clothes, towels, and sheets. I like my washing machine, and i have only a couple of times wahed my clothes by hand. I find the thought of having to do so for all of these items a pain in the &ss (yes, i realize i am probably going to have to get over that. I *have* started looking for antique washboards at garage sales and auctions lately. But i'm hoping that i'll never have to use them.).

Freezer and refridgerator. I do big gardens and much prefer freezing to canning. IMO you can process a lot more produce cutting and blanching and bagging than canning. I am starting to collect a growing assemblage of canning supplies to prepare for that eventuality, however. But give me the freezer anyday. The fridge, well, i have a hard time thinking how to live without one, especially in the summer. I used to own a Servel gas-powered fridge a number of years ago and still kick myself for not hanging on to it, but hopefully i can obtain/consruct one in the future, or make one of those new wood-powered ones that have been discussed recently.

Lights. Call me what you will, but sorry, i like e--based incandescent lighting. When i have a fire in the woodstove, a garden-based meal in my belly, and a homebrew at my side while i relax on the couch after a hard days work, i want to read the book or periodical in my hands by the light of a lightbulb. I'm sorry, IMO they are far superior to candles and lanterns when it's completely dark outside.

Communications. I need to be able to communicate with my neighbors, friends, and family to be able to maximize both my own personal mental health and survivability in a post-PO world. It is going to be hard enough to make the transition without the thought of having to do it alone and absent the experiences and insights of others around me dealing with the same things i am. It will be a lot easier and (IMO) nrg efficient to pick up my 24 volt telephone and set up tomorrows delivery of homebrew in my goat-drawn cart : ) than it would be to ride my bike three miles down the road to (hopefully) set up the transaction.

And of course, the Internet. Although i am new here and only a sprinkling of you know me, i consider this community here at PO to be an important part of my development as a human being. I continue to receive more than i give, but hopefully that will change with time and the increase in my own confidence level in discussing these matters that most everyone else here seems to know how to talk better about than i do. In any case, the loss of my access to you all would be a huge loss in my life.

So, all that being said, my vote goes for my trusted friend the electron.

Bring on the nuke plants and solar-powered-satellites. : )

leyman

[waegari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('leyman', ' ')Bring on the nuke plants and solar-powered-satellites. : )

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('waegari', '
')So you won't need any cheap oil for, say, uranium transport?