[SeaGypsy]

Forget peak oil. The world has gone to war against it with the only weapons it has/ printing presses and filling energy quotas by any and all means necessary. This means climate change can go chew it's grit or be used as a funding platform, but will not control policy. The war between the climatologists and the economists is still dragging but with one inevitable result:

All the black sh#t will be dug out and burned.

So, why is this in economics and finance?

Because we are none of us, going to live long enough to see the end of the printing press or these:



So what is going to happen besides?

Everything to do with electricity.

Copper. Coal. Shale. The stuff which is cheap now, we won't be able to (or willing to) do without. How FUBAR are we?Forget 'Drill Baby Drill' it's going to be 'Dig it and Frack it 'til ya just cain't Dig an' Frack no mo'"

[Timo]

Those calls will continue, but the bright side of me still has just a little bit of faith in humanity, who might just come to realize that BAU is not worth its downsides from an environmental standpoint, and perhaps more importantly, from an economic standpoint. Eventually, the costs of renewables will be less than the costs of oil, coal, and gas, and even if we have to scale back our way of living, slightly, we'll do it because its cheaper to do so. That's the optimist in me talking. The pessimist in me says that regardless of which way we go, it won't have any effect on the livability of the planet. That seems to be on a downward trend, no matter what we humans do.

[SeaGypsy]

BAU? Something quite novel by comparison. Do you mean you believe humanity will choose rapture by mass starvation over a concept of ecology? I doubt it, very much. We may eventually have a whole new economic plateau, a neo-eco- renaissance society may develop, but in the process, the vast majority of cheap and portable energy will be extracted. We are talking now of 'BAU in Transition' outliving all of us alive now, to the point where the reality of long term no-return climate change shows our great grandchildren our legacy.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')There is no way in hell that electricity from coal, nuclear, renewables, or unobtainium will power this industrial civilization.
.....You gotta have a geologic perspective to make sense of this peak oil thing. It took 150 years for peak oil production. During that time everything changed. Everything. There is no going forward. Only down. This is it. In slow motion.

[Timo]

Demand for NG, and the electricity it might generate, is simply too steep for its long-term ability to sustain. Yes, it is greatly reducing the use of coal and oil for a multitude of applications, but given what i've read here at PO (most of which i think i can trust), the actual lifespan of a frakked gas well is not all that long, and the production capacity of frakked wells goes down very fast. I'm simply comparing global demand against the thus-far proven production records of NG. NG may very well be the fuel of choice for the next decade, or maybe two decades, but i doubt its "the" answer for our needs, much longer than that. If we have technological alternatives that are more sustainable, cleaner, and more plentiful, those should be the ultimate objective to develop and implement. One fossil fuel in place of another isn't really thinking outside the box, and doesn't really advance the human condition on this planet. It just kicks the inevitable transition a bit further down the road.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'D')emand for NG, and the electricity it might generate, is simply too steep for its long-term ability to sustain. Yes, it is greatly reducing the use of coal and oil for a multitude of applications, but given what i've read here at PO (most of which i think i can trust), the actual lifespan of a frakked gas well is not all that long, and the production capacity of frakked wells goes down very fast. I'm simply comparing global demand against the thus-far proven production records of NG. NG may very well be the fuel of choice for the next decade, or maybe two decades, but i doubt its "the" answer for our needs, much longer than that. If we have technological alternatives that are more sustainable, cleaner, and more plentiful, those should be the ultimate objective to develop and implement. One fossil fuel in place of another isn't really thinking outside the box, and doesn't really advance the human condition on this planet. It just kicks the inevitable transition a bit further down the road.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', ' ')We will never build out the infrastructure to utilize what will end up being a very untenable energy resource.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', ' ')We will never build out the infrastructure to utilize what will end up being a very untenable energy resource.

[Pops]

Natural gas is really cheap, half what it was a couple of years ago, so the value of reserves will need to be restated – down of course.

With less reserves on the books (fewer assets) and returns from existing wells down (less cashflow) and continuing questions as to the profitability of fracking considering the steep depletion rate, AND finally, downgraded credit exactly when the ongoing need for credit to continuously drill new holes just to keep production flat... I'd not put an end to the story just yet.

Chesapeake?

[SeaGypsy]

Which alludes to the backbone of my argument. There is an abundance of coal and gas, oil is evermore expensive, nukes are to unpopular. There being plenty of such fossil fuels, in such diversity of utility, an electric based conversion is all but inevitable in the global system. The only alternative is to have pockets of localized specialized energy and transport infrastructure region by region; which runs against the grain of globalism.

[SeaGypsy]

You need to borrow my spectacles P I'm not advocating anything, joining Graeme's or Oily's or Memoe's cheer squads, any of that. Just stating what I see. I think MD has been way ahead of us here on this, if a bit coy about it.

I doubt transition is going to be unaccompanied by disaster for many folks in many places, the geo-political ramifications of peak oil are not to be dismissed at all.

Globalism will continue for as long as humans are around, in some form.

Running international shipping and communications is relatively the cheapest part of the essential infrastructure thereof, and the types/ amounts of fuel required highly flexible. Mass air transit will die relatively soon. Shipping, there is no real limit.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')Resources and consumer products move by ocean ship (bunker oil), truck (diesel), and freight train (also diesel). I really don't see how globalism can survive peak oil. At all.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Your idea that the world is going to collapse due to peak oil presupposes that humans won't make adjustments or re-engineer parts of the transportation grid to run on alternative fuels.

But each of your three examples of things that will stop working due to peak oil can easily be converted to run on natural gas and/or electricity.

[SeaGypsy]

Plastic is particularly abundant in sludge/ tar oil, at the heavy and plentiful end of the spectrum. The stuff running out first is the light and sweet, which has very little to do with plastics. Jet fuel/ kerosene and the lighter gases used in industry, such as Helium, are perilously close to terminal decline. But lack of ability to hop around the planet quickly and cheaply is hardly the end of the world. There is still a lot of innovation in industrial applications of rare earths and recycling metals and gases.

[dissident]

No accounting for greenhouse gas effects in this burn all accessible fossil fuels scenario. We can't isolate agriculture from the weather. I am sure there will be increasingly rabid attempts to pretend that AGW is a commie hoax, but by 2030 it will be clear where we are headed.