Peak oil and how to face it

…The shortages are much smaller, and much later, if enough early planning is made. As you understand, demand will not be higher than supply (beyond small stock adjustments), and thus prices will increase until they destroy – brutally – the necessary demand at any given moment. That means either shortages and lines, rationing, or very high prices that discourages the poorest or the less car-dependent to give up on their vehicles – and in either case, strong economic disruption.

If the potential shortages can be kept small, one can hope that our economies will be adaptable enough to manage somehow. But if there is a brutal shortage, then it will be chaos.
Thus the need for a real energy policy, aiming at reducing future demand and, realistically, for the medium term, finding ways to bring on the market new oil sources. This will require government intervention, and pretty strong intervention at that, to cause real demand reduction (lower consumption) and encourage new technologies.

This report is still failry upbeat, and probably focuses too much on supply side solutions, but it does note realistically the scale of the problem and, more importantly, the time that will be needed to start having an impact on (let alone “solving”) the energy crisis.

This is the work of a full generation – and we’d better get started today.

Daily Kos