Having such a young active mind, I've been worrying to death about the looming oil crisis? Is it as bad as people say it's going to be?

Discuss.

Perhaps people will stop complaining about petrol prices and catch public transport.

Wait, this is Australia. They will complain and vote out the government.

Problems from oil shortages won't be limited to cars and trucks.. what about Aeroplanes?

Perhaps people will stop complaining about petrol prices and catch public transport.

Wait, this is Australia. They will complain and vote out the government.
No they wont Howard and his cronies are to cunning for the your average mug Aussie.

Unfortunately.

What is it with anglo nations and cars?

Unfortunately.

What is it with anglo nations and cars?

aha.. god knows.. urban design?
Majority of anglos live in suburban area's where public transport sucks balls.

aha.. god knows.. urban design?
Majority of anglos live in suburban area's where public transport sucks balls.

You're not far off actually. Car dependence has been created by post war planning methodology which moved towards single use zoning which requires transport from different zones to the other. Combine this with property economics, where developers perpetuate sprawl by developing the cheap fringe land, and you've pretty much got a recipe for car dependence.

Oil prices are basically doing the RBA's job, slowing the economy, meaning interest rates don't so urgently need to be lifted. It's a balance though.

Catch PT and quit your whinging.

Does the majority of Australias power come from coal?

oh no! my petrol will cost 10c more.
Thats like... $2 a WEEK. Phoar.
Even if it doubled it would still be so cheap considering what it does.

HAHA
I love complacency from my fellow world citizens. You guys really have NO idea what this oil crisis is going to bring do you??

We can expect much more than just a little recession. We can expect the collapse of the american empire and our entire way of life ceasing to function. it is not merely going to be just a slight rise in petrol prices EVERYTHING is going to be inflated and we are going to lose every thread of our society.

To learn more, visit www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net, a nice comprehensive site which gets deep if you search through his links & sources etc.

PS, yes about 90% of Australia's electrical power comes from Fossil fuels and the vast majority of this is Black Coal. For this reason it kind of makes me think that perhaps the impact here will not be as bad as say in America who uses oil more widely for power.

Once again,
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Funny thing is.. No polticians are doing anything about it, suss ay?

Demanjo, that site seems extremely pessimistic.

It is terribly pessemistic, but it is the truth!

You can't ignore the issue and what is so depressing, as you said, is that governments are doing SO LITTLE to stop it!!! It is an aboslute time bomb and is ever bit as bad as i describe. I highly recommend that site as it will enlighten you in much plainer english than i would & you can read it at your own pace & interpret what you want.

I warn you though, the truth is VERY heavy....

You're not far off actually. Car dependence has been created by post war planning methodology which moved towards single use zoning which requires transport from different zones to the other. Combine this with property economics, where developers perpetuate sprawl by developing the cheap fringe land, and you've pretty much got a recipe for car dependence.

Of course sprawl cannot perpetuate without cars, so lets just disable them by frying their chips with EMP. Or just jack up the fuel excise. :)

What do you want the polly's to do exactly?

demanjo: THE SKY IS FALLING! WE MUST TELL THE KING AT ONCE!

actually ueweuep, i heard on the tv they were talking about 3$ a litre.

AtD, are you implying i am a doomsayer and that my theory i share with many others is flawed?

I want you to fault me then.

I have yet to meet one individual who can fault me and say that this is not going to happen & it is not going to be detrimental to our society.

Please, fault me.

I think an oil crash isn't all bad.. There wont be as much pollution and people will have to rely on others more

Just reading a bit more about suburbanisation it appears that it is partly driven by the demand for 'rural lifestyles' in the suburbs, away from the 'evils' urban life It is an Anglo Saxon tradition, where in the past intellectuals and artists from the UK, USA, Aust had a pessimistic perspective of the city and painted a romanticised image of rural life and landscapes, which using Australia as an example, I agree with.

AtD, are you implying i am a doomsayer and that my theory i share with many others is flawed?

I want you to fault me then.

I have yet to meet one individual who can fault me and say that this is not going to happen & it is not going to be detrimental to our society.

Please, fault me.

I have not found one single person out there who can fault my theory that alpha centauri is planning an invasion of earth.

I think an oil crash isn't all bad.. There wont be as much pollution and people will have to rely on others more

high oil prices equate to higher transport costs thus the price of goods to be moved rises with the oil prices which eventually ends up being past directly on to the customer. Soon after people just can't afford to buy products, the suppliers and creators lose money culminating in an economic meltdown.

it's not doomsdayers shit, it's just the fact that wherever the oil price goes, EVERYTHING else goes with it.

it wont be that bad at all! no REALLY!!

Yes in terms of human unity & the environment it will be beneficial in the long run.

But in the mean time, getting to a sustainable society will be anarchy, literally and figuratively. Almost every practise in our life will be affected.

Unity & ecology will be a resultant in the long term, say 50-100 years, but inbetween it will be real nasty to be alive.

high oil prices equate to higher transport costs thus the price of goods to be moved rises with the oil prices which eventually ends up being past directly on to the customer. Soon after people just can't afford to buy products, the suppliers and creators lose money culminating in an economic meltdown.

it's not doomsdayers shit, it's just the fact that wherever the oil price goes, EVERYTHING else goes with it.

it wont be that bad at all! no REALLY!!


Tayser while you do bring up valid points, it is not merely this.

Oil is much more than just a fuel for our cars & society. It's other products as a result of refinement are going to spell huge problems for many areas of our society.

Farming will be hugely effected as is fertilisers are petroleum based & its pesticides are ammonium based, which are extracted from oil. Therefore, farming operations will either have to fork out more money for these things to keep up yields for demand, yet prices will continue to rise hence passing these cost's onto consumers. The other option is for new methods to be adapted but it is time consuming and are at this point untested and there is no guarantee that it could provide for our hunger.

Oil is also a huge consumer product, giving us plastics which are used in almost every area of society. Methods of packaging, and other consumer items based on plastic are going to be directly influenced by this, with prices sky rocketing as a result. Can you imagine the investment required in the development of new solutions to cover all our packaging needs to allow the foods we use to last & get into our fridges (since plastic is basically responsible for this).

Now in the fuel terms is going to greatly effect us in that we need it for transport of these items. We need it for devilery of the raw materials. We need it for the functioning of the plants to create the raw materials. Every aspect of the chain requires the oil.

If prices rise, EVERY ASPECT of our life feels it. EVERYTHING is inter-linked. As these prices rise, economies suffer. As they get very bad, depression will follow. People will suffer as a result of their inaccesability to these resources since the food cannot be transported & produced in vast enough quantites to supply the urban centres.

War will follow in a fight for the remaining oil stock in a stuggle over the small remaining reserves despite the inevitability of the crash and the economic depression to follow.

It is grim comrades. Very grim

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net is much better at explaining this again, it is too late at night for me to formulate this as eloquently as i would like.

demanjo: They were saying the same thing in the 1970's. Civilisation still exists, the sky didn't fall, don't believe everything you read.

You've got to remember Australia is a net energy exporter, so there are a lot of positives for us in this.

You are the exact sort of complacency that is wrong with this world.

The evidence is un-deniable yet you still deny it. It is rediculous. yes there was a scare in the 70's however not nearly of this magnitude and had no where near the scientific backbone of this threat.

However, i cant make you believe anything, and if you want to deny it, then it is only your burden to carry when it occurs and you are one of the un-prepared.

qucik everyone switch to gas or go buy a toyots prius!

Why is this hardly spoken about it? Are people in denial? Has it turned into some taboo? The only way the world is gunna resolve these issues is by planning which needs communication.

My thoughts EXACTLY!

I have been speaking about it in my community for a while though, and have raised a slight awareness, however people STILL do so little!!!

its amazing to see!!!
It just needs to hit their wallets then hopefully we will see some changes....

how much of the petrol price goes to the feds? ie. tax, qld get something like 10c? off from state govt compared to rest of aus

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid133/pad9958f2eadfac322a6d210488e7a46d/f77fca9d.jpghttp://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid133/pdb4430eae12ac95f262e56a779bd0bf1/f77fca96.jpg

hah :P

http://www.thehoddlegrid.net/dump/aussiemap.PNG

To all the complacent people suggesting PT... PT isn't the answer... Yes, it will help curb the complete usage of oil... But no, it won't stop trucks and planes from sucking it up.

Read MrPC's post in the $3 a litre thread, which enlightens us as to how close this crisis actually is. There is NO way in the world anyone will find a renewable energy source powerful enough to run trucks, planes, buses, trains etc in the time we have left.

Try and comprehend the impact? Seriously...

Economically, we're screwed. Take a look at whatever is in front of you. Where did it come from? How did it get to where it is now? Chances are, it was freighted somehow, and by several means of freighting. Think of what cost is associated with that item. Now, think how much a 300% to possibly as high as a 1000% increase on price of that item might affect the way we live. Now think about everything you own, and what transport costs are associated with getting it to you?

Are we now getting the picture?

The reason there is no panic about this yet, is because we are controlled what we are thinking by way of the media. The governments of the world don't want the media to allow the public to worry, which could lead to panic, which could lead to extremely bad situations, so they don't say anything, and your average citizen is none the wiser.

This is a massive problem, and if there's a solution, we're bloody running fast out of time!!!

a couple of links from people with not so "extremist" views:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=gnn&Number=285219&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&part=all&vc=1
http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com/comFTpeakoil.htm

Frankly I'm more worried about Australia's demographic shifts as a long term economic problem. But I'm confident that in both cases we will find a way, and it will not be ...the collapse of ... our entire way of life

Honestly?

Well yes, because our current society is extremely wasteful when it comes to oil and energy in general. While many will be reluctant to cut back on their usage, it's not going to be the end of the world. Take PT people!

I still think too many people are ignorant of the repercussions...

The price of oil will most likely double in the coming decade, and this is a positive outlook. The price of oil dictates the price of just about everything in our society.

I don't think we'll ever run out, but the likelihood of a global economic depression will be enough to cause more than a stir.

Ignorance is bliss... especially in a capitalist world!

Whats with people and trying to convince other people its the end of the world? Its never ending! If the terrorists dont get us the oil prices will!

We're a very clever bunch us humans. We'll work something out.

You are far too negative, Adder-Laid, though I agree with the future oil price being much much higher. current growth levels in India and China would make this seem inevitable.

Its just not going to be such a problem.

For cars its already well-known that we will move towards hydrogen within 20-30 years. Expensive oil would hasten the process, which is really just practical problems.
As for current cars there are massive savings available through technology that just isnt widely bought because people, so far, hasnt cared much about the price.
Taxes on everything related to cars will be switched to the actual use of the car meaning for most people it would make no financial difference, they would just have to cut the driving that isnt needed and we would see more car-pooling.
Also when the price rises, more oil will become available since it will be possible to get to oil which today is to costly to bring up.

But still its just temporary as there are other solutions. For electricity its going to be windpower. Its efficiency is rocketing and it will be the big growth area in the coming years, looking further into the future solar is likely to become a real alternative especially if technology to transport electricity improves.

No reason at all for all the doom and gloom

Oil price will spark an inflationary spiral up. As seen in the 70's, it has caused the general CPI to rise drasically, coz of the descrease in purchasing power. If that occurs, the Reserve Bank will be pressured severely to place contractionary monetary policy on Australia to promote 'intertemporal substitution effect.'

In another words: Driving is an expensive exercise!

http://www.enviromission.com.au/financial/EVM%20CA157.pdf

I'm not totally pessimistic - but you've got to admit, things aren't looking like they'll be as healthy as they are today...

yeah of course, but there's no need to be completely hysterical about it - hysteria creates panic and what's needed to fix the problem is action. panic + action = disaster

$0.02.

I'm aware of that... but if peak oil is as close as some suggest, we've left it a little too late for action...

I'm not saying panic is inevitable, but I'm suggesting it might become likely at some point. Especially with the media having not even raised an eyebrow to this yet....

Hopefully more skyscrapers will be built, as without the convenience of cheap private transport more and more people will want to live closer to where the action is and that means density, which i turn means TALL BUILDINGS.

It mightn't be as bad as I think it will be, But I'm only young, and when this subject comes up I worry about my future.. Am I gunna grow up in the same connditions as those who lived during the depression suffered? Am I gunna have to fight for food and shelter? Am I gunna live under a piece of tin?

Honestly, this scares me to death!

well hybrid cars are more popular and other technologies will reduce our reliance on oil....

I'm aware of that... but if peak oil is as close as some suggest, we've left it a little too late for action...

I'm not saying panic is inevitable, but I'm suggesting it might become likely at some point. Especially with the media having not even raised an eyebrow to this yet....

I think the obvious inference is, we're stuffed, later if not sooner.

Hydrogen cars are driving around already, believed to become affordable in about 10 years, though of course this could be quickened by governments.

The challenge is how to increase the production of hydrogen, but it shouldnt be a problem, wind power is becoming very efficient.
How to arrange the whole "filling up" situation. Also not a real problem, there are just many ways of doing it.

Hopefully these cars will become mainstream in 10 years time and in a further 10 we will see the last petrol cars banned.
This would also have the slight side-effect of massively improving air quality in big cities, after all these cars are running on water.
This is really something to look forward to!

I am certainly not worried, though governments need to become more focused on this. Of course I am from Denmark (net exporter of oil and the home of the world´s leading wind power company) but I cant see this becoming a major problem for anyone.

i think that there will be a much bigger dependence on electrcity for PT and the world wil be less overweight with more people willing to walk to work, or walking to PT. there will be solar or wind farms for electricity built all over contrysides.

In SEQ high oil prices may or are changing quite a few things, such as:

We are already seeing quite a few of those electric hybrid cars on the streets.

Apartment living will become even more popular as people won't want to drive from the suburbs.

I think the intra city areas of SEQ like the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast will become less popular because people will not want to spend big bucks driving to the city.

Intra city commuter trains to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast will become increasingly more crowded - AKA Bombay express from GC.

Prices for property and inner city property around Brisbane will rise dramatically.

They are my predictions for metro SEQ.

jt

When cars start running on water then we're using up another valuable resource - especially in this country.

They are not running on water in that sense.

I dont know how it works and apparently it can be done in many ways, but the basics are that hydrogen is produced like electricity is produced. Cars can then run on this, and when the hydrogen meets air it turns to water.. well something like that.

But the main point is that its a completly clean technology as long as hydrogen is produced cleanly such as by windpower or water, where thats possible or further into the future solar.

I think wind power is the way to go (and no, I havent actually bought the stock yet) Its efficiency is now competitive and its clean and can produce both hydrogen and electricity which means it covers everything.

Windmills should be raised everywhere at sea even if they are rather ugly. They can always start to come down again in 50-100 years or whenever solar might take over.

The danish company, Vestas, is already setting up mills in Victoria and also establishing an australian blade-company, I think.

there's also the snowy-hydro scheme going on at snowy mountains area. nearly all power supplied there is environemntly friendly . they are now building a little dam at lake jindabyne to capture water and supply electricity.

-the revolution of green energy is starting.

Hopefully more skyscrapers will be built, as without the convenience of cheap private transport more and more people will want to live closer to where the action is and that means density, which i turn means TALL BUILDINGS.
Thats surely the way of the future as the gas guzzlers become too expensive to run plus the infrastructure is already in place..
Another spinoff might be to stop the tremendous watse of petrol that is used by women picking their kids up from school in the car - what ever happened to walking to school no wonder we are breeding a race of toadballs.

lol, I reckon, too many car trips are made, and the result is all these obese children! crazy!

Thats surely the way of the future as the gas guzzlers become too expensive to run plus the infrastructure is already in place..
Another spinoff might be to stop the tremendous watse of petrol that is used by women picking their kids up from school in the car - what ever happened to walking to school no wonder we are breeding a race of toadballs.
Yes, but another spinoff is that housing/apartment prices will become beyond affordable, as they'll cost so much to build due to the cost of transporting the building material/supplies...

catch 22...

How cool would it be if you could have a Back to the Future style Mr Fusion garbage guzzler.

Yes, but another spinoff is that housing/apartment prices will become beyond affordable, as they'll cost so much to build due to the cost of transporting the building material/supplies...

catch 22...

Bingo. Existing scrapers will likely be retrofitted easily if their existing configuration is no longer in demand. I doubt there'll be as much commerce during and post the inevitable oil-induced recession. However, demands on electricity may make them undesirable as the power for lifts and air con gets a bit shaky as all the grid repair vans and cranes get pricey to operate, and the coal supply itself comes under stress from competing demands.

Future city growth will likely be in terraces and other new-urbanism inspired low rise medium density plaza style development. Cost of construction is low, value is reasonable, serviceability is high, and the effect of power outages isn't as devastating. I don't know how much will get built after TSHTF, but it's certainly something that should have been started after the two big oil shocks of the 70s.

As for everyone else, there will be a lot of work in farm fields picking out weeds as oil based herbicides (not to mention pesticides) become unaffordable. Not to mention planting and harvesting, as tractors, planters and harvesters etc sit idle waiting for the next diesel ration. At least here in oz we're a decade, three if we're lucky, off a natural gas crisis. That means natural gas based fertilizers will still be around, even if delivering them from plant to field will be a pain without cheap and easily procured diesel.

Hydrogen cars are driving around already, believed to become affordable in about 10 years, though of course this could be quickened by governments.

Almost None are, not that they are a solution.

No they won't, almost nothing will be affordable in 10 years, even food and water will cost crippling amounts.

No it couldn't, there is too much to do.

The challenge is how to increase the production of hydrogen, but it shouldnt be a problem, wind power is becoming very efficient.

And what do all the trucks and cranes that deliver, install and maintain the wind turbines, and the power grid itself run on? How do all the workers at the wind turbine plant get to and from their job, get their kids to school, procure their groceries etc?

How to arrange the whole "filling up" situation. Also not a real problem, there are just many ways of doing it.

Not a real problem? LOL! Sure.

Hopefully these cars will become mainstream in 10 years time and in a further 10 we will see the last petrol cars banned.

Even after the filling stations are built (using technology to safely store Hydrogen that doesn't exist yet, existing tanks and tank seals leak too readily for general use thanks to the very small molecular size of hydrogen and the need to store it under extreme pressure if you want to actually use it to do anything), it would still take 17 years after the sale of petrol cars are banned to get rid of the last of them, based on how long it took to get rid of leaded fuel cars. Physical shortages aside of course, but even then, the economics of buying a new car to cut your fuel bill when you already have a car are rather sketchy, particularly when Liquified Hydrogen will cost a small fortune too even under the more optimistic of the realistic scenarios.

This would also have the slight side-effect of massively improving air quality in big cities, after all these cars are running on water.
This is really something to look forward to!

Not really. We'll likely be dead before your utopia ever happens. Why? Because Hydrogen is a diversionary tactic, to help keep established interests profitable for as long as possible by preventing panic, without actually delivering anything of value.

I am certainly not worried, though governments need to become more focused on this. Of course I am from Denmark (net exporter of oil and the home of the world´s leading wind power company) but I cant see this becoming a major problem for anyone.

Denmark won't be a net oil exporter for too long. The North Sea oil field has peaked and is in decline, the UK is becoming a net importer just now, and domestic consumption is still fairly high.

Anyway, have you ever actually looked beneath the hype and looked into what Hydrogen can genuinely offer? Here's a good start.

http://energybulletin.net/1140.html

In reality, hydrogen fuel cells are a storage battery for energy derived from other sources. In a fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen are fed to the anode and cathode, respectively, of each cell. Electrons stripped from the hydrogen produce direct current electricity which can be used in a DC electric motor or converted to alternating current.

Because of the second law of thermodynamics, hydrogen fuel cells will always have a bad EROEI. If fossil fuels are used to generate the hydrogen, either through the Methane-Steam method or through Electrolysis of Water, there will be no advantage over using the fossil fuels directly. The use of hydrogen as an intermediate form of energy storage is justified only when there is some reason for not using the primary source directly. For this reason, a hydrogen-based economy must depend on large-scale development of nuclear power or solar electricity.

Therefore, the development of a hydrogen economy will require major investments in fuel cell technology research and nuclear or solar power plant construction. On top of this, there is the cost of converting all of our existing technology and machinery to hydrogen fuel cells. And all of this will have to be accomplished under the economic and energy conditions of post-peak fossil fuel production.

Based on all of this, I submit that Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham does indeed have ulterior motives for his Hydrogen Energy Roadmap. First, I suggest that this distant goal will help to pacify the public once they begin to suffer from the effects of fossil fuel withdrawal. Secondly, this project will allow the elite to transfer more money from the general public to the pockets of the rich. Third, in the words of Karl Davies, this proposal will deflect a stock market collapse once news of declining oil production becomes generally recognized.

Tied to this, it will brace stock prices of the auto corporations and oil majors to help them survive well into the era of oil depletion. And finally, the idea that we are working on a transition from fossil fuels to a hydrogen-based economy will help to destabilize OPEC, hopefully making it easier to deal with that organization and the Arab oil states.

^ Welcome to the world outside the Transportation forum :tongue3:

^ The world outside the SSC transportation forum in my case is forums such as Whirlpool and bbs.fuckedcompany.com (the latter always being worth a laugh for the spectacle of good old fashioned trolling that's pervasive there) :-)

well the toll of expensive petrol is hitting some parts of sydney hard already, whenever there is cheap petrol... there is bond to be a traffic jam at the petrol station as 100's of cars try to get cheaper petrol (cheaper petrol = under $1/L)

Crude Oil prices have neared the $50 a barrel mark...again, the question remains- how high will they go?

the pressure for fuel is going crazy now... when i was going past a shell petrol station fuel priced at 95 cents /litre , there was a huge line of cars waiting for fuel.. it went so long that the street nearby was conjested with traffic refueling... by the time it was midnight there was cones at the petrol pumps, price is blank on the hige sign and guess what...? there was no more fuel left in the station lol...

all that shit to save 80c. god some people are stupid sometimes.

all that shit to save 80c. god some people are stupid sometimes.

i reckon!

all that shit to save 80c. god some people are stupid sometimes.

Especially when they'll use a few bucks of petrol to get to the servo that's way out of the way, to get that "bargain" price.

It depends on how much your car tank takes. I drive a jeep and it has a 100 litre tank so saving 5c a litre helps ie $5.00, it all adds up in at the end of the year. I fill up a bit over once a week so thats arond $200.00 a year

Not many people realise is that petroleum and gas will never run out, it will just get to a stage where the cost to extract it becomes far too uneconomical. This will probably only take around half a century when considering our rapid growth in energy dependence. If we are still as dependent on fossil fuels then as we are today, then the result would be disasterous for Australia, as well as the rest of the world, many would starve and economies would collapse.

In addition options in so called "green-energy" (solar, wind, hydrogen powered cars..etc) are not our salvation at present as they all require the combustion of fossil fuels in manufacture, transport, and extraction of the materials used to create them in the first place. The only real option at the moment is nuclear power, which is subject to great overeaction and is overfeared by clueless members of the community in many countries, including Australia. So to answer the question in the title of this thread, I would say that unless there is a major technological breakthrough in the next few decades, to put it simply, we are fucked...

I agree, bring on Australia's nuclear age - for god sake we have alot of the World's known uranium.

It's the same old fucked up[ story when it comes to this country though - no one wants to invest in our strengths:

I was reading this article yesterday in the Australian about James Cook Uni developing a drug that puts people into Hibernation (like an animal) which has the advantage in a warzone of putting a person's organs on a "Pilot Light" by slowing metabolism until medical treatment can be administered. They reckon this will prevent a lot of deaths and investment interest has been expressed by the pentagon!

See anything wrong with that picture - The Pentagon, why isn't our military buying the Technology? Too busy looking for WMDs I suppose!

Yeah its creepy to think about what could happen if Oil prices were ridiculously higher than they are now (Any bets on oil reaching $100 a barrel within a year?- some US investors already think so! lol...oh dear).

Yeah its creepy to think about what could happen if Oil prices were ridiculously higher than they are now (Any bets on oil reaching $100 a barrel within a year?- some US investors already think so! lol...oh dear).

Well of course they would, they wouldn't invest in oil if they expected the price to fall now would they? :|

I wonder how much of this oil surge is a speculation bubble, after all, many of the so called experts you see saying oil will be $millions/barrel in a month probably hold oil futures and have an interest in talking the price of oil up to keep the price of oil futures up.

Take a train and quit whingeing. :baaa:

Well of course they would, they wouldn't invest in oil if they expected the price to fall now would they? :|

I was referring to the fact many investors were 'betting' (like a TAB sorta thing) so to speak, rather than investing in actual oil, on the fact that oil prices would be $100 a barrel within a year.
There is a chance that its all specualtion, and there's plenty of oil left to keep up with world demand for many years to come, but then there's also always the chance that there isn't.
Taking the train is a good idea.

We had oil problems back in the 1970s. How is this any different?
The oil shortages of the 1970s were the results of political events. The coming oil shortage is the result of geologic reality. You can negotiate with politicians. You can threaten, blockade, or invade Middle East regimes. You can't do any of that to the Earth.
As far as the US oil supply was concerned, in the 70s there were other 'swing' oil producers like Venezuela who could step in to fill the supply gap. Once worldwide oil production peaks, there won't be any swing producers to fill in the gap.

Taken from www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Also know that the US government knew about a possible terrorist attack in 2001 but failed to act on it and now we have September 11. We can draw some startling parallels with possible events in the near future.

Yeah that website is quite good at explaining Peak Oil in simple, yet terrifying terms.
Bad thing is, Peak Oil = No more economic growth = No more Scrapers!

as far as i understand PeakOil is gonna change our society completely,
and will increase the demand for renewable electricity a few times,
which brings me to my question: what ever happened to that 1km tall
pipe project in NSW? Does anybody have any info/updates?
I remember that on the paper it looked very promising+there was a 200m prototype
working in Spain.
Anybody?

I was talking to Cul when I was in sydney, and he mentioned that the project is still possible, with some Japanese construction company wanting to do it.

Powered by sunlight (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1001hydrocar01.html)

Powered by sunlight
Student project leaps into future

Bob Golfen
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 1, 2004 12:00 AM

The ungainly looking Chevy pickup parked in the courtyard at Central High School, with a huge set of solar panels mounted on top, may not look so futuristic.

But it certainly points the way.

Hand-built on a shoestring budget by a Central physics teacher and a team of students, the truck is one of a kind, a demonstration of how future transportation can be self-sustaining and pollution-free.
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The truck is hydrogen-powered and creates its own fuel from solar energy and water, a technical feat that rivals the advanced technology being researched by major auto companies and universities. The four-cylinder engine is tuned to run on hydrogen, which is produced by a hand-built electrolysis system mounted in the bed.

Teacher Cory Waxman and his students took four years to build the experiment, believed to be the only self-sustaining hydrogen vehicle that uses a conventional internal-combustion engine.

"Nobody has ever made a car that runs on sunlight and water," Waxman said. "There are other cars that run on hydrogen, but they don't make their own fuel."

Built for less than $10,000, the project has caught the attention of experts in alternative-fuel research.

"Over the past three years of research in hydrogen, I've been more impressed with what they did than anything else I've seen around the world," said Scottsdale inventor Bryan Beaulieu, who is building a hydrogen-powered house in north Scottsdale. "With practically no resources, they are doing something everybody says it's going to take 20 years to do."

Although the truck performs as planned, it's more of a demonstration project than a practical vehicle. The four solar panels and hydrogen-generating system create only enough fuel per day to travel a few miles.

But that was expected, Waxman said, and the students have a motto that underlines the pioneering nature of the project: "How far did the first airplane fly?"

When the vehicle's tanks are filled with compressed hydrogen from an outside source, it has the range of a conventional vehicle, though that defeats the purpose of showing that hydrogen can be created from clean, sustainable sources, then used to fuel vehicles.

The truck also can be shifted to conventional power using a dashboard switch, which changes the fuel system over to a gasoline tank and fuel-injection.

The students in the Environmental Technology Club who built the hydrogen truck recognize its experimental nature.

"We want to inform the public that there are different alternative fuels and what can be accomplished," said Nicolas Paredes, a 17-year-old senior.

Most of the club members are new this year, the previous years' members having graduated. Nine students attended a recent after-school meeting to access the condition of the hydrogen truck, which was parked all summer and requires some repair, and make plans to advance the project.

During the meeting, Waxman said the group plans to make improvements to the existing solar-hydrogen truck plus tackle a new project: a self-sustaining solar-hydrogen vehicle that uses fuel cells to power an electric drive system.

The main challenge of building the solar-hydrogen truck was research, with much of the hydrogen-generating system designed by trial and error, Waxman said.

"The problem is there's no manual that says how to do this," the 39-year-old teacher said. "We had to investigate how to make hydrogen for this."

Last spring, the project won a first prize and grand prize at the Central Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair and was a finalist in May at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Portland, Ore. Graduating senior Soroush Farzin, a leader in the project, entered it in the fairs.

Much of the solar-hydrogen truck project was completed through private donations and volunteer labor, including solar panels donated by Beaulieu. Mechanical work and technical assistance was provided by Kevin Fern of AFVTech, which stands for Alternative Fuel Vehicle Technology.

Waxman and Fern gave a tour of the vehicle, showing how the solar panels create energy for the six electrolysis units mounted in a complex-looking maze of tubes and wires that make up the solar-hydrogen production unit. From there, the hydrogen is filtered for impurities and stored in two large air tanks.

The hydrogen is fed into the engine using stainless-steel lines, a pressure regulator and fuel injectors similar to what might be found in a vehicle powered by propane or natural gas.

An electronic control unit had to be specially tuned so that the four-cylinder engine could use the hydrogen efficiently.

"It's really a simple process," Fern said of the engine conversion. "The programming (of the electronic control unit) was the only difficulty."

Beyond learning about solar energy and hydrogen power, the club provides a lesson in teamwork, said Tiarra Campbell, 17, a senior.

"Besides understanding the system, this is an opportunity to work with people who are all different, who don't know each other as close friends, and create something like a hydrogen car," Campbell said.


____________________________________

Thoughts anyone? Sounds good on the surface, on the other hand with a range of 'a few miles' for a full day's charge it isn't anywhere near a solution yet.

The oil market as it stands today is a textbook bubble economy. Although there are long term supply problems, I believe much of the price today is speculation more than hard supply/demand. History repeating.

Powered by sunlight (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1001hydrocar01.html)

Powered by sunlight

You do realise that false hope is somewhat cruel. Even if you covered a vehicle in solar panels that were 100% efficient you could still not haul a significant payload any worthwhile distance (never mind how much fossil fuels are required to build the panels, let alone the vehicle, and replace both every x years).

We got through Y2K through concerted effort, planning, and a lot of sleepless nights. Oh, and for the religious ones, prayer too. We have not even started this process for Peak Oil, which has the potential to throw the world back several hundred years, whereas Y2K would have only sent us back a few decades.

As for myself, I keep tossing up between planning to buy a dozen acres somewhere, and building it up to something I could move to and live off if it looks like TSHTF, or alternately, buying a light truck and converting it to coal/steam (since this country has shitloads of coal and much of the mining is done using electric equipment powered by the coal plant next to the mine). While we are a major coal exporter and a major oil importer, our own infrastructure mostly runs on oil. Tis insane, but since nobody else is really taking it seriously, there ought to be some benefit in bucking conventional wisdom. Either way, I still ought to lose my bloody credit card debt first.

lol, a coal fired truck would be an intersting sight.

you should have gone to Europe after the War...

If fuel prices stay at their present level or go higher for more than 12 months they will have a huge effect on the world economy by creating higher inflation that in turn must lead to a massive lift in interest rates.
Anyone with a big mortage debt should get ready for very rough ride.
The current building boom across Austrtalia would also come to a screeching halt thus creating massive unemployment . I
f you think Im being stupid have a look at the last 70 years since the last great depression and you will find this scenario has happened on different scales a number of times and there is very little that governments can do to stop it.

Your quite right, there isn't alot governments can do about it. The coming oil crash will make the depression of the 1930's look like a walk in the park however.

Oil is a text book bubble economy.

It will come down.

Oil is a text book bubble economy.

It will come down.
Ltes hope you are right qther wise a lot of people are going to get hurt badly and dont forget the US is already in debt to the tune of trillions of dollars and that aint a good starting point to stop an oil induced recession.

Oil is a text book bubble economy.

It will come down.

This is true, but it won't come down much, and in the long term it will go up significantly. Peak oil is coming, its only a matter of when.

At its current levels OIL has hit record prices but in the early 80's OIL was at $US 35 oer barrel, in todays dollar terms, it was at $75 per barrel. Much higher than it is today.

The problem with OIL is that when there is a sharp spike in the OIL price, it tends to lead into a recession, just like it did in the early 70's and in the early 80's.

At its current levels OIL has hit record prices but in the early 80's OIL was at $US 35 oer barrel, in todays dollar terms, it was at $75 per barrel. Much higher than it is today.

The problem with OIL is that when there is a sharp spike in the OIL price, it tends to lead into a recession, just like it did in the early 70's and in the early 80's.

Well that is stating the obvious. Most people are aware of this fact Alexander21. The oil shock of the 1970's was created by political factors, however, Peak Oil is going to be dictated by geology. What is clear it that Oil prices have risen nealy 70% since the start of the year.

What people don't realise is how HIGH the price will go (likely up to almost $200 a barrel within a few years), and how BAD a recession/ depression the economy will descend into (likely mass unemployment, crazy inflation levels, etc..).

What people don't realise is how HIGH the price will go (likely up to almost $200 a barrel within a few years)

And this is why I believe it's a text-book market bubble. People believe that oil is going to do nothing but go up.

Just a couple of questions AtD...

Do you believe that the predicted future 'Peak' in oil production is a myth?

Do you believe that there will be sufficient spare oil production capacity to meet demand for at least the next 10 or even 20 years?

Do you not think that the factors of supply/demand have anything to do with the actual price of oil?

I believe "that it's all just a little bit of history repeating."

Yes, there are long term supply and demand issues, but markets have a habit of over-stating these things. The price will come down, be it in real or nominal terms.

$50/barrel now, $200 in three years. That's quite a return, buy oil futures!

http://www.thespotlite.net/usoil.gif
http://www.thespotlite.net/futuresbottom.htm

As you can see Light Crude was $18/barrel in Feb 02, and is now in excess of $50/barrel only two and a half years later (although that graph is a bit odd). My financial maths is rather poor, and I must admit I needed to dust off my book from last semester for this one, but that equates to about an average 50% increase in price per year for the last two and a half years. That's quite a return! Any investor would see that and just throw money at it to cash in. Text book market bubble.

Problem with investing in oil is that while the oil producers and refiners will likely profit from the demand scramble that will come when demand exceeds maximum supply while supply starts going down, fuel retailers will be very hard hit.

However, who runs fuel retail outlets?

Oh, yeah, Shell, BP, Caltex and so on.

Is it any wonder why BP just divested itself of its fuel retail chain up around Singapore? How long til we see much the same thing happening here, selling out to independents or supermarkets? Oh, yeah, silly me..

Anyway, the world is completely hooked on oil, with demand growing and alternatives not feasible without cheap oil (what do you think farms run on?). Supply can simply not grow much more than it is, indeed just about all of the Non-OPEC big producers have peaked and are already in decline. The USA, UK, Norway et al are all down, and Russia is well down from its peak just before the Soviet Union collapsed, though a recent drilling scramble has provided a short term secondary rise just as it did in the US in the 80s (though the collapse of the soviet union did collapse domestic consumption allowing for lots of exports at the expense of local jobs and production, something that would not happen to quite the same colossal extent here). Australia is well down too.

Even the OPEC countries are starting to have problems. Indonesia is now a net oil importer following last year's decline rate coupled with growing domestic consumption despite OPEC supposedly being a cartel of oil exporters.

Basically, the only way I could see oil prices come down to 2001 levels would be a total economic collapse. And I think I'd rather not live through that.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/16/1097784099124.html

Costello fears third oil shock

By Phillip Hudson
Political Correspondent
Canberra
October 17, 2004
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has warned that the record international oil price could deliver a "double whammy" to the Australian economy, describing it as "the third oil price shock".

In an interview with The Sunday Age, Mr Costello said the rising oil price was the "greatest global risk" to the economy and there was not much relief in sight for motorists until the world oil price fell.

The price of oil hit a new high yesterday of $US55 a barrel and closed at $US54.93. The RACV said the price of a litre of unleaded fuel around Melbourne was as high as $1.09, although some service stations were selling at 99.5 cents.

The Commonwealth Bank issued a report saying the petrol price rise so far had cost the average household an extra $5.80 a week and would have the same effect on the economy as a 0.25 per cent interest rate rise.
I didnt see Howard or Costello saying this a week age - then again they had an electionto win at all costs. I hope all those people in the outer suburbs that got sucked in by the interest rate ads are feeling ok now with such good economic managers in control.

I hope all those people in the outer suburbs that got sucked in by the interest rate ads are feeling ok now with such good economic managers in control.

Particularly those who live in suburbs where there is at present no other way to get around, but who applauded or otherwise supported a campaign where the Treasurer in particular was lambasting the tolling of a freeway but saying nothing or actively opposing the provision of the withheld federal funds towards Public Transport in the area affected by tolls.