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Oil prices, looming energy problems and oh yes, Peak Oil.....

I suspect much of this is more a function of media attention. Whether your $60,000 SUV takes $80 or $100 a week to fuel is a difference of only $5,000 over a 5 year timespan. For many people, that isn't going to pry them out of their tanks.
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People seem to be strangely obsessed with gas prices, though, out of what appears to be all proportion with their actual economic impact. Oh, and at current prices, that's close to a 1,000km per week. I would expect less than that for most people.
 
So, if the case isn't strong for a heavily commuting SUV driver, it isn't strong for most anyone. It is a consideration, certainly, when people are replacing their vehicle, but I doubt it will make them trade in their relative new gas-guzzler. If it does, they couldn't afford it in the first place.
 
2. Hubbert's theory also didn't account for the potentially massive and vast reservoirs of oil and natural gas deposits that are expected to exist in the high north. Now that climate change is opening up the north to some commercialization, there is expected to be a bonanza of discoveries that may push the peak oil date further. I am not certain if this type of scenario was included in the theory, does anyone else know?
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I'm not sure what you mean by a bonanza of discoveries in the far north. The northern bits of Siberia have been the heart of Russia's oil production for decades, and have been thoroughly explored. Northern Canada and Alaska have been intensively explored since the 60s. To this day, the biggest oil field in the Territories is Norman Wells, and that has been producing since the 40s. There's some gas in the Mackenzie Delta and on Cornwallis Island, but it's extremely marginal: a few years' Canadian production. Everybody expected that there would be several more Prudhoe Bay-sized fields on the North Slope of Alaska, but none have turned up despite decades of intensive drilling. All of these areas have been extensively explored. While I expect that more fields will be found in future years, it's unlikely that they'll make up for declining North Sea production, let alone a possible decline in the Middle East.
 
A good point unimaginative, and it's interesting to note that when US Oil production peaked in 1970, the north slope oil fields in Alaska had not yet started production. Bringing them into production did little to change the US bell curve, since at the same time they were coming online other fields were being depleted.
 
A tricky situation.....

I think I've read somewhere about a figure for transportation accounting for approx 80-90% consumption of all the oil we pull from the ground. Not sure if this accurate though.

That being said I keep reading that there will never be a hydrogen based economy when talking about cars. Apparently you need to produce more energy into producing the hydrogen than what it can store so it's not feasible on a larger scale.

And biofuel might wean us off some of our oil consumption regarding transportation but again I read that we simply couldn't scale over the entire infrastructure quick enough before the crunch is well underway and biofuel isn't practical in aviation transportation.
 
tkip said:
I think I've read somewhere about a figure for transportation accounting for approx 80-90% consumption of all the oil we pull from the ground. Not sure if this accurate though.

That being said I keep reading that there will never be a hydrogen based economy when talking about cars. Apparently you need to produce more energy into producing the hydrogen than what it can store so it's not feasible on a larger scale.
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That's right. Hydrogen isn't a 'fuel,' it's an energy storage medium. I don't know if this makes it infeasible. If we can make some bacteria or algae that can produce hydrogen from sunlight in an efficient way, it may be practical. Bigger difficulties are associated with storing it on-vehicle.


And biofuel might wean us off some of our oil consumption regarding transportation but again I read that we simply couldn't scale over the entire infrastructure quick enough before the crunch is well underway and biofuel isn't practical in aviation transportation.
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No one thing will do it... it will have to be a combination of many solutions. This means biofuels won't save us, but they will undoubtedly be quite useful.
 
unimaginative2 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by a bonanza of discoveries in the far north. The northern bits of Siberia have been the heart of Russia's oil production for decades, and have been thoroughly explored. Northern Canada and Alaska have been intensively explored since the 60s. To this day, the biggest oil field in the Territories is Norman Wells, and that has been producing since the 40s. There's some gas in the Mackenzie Delta and on Cornwallis Island, but it's extremely marginal: a few years' Canadian production. Everybody expected that there would be several more Prudhoe Bay-sized fields on the North Slope of Alaska, but none have turned up despite decades of intensive drilling. All of these areas have been extensively explored. While I expect that more fields will be found in future years, it's unlikely that they'll make up for declining North Sea production, let alone a possible decline in the Middle East.
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You are correct on a number of points. Siberia has been the heart of Russia's oil production, but I am talking about even higher north. This article gives a little more detail on what I am talking about.
 
The plot thickens.....

All the talk peak oil and the effects on the economy has been interesting and now in just a matter of days, the markets are starting to show some disturbing signs of the credit crunch finally starting to surface. Is a major global recession just around the corner now? I need a beer.
 
justin said:
People seem to be strangely obsessed with gas prices, though, out of what appears to be all proportion with their actual economic impact. Oh, and at current prices, that's close to a 1,000km per week. I would expect less than that for most people.
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The worst is the "streeters" that every media outlet gets each time prices go up. People filling their tanks and all saying into the camera the same bloody thing..."highway robbery," "something must be done," it's like they don't want us to drive anymore," "what can you do, you need gas, but I don't like it!"
 
tkip said:
All the talk peak oil and the effects on the economy has been interesting and now in just a matter of days, the markets are starting to show some disturbing signs of the credit crunch finally starting to surface. Is a major global recession just around the corner now? I need a beer.
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On a CBC spot last night about the volatility in the markets featured a couple of people who said, cautiously of course, that this could spiral right out of control and lead to a... depression!

Other people said the opposite, but to hear anyone utter that term, its crazy. I
 
Off topic somewhat but......

As I was going through online articles (which all pretty much paint a grim picture of the US dollar and approaching the financial meltdown) I kept coming across comments being made about the slow approaching of fascism in the States which I thought was crazy.

Naturally curious, I watched online interviews with none other than Ron Paul himself talking about how he thinks the US is moving towards a soft fascism and that soon the new ID cards and the law requiring all US citizens carrying them goes into effect this May.

All in the name of security. It's very creepy when you hear the details about them and how the Canadian government was tinkering with this idea not long ago. Something to appease the US no doubt about people crossing the border.

Still, I wasn't that convinced and thought this was some more conjecture based more on people's imaginations running wild and involving conspiracy thinking than anything else.

Then I watched a Naomi Wolf interview where she points out the disturbingly similar thing happening in early Germany before the rise of Hilter and their erosion of their own parlimentry system that allowed the Nazi party to eventually break through and take over.

And on a closing note. A friend of mine has been preaching about the loss of our liberties for a few years now. How people are letting the government get away with trading away some of our privacy and freedom for *enhanced security* measures that we take for granted.

So.................... conspiracy or are people unto something?
 
Naomi Wolf's parallels are so tenuous they are almost laughable. That's not to say that the U.S. is not going through a strange political period.
 
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