Why I really hate economics discussions when Peak Oil is discussed...

[Solon]

Economics isn't that much of a science, because it only deals with a limited set of data, as a rule, and excludes many externalities that factor into the cost, and more importantly, the practicality of alternatives to oil. The biggest problem is that they use dollars and cents to measure the practicality of alternatives, when the only "currency" that actually matters are BTUs and Joules.

Let me see if I can explain, lets give an example of a common so called alternative to oil for transportation fuel, hydrogen. Its clean, that's the positive, and it takes more energy to make it than what you get out of it, THAT is what makes it uneconomical, regardless of what the price of oil per barrel is at any given time. Granted, to make hydrogen all you need is electricity, and one advantage of electricity is that it can be produced from a variety of sources, from nuclear and coal fired plants to wind, solar, geothermal, wood, etc. However, this doesn't change the fact that we are try to replace an energy producer(gasoline/diesel) with an energy carrier. In other words, we would have to build a hell of a lot more power plants to replace those fuels with hydrogen. Its basically an environmentally friendly battery, assuming the power plants aren't coal fired ones.

Now, that's a simpler way to replace oil, and it will take decades to build enough power plants to power both our homes AND our cars.

Another example would be biofuels, and this adds in two factors, first is how the Green Revolution, which allows 6 billion plus people to live on this planet, actually accomplished this goal, and how this would affect growing our own fuel. The Green Revolution was a great thing, it alleviated starvation for many people around the globe, but it came at a cost, it depends, almost entirely, on oil to keep running. Not just to power the tractors, harvesters, planters, etc. but also in the production of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, that allow an increased yield per acre of farmland than what was possible in the past.

All our biofuels, these so called alternatives to oil, actually require that oil to be grown in the first place, and even then, the prices of food have been increasing lately because valuable farmland is being used to grow fuel rather than food. The real danger is this, since the Green Revolution, tried and true ways to preserve the topsoil used to grow our crops haven't been used in over 50 years. Crop rotation has been practiced for years because nitrogen fixing crops repair soil that nitrogen sucking crops use up. We haven't practiced that for a long time, and as a result the quality of topsoil has degraded, simply because oil-based fertilizers do not stay in the soil as long as the more natural alternative.

What this means is that without these fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, the yield of crops will decrease dramatically, dust bowls will occur, and in many areas of the world where there was once arable land, it will be difficult to grow crops on it. On a more positive note, many areas of the United States has had farmland taken over by exurbs, that land can be reclaimed, and the soil isn't nearly as bad because crops haven't been grown on it for many years. All of these exurbanites will have to be evicted, of course, but they could be compensated for that.

The fact of the matter is that, simply put, without cheap oil, our transportation infrastructure become impractical. Its a problem of scale, we cannot replace the 400 million gallons of gasoline burned per day in the United States alone with another fuel. The key, instead is to REDUCE our energy usage, not just our carbon footprint, but actually burn less of ANY fuel, regardless of where it comes from.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Amen! nt

[Solon]

3. Another thing just occured to me, biofuels depend on oil, so their prices are have a relationship...

to oil's price. So when oil prices increase, biofuel prices increase, and this is in dollars and cents. Hydrogen doesn't have this same relationship to oil, but it does to coal and natural gas, which are used for most electricity production in this country.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Buses, trains, poop

We have the tools... lets put it to work.

On top of that... why commute? We could probably make about 20% of the population telecommute instead. Have to heat less buildings, and that's about a 17% reduction in auto fossil fuel consumption right there. Seriously how many meetings couldnt just be handled with a phone call and/or memo?

There are a ton of ways that we could make some progress tomorrow... alot of it that people would really enjoy (working from home for example), or reading a newspaper on a train instead of screaming at your windshield.

Cut the energy, make more with wind and solar. And what's wrong with Algal Bio-diesel for the time being while we get away from the liquid stuff?

[Solon]

4. First things first, Algal Biofuel may be an alternative, but the question is how energy intensive...

is it to grow it, and what type of infrastructure does it need? Algae doesn't grow well in dry environments, though it will grow in sea water, which is good, so fresh water doesn't need to be consumed in the process. I'm just wondering at the practicality.

BTW: I'm trying to do my part, my primary means of transportation:

[The2ndWheel]

5. "The key, instead is to REDUCE our energy usage"

Then we need to increase our inefficiency. We have to make it more difficult and expensive to extract energy from the environment.

Since neither of those things will happen, for many reasons, across all political and economic spectrums, then the one thing that will not happen, at least voluntarily, is a decrease in energy usage.

[Solon]

6. We either do it voluntarily, or its going to be done to us...

we don't really have a choice here, our current consumption levels are outrageous, and we simply don't have the resources to continue using that much energy.

[Strelnikov_]

7. Peak Oil Is Primarily An Economic Event

Demand for a price inelastic commodity chasing too little, and eventually declining, supply. Price transients will wreak economic havoc similar to the 70' shocks. A persistent recession will ensue.

But it is the thermodynamic aspect of peak oil that will lead to the 2nd Great Depression. As the decline in conventional oil accelerates, EROEI (thermodynamics) will at a minimum severely depress, and possibly destroy, capitalist economies.

All of the post-peak supply mitigation options have net energy returns well below those of even today’s conventional oil. This means we will have to work hard just to replace the Quads of conventional oil energy lost. Growth in energy supply will not be possible, therefore economic growth will also not be possible.


And throwing more money at the problem will not make it go away. We are talking an energy source, after all. At some point, the energy obtained is less than the energy invested, making continuation pointless from a societal standpoint.