God help us all. (If there is such a thing)

it's not like it's their job or anything..

Of course there is a finite supply of oil, but generally speaking the idea of "peak-oil" tends to help the oil companies.

Yeah "peak oil" means there's like fifty more years of oil at current rates of consumption, right?

^ Except that consumption rates will keep growing, even after the peak.

>> ^notarobot:
^ Except that consumption rates will keep growing, even after the peak.


Unless some impossible breakthrough like, say, electric cars becoming economical happens. Then consumption will drop near zero. If arable land for horses was projected from usage 100 years ago we'd have had a 'crisis' of insufficient grass for horses.

Convincing people to purchase new alternate fuel automobiles (or horses) would take a lot of time. As it stands most alternatives are still quite expensive, while household income is on a steep decline. But personal transport is not the biggest issue. It gets more complicated then that.

The investment in infrastructure related to oil goes beyond just pipelines from oil fields to refineries to automobiles. Think of where your bananas will come from? How do they get to you now? How many miles do the cheap products on Walmart shelfs travel once they leave the sweat shop? Most of the products we use and eat every day depend on that oil-powered infrastructure. Even the highways those products go by to reach you, once they are taken off ship, are made from oil. How will these roads be maintained and repaved when the main component has become scarce?

The end of oil means a lot more then just having to look closer at that electric car. It means a massive social and political changes which will take a generation to even begin to implement.



>> ^bcglorf:
>>^notarobot:
^ Except that consumption rates will keep growing, even after the peak.

Unless some impossible breakthrough like, say, electric cars becoming economical happens. Then consumption will drop near zero. If arable land for horses was projected from usage 100 years ago we'd have had a 'crisis' of insufficient grass for horses.

Convincing people to purchase new alternate fuel automobiles (or horses) would take a lot of time.


No, if batteries are improved enough to make electric cars cheaper than gas cars the problem will be trying to build them fast enough.


But personal transport is not the biggest issue.


Transportation is nearly the only issue and without it our oil usage is barely a novelty. More over, ANYTHING powered by oil in a tank can be replaced with a battery, we just need to make them the cheaper alternative and we're getting close(and any oil price increases automatically bring us closer).



The investment in infrastructure related to oil goes beyond just pipelines from oil fields to refineries to automobiles. Think of where your bananas will come from? How do they get to you now?

On a diesel powered tanker that could save money running off of batteries if they worked well enough for electric cars.


How many miles do the cheap products on Walmart shelfs travel once they leave the sweat shop? Most of the products we use and eat every day depend on that oil-powered infrastructure.

And that oil power is ONLY used because it is cheaper than using batteries. The same reason cars run off gas because it is cheaper. Build a battery that makes cars cheaper, and everything bigger than cars is cheaper to run off them as well.


Even the highways those products go by to reach you, once they are taken off ship, are made from oil. How will these roads be maintained and repaved when the main component has become scarce?

If we aren't burning oil for fuel we have tens of thousands of years worth of oil for small purposes like paving highways.


It means a massive social and political changes which will take a generation to even begin to implement.


It absolutely does not. There is no social(nor political) attachment to oil at all, only to personal automobiles(and oil revenues for oil producing nations). People don't care much what powers them as long as they work. We are just a better battery away from electric cars being superior to gas driven ones in every way.

>> ^bcglorf:

Thank you for your reply.

You made it clear that I may have made an error in my previous comment. I think I should clarify that what I meant by "personal transport" was light vehicles for personal uses, as is the minivan or motorcycle used to get to work, the store, not transportation in general, which I view as a different, though not unrelated, problem. Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

I think we agree that the transition from oil is an important issue. You seem to believe that better batteries (and electric engines) will solve every facet of every issue facing the end of oil, and that this will result in little or no social or political change or turmoil. While I deeply wish that the next century comes to be shaped after your expectations, I do not believe it will be so. I do not believe that batteries alone will solve the coming crisis. Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish? Replacing that energy by renewable means will require a huge amount of investment and several decades to implement.

What I see coming, is a myriad of interwoven problems of which the central spine is energy use. All of them are have energy use at the at the root of their problem. This is because oil has done more then just let people drive their cars around cheaply. Cities are no longer shaped after people's needs, but to suit the demands of the automobile. There has been a great deal of optimism in investing in electric cars to allow people to continue to access modern cities as they have been constructed.

"When people say that they want to go to the electric car, I love it! But remember, they say 'car' not 'truck.' A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas." -T. Boone Pickens (on The Daily Show)

However continuing to access these cities will get more difficult when costs of energy begin to come down from the bubble of cheapness that I and most of the people I know have grown up in.

"Consequently these (cities) will be places that nobody wants to be in. These will be places that are not worth caring about. We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the united states today, when we have enough of them we will have a nation that is not worth defending. -James Howard Kunstler on "The greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

Even if cities are reshaped for the new economy of energy, there is debate on what that will be. Some people believe that there will be a magic-pill cure, like super batteries that will allow life to continue as normal. This will not be the case.

"The central delusion that we're seeing right now is the idea that we can magically come up with a rescue remedy to continue running the interstate highway system and all the other accessories and furnishings of the happy motoring system. I happen to think that we're going to be very disappointed about that. In fact there are a lot of intelligent thigns we can do, but one of the least intelligent things we can expect is that we can continue happy motoring. You can demonstrate that you can run cars on hydrogen, cow shit and fried potato oil, but can run 230 million cars and trucks on it? Forget about it.

And then you get into political questions, like if driving becomes something only for the elite. Right now 4% of americans can't drive for one reason or another. What happens when that number becomes 13% or 27% of the people do you think that's going to be politically okay? It would create huge resentments and grievances against the people who can still do it." - James Howard Kunstler

But when I said that personal transportation is not the biggest issue, I meant it. People will be less concerned with their car or the "happy motoring system" if they are hungry.

"Food prices are rising and they're about to soar. There have been a lot of rising grain prices that have not been passed on to the consumer, they're about to be. High food prices always create political peril, as we've known since the French revolution at least.

The era of cheap food is over in this country, just as the era of cheap oil is over as well. (...) The old fix, ramping up production is not going to work this time, because cheap food depends on cheap energy, something we can no longer count on. Without reforming the American food system, it will be impossible to make progress on the issues of energy independence, climate change and the health care crisis because the way we feed ourselves is that the heart of all those three problems.

Let me explain. The food system, uses more fossil fuel and contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere then any other industry. Between 17 and 34 percent. Meat production alone is 18 percent." -Michael Pollan, on The End of Cheap Food.

So when faced with the choice between fuel for their cars and fuel for their bodies, some will choose to fuel the car, leaving others to go hungry. And when people are hungry, they turn to first to the government for solutions. Governments know that they will need to bring resources to appease a population and avoid that political peril they have known about since the French Revolution. Remember that wars are always about resources.

"How curious, that the First World War is never taught in our schools as an invasion of Iraq. (...A reaction to) the Berlin-Bagdad railway, which commenced construction in the years leading up to the first world war," with the goal of bringing oil from Iraq to Germany. (-Robert Newman, A History of Oil)

"Oil is what drives the military machine of every country. It provides the fuel for aircraft, the ships the tanks for the trucks. The control of oil is indespensible. When you run out if your army stops." -Chalmers Johnson, Why we fight.

Oil is more then just a transportation issue. Riding the bus won't help much. The bus runs on gasoline, just like your car.

<>> ^bcglorf:
...

The social attachment to oil is much deeper the powering the transportation to get to the grocery store or the beach. It is in every piece of food you get at the grocery store or bring to the beach. It is in the road you drive on, the oil that lubricates the engine as well as just the gas tank.

The agricultural attachment to oil is not just that it is used in the production and delivery of the fertilizer that grows the food to feed the citizen or just the fuel in the gas tank of the grain harvester and other farm machinery.

The political attachment to oil is not just ensuring that a population have access to the cheap energy for their car, but the cheap fuel for the cheap power plant the provides the cheap electricity for to run the fridge for the cheap food brought from all corners of the earth.

The monetary attachment to oil is not just to the Oil Barons and Corporations who make billions mining and selling it to citizens and governments.

The military attachment is not just to fuel the transportation of tanks, battleships and aircraft carriers, as well as fighter-jets and bombers. It is not just the means of production of weapons which are then transported to the front lines where they are employed in freeing up more oil for the Country, for the Government, for the Citizen, for the Oil Baron, and for the Military which turns round and does it again.

The attachment to oil is all of those things. Interwoven and inseparable.

There is no quick fix or replacement for oil. There must be a reduction of our energy consumption. There will be massive social and political changes required for us to get through the coming crisis of the long emergency. If we are smart we will get those changes moving sooner rather then later. Some of them are already beginning. And that gives me some hope.

In the mean time, let me know when you've found a battery that can power an ocean liner.

Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

The engines that run minivans are identical to the ones used by freight ships, freight trains, Farm implements, highway tractors, backup generators, battleships and prop planes. The same solution applies to them all. In fact, large enough ships like carriers and subs already run off electricity instead of oil because it is cheaper.


Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish?


We have enough sources of uranium and thorium to meet global energy needs for 100's of years. With any luck, we can develop renewable sources like wind,tidal and solar with that kind of time to get them ready. If we're really lucky, maybe we'll even get fusion power before that and then we are good for the lifetime of the solar system. As a bonus, nuclear is cheaper when developed on a large scale, France is making good money running over 80% nuclear power and exporting it's cheaper electricity to the rest of Europe.


A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas.

That is utter nonesense. Lookup Tesla motors, they've actually managed to use current battery technology to make a Lotus Elise that is FASTER than it's oil driven counter-part. The argument is as silly as when people felt automobiles where worthless because they couldn't go as far as a horse without a fill-up. Batteries don't need to improve too much more to be a viable replacement and then a landslide shift will take place to cheaper more powerfull electric vehicles.


In the mean time, let me know when you've found a battery that can power an ocean liner.


And this is your fundamental and underlying misunderstanding. The navy is currently using compact nuclear generators as giant batteries to power their largest ships more cheaply and without any dependence on oil. The problem for ocean liner's isn't building a battery that is big enough, it's building them SMALL enough. If a battery can be made small enough to replace the gas tank in a car, then you can power ANYTHING bigger than that car as well by using 2,10 or 1000 such batteries. Already with current laptop battery technology we are almost there. We don't need a breakthrough, a few small improvements to weight and cost and the solution is there. Anything to small to be powered by a compact nuclear generator can instead be run off of batteries without a loss in performance or ability.


The social attachment to oil is much deeper the powering the transportation to get to the grocery store or the beach. It is in every piece of food you get at the grocery store or bring to the beach. It is in the road you drive on, the oil that lubricates the engine as well as just the gas tank.


But moving goods is all still part of the transportation network. And ALL of those applications use internal combustion engines that can be replaced with only a moderately improved battery over those available today.


The agricultural attachment to oil is not just that it is used in the production and delivery of the fertilizer that grows the food to feed the citizen or just the fuel in the gas tank of the grain harvester and other farm machinery.


I grew up on a farm. The agricultural attachment to oil is again dominated by the use of internal combustion engines for machinery, which is easily replaced with a better battery.


The political attachment to oil is not just ensuring that a population have access to the cheap energy for their car, but the cheap fuel for the cheap power plant the provides the cheap electricity for to run the fridge for the cheap food brought from all corners of the earth.

Wrong, the cheap power plant runs off of coal, not oil. Coal reserves utterly dwarf oil reserves, that's why not even crazy people talk about 'peak' coal. In fact, many talk about converting coal to oil if necessary.


I'm sorry, but the entirety of the arguments you make NEVER go beyond the assumption that nothing can replace internal combustion engines and so when oil runs out everything using them is doomed. Fortunately that is not the reality we live in. Even with current technology, battery powered electric motors are begining to appear in automobiles. The military has been running their largest ships on electricty and independent of oil for decades. We are not looking at a dire need for a major breakthrough. We only need small, incremental improvements to battey technology to being able to replace internal combustion engines with batteries, and oil with electricity. Then we are free to simply expand the electric grid, which we have been doing for nearly a century already and are getting rather good at.

>> ^bcglorf:


bcglorf, you have taken time to give my points the same answer that you did in the first place, which is your belief that better batteries are the answer to all the problems related to the coming shortages in oil. I absolutely think that better batteries will help, but I do not believe that they will be the unilateral solution to every facet of those problems.

The differences I have suggested between the engines in small duty personal vehicles and large scale engines are real. You are correct that the principle in all combustion engines is the same but the issue with powering larger engines is the scale of the energy required to move them.

I live in (arguably) one of the most important military ports on the western coast of the North Atlantic. I have seen the engine rooms of several destroyers and other warships and am familiar with with how big these engines really are. No matter how good the batteries get, they still require a power source. A nuclear powered ship is not the same as a battery powered ship. The only things that can move the battleships and aircraft carriers I've seen are diesel fuel and nuclear reactors. And putting a nuclear reactor in every ship more then 100 feet long just isn't practical.

I am also familiar with Tesla motors and think that they're doing great things. But even with their successes there remains the problem of scale. The increase of energy required to move lager and larger masses in not a constant.

I am not going to have time to give you a more fully developed argument right now. I can see by how quickly you responded to my last comment that you probably haven't looked at the references I posted for the the quotes I cited. Check them out. Some may be old news for you, but I expect you'll find them interesting anyway. I'll be back later to find out what you think.

The differences I have suggested between the engines in small duty personal vehicles and large scale engines are real. You are correct that the principle in all combustion engines is the same but the issue with powering larger engines is the scale of the energy required to move them.
...
The increase of energy required to move lager and larger masses in not a constant.


Which summarizes what I was trying to explain. You are correct that energy storage is the problem. You are not correct about the scaling. Energy does scale linearly with mass, that's first year physics. Just think about the energy required to move a car 100 miles, let's say that takes 3 gallons of gasoline. Moving 10 identical cars 100 miles would take 30 gallons. 1000 would take 3000 gallons, and so on. This is true no matter where the energy comes from. If one battery stores enough energy to move a car 100 miles, then 10 could move 10 cars 100 miles. Physics also doesn't care if you are moving 10 cars, or one car pulling nine others, the energy needed is the same. Want to move a freight ship that weighs as much as 1000 cars? Then you need 1000 batteries, or 3000 gallons of gasoline. The scaling is the good news.


No matter how good the batteries get, they still require a power source.


They only need a power source to be charged, the exact same way a fuel tank needs to be refilled. The difference is if you pay for electricity or oil.


I can see by how quickly you responded to my last comment that you probably haven't looked at the references I posted for the the quotes I cited.


From a quick glance non of them appear to address or discuss the underlying physics and state of technology. Speculation on what may happen without any advances in technology whatsoever are as interesting to me as science fiction novels.