"No angry rants please" - Um...about that. Look out.

I expect them to show up at some point, but I gotta try, right?

Ah youth. Keep fighting the good fight.

Peak oil is certainly inevitable. Peak EROI is maybe or maybe not depending on technology (oil is incredibly energy-dense). Personally, I'm in the end-of-the-industrial-age camp - probably a doomer by most people's standards, but an right optimist by those actually predicting the end of the world as we know it. I think we'll see more food riots over the next 5 years and continuing shocks to the financial system for then next 5-10. I suspect we have already passed our peak energy use/person. I think that China may move towards an eco-dictatorship. I don't think any human will ever walk on the moon (or any other planet) ever again.

From a technical standpoint, it's really nothing to be concerned about. There are plenty of alternate energy sources (including even coal) that can sustain us for a very long time once people decide they're worth investing money into.

@abge you ignore the fact that basically everything is made using petroleum, energy is only the tip of the iceberg.

How will we deal with it? I largely think we won't consciously, but things will shift at a structural level. Suburban development in the US will continue to reverse itself. People will use less energy as it becomes more expensive. People will get by, because that's what people do, no matter how large the cracks are in the industrial economy. There will be a cottage industry of scavengers and recyclers, much larger than the current scrap metal industry. Life expectancy may decrease, or it may not. We haven't exactly used our massive energy expenditure to create healthy things, mostly processed food, chemical agriculture, and sedentary car heavy lifestyles. There will be a series of shocks and then stabilization, it won't just be a hard and fast crash. technology will take up some of the gap, but not even most of it...

erist, you think that a high tech society couldn't survive the end of oil?

abge: from an EROI standpoint, it simply isn't true. You talk about money as if it is "free". But financial capitalism, globalization and business as usual cannot be sustained even at current energy prices, much less if the cost per kWh increases by a factor of 2, or 5, or 10.

It would be nice to think we'll have functional commercial fusion by the time this becomes a very serious issue.

Puddle: I think the future will be an odd mix of high-tech and low-tech. 3 printers may be a gamechanger in many ways. I think that most technology is quite dependent on energy in ways most people don't realize though, computers especially. A semi-conductor facility for example, or a server farm. We'll definitely have to build more nuclear plants everywhere for example, thoiugh I'm not really sure how a 2000 year old civiliztion plans on keeping waste safe beyond its own ability to comprehend what human societies will look like

Yes, it's inevitable; yes, it's bad.

I hope you're right erist, a fusion of high tech mixed with low tech appeals to me, farming for my food by day, running a laptop off water-mill/solar/wind electricity gathered constantly and stored effectively.

I think we should use the resources left to us to build new infrastructure to survive the fall.

@Puddle

But the oil isn't going to disappear over night. It will get more expensive and things that have to use oil will and things that don't (like energy) will be replaced with new technology.

@erist

I'm not saying it's free, I'm saying it's possible, if the government and market wants it.

@abge: IMHO, it is possible to maybe sustain energy/capita (though only if population growth stops). But it is not possible to sustain energy/$$. And energy/$$ is a lot bigger deal than people realize. It's not a matter of another dollar at the pump. It's the difference betwen the continuation of an economy that needs infinite growth as a baseline condition for existence and the collapse of that economy. I'm not saying there aren't different (and better) models of socioeconomic organization. Just that it won't be globalized financial capitalism

Are you trying to say that no technology will ever match Oil's Energy/Cost ratio?

@Erist: Maybe you're just young, but society HAS survived price shocks just like you mention factors of 2/5/10 per <insert energy unit>. And the cost to the consumer/industry is be no means equivalent in all countries.

Im with Abge - people adapt.

Anyone who understands basic supply and demand knows that peak oil is a myth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWkN4ngR2Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i40kEpngJ8c

It's actually NOT inevitable. There is a theory that says the earth is still producing more oil. Vegetation and animals never stopped dying, you know. There have been instances of oil men going back to "dry" wells and...surprise surprise, they are full again.

Regardless, we have more oil right now than we have ever had, and we are nowhere near "peak oil".

^ see "Abiotic Oil". Not a believer myself, but it's an interesting theory.

I'm not saying I agree with it either....but hell, if people can still believe in man-made global warming despite the rapidly mounting evidence, the proof that carbon levels LAG temperature changes, the basic lack of warming, etc....then I can pretend to believe that oil is a renewable resource.

Whatever the case, we won't come close to running out of oil in either my life time of that of my children.

By that time, we should have better energy sources (near free, I hope) and will be able to take carbon waste to create oil as needed for the things we need oil for.

I can say with some certainty that no form of energy will ever match oil's cost/energy ratio. We were gifted millions of years of sunlight. We used it on car and plastic. Probably wasn't worth it but it was fun.

BPT: We dealt with it because of artificial scarcity (OPEC, etc) for short periods of time. Not because of increased costs that could not be reduced. There will be a difference. No need to argue. One of us will be proven right in the next 5 years, not even the next 20.

Short periods of time my arse. I don't know where you're from, but round here OIL and its derivatives have kept on going up. And up. And up.
Don't talk just oil. You mentioned cost per kWh. An odd unit to be sure, but it points to elec power: a decent proportion of the wirld's electricity is produced by means other than oil.

No energy cost is consistent across countries or across any decent period of time.

@krellin - It is true that there is still lots of oil out there, what peak oil refers to is the peak of easily extract-able oil. The vast majority of the oil that is left on this planet is either in places where it is really expensive to drill (really deep under the ocean) or is low quality and expensive to refine (tar sands).

'despite the rapidly mounting evidence' - citation needed.

By the way, i've seen solar-bio production of oil, so sure, you can make more oil, but the current cost is higher than the cost of extracting (oil which was laid down slowly over many years, which will eventually run out)

I see in some of Fasces' videos the claim that 'people who predict claim the population growth is unsustainable' will continue to be proved wrong.

But that is utter bullshit, we have countless examples of human civilisations which have died off. Often we don't know what happened to them, but in general it is perfectly reasonable for our high-tech civilisation to take a massive hit.

That said, i don't necessarily think we will, I suspect that the most useful resource is human brain power - with the tools we have developed to enhance our capacity to survive, this includes the computers we use to increase our capacity to (for example) model climate change...

Now we don't have the political/social capacity to work together on the scale of billions, (though using 'capitalism' and 'free markets', these unpatented ideas-tools which we use to organise our working together) but with the internet we're getting hugely better at working together, that means more brains can think more thoughts and effectively solve harder problems and build better tools...

I don't think we're likely to see a great die-back at the moment. (ignoring the minor/major problem of people who think that climate change isn't happening - ie if we can't agree what to work together towards then we're perfectly capable of screwing ourselves... and whether we are facing climate change or not (We are!) there is a disagreement about it which prevents us from working together (no disagreement among scientists, just among anti-scientific members of the public)

There's no need at all to worry about the oil running out for a long while. With the development of new technologies such as fracking we have the ability to unlock fresh supplies of oil that will last 100s of years. The days of really cheap oil are gone, but oil in it's more expensive modern form is here to stay (perhaps continuing to creep up in price, but not in the terrifying jumps once imagined.

Bit of a bugger for those of us who had hoped the drying up of traditional supplies would cut CO2 production though.

You'll see a great number of developments as oil becomes more expensive:

Half-abandoned oil fields, whose final exploitation has become too expensive, will be revisited and voided.

We will see a process of "localization", as the price of foreign-imported goods goes up, people will start buying and trading more locally. Put simply, for people in California, even those who adore French wine, will eventually buy Californian wine as the price becomes too high (this also is a gradual process: real wine lovers will continue to pay higher and higher prices).

People will start going to work by trains and buses more, and cars will be used when it's actually very efficient using it: taking your family on holidays for example is very well done by car. These holidays will be celebrated closer and closer to home.

Governments should not invest in "hybrid car refueling" plans and all other nonsense, but simply accept that probably for decades and decades to come, we'll use oil and the infrastructure that comes with it.

Well if you're a janky Russian scientist, there is no peak oil because petroleum is a renewable resource that's regenerated every few years. Lol.

But yeah it's not peak oil that will force us to change our destructive habits, as Octy pointed out. Instead, it will be when we get slapped right back in the face by climate change.

Climate change ... Brought to you by the same folks who thought eugenics was a good idea.

I sooooo love how they had to re brand "global warming" as "climate change" because... F*ck me... It wasn't getting warmer!!

"But that is utter bullshit, we have countless examples of human civilisations which have died off. Often we don't know what happened to them, but in general it is perfectly reasonable for our high-tech civilisation to take a massive hit."
Only once in history has human population been declining, and that was the period between 1348-1351.

Overall, at current technology and farmland, it is estimated that we could feed 9.5 Billion people comfortably. Any future innovation will only push up that number.

Again though, the main purpose of this video wasn't to debate if scarcity was real. It was to show that every year even though our oil consumption increases, our estimated proven oil reserves goes up by a far greater value, to the extent that today oil is less scarce then it has ever been in history, and as I said, anyone who understands basic supply and demand know that there is no such think as peak oil, or peak any other scarce resource, because due to the laws of supply and demand, the shifting of the supply line will be reflected in the price, causing an increase in the price and a decrease in the quantity demanded. In a free market we would switch to alternate forms of energy when the price becomes to high, and taken innovation into account, it is far more likely that the demand for oil will decline before the supply of oil.

Anyone who understands basic supply and demand knows that peak oil is a myth.

Now climate change is a different story, I think only a fool could argue that our climate isn't changing, but I am not convinced current proposals would do much to reduce global temperatures, I've given my opinion in the past on the relation to carbon emissions and global warming/climate change, and I think the idea that cutting emissions will have any effect on climate change is bullshit.

Also +1 to abge, hes the one in this thread talking the most sense (though I'm not sure thats a compliment given who its coming from)

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

+1 erist. The irony being that economics is the study of scarcity, aka, when it comes to the possibilities of a finite world, economists should know best.

That being said, I do believe exponential growth can be sustained forever. As technology increases, the standard of living for everyone will continue to rise, this has been a consistent theme throughout history, and I believe will continue to be a consistent theme.

There's a lot of well-qualified "fools" questioning the notion of man made "climate. change" Thems fighting words Fasces. Ever read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton?

Shout me down if you like, but I'm a doubter. I know a lot of doubters. Annnnnd, like you, I question the value (bang for buck) of the fashionable initiatives. They smell like the socialist left redistributing wealth on their own agenda.

I've done a lot of research into climate change over the years due to many debates, I have come to the conclusion that climate change is real, that said I don't think cutting carbon is the best way of ending climate change.

That does it then, Fasces says its real.

"anyone who understands basic supply and demand know that there is no such think as peak oil, or peak any other scarce resource, because due to the laws of supply and demand, the shifting of the supply line will be reflected in the price, causing an increase in the price and a decrease in the quantity demanded. In a free market we would switch to alternate forms of energy when the price becomes to high, and taken innovation into account, it is far more likely that the demand for oil will decline before the supply of oil."

In a free market we will switch to alternate forms of energy when the price of oil becomes too high. This is called peak oil, when production becomes uneconomical and thus reduces (investment drops down as it is put into alternatives and the development of new technologies to exploit the remaining oil reserves is not implemented)

I don't know what you think peak oil isn't, but it seems you are saying there will be a peak in oil production when it becomes uneconomical, which was in all the arguements for peak oil i've ever read - maybe this is a semantic arguement...

@BrownPaperTiger, i don't know that cutting carbon (dioxide) emissions will realistically happen, nor what effect it will have on minimising the impact of climate change. But I don't see any reason for scientists to lie, they have a vest interest in disproving each other, so if anyone was able to offer serious proof otherwise they'd be rather well off.

why is gasoline so much more in Europe ?

"Overall, at current technology and farmland, it is estimated that we could feed 9.5 Billion people comfortably."

Not trying to mince words, but what we can do is *produce* enough food to feed 9.5 billion. But as it stands we produce more than enough food for our whole worldwide population. *Feeding* everyone, however, is another matter. 1 billion people are not fed well enough in the world today. That is a distribution and access problem.

Right-wing webdip would hate to hear it, but this is a social problem that must have a social solution. Better technology is not going to get these people food. The food is already there. It is the structure of our society that tells them they cannot have it. The problem is us right now, not the limitations of the earth.

In an economy with an extra 2 or 3 billion people, it isn't hard to suppose that even more people will have trouble getting enough food to eat, regardless of how much is actually produced.

The US food system is fucked up, but then, so is the whole world's food system.

A finite amount of fuel ?
Why not Lobby your representatives here & there to mandate and enforce pedestrian malls and bring in more bicycles here, there and wherever they can.
Shale oil and deep sea drilling are disaster-prone operations; we have had several instances worldwide of sinkholes and coastal mudslides while the climate (even if not changing superficially before thee) heats up. Fracking for natural gas and a pipeline from Canada to Texas seemingly on track in the insidious US mis-Administration & the several states ?
Come quicker, O hurtling asteroid of 2+ KM with your own Moon and make some more mush out of us so the Klyngons can heat their toesies & fart around in air-conditioned SUVs