Peak Oil Fear? Or Market Correction?
By CraftyCorner
@CraftyCorner (5600)
United States
September 23, 2010 11:37am CST
Do you think that peak oil is going to catch the human race by surprise MyLotters? There is a lot of fear mongering on the Internet about Peak Oil and a potential big die off of the human race.
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The die off argument says that we are at or just past the point of what is called Hubbert peak of the global oil supply. That means we are going to be sliding down toward less and less easily access able oil. Please note that oil at this point and time does more than just keep us comfortable in our winter time homes and keep our cars running. Those at Peak Oil say that every calorie of food we take in is obtained by oil put in to farm machinery used to plant, maintain, then harvest our food.
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The market correction argument says something else entirely. Market correction means that other means of obtaining what we need or want will appear as our old means become scarce or nonexistent. Oil will become scarce, not nonexistent.
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Scarce oil can still be used for plastic, just not so great for guzzling cars. We are already in the process of seeking out alternatives. Take electric cars and their hybrids, alternative fuels for cars, (not just corn, that is just a first generation stop gap) wind generation electricity, solar power, nuke power plants, wave generation, and several I can't think of as of this post.
1 person likes this
5 responses
@Adoniah (7513)
• United States
23 Sep 10
There is more sweet crude in the Dakotas and Montana than in all of the Arab countries combined. Russia has also proved that oil is a renewable product and that it id deeper in the earth than we thought. They also have a huge supply. We are NOT near the end of the oil supply. This is just a fun way for the Powerful to control the weak. Seems to me that they are doing a very good job. Kind of like the catholic church in the Middle Ages.
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
23 Sep 10
Deep oil extraction is dangerous as the Gulf of Mexico showed us explicitly. How do you propose to get the oil in the Dakotas and Montana with out risk?
@Adoniah (7513)
• United States
23 Sep 10
The oil in the Dakotas is not deep oil and it is sweeet crude which means it is the cheapest to process. The Government just won't allow anyone to touch it. It is on land so there is no problem with destroying the oceans. We know how to get it out of flat land without hurting anything. They are waiting to use this oil to pay off the debts to China. They are waiting to screw America one more time!
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@Netsbridge (3253)
• United States
23 Sep 10
Whether fear mongering or market correction, I say: Let's learn to convert the most plentiful human resource - water - into useable energy! I am going to manufactor vehicles that use solely water for fuel!
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@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
23 Sep 10
Fresh potable water is quite scarce in some locations. Do you propose to use non-potable water? Recycle water?
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
23 Sep 10
If you get the government out of trying to fix it and let the free market do its thing this will correct itself. The last time we faced rising oil prices the price went so high and people changed their habits and the price fell. If you look at the history of the market you will see that it has always corrected itself.
Back when people used whale oil for lamps and the price started to increase and the supply decrease the market found Kerosene and that replaced Whale Oil. Later when communities were faced with the problem of Horse manure and not having places to take it to you got the electric street car and the automobile. If you read what is on the horizon for transportation you will see that there, are electric cars, Natural Gas powered vehicles, Bio fuel vehicles and even a compress air car that is going into production in India.
Non of these options are as cost effective as gasoline at this time but as gas goes up these look more attractive and the price will come down as the demand goes up. The problem that might occur is when the government decides to champion one over the other and distort the market forced and drive the price up and force the consumer to buy one over the other based on the wishes of the government not the needs of the consumer.
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@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
23 Sep 10
You are quite correct about that. In this economy, America is also price sensitive. The last price spike in gas saw a change in habit that is still being seen today. The suburbs saw a spike in the population of mopeds and motorized (electric, gas) bicycles.
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When said suburbanite is commuting to work by his or her self minus the children, he or she takes the two wheeled vehicle to save money. The larger four wheeled vehicle comes out when there is cargo, kids, and pets to transport, so thus the gas output is cut. The savings is so attractive, suburbanites did not give up the two wheelers.
@GardenGerty (157555)
• United States
23 Sep 10
I lean toward the market correction side of things I guess. We will eventually get desperate enough that we will be using our inventive abilities to get what we want in other ways. I am always an optimist and believe that it may be good for us to have to do so.
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@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
23 Sep 10
The alternatives already exist. They aren't cheap enough because they aren't mass produced, just like the earliest computers which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. For example, the HUAC, probably cost millions of dollars. The first personal home computer was around $10000 and took up an entire room. That is quite a bit bigger than what we call a lap top that we tote in back packs today... Now, you can pick up a used computer on eBay for a couple of hundred for a piece of junk to five hundred for a pretty good machine.
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What happened to computing and computers could theoretically happen to energy and energy sources.
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@GardenGerty (157555)
• United States
24 Sep 10
We need to hope it happens sooner and not later.
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@Netsbridge (3253)
• United States
23 Sep 10
Whether fear mongering or market correction, I say: Let's learn to convert the most plentiful human resource - water - into useable energy! I am going to manufacture vehicles that use solely water for fuel!
1 person likes this
