I agree with everyone on the search for an alternative, renewable, energy source that is cheaper than fossil fuels. We have to remember that it will not work if it can't be aquired at a lower cost than oil, and coal. Someday we are going to run out of oil and coal. It won't happen in my life time or any of yours, but I believe during our research for a viable, alternative fuel source we need to be drilling for our own oil. We have alot of it to drill, more than most know about. Way more. Drilling can be done before going after the oil shale, which also exists in Colorado by the way. America needs America's oil, not Hussein's oil. I already know what some of you are thinking, and yes, I work in the oil field, and live in North Dakota. That is located in the U.S.A. for those of you who don't know. For the global warming buffs, it was 35 F degrees below zero today for a fucking HIGH. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Contrary to what most of the green peace enviormentalists say about drilling, now days there is little, to no enviormental impact. To define the word little here, I mean there are accidents, but not catastrophic ones, and they are cleaned up immediately. When they first drilled for oil many years ago, they weren't careful at all about the immediate area involved enviormentally. I do agree that was wrong, but today they have very strict regulations that drilling companies must follow, and no they don't break the rules when no one is looking.

We need to cut this country's dependence on foriegn oil, and focus efforts on our own vast amounts of untapped oil reserves. This alone would dramatically reduce gas prices. Meanwhile searching for alternative fuel solutions in a well thought out, but very focused fashion. Making sure that we overlook all the alarmism bullshit out there that makes us jump to very premature, and extremely costly decisions. i.e. bills passed in congress to reduce carbon dioxide emissions when there is still, no proof, that it's causing our climate shift, if that even exists. You can thank those people for higher utility bills, and the obscene amounts of money you will have to pay for a new car in 20 years or less, probably. You people are your own worst nightmare.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a whole different argument, but it's funny how much the two subjects have in common. Al Gore is a fucking idiot. Just thought I would throw that in there too.

The result is usually to see who can up with most absurd, and costly solution that has nothing to do with fixing the problem at hand.

P.S. I am sure I have pissed off a bunch of people. I simply expressed my opinion on the matter so deal with it.

dingoboy

I will look into devinci : ) but as an American citizen I can only buy Canadian stocks that are also listed on the US stock exchange.

You may be pleased to know that I have bought some property also in Canada in an r z zone and will be putting up an art store there :) maybe at some point I will have enough courage to post a link to it under my name. (I may sound wealthy, but I am not. I am using my money in an unusual way.)

This is what I think is happening.

We are now at peak oil and oil supplies will drop. There will be a yoyo effect and at times there will be too much supply and at other times there will be too little oil available as the oil supplies dwindle. The oil companies know this and to lengthen the time oil reserves are used, they are cutting back on refineries. That will slow production and slow the depletion of oil that will come with China and India as they increase their use of oil

What I don't understand is why there is not more conservation going on. The US has sent troops into Iraq to get oil. (Which is further proof of how stupid and incompetent our leaders are) It would be common sense to use as little oil as possible by having higher mpg cars.

Saudi Arabia and its monarchy was set up to keep oil cheap With cheap trasportation its been possible for multi national corporations to ship goods from areas with cheap labor to areas with more money ( China to US is an example)

As transportation becomes more expensive it will help local producers to compete with nations like China. Chinese goods will be more expensive as transportation prices go up. Also I think Chinese workers will with time demand more rights and higher wages and that will increase costs to buy Chinese products in other nations.

The oil sands are very critical now because of our current dependence upon oil and because of the political problems in the ME. If there is a wider war those oil sands will become extremely important. Imo the Canadian government might consider nationalizing them in the event of a wider war

But then I think the US government should nationalize the car companies that are so incompetent that they are not using current technology to lower mpg in the cars now being built.

Imo this is now close to a national energency. We have global warming, we have a war fought for oil and our economy needs oil. There should be national policies about energy and its use and research should be funded into alternative forms of energy.

I think the future is for trains. And in Canada, you have the GO system in the golden triangle, you have water and you will probably have warmer weather. I have hopes that you will continue to take in people from around the world and integrate them into a nation that has very good values.

Thank you for continueing to put pressure on keeping our environment clean and healthy. Keep talking to people who may appear not to agree with you and realize that many people also want to protect the environment who may appear to not have your values, but still respect you. As they said during the civil rights movement, keep your eye on the prize. In this case keep arguing for protecting the environment and pull people in to your way of thinking.

By the way, colleen, I forgot to tell you that I think it's great that you're thinking about this issue and that you drive a Prius.
My personal idea of ethical investment goes something like this: buy a piece of property that has been clear cut or otherwise ravaged
and rehabilitate it. Plant native trees and bushes and don't use pesticides or herbicides.
Enjoy the return of nature.
Your children and grandchildren will appreciate the shade and the wildlife. If enough people do this, instead of trying to make money
from non-renewable resources, there will be something left to enjoy.
If you want to invest in something Canadian, there is an excellent bicycle company called "devinci" in Quebec. They make fantastic bicycles.
You can buy one and ride it when the gas runs dry!
Peace.

Yes, I agree that gas should be expensive. I disagree that "it seems very easy to not use oil..." No, it doesn't. Oil is running our
greedy western culture, that as you pointed out earlier has each one of us leaving an enormous footprint.
What should you invest in?
I don't know. I guess I would consult with one of the several ethical investment groups out there, if it were me.
Personally, I am not of the opinion that the "economy" is something we need to protect. I know that might sound ridiculous, but I think
that the capitalist system is failing miserably. I'm not claiming to have a brilliant solution but think about it: if gas were $10 a liter,
you might be able to drive around in your Prius, but most people wouldn't be able to go anywhere, just like in third world countries. Only
the extremely wealthy would be able to move, whether or not the tar sands are repaired.
I wasn't suggesting that your argument was to make a buck while the getting is good. I was saying that you are defending your right to invest
in an environmentally devastating oil recovery operation by saying it's better than the alternatives. I propose that you spend some time
researching the alternatives if your concern is to "do the right thing."

reposting from another commondreams article that people had stopped posting on. It's relevant to this article so here it is:

I am a great fan of the articles written by the fantastic (now late) science writer Isaac Asimov. In many of his science articles he addressed overpopulation as the root cause of all the ecological devastation and other damage (like global warming) done to the Earth. On one occasion he wanted to illustrate and underscore the fact that no possible future technological breakthrough can save our species unless we stabilize our population. He did so by taking the then current rate of population growth and assuming it would remain unchanged. He calculated the time necessary for human biomass (human flesh and bones)to equal the mass of the Earth and the time for the human biomass to equal tge mass of the observable Universe (all the stars and nebulae). I have not been able to find that article so I calculated it myself assuming a constant 2 % rate of population growth. I found that the human biomass would equal the mass of the Earth in slightly more than 1,300 years. To equal the mass of the observable universe the time required was less than 5,000 years (still much less time than our human civilization has existed, the first city was built in approximately 5,000 BCE). These calculations are called "examples to the point of absurdity" since one knows that far before the human biomass were to equal the mass of the Earth all ecosystems in the world would collapse. Think about it, are we going to turn the magma far beneath the Earth into human biomass plus the entire oceans plus the whole of the atmosphere ? Are we going to transmute all the elements found on Earth into ones compatible with our biochemistry ? In the case of the Universe it is even more absurd, are we going to transmute the hyper dense neutronium in neutron stars into human biomass, what about black holes ? The point of all this is that no conceivable technology can ever save our species unless we establish an economic system based on equilibrium not growth. The root reason that people have many children is economic insecurity. People rightly fear who will take care of them when they are elderly unless they have large families. We have to develop an economic system not based on a "grow or die" paradigm but rather on equilibrium. This means that things such as universal health care and pensions for all are crucial since only then will people stop having large families and world population can stabilize.

All of this does not mean that science and technology are unimportant. In point of fact we cannot survive without them. We must simply be wise in our use of science and technology. Some of the most important current research are the following:
1) solar energy can be cost effective today with no further technological advance, see:
http://www.nrel.gov/pv/thin_film/docs/nrel_hp_super_large_thin_film_manufacturing_oct04_short_form.doc
for how even 7 % efficiency solar cells (basically junk since the current record is cells with an efficiency of 40.7 %) can produce power for less than $1 per watt (and therefore already at or below the cost of oil generated electricity) by simply mass producing them. Just as making ten cars is very expensive on a per car price but making 10,000 cars makes the cost per car much cheaper through economies of scale. A square piece of land in Nevada or elsewhere in the American Southwest measuring 100 miles by 100 miles would produce 2.7 times the total US electrical power generation capacity. Since no power is generated during nighttime storage must be taken into account plus seasonal variations in sunlight level this would roughly equal US electricity needs. Of course it is a bad idea to put everything in one place so I favor spreading the generation capacity nationwide. This is only to show that we should be thinking far larger than just reducing carbon emissions. In 30 years or less we can totally eliminate the use of fossil fuels. With another solar square similar in size we would have enough energy to extract hydrogen from seawater and use it in fuel cells to power all our cars and trucks.
2) See the work being done by Wes Jackson at the Land Institute in Kansas to create versions of wheat and corn that grow like grasses and therefore you plant once and never plant again. The plow would be abolished and soil erosion would be eliminated. The deep rich dark topsoil of the American Midwest was once about six feet deep in places, now it is less than one foot deep in many places and we lose an additional inch every decade. Soil takes centuries to form, we can't afford to lose it. Wes Jackson's new crops would effectively recreate the original praire ecosystem in a way that would still feed us but soil would no longer be lost, instead soil would once again be CREATED.
3)If global warming becomes truly catastrophicwe may have no choice but to implement a solar "umbrella" at the point where the Earth's and the Sun's gravities cancel each other out to slightly disperse the Sun's light and maybe just have 1 % less sunlight on Earth. We wouldn't notice such a small reduction but the energy budget of the Earth would definitely notice it. This would not just reduce global warming but would actually reverse it and buy us time to stop all carbon emissions. This would be extremely expensive so novel ways to reach Earth orbit are very necessary. See the laser propulsion research of professor Leik Myrabo at Renseelaer Polytechnic Institute and also the research being done by others to try to make a space elevator a reality.

All these research programs (and many others) are crucial and must be pursued with vigor (and a lot more money than they currently have) but the one thing on which all other things rest is the absolute requirement for someone to invent an economic system that does not depend on growth and in fact avoids international competition and emphasizes international cooperation. I have no idea on how to invent such a system but I lay out this challenge for someone to find a solution.

With love and bold action all things are possible.

Idavin

The problem is.... right now....today... there is no alternative to oil.

And I would like to invest in an alternative technology. It is difficult to find out about them. Germany looks like a frontrunner for wind energy.

You should list your investment in alternative energy. For a while I was invested in BP because of their pr about developing future energy sources but that company had cut back in maintenannce of their facilities with the consequence that some human life was lost.

If you have traveled to third world nations and seen how people live there you get an idea of how wealthy anyone is who is posting here.

Each of us has a carbon footprint that is very large by comparison to people in the rest of the world.

Having money is a responsibility and everyone here shares that responsibility.

It bothers me that Americans become so politically active about bringing down the cost of gas at the pump.

Oil should be expensive and there should be high taxes on it and that tax money should be used to clean up the environmnet. Try and get anyone to agree to that though. America as a nation is very greedy.

I gave the information I had and I will read what anyone has to add to that information and will read any sources cited. I would support a clean up program for the oil sands.

Canada as a nation is one of the best in the world with a very good record of human rights. Investing in Canada imo is a good idea.

If the US or Israel decide to bomb Iran (which would be incredibly stupid, but then look at what they have been doing) those oil sands will become critical to the US imo. Its possible they could be nationalized imo. I think they are that important.

As I wrote my husband does research in fusion and I have seen personally the ups and downs of money going into developing alternative energy resources and its a terrible record. The US has no energy policy. (I have a low opinion of the US. $27 million was spent on a museum/park for Creationism by Americans.)

(I am just a little fish like you and lead a relatively simple life for an American, but I do have some investments.)

Colleen,

I do not own a car, I use public transport, yes I support locally grown food, I buy Organic when I can, I do have plastic, I don't own any investments in the Oil, or car industries, I do invest in companies which are researching alternative sources of energy, well done you drive a Prius, your problem seems to be where the oil comes from, maybe you should look into what it takes to extract oil from the tar sands in Canada and the damage it does, I thank you for your reply, no I try not to be a hypocrite.

"You apparently have no such conflicts", no I don't, if you can afford the use your "spare" cash to invest you are not poor, invest in something else, be less greedy.

BTW you didn't give any useful information about the oil sands apart from investment returns, no mention of the damage.

Where do I think the US should get it's oil from?, difficult question, how about the US attempt to find an alternative, change lifestyle, the US oil addiction is not a valid reason for murdering people , destroying the environment and poisoning the world.

"And there should be multiple approaches to developing energy, including fusion, solar and wind. Wind looks the best now for cost effectiveness and actual production of energy."

agree, pity alot more money is going into tar sands.

Idavin

So you ride a bicycle? and grow your own food or eat food locally grown? and there is no plastic in your home?

I drive a Prius and I would rather get oil from Canada than fund governments in the ME. My husband is a physics researcher in fusion.

I quoted the returns to give an idea of the conflicts people are in. You apparently have no such conflicts.

Also it is investors who may be able to have an effect upon how the oil sands develop. I would rather have people here invested in the oil sands than Republicans. Earlier posts had asked about the oil sands, so I gave the information I had about them.

If the ME continues to have political problems, where do you think the US should get its oil from?

dingoboy

What I am saying is that:

the problem is complex and unless you are willing to end your current lifestyle, the oil will have to come from someplace.

But the first step would be higher miles per gallon vehicles coming out of Detroit and we can not even do that. The car manufacturers are lobbying our government sucessfully to stop higher miles per gallon vehicles, even though we have the technology already to do it.

And there should be multiple approaches to developing energy, including fusion, solar and wind. Wind looks the best now for cost effectiveness and actual production of energy.

"A survey of the four countries with the biggest reported reserves - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait."
I'm told that Canada has oceans of oil, but that most of it is mixed with sand making it a little more expensive to produce. I think also that there is a lot of undeveloped oil in Russia and China too. I know that we are running out of a finite resourse but I think (hope) that articles like these are somewhat overstated. Not to worry, there are still many other, more likely doomsday scenarios still in play.

"We don't believe there is an absolute resource constraint. When peak oil comes, it is just as likely to come from consumption peaking, perhaps because of climate change policies as from production peaking."

This illustrates a very poor understanding of constraints, or he is just being lazy in his speech. There certainly is an absolute resource constraint if we are talking about all the crude oil that exists on the Earth right now since no appreciable amount is going to be created in the next thousand years. However, it is true that certain scenarios of regulation could result in a reduction of consumption of crude oil compared to alternatives (this will only happen if it is taxed quite a bit more of course). If so, oil production (which matches consumption) could drop along the same peak oil predicted trajectory before the resource constraint makes it do so. In that case the resource constraint isn't hit (or not for a long time), but it sure as hell is still there.

Personally, I'd like to see this economist's prediction happen since I am not optimistic that peak oil will come soon enough. I'm afraid we are very ingenious about getting stored hydrocarbons out of the Earth. Even when we get past peak oil, we will be pulling out other hydrocarbons, perhaps even methane from the sea floor. About the only thing I agree with Bush on these days is that Global Warming is inevitable, we are going to have to adapt (e.g., we need to cut our world fertility rate quite a bit, say from 2.6 to 1.6).

Dara Parsavand

Love the stats, fats. Fat americans consume and waste too much. And their heads are too swollen with fat to admit it, or change. I'm born and raised american so i know, and you suck. Capatalism breeds retards.

EveningLand,

Your passion about fusion power is obvious. Unfortunately so are your mistakes.

- "The reactor is to realize the first nuclear fusion on Earth."
Wrong. A hydrogen bomb is a fusion reaction; we've had those for over 50 years. We have also had controlled fusion reaction in the laboratory (triggered by various means). The key, however, is that all were small scale and, more importantly, required more input energy than was output.

- "incidentally, such a machine can only be made by the cooperation of several countries"
You're confusing how the ITER consortium is set up (vis a vis division of labor/costs) versus actual limits of knowledge or materials. This is like the Space Station. Could Japan, the US, or Russia build their own space stations if they HAD TO? Of course. Similarly, there is no rare material that only China has that is needed for a fusion reactor. Nor is there some unknown secret of quantum physics that only the US scientists are aware of. Practically speaking, yes, the consortium has chosen to collaborate. But its only an $10B Euro effort. If say, South Korea or Russia, refuses to participate the project will not dissapear. You make it seem as though fusion research can only occur if all 6 parties are cooperating. Not true. see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8385911/

You're right about cost overruns, but wrong as to timeframes for construction. Eight years has been the recent average to get new fission reactors built, tested and online. That number can certainly be shortened, likely cut in half (if we have motivated governments - say in an energy/economic crisis). Areva and Atomstroyexport have certainly do so in less time recently.

- "if there is enough oil left to do all the building and shipping required by this huge project!"
Laughable, sky-is-falling claptrap. Please don't lower your otherwise worthy arguments. What, we're going to run out of all oil by 2024? Not even enough to run construction equipment? Relative to construction, this would be similar to ongoing 1/2, or 1-3Gw fission reactors. Far less energy spent on construction/concrete/materials than a large dam (say Three Gorges). The oil needed to run the bulldozers and concrete trucks will not suck up the worlds oil reserves.

The real issues are technical; specifically a stable containment field. While the field is stable, the fusion reactions have a decent net power output. The ITER will have the equivalent of a 500Mw output (average size existing fission power plant) when it is running - but only for about 8-10 minutes! When will scientists solve this problem? Who knows? There may be a big breakthrough in the next few years. Or it may take 20 years. Or we don't solve it at all. I have friends that work on fusion at national labs in the US. They think we'll solve the containment problem in about 5 years, for whatever that is worth.

Even if (when) we get commercially viable fusion power, it will take a long time to build, and likely would not be the only source of power near term. Could it supplant 25% of all electrical needs? Sure. That would be about 300 large scale (3 gigawatt) reactors. Doable in 20, 30, 40 years, but certainly not by 2015 (when US proven reserves run out: see www.eia.doe.gov).

maturin42 thanks for the weblink on Robert Newman video. That was excellent!

It seems that only comedians can tell the whole truth these days. Don't ya wonder why? Is it because the truth has to be camoflauged to get past the powers that be? Or is it because the truth must be presented in the context of comedy or we just couldn't handle it, we might all jump off a bridge?

It's easy to see what living without oil will be like if we look at different cultures before the age of oil. People then did not worry about supply as much because demand was curtailed by attrition of their populations through plagues, infanticide, crop failures, tribal warfare and other natural forms of population control that Jared Diamond explains so well in his books. None of us wants to suffer nature's forms of curtailing demand. And we won't do it voluntarily as we are prohibited by organized religion to control our populations humanely using birth control methods and abortion. Oil made us think we were well... gods, apart from nature. But nature will again take her course. It was foolish to think we could fool her.

Ever wonder why Bush is always demonizing Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?
Oil priced at $50/barrel Venezuela replaced Saudi Aradia as the country with the most oil. Hugo Chavez is sitting on top of 1.3 Trillion barrels of heavy oil more than all the world's proven reserves of light oil.

Peak Oil is going to affect many different aspects of our lives. We can put pressure on our government leaders to take action, but we really can't afford to wait. Besides many of the solutions to Peak Oil revolve around building a localized economy. We need to begin now planning and preparing, because it takes time to accomplish this. We need to act now as individuals and within our communities to prepare. Buy local, buy organic, look into CSAs in your area and support community efforts to plan for Peak Oil. Here is a website with a list of communities already planning:

http://www.relocalize.net/groups

Rune, thank you for your excellent, well-informed posts.
colleen, I'm a little baffled by your post. If you're thinking of the environment, please do not invest in the Canadian tar
sands. These are a huge blight on the Alberta landscape, doing untold damage to the water and wildlife of Alberta. Oil from
the tar sands is extremely dirty oil, requiring massive amounts of energy to make useable.
If you're trying to do something progressive, I suggest you buy Citgo gas (Venezuela) but I'm not really sure what you're
going for.

There is an excellent movie out about how Cuba dealt with it's Peak Oil crises after the fall of the Soviet Union and the US embargo: "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil"

http://globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657

The facts IMO are:

1) We will run out of oil. Yes, there will always be oil (the last barrel will be donated to the Smithsonian) but it will be unavailable in quantity to a larger and larger percentage of people.

2)We will not collectively prepare for this until we are forced by dire circumstance. We will continue to drive our cars from state to state at will as long we possibly can.

3) Claims that alternate energy sources will fill the gap are so far just wishful thinking based on faith in technology that has no basis in reality. There are alot of great technologies out there but none can be pressed into service that will allow most of us to drive our cars state to state at will as we do now. There will be a change in lifestyle.

4) The only solution is a reduction in energy use when forced upon us. (This is a solution in the mathematical sense, not as a pre-emptive policy.) Everyone hates this because we all still want to drive our cars from state to state at will. We can hope that this reduction will be peaceful and equitable but given the way resources are allocated this too is wishful thinking.

5) No one can predict the timing of any of this.

Who cares whether they dry up or not? We should be driving electric cars by now and/or taking high speed rail to get around. The air in our cities should be very clean by now too.

Organized criminals will control our politicians and major corporations till we kick their asses out of power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

In Europe most of the major automakers have been selling small cars with 1 litre engines that get around 60 mpg for years.

"This scenario is flatly denied by BP, whose chief economist Peter Davies has dismissed the arguments of "peak oil" theorists...

"We don't believe there is an absolute resource constraint. When peak oil comes, it is just as likely to come from consumption peaking, perhaps because of climate change policies as from production peaking."

ummm yeah...sounds like a confident denial to me.

Don't know what's worse, the article, or many of the comments posted here. The article could have been stripped down to one paragraph, that is, you can't trust the estimates from the oil companies or the nations that have the reserves, period. The rest of the article treated all of the various surrounding issues in the most shallow manner that it wasn't worth the space it took up on the screen.

Tried to read all of the comments, but not sure if I caught all the sentiment. Don't think I saw anyone mention what may happen when - not if - demand (for oil) seriously outstrips supply and causes a worldwide economic collapse. Look at our warlike posture today and project that onto the coming scenario.

This past Christmas I sent a message to my family members laying out all of this. Much too long to post here and only comes to the conclusion that we only have a very short time to wake up and get headed in the right direction, and the prospect of that happening doesn't look good. The very limited understanding of the physics of energy by many here only reinforces my dismay.

The petroleum era has abetted the geometrical growth of the human population. This will soon end. None of our religious, government, or other social constructs are prepared for the decisions that lie ahead. There may be a human race 100 years from now, but it won't resemble anything like what exists today. The carrying capacity of this planet was probably realistically passed some 3 billion persons ago.

colleen - "I've invested in the tar sands in Canada", great glad to see we're doing our bit, why don't we all invest in the destructive technologies so we can get paid, after all that's the important thing we get our money now!!

colleen - "I really don't know what the solution to all this is. We need to conserve but that isn't happening."
and it will never happen so long as people like you put your greed over any other considerations.

I don't mean to pick on anyone really, but could not believe how this poster could write these things totally oblivious to her contribution to the abuse, the hypocracy in the critism of oil companies coming from one of the owners is gobsmacking, the tar sands project will wreck the environment supporting this project is not good, and justifying such investment by quoting the returns is sick, immoral and ignorant.

Colleen you are the type of people we are trying to stop.

"Eventually lots of oil should be coming from Iraq."Evelyna, is this when the body bags stop flowing from Iraq. You are dreaming. The US will eventually have to leave Iraq. There are no more soldiers to send. "I enjoy zipping from state to state in my car." Evelyna, hope you have a nice bike to continue your interstate travel.

thomrick:

Has there been much of an increase in people asking about canning and buying supplies for same?Obviously if current trends aren't reversed a flood of people will migrate to our warmer climes[causing serious overcrowding problems]or reprise skills that allow decent diets to be maintained in colder states.
We have an excellent co-op here in Madison Wis. but many areas are not likewise blessed.

maturin42.....your letter gave me goosebumps.I feel this way when i talk to others about all the turmoil that the world is in.I really think that most people are truly ignorant of the imminent danger we are in due to things that mankind has wrought upon itself.And the best thing people can do right now is support their local farmers..because food will soon be very difficult and expensive to transport.Imported items should be treated like the luxuries they once were...a treat to be enjoyed on special occasions.Ive been in retail groceries for the past 25 years and prices are rising at a rate ive never seen before.Our costs are just crazy right now and thus the price to the consumer is higher as well.

For all the seekers of the new cheap energy solution: look what damage we have done to the planet thanks to cheap fossil fuels. Lets find a new sustainable vision of how to live in our home earth first... and then match the energy with it. No doubt about it that the real (dirty) leaders have the plans ready and set to deal with the problems of our consuming and breeding frenzy: wipe out most of us. We better make a big u-turn somehow or we will be raw material for the next generation of fossil fuels.

War Hater:

I too have a heart condition-diagnosed 20 years ago-probably dormant for another 15. Am 65 now. Remember the Hyman Roth character in the Godfather? He was "dying from the same heart attack for XXX years." Against the odds I'd like to stick around for another 15 to see if my grandkid's generation can do better with all these problems. Written with affection and hopefully a dash of humor. See you in 15 or 20?"

Provocative, informative, little known book:

Crossing the Rubicon/Mike Ruppert.

Worth a look.

Maturin42, thanks for sharing the link to the History of Oil. Excellent! I'll be sharing it with others.

Eventually lots of oil should be coming from Iraq.
I enjoy zipping from state to state in my car.
I have no use for the cheap junk produced overseas. Soon most people will have no money for it.
It was conter productive to produce junk overseas just to save a few pennies on labor. It will blow up in the corporations and politicans faces. No buyers-gas problem solved.

"Then as now we were wondering what it would take to get people to listen."

Sadly, what we need is a movie. Maybe Micheal Moore's next movie will be, "Dude, where's my oil?", and people will accept that the end of oil is nigh.

Hope is on the way... In the nick of time technology stumbles upon an answer. It will take about 5-10 years before it significantly changes our lives.

July 2007 London.

For those who day alternative energy is not possible, consider the following. If solar panels were deployed over an area the size of Nevada (ca 110,000 square miles) the peak power produced is sufficient to meet the energy requirements of the entire planet. Of course, the main issue is, How to store this energy? Two ways come to mind if we have excess power: (1) electrolysis of water, and (2) use of large existing hydrodams to pump waters up into the reservoirs. Note also that thin-film silicon technology is very near to commercial production. This technology does require raw materials and power, but in amounts that are relatively small compared to other major industries. Others here have mentioned geothermal, which can produce a steady stream of power, and there is wind, which now produces 20% of the entire electric power consumption of the country of Denmark. So to dismiss alternate energy out of hand as a solution not for the present understates the technology. The new thin-film technology is specifically designed for very rapidly upward-expandable production, on the order 1 GWatt/year, the plants to make this stuff being lowtech relatively speaking and deployable anyplace in the world. So those here concerned: get to pounding every rep you have at every level of government to push for the kind of energy production that adds relatively little (not no) heat into the environment.

I am lucky. I am 59 years old with a heart condition. I have lived through the golden years of economic boom for the developed world from which I have enjoyed all of the benefits. Though I am not wealthy, I have had access to every modern delight that the wealthy enjoy.

In the early 80's I became a fan of the eco/conservation movement because it "just makes sense."

Well, humankind has blown it. But, I have lived through the best of times, and will be dead before the worst of times coming "just around the corner."

Bye/ bye suckers. You have had your opportunity, it is gone, now.

"We will never run out of oil."

Chortle. Reminds me of a Will Rogers quote: "They're makin' more people every day, but they ain't makin' more dirt."

We will never run out of oil... Sweet Jesus that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read. Goes against the laws of physics as we know them. Only our culture, in its pure arrogance, would believe that we live in a world of infinite resources and infinite capacity to beat the odds.

Foamweapons sez: "I'm trying to refute the claims that wind and solar can't power 100% of the U.S. right now, but can't post links."

I can help you clarify the situation, but I don't think there is any way to make your case. First of all, this article is about a decline in oil, most of which is used for transportation fuels and all sorts of plastic and chemical products, so there are some other technologies to work out before wind and solar electric power can act as substitutes for oil. That is not a show stopper, but it is worth noting.

Second, my comments were about worldwide energy production and demand, but the domestic situation is more or less the same, just move the decimal point for the total percentage of energy we are getting from wind and solar. It is still next to nothing in terms of the total amount of energy used on either the global or domestic basis. But you are interested only in electrical energy in the U.S. Fine.

In 2005 the U.S. cranked out a little over 4 billion megawatts of juice. That amount has been growing at about 2% per year, so we are probably looking at about another 160 million megawatts added to the total for this year. (See: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html)

Last year, the total production of all PV solar panels were capable of producing 2,204 megawatts of power for hour. If the U.S. could have captured the entire supply of the world's new solar panels and installed them in a more or less favorable conditions, they would have produced an average of five hours of peak output per day, averaged over 365 days per year, which gives you an annual production of (2,204 X 5 X 365) = 36,872 megawatts. Now, remember, we are looking at about 80,000,000 megawatts of ANNUAL GROWTH in electric consumption (half of 160 million just for ease of example) in this period, so all the world's solar output doesn't even come close to putting a dent in new demand, and, of course, does nothing at all to touch the 4 billion megawatts that we were sucking down back in 2005 and every year since.

Now back to reality. We only installed 202 megawatts of new solar panels last year, up 40% over the previous year's new installations. (See http://www.solarbuzz.com/Marketbuzz2007-intro.htm). That's basically a gnat fart in a stiff wind for all the good it is doing us these days.

I am all for steady growth in clean renewables, but lets not kid ourselves. It is going to be decades before they amount to anything to speak of other than a killer investment opportunity if you happen to buy into the right technology at the right time, given rapid changes on that front.

Check - http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/energyrevolution-250107 - "The Energy [RE]volution" -

A Greenpeace publication - "The Energy Revolution scenario comes as the world is crying out for a road map for tackling the dilemma of how to provide the power we all need, without fuelling climate change. "Renewable energies are competitive, if government's phase-out subsidies for fossil and nuclear fuels and introduce the `polluter-pays principle`. We urge politicians to ban those subsidies by 2010."
The plan also details how large developing countries like India, China and Brazil can develop and grow using renewable energy to avoid the mistakes of old climate-changing energy economies of developed countries.

The Energy Revolution was written with the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and in conjunction with specialists from the German Space Agency and more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the world.

I've invested in the tar sands in Canada with petro canada and suncor. These stocks are increasing in value over a 5 year period but look somewhat volatile over the short term. Still Petro canada has gone from C$42 to C$54 in the last 3 months. Suncor was selling at about C$80 March 07 and now is at C$96. And the canadian dollar has gone up in value too, if you buy the stocks on the canadian stock market. The canadian dollar has gone from .85 to about .93 in 3 months.

From what I have heard it is very difficult to make the oil useable. It costs much more to drill in Canada than to drill for the oil in Saudi Arabia, which is in sand. But when oil goes above $60 a barell the oil sands become a cost effective way to get oil.

The world economies are dependent upon oil, but its a dirty business that is increasing the problem with global warming.

I really don't know what the solution to all this is. We need to conserve but that isn't happening. I don't understand why the car companies are trying to lower miles per gallon and they are lobbying our corrupt government to keep the miles per gallon low. I would nationalize those car companies because they have been badly run and are essential to the nation. They have been incompetently run imo.

Perhaps watching the rise in the price of these stocks in the tar sands is an indicator of the political situation and the widening war(s) in the ME.

Today Petro canada went up 1.99% and suncor went up 3.73% on the TSX (Canda's stock exchange)

Jesus. This article was doing fine until the end.

*Coal - There are still an estimated 909 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide, enough to last at least 155 years. But coal is a fossil fuel and a dirty energy source that will only add to global warming.

Well, duh. Yes coal is a greenhouse gas source, but this article was not about greenhouse gas, but simply the availabilty of energy. The issue with coal is that although there's a lot of it, it takes energy to convert it into a usable form, so the yield is less than it appears. However, our civilisation could bumble along for quite a few years yet on coal once the oil runs out, and lets face it, brobably will.

* Natural gas - The natural gas fields in Siberia, Alaska and the Middle East should last 20 years longer than the world's oil reserves but, although cleaner than oil, natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits pollutants. It is also expensive to extract and transport as it has to be liquefied.

Same comments as above. Why introduce the issue of polutants now? Because the fact that there's a lot of coal an natural gas seems to weaken his point.

* Hydrogen fuel cells - Hydrogen fuel cells would provide us with a permanent, renewable, clean energy source as they combine hydrogen and oxygen chemically to produce electricity, water and heat. The difficulty, however, is that there isn't enough hydrogen to go round and the few clean ways of producing it are expensive.

Jesus. Where do you start? "Not enough to go around" doesn't begin to cover it. There is just about *no* atomic hydrogen gas to go around - it is almost all in the form of hydrogen ash, aka water. Hydrogen is simply not an energy source. It is a mirage.

* Biofuels - Ethanol from corn and maize has become a popular alternative to oil. However, studies suggest ethanol production has a negative effect on energy investment and the environment because of the space required to grow what we need.

"Negative effect on energy investment". Why on earth put it like this? IOW: Biofuels take more energy to grow than they produce, in the form of agricultural fuel, and in the form of synthetic fertilisers which are made from oil.

* Renewable energy - Oil-dependent nations are turning to renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric, solar and wind power to provide an alternative to oil but the likelihood of renewable sources providing enough energy is slim.

Depend on what you men by "enough". Enuough for hummers and commuting 50 miles to work in individual motor vehicles? No. Enough for a decent, healthy, sustainable lifestyle for everyone? Quite possibly.

*Nuclear - Fears of the world's uranium supply running out have been allayed by improved reactors and the possibility of using thorium as a nuclear fuel. But an increase in the number of reactors across the globe would increase the chance of a disaster and the risk of dangerous substances getting into the hands of terrorists.

Nuclear fusion has all the problems of fossil fuels, times 100. Firstly: there's only just so much fuel to be mined and then it's gone; and secondly it pollutes.

No mention of geothermal, which is a very exciting technology. No mention of small-scale renewable (a solar panel and a wind turbine on every roof). No mention of nuclear fusion, which is the great hope of humanity even if they haven't quite got it to work yet.

Observer,

I offer the following on the issue of FUSION.

During the summer of 2005, France was chosen by an international consortium, consisting of six of the main industrial (and thus scientific) powers in the world, as the place where an International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is to be built. The site will be in Cadarache and construction is to begin in 2008.

The reactor is to realize the first nuclear fusion on Earth. The cost of construction is presently estimated at 5 billion dollars. The reactor is estimated to go into operation in 2016. The cost of operation and maintenance over twenty years is estimated at another 5 billion dollars.

We know, however, from experience, that none of these estimates will turn out to be accurate, and that it will cost much more and take much longer to carry out this project. One need only consider the construction of the tunnel under the Channel (between Britain and France) to get an idea of the reliability of these sorts of estimates.

The construction of the reactor will require the making of very expensive and highly technical components, and many countries will be called upon to produce them (incidentally, such a machine can only be made by the cooperation of several countries). Clearly, the causes for delay in an endeavor of such magnitude, complexity, and cost will be multiple. Yet we are dealing with a race against time here.

More important, however, as regards time and cost, is the fact that this reactor, if construction and operation are successful (big assumptions, given the great difficulty of the entreprise), is only meant to demonstrate that fusion can be harnessed as an economically viable source of energy.

In other words, it is merely a demonstration reactor! A second reactor will then have to be built to serve as a prototype for the commercial production of power. Assuming that it takes about eight years to construct a reactor, and assuming that all else goes as assumed (big assumptions, as I pointed out above) – in particular, that the funds are there and that there is enough oil left to do all the building and shipping required by this huge project! – we would thus see the first commercial use of fusion in 2024. But that is only one reactor.

Another very important assumption: it is assumed that there will be sufficient international peace for cooperation between the nations involved to proceed without obstruction. There are good reasons for doubting that such will be the case; the more likely situation at that point will be one of international warfare (including very nasty guerrila wars) for natural ressources of all kinds.

Even if we assume 1) that the first fusion reactor is successful and that it is completed without delays, 2) that there are no resource wars, and 3) that there is still enough oil left to construct more reactors after the first reactor is completed, how many reactors will have to be built to produce the kind of energy needed to keep all the industrial societies at their present level of operation, and what will be the cost of such an enormous construction effort, and how long will it take to complete all the required reactors?

At any rate, it is clear, I think, that even if the first test of fusion is technically successful, the likelihood that fusion will replace fossil fuels as a source of energy is, well, dismally low, indeed.

It can't run out fast enough for me.

We will never run out of oil. It will just be more expensive to drill the holes than the oil in the holes is worth. If you compare the number of drilling rigs in operation to the actual consumption the number of wells drilled is skyrocketing per unit of oil produced.

A very large number of these new wells are being drilled in the U.S. where it extremely unlikely that significant oil deposits will be found. We the taxpayers are subsidizing this stupidity through the most creative form of legal larceny ever devised; the federal tax code.

I made a nice return in several oil drilling stocks this year. Unfortunately, the game was rigged and the really big players got both the stock gains and the tax breaks.

Amory Lovins wrote "Soft Energy Paths" in 1979. In it he spoke of the fossil fuel bridge that we must use to take us to a renewable energy future. He predicted that if we squander this energy bridge we will be in trouble in the future. Well, welcome to the future.

Strange, but nobody ever included nuclear fusion on the list of almost unlimited source of energy. Well, the Princetone Plasma Lab, which was to built semi-inductrial TOKOMAK for mere $10 Billion, was dismantled soon after the Republican Revolution. It was a little exodus of "human capital", who moved back to Mother Europe, from where all American short love afair with science came after the rise of Nazi.

Now our own Nazi has finished up this particulat venue to please their oily paymasters.

Yes, and these same government "Scientists" are carping about "global warming". Eon's ago the glaciers melted ending the ice age and there were no people burning fossil fuels. All they have on that too, is "theory"
The best way to control people is with fear and that is the one thing they spread plenty of.......

Is there a limit to how many links you can post on commondreams.org ... because I'm trying to refute the claims that wind and solar can't power 100% of the U.S. right now, but can't post links. Oh well.

"Hickory Dickory Dock...
The mouse ran up the clock..."

"Peak Oil hits in 4...
When the Baby Boomers exit the door..."

Yeah, 6 billion people doing everything local. That'll work real well in Japan, for example, which HAS to import food.

Reverse globalization, do everything local.

Please check out http://www.theoildrum.com/ If you want to understand what's going on. They cover all of this and YES we are up the creek with our energy future. Basically we have squandered a one shot deal - ancient sunlight that has been fossilized. The low hanging fruit has been picked and now we have an uphill climb just to maintain our current pace.

PS: Or see the article by Prof. David Goodstein, "The End of the Age of Oil," at

http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v38/oil.html

Dear Folks,

On the concept and phenomenon of peak oil, I take the liberty of recommending the excellent documentary:

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, by the journalists Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack (Lava Productions AG, Zurich, Switzerland).

A preview and description of the film are available at wwww.crudeawakening.org.

In that documentary, you will see and hear, among other commentators, Dr David Goodstein, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology, give what is probably one of the most systematic presentations of the energetic basis of industrial society, its contemporary predicament, and its coming decline and its dire, if not catastrophic, consequences.

See also David Goodstein's book Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil (W.W. Norton, 2004),

or his paper "The End of the Age of Oil," athttp://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v38/oil.html.

James Kunstler's The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) not only discusses peak oil and global warming (and its consequences, epidemic disease, water scarcity, habitat desctruction, etc), but gives a very graphic description of their future impact on the United States.

too many people........too many people. i chose no children, since my 5 brothers produced 10. whew!! it's a life choice that more need to consider, and religious institutions need to promote smaller families.......sorry, but we'll "overgraze" ourselves to extinction....

Well, well, well. I was in college back in the seventies and they were saying that the shit would last forever. Boy, forever is getting shorter ever day!
Whose nuts are in the vice here, people? Can I get a big old 'Hoo HaH!' for the U.S.A.?
Now, the question at issue is...Will we fold like a junkie with no heron or will we rise up like the nation that put a man on the moon? Personally, for my money, this nation will NOT be able to come back from years of recessive foreign policy aimed more at
breaking down Democracies instead of supporting them. While the American people have slept and dreamed dreams of a '57 Chevy' with gas at 29 cents a gallon, reality, that haggard old bitch, has crept in and taken away their dreams. And, in a few years, the images we used to get from China of people riding bicycles everywhere will be OUR reality. The wheel turns around. The stupid get stuck in the gears.

Shane, even at $100 a barrel, tar sands are not going to be an attractive option. It's the worst of all options, actually. The basic problem is that the cost of inputs (natural gas, electricity, and water) and the cost of resulting damages (GHG, despoiled land, water contamination, devaluation of surrounding property, and the health effects of toxic fumes) are going up faster than the value of the energy produced as scale is increased.

Tar sands release about three times as much GHG as conventional petroleum supplies. It involves something akin to massive strip mining of an area. Enormous amounts of ever more precious water are involved, and even if those doing the mining are eventually able to recover all and clean up all but one gallon of water for every gallon of oil, they have yet to show that they can really keep surrounding water supplies from being contaminated, and every recovery effort uses that much more energy. The bulk of the large amounts of energy used to transform tar sands into something useful comes from natural gas, which is itself becoming ever more rare and expensive and is expected to decline much faster than oil when North American supplies peak in a couple of decades.

Then, when the project eventually fails, someone has to pay to clean up the enormous mess left behind. In theory, the mining companies are supposed to do that, but then, in theory, the utility companies, not the public, is supposed to pay the full cost of decommissioning nukes--not that it really works out that way.

When you add it all up, it doesn't make environmental sense, it doesn't make natural resource sense, it doesn't make public health sense, and without government subsidies and protection from liability, it doesn't make economic sense: http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=2c4d8836-34be-4f6c-9e0f-b8b6953a18ad

In other words, it's an irresistible opportunity for all those who believe the market will magically cure or ignore all known problems while investors make a bundle and consumers keep going into debt consuming things that cause more problems than they solve.

No Problem....Bush's God will just bury some more dinosaurs, and presto!! More oil!!

One of the problems we who care face is that most studies on energy are payed for by an organization or company with an ax to
to grind. Studies more often than not come to the conclusion that is desired by those who pay the piper. I doubt that anyone knows the real situation with oil because there are no, or few studies done by a neutral source with access to the facts.

Kudos on a fabulous thread here. Great info. Great rebuttals. Great ideas. And great civility. Why isn't THIS the kind of discussion happening in Congress?

In 1975, during the oil crisis, scientific studies "proved" that the world would run out of oil in the mid 90's. It also ignores alternative fuels like nuclear, wind, geothermal, and solar. The world will not run out of oil; the world will move on to something else. The ice age did not end with no ice, and the oil age will not end with no oil.

You don't have to be a genius to see that our fleet of cars and trucks in this country are a disgrace mileage wise. If we had any leadership at all in government huge improvements could be made. On the other hand we have the military which is another huge user of oil resources. We don't need bases in 130 countries. Huge improvements could be made. I personally believe the problem of peak oil is very real, hense the fiasco we have going on in the middle east. Our first efforts for renewable resources should be aimed at places that are using coal to generate electricity.

People have the mistaken impression that solar energy is "clean" energy. In fact, the production of solar panels is very dirty and includes the consumption of enormous amounts of conventional energy. More importantly, solar panels are made with silicon, which can only be manufactured in a cost-effective manner by burning coal with silica (sand) at very high temperatures, producing huge quantities of greenhouses gases. There is a real question whether the amount of energy (which is relatively small) produced over the life of a solar panel exceeds the amount of energy used to manufacture it. New technologies such as solar energy generating films and paints show promise, but we still have a long way to go, in making solar both environmentally and economically affordable. Part of the problem is that just when solar technologies were being developed, NASA was given the lion's share of R&D money, and they had no incentive to develop technologies that were economically or environmentally efficient. Passive solar design of buildings, on the other hand, has been known about since ancient times and is much more efficient than solar technology for generating electricity, for the reasons explained above. All new buildings should be required to incorporate passive solar technology, which saves on the consumption of energy required for both lighting and heating.

colleen, I'm sorry but as a Canadian environmentalist, I cannot applaud your investment in the Alberta tarsands. I have seen
quite a bit of third world poverty and agree that we are all rich here and Canada is about on par with America. But, why not
invest in something more ethical? I think that is what Idavin was trying to say as well. You don't have to invest in the energy
sector, just because you know there is money to be made there. There are many other things to invest in that don't involve the
rape and pillage of the Canadian landscape. And I know, there are countless others who will invest in your place, but why be part
of the problem?
On a more personal note, I am doing everything I can to change my lifestyle and conserve. And I agree that car companies need to
get in line (although more and more, I ride my excellent bike) but really, defending your right to make a buck while the getting
is good, does not help your argument.

Rune said of oil shale: ...it is expensive, causes all sorts of environmental damage, uses loads of energy and water to extract, and does nothing to relieve our dependence on a few, large companies...

When oil hits $100/barrel, oil shale starts to look very affordable.

I tend to agree with the above, that this is another Chicken Little scare. Oil will always be available, because there will always be a demand. As the cost of oil increases, reservoirs that are currently too expensive to exploit will become affordable, and so it goes. We just have to drill a little deeper into more marginal reserves. The question will be who will be able to afford the market price.

If every building had Solor Panels on the roof and a windmill in the back yard, there would be plenty of energy to go around. Throw in an electric car and Bam! we are independent.

They always seem to miss out Geothermal energy,

"A 2006 report by MIT that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years.[1]

The MIT report calculated the world's total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ, of which over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's energy needs for several millennia.[1]" Wiki

It is true that "peakists" perpetual cry wolf. Some claim to have heard the wolf howl and some to have seen the wolf in vision. The villagers may be pretty tired of it but in the end the wolf will come and it would have been better to prepare despite the uncertainty of the timing.

wise leaders like Bush/cheney/blair et al have already reserved a space for themselves on the rocket ship "new world" taking off in 4 years

It's good to see our government is hard at work making sure this crisis will be as painful and destructive as possible the further along we get. Buy your bike now before we run out of those, too!

Steljefstar, here is a background article on oil shale:
http://www.aspencore.org/images/pdf/OilShale.pdf

In general, it is expensive, causes all sorts of environmental damage, uses loads of energy and water to extract, and does nothing to relieve our dependence on a few, large companies with monopoly power or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Other than that, I'd say it's the obvious answer and only a matter of time until it saves us from having to take responsibility for our energy and environmental future. LOL.

Would anyone care to comment on the extent to which oil derived from tar sands and oil shale is a potential panacea? What is the state of the technology for extracting such oil today? In the forseeable future?

Sagedraggon, there is no famous "Hubbel's" curve, and M. King Hubbert was opposed by most of the powers that be at Shell, and roundly ridiculed by the oil industry as a whole when he published his reasons for expecting peak oil to arrive in the U.S. within most of their lifetimes. Greg Palast is the one who put out uninformed propaganda about Hubbert being some sort of shill for the oil industry. He was not at all. As a matter of fact, he was a socialist who thought the way the oil industry, as well as the economy as a whole, was being run was dangerous and wrong, given that there were sensible, less greedy ways of managing resources and needs to avoid the fix we are in now. I know this to be true from reading industry publications that responded to Hubbert's assertion and having spoken to Hubbert's relatives, looking over some of his old papers, talking to others who knew him, and, anecdotally, taking note that he named his cat "Wobbly" after his pals in the IWW.

Well, In 4 or 5 years it sound like crude oil is going to get real expensive.

Renewables won't meet the demand, so what do we do? Conserve?

Are we going to procrastinate until the last minute? You Bet!

Yet another sky is falling story about oil shortage that completely misses the point. Oil supply isn't the issue, but oil control is. Our entire Mid-East misadventure has been designed to keep oil in the ground, thus spiking oil prices and oil industry profits. it's working like a charm.

Yes, eventually we will run out of oil, but not anytime soon and certainly not before we all bake to death with the consequences of global warming.

By the way, Hubbels' famous "curve" applies to any fixed supply resource with constant or increasing demand. not exactly rocket science, but it did fit nicely with his company's move into the nuclear field, acting as it was intended... as a propganda piece. First create a problem and then offer the solution. Damn, we're running out of oil, thank goodness Shell is doing a lot of nuclear power engineering to save us from this calamity.

The likelihood of renewable energy sources providing enough energy to even account for projected increases in demand, let alone substituting for existing conventional energy consumption, is not "slim," it is nil for many years to come. It simply won't scale fast enough to amount to much for decades. Wind and solar account for less than 0.1% of the world's energy use today--and that energy use is projected to grow by several whole percentage points each year, if there is sufficient energy to meet the demand. Even if the renewable energy industries could double energy production capacity every year for years on end, which they can't even with all the grants, subsidies, and increasingly favorable laws that are encouraging the building of new factories and production lines as fast as they can establish them, renewable energy won't account for diddly squat relative to the quantity of energy the world is relaying upon to merely maintain the per capita status quo of economic activity, let alone account for growth in the developing world. (Note that I am leaving hydro out of this discussion of increased capacity, because, due to climate destabilization and the fixed life of dams, which are very energy intensive to build, hydro is set to be an industry in decline, not a source of sustainable growth.)

Renewable energy may be important someday, but for the next couple of decades it will remain an investors dream come true: rapid and sustained growth and demand outstripping supply. That is why we will continue to be inundated with advertising and lobbying encouraging us to support and pin our hopes on "clean" and "renewable" energy, when the only thing that will really help us get through the first part of the peak oil decline, and the thing that is about 7 times more cost effective than developing new energy sources, is conservation. Simply put, saving a mere 0.5% of energy use worldwide will do more to address the squeeze on energy, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, than all the wind and solar installations that will come online through the end of this decade. And it would be dirt cheap in comparison.

But, more realistically, we need to be reducing energy use by about 5% per year to meet GHG reduction targets in 2050, as well as to not end up in endless cycles of economic destabilization due to inadequate energy supplies relative to demand, followed by recessions (or worse) that take the heat off energy for a bit, followed by more booms and busts. We can do that with existing technology and no lifestyle changes over the next decade, but thereafter, we will probably need to start getting a little smarter about how and where we live and what that means in a world with ever more expensive and precious energy supplies.

As for using conventional energy to fill the gap, it has the same problem of finite supplies that are increasingly difficult and expensive to recover, it is poisonous in many ways, and we don't have a good way to deal with the toxic waste, whether it is radioactive, GHG, toxic fumes, or water contaminants. Do we really want more of that when we can choose to have less? And, of course, as with oil--or beer--the more we rely on it now, the faster it disappears.

Yeaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

dingoboy

What do you think I should invest in?

My argument is not to make a buck while the getting is good. My argument is that if people like me invest we can influence the corporations from within as stock holders. (I also own stock in Alcan where investers were asked to decide whether to sell Alcan shares to Alcoa. But I am new to this)

And another part of my argument is that the world could be on the edge of a serious war that will stop oil flow. If that happens then the nations that have any source of oil (tar sands) will be very important to the world economy.

It seems very easy to not use oil, until you look at what that means for the economy. There is now no substitute for transportation.

You did not comment on my proposal to increase government taxes on oil and use that money to repair the damage done to the environment.

Gas should be expensive. What say you to that?

Would you be willing to pay $10 a liter for gas if it meant the tar sands would be repaired?