happy friday: we're all going to die

[implode]

telescop-eo apocolyptica

is the end of oil coming? is the end of oil the end of the world? are we all going to die? does anyone who might actually know what they're talking about have an opinion on it? all this and more, in today's issue of: THE APOCOLYPSE TELESCOPE (commissioned and sanctioned by the office of public department store looting and the citizens bureau of flaming parked cars)

disclaimer: some of the more grisly predictions included in this paper may not be suitable for children under the age of 8, peoples' easily prone to panic attacks/paranoia, or small animals that have yet to evolve the capacity to read in english. if you are any or all of these things, i strongly suggest you either stop reading, or learn to read so you can stop reading.

--

off in the distance, a crow lets escape a terrifying shriek of glory. he's found another cadaver, and he wastes no time in letting the rest of the murder know that if they're not full from the gluttonous serving of doughy secretary they found earlier this morning, a midnight snack can be found just two streets around the bend. in fact, this one is still warm. the steam coming off of the exposed skin gives it away - this one must have perished very recently. within the hour, perhaps. a few crows waddle their way down the dirt road (no need to fly, any potential predator will be too slow and clumsy to sneak up on them now) and take a few half-hearted pecks at the eyes, but soon abandon the endeavor. this one isn't worth it. there's barely enough meat on this one to feed a family of four, let alone the whole murder. if they had any capacity to learn beyond "food vs. unfood", they'd realize that it was what killed him in the first place.

down the street, rosa childs, age 7, huddles closer underneath her mother with a shiver. it is impossible to tell whether it is a shiver of fear or simply a reaction to the almost freezing temperatures. even if it were possible to distinguish the two, it wouldn't matter in the slightest to rosa's mother, because there's nothing she could do about either. "just a minute, honey" she says to rosa as she moves into a crouch, disrupting the human shield she had been creating for her daughter "i'm not going anywhere. just adjusting the walls. sit tight."

rosa stares up at her mother with a longing in her eyes that our generation of america is incapable of understanding the limits of. she watches as she diligently works to get the three pieces of cardboard on the left side of the room to stand up on their own accord again. she is careful not to venture too far away from the fort on her search for more sturdy rocks to stack on the inside of the room, as she knows she could be spotted at any moment, and being spotted without rosa was not an option. a woman with a small child was still basically off-limits to the band of rebels terrorizing the neighborhood, as they were not out to destroy families. but a woman alone was a sitting duck, and any moment she knew she could be accosted by the roving pack of men with automatic weapons, demanding she give herself up to the revolution. she didn't know exactly what "giving herself up" entailed, really, but she knew that when it happened, nobody ever came back from it.

she finds a suitable rock jammed underneath a rusted heap of iron that might have once been the frame of a car, and scrambles back to the hideout to reassemble the wall before rosa is overcome by the chill and goes into shock. upon her return, she finds rosa fast asleep, clutching mr. buttons, her teddy bear. a single tear escapes from her typically spartanesque face and rolls down her cheek with a salty vengeance. regaining her composure, she fixes the wall with haste and falls back upon her daughter, providing her with the blanket she'll need to make it comfortably through the night.

a post-apocolyptic vision constructed by a bad writer no less than an hour after he's woken up, or a prophetic vision of an inavoidable future in which the human race reverts back to universal darwinism in the face of mass extinctions and sporadic warfare? well... let's just hope it's the former.

--

WHAT

oil. what? WHAT?!? OIL?!!

yes. oil. texas tea. the good stuff. the stuff dreams and the cars that take you to those dreams are made of. our single most valuable resource to the human race today. perhaps most notably the most valuable commodity to the american race, as well, as the oil trade singlehandedly provides it with the dominant economy required to both afford the largest military budget on the planet and the resources required to keep the standard of living stationary at "cable television" on the inside. if oil were to be suddenly teleported back to it's home planet one fateful morning, the humorous shots of saudis looking on in dismay as their spouts shoot through the stratosphere would be enough to keep our minds off our troubles for approximately seven minutes, until the power was cut and the confused masses took to the streets, not understanding the magnitude of their loss and taking to violence in reaction to it. is this a stupid example? yes. it certainly is, and with good reason - it's much easier to envision the widspread chaos and panic that would ensue during violent extra-terrestrial contact. anyone can come up with their own doomsday scenario for when the aliens decide that it's time for us to go - some of them even cast will smith to save the world in it. but our world may be careening recklessly towards the same horrific end, and this time, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

... WHAT?

the doomsday scenario i refer to is called "peak oil", and it refers to the moment in time that the planets oil reserves are exactly half used up. this is not a phenomenon that can be easily disproved with the application of science - though skeptics do exist, the application of science was actually what brought this idea into the public conciousness in the unfortunately late year of 1956, when shell oil geologist m. king hubbard documented the observable bell curve of the oil production industry. simply put, you need to discover oil before you can start producing it, and barring the possibility of the discovery of vast new reserves, you can accurately chart the exact point in time when known oil reserves reach their maximum capacity and begin to wane. this exact point in time is known as "peak oil" - the moment when we reach the halfway point in already discovered reserves. from this point, oil becomes increasingly expensive to harvest, just as your milkshake becomes increasingly harder to consume with a straw when you reach the halfway point. you need to expend extra amounts of energy to suction the stuff up, including remanuevering your straw, stirring the entire pot, etc. etc. and when it comes down to the end, all you're left with is an empty cup, a full belly, and a terribly depressing slurping noise.

<i>now imagine the most terribly depressing slurping noise in the world.</i> we certainly won't be alive to reach THAT point in oil production, of course, but that's hardly the point. the point is that the simple availability of abundant reserves of oil is what makes our way of life possible. america alone uses 25% of all oil produced in one year. when the price of oil rises, our economy suffers, as the worldwide oil trade goes in U.S. dollars. anyone investing in oil as a commodity does so in the american market. right now, the price of oil is peaking at around $50 dollars a barrel for crude, which is the highest documented cost in the history of oil production. horrific doomsday scenarios abound from here on out, which i documented in the more frantic draft of this article i wrote earlier this week:

the proper phrase for what i'm waxing frantic about is "the oil peak." put simply, it's what happens when the planets oil reserves are exactly half used up. it was estimated by a team of geniuses and revolutionaries that our planet contains approximately 2 trillion barrels of oil. to date, we've used up about 920 billion of those barrels on stuffed animals that sing "jingle bells" when you poke them in the crotch. that's 80 billion barrels left, folks. with the current demand for oil being somewhere around 80 million barrels a day (or about 30 billion barrels a year... but who's counting, really? ha. get it? yeah. me too. :() and with that number rising as quickly as the population, it doesn't take actual thinking to see that we are all in some very serious trouble.

...

"<i>oil is harvested in the exact same process.</i> the only difference is, stirring the pot or manuevering the straw isn't as simple as expending a little extra energy. oil is extremely expensive to mine as it is, and therefore, the price is high. it's up to $50 a barrel, as we speak. <i>that's almost 4 billion dollars spent a day on oil alone.</i> of course, up until now, we've always made a profit off of the stuff and the stuff that uses the stuff, so that was no problem. but as you can see, little nonsense words like "no problem" do not accurately convey the <i>magnitude</i> of the situation we're discussing, and soon we'll all begin to understand exactly how menacing this problem is.

once we hit the peak, the price of oil will rise. in fact, it's already happening - oil is more expensive now than it ever has been, and that's not the fault of greed or war, folks. oil is the one commodity we cannot AFFORD to muck up with greed or war. it's estimated that once we truly hit the peak, the price of oil will rise steadily from 1.5% to 3% per year. so what, you say. it'll be $52 instead of $50. big freaking whoop. ah, yes, but don't forget, the DEMAND is rising right along with the price. one estimate puts the ten year growth at almost 2/3rds of what it is now - from 75 million to 135 million barrels of oil a day. THAT IS A LOT OF FUCKING OIL. with explosive growth like that, the cost of sating the world's needs will obviously shoot up to astronomical proportions - another estimate (i hate to estimate, especially since this figure seems so absurd and it didn't have a cite, but if we've ever needed to fudge a few figures to kill some time, it's right now) puts the cost of oil in 5-10 years time at a bed-soiling $200 per barrel.

IS IT TIME TO PANIC YET?

it was time to panic 50 years ago, when m. king hubbard discovered this problem and was greeted with a hearty "oh" from the rest of the world.

at prices of $200 a barrel, life as we know it ceases to be. EVERYTHING gets expensive, since everything we consume is "made of oil" to some degree. not simply gasoline, but water, food, clothing - everything. forget about your local drugstore - even multi-million dollar corporations will no longer be able to afford the cost of production and will close, sending millions into the unemployment line, reaching their outstreched limbs to the government, begging for a helping hand.

[implode]

<i>but the government will not be able to do anything about it.</i> since most of the people reading this that i would kiss (J.T. and Vile obviously not included) live in america, i stress this point - the worldwide oil trade goes in U.S. dollars. one of our dollars is worth as much as it is because there's a steady surplus of oil sales to back that up. without abundant oil sales, one of our dollars will be worth roughly what a peso would be worth if you cut it in half, pissed on it, and threw it in the garbage (which won't go anywhere, since the garbageman will be unemployed and the trucks won't have the fuel needed to run.) the government could hand out 100 dollar bills to everyone (which they'll only be able to print a few of, since we need oil to run the presses, prime the paper, etc..) and it will do no good. it will buy little more than the food you need to not be hungry today, and that's in our OWN country. elsewhere, it will get you laughed at, pitied, brought home for a nice hot meal of boiled dandelions, and shoved back out on the street in the clothes you haven't washed since you stopped being able to afford soap.

you've heard of the great depression? well, get a headstart on your friends now and start calling it "the hilarious pogo stick depression", because it's nothing compared to what we're in for.

you can't tell me you're surprised. we've been abusing oil since the first person got the bright idea to invent the eletric pencil sharpener. convenience has always dwarfed preparedness and conservation, and we like it that way. it is in that way that we are free to wake up to the sweet sounds of our alarm clock/radio/CD player, turn on our light and television, take a nice hot shower (maybe we need to keep the sink faucet running on cold to get the desired amount of heat) get into the clothes that we feel make us look our best, warm up our vehicles and go. go to burn more oil to make the money that we earned from the oil trade and will use on items manufactured with oil. western society is <i>completely</i> dependent on the stuff. it has become, quite literally, as important to our day-to-day lives as breathing.

everything we've come accustomed to having will be gone. to put it specifically - the moose will die. not because of lack of interest, not because garf is sick of paying for it, but because <i>every single one of us combined will not have the money to pay for one day of hosting.</i> infact, we won't even have a server to provide us with such an amenity. we'll barely have the electricity to even turn our now useless computers on. and that won't even matter, because we won't have an outlet to plug our computers into. we may not even have a house to complain about not having an outlet in. artists will scramble to mine the depths of their minds for the last contribution they'll want to share with society. we will experience a near utopian-age of art - we'll all have a uniting purpose, and we'll all have one last thing to say about the life that has so shafted us all.

and the christians will claim that they were right all along. religious will seek solace in the second coming of christ. anarchists will seek solace in breaking department store windows. all will crumble.

and if you stand there with me, hand and hand, maybe we'll die happy?

...

nah."

---

scary, neh? no doubt about it, prices of $200 a barrel, however far down the road they may be, would surely be the turning point in our society that shoved a reluctant darwinism back into the center of attention. but is the situation really <i>that</i> dire? many say yes, fewer say no, but most say "a-WHUH?" and if there is a possiblity of a scarier situation than a worldwide energy crisis, it's the idea that 90% of the people affected by it will have no idea what's coming.

matthew simmons, editor-in-chief of simmons & conpany international, scarlet to anyone worth mentioning in the oil investment industry and advisor to president w. has some terrifying things to say on the subject, mostly made so by the fact that if anyone should know what they're talking about and have no reason to lie about it, it's this guy.

simmons argues that we are gravely overestimating the amount of oil reserves we have left to exploit, mainly because of shady business practices in saudi arabia, the most reliable oil producer of the past 70 years. 8-9 million barrels of oil a day are procured from the land of the house of saud, almost 10% of the 80 million barrels per day the world consumes. simmons says that we've been led astray by saudi authorities claiming to have 260 million barrels of reserves in 80 untapped fields. however, upon closer inspection, simmons says that the only thing that the saudis are full of is high grade shit:

"I took an accidental trip to Saudi Arabia in February 2003" simmons told us, adding "and what I saw didn't pass the smell test."

He observed technology applications and water handling infrastructure that should have been superfluous to a country reportedly awash with cheap reserves. "We've always been told that they had 260 million barrels of reserves in 80 untapped fields... they weren't behaving that way," he said.

He was particularly struck by Saudi efforts to rehabilitate old fields. "Why were they doing that if they had 80 [untapped] fields?" he added rhetorically."

he goes on to note such other striking bits of information that i would happily copy and paste, were it possible to do without registering, such as the suspicion that aramco (saudi oil production company) spent over 18 billion dollars searching for new reserves in the 80's, only to come up empty. "if sustainable saudi production has already passed" he says "then global oil supply has already peaked."

so why? why would the saudi's lie to the world, claiming to have more oil than they actually do? simmons says it's a matter of reserving their place in the global pissing match known as OPEC, the world's top oil mining company since we started giving a damn about oil. in a final assessment of the situation, aimed at cutting the legs out from under people optimistic about the possibility that reserves are simply a function of price, he claims "there's a better chance we'll be living on the moon [than find enough oil to sustain current and projected demand.] Oil will peak and it is not renewable."

SO... UH-OH?

yeah, most likely. uh-oh. <a href="http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=9697">optimists claim</a> that it's not time to worry just yet, and that reserves will not peak until perhaps mid-century, and that by then we should surely have the technology required to turn alternative sources of energy such as the canadian tar sands into a viable, profitable venture to ride out the rest of the century. but simply the fact that most optimists are accepting hubbard's initial claim as truth should be plenty of forewarning: we <i>are</i> going to run out of oil, and it IS going to suck. in a quote that i certainly wish i could remember where i read it so i could cite it, one of the more aggresive petro-optimists said something very close to: "the idea that we'll face an oil shortage in our future is ridiculous. however, i am not so optimistic about our children's future." game, set, natch.

but what would a gloomy forecast of our future be without an unwaveringly optimistic ray of sunshine to blind us at just the right moment, resulting in a comedic topple down the stairs and a comforting group hug, right? i mean, surely, if the crisis is indeed as large as it's been made out to be, we'll get to work on developing ways to cut our dependency on the stuff... right? i mean, there's hydrogen power, one of the most available resources on the planet, and there's the ever advancing science of nuclear fusion (i don't blame iran for giving it a try, and there's plenty of conspiracy theories out there as to why <a href="http://progressivetrail.org/articles/050513Hiro.shtml">bush and blair want an end to all nuclear enrichment processes</a> inside iran) there's railroads, steam power... we don't really NEED all this oil to survive, do we?

well, no. but we need to not be thrown back into a horrible ice age, too. i think we can all agree on that.

...

[implode]

DAMNED IF WE DO, DOOMED IF WE DON'T?

allow me to explain, as the sudden introduction of the phrase "horrible ice age" is generally enough to perk up a bored listeners ears: we're actually in an ice age as we speak, called the "pleistocene epoch." an ice age is simply a period in the earth's life when it alternates between glacial activity and intermittent periods of temperate climate. this may be a comfort to you, as "ice age" is generally misidentified with "the frozen tundra of nicaragua" but don't get too snuggly. we're in a period of glacial inaction called an "interglacial", when the glaciers recede to the poles and pretty much leave the rest of the planet alone. but interglacials are the exception, not the rule. interglacials are interesting periods of mild temperatures that generally last about 15,000 years. research shows that our particular interglacial period has been steady for about 13,000 years now, which means we could be in for the biggest season of growth that the mitten industry has ever seen very, very soon.

<i>but what about global warming? i thought temperatures were rising?</i> they ARE. that's where the two topics converge. the process of burning oil releases carbon dioxide, which is known as a "greenhouse gas" - you've heard of the "greenhouse effect"? carbon dioxide is the main culprit, accounting for over 50% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. basically, what greenhouse gases do is let the incoming light radiation from space enter the atmosphere, but prevent most of the infrared radiation from the surface and atmosphere from escaping back out again. this is a NATURAL process that was there before humanity, and will be there after humanity. if it weren't for greenhouse gases, the earth would globally be an estimated 59 degrees fahrenheit colder than it already is, too cold to sustain very much in the way of life.

<i>but burning fossil fuels releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as well.</i> all the hulaballoo about global warming comes back to the massive amounts of fossil fuel we burn every day. models predict that if we continue burning fossil fuels at the rate we do, the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere will have doubled by the year 2050. temperatures will rise by over 5-6 degrees worldwide, coastal areas will flood, extreme weather events such as hurricanes will abound more than ever before, etc. certainly we can't have our coastal areas flooding, or our prime area for argiculture being rendered useless by an increase in temperature, right?

right. but horribly, horribly wrong? maybe so. proponents claim that over the years, the massive amounts of greenhouse gases we've released into our atmosphere has done well to serve the growth of green plants, especially algae and plankton, that feed on those gases. if we were all to simply stop using oil tomorrow, these increased numbers of plants won't simply die. they'll instead feed on the natural amount of carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere, greatly reducing the required amount of greenhouses gases in our atmosphere that keep us from losing too much heat at once, and kick start - you got it. what the mitten industry has been waiting for for 13,000 years. the next glacial.

F-FUCK?

maybe not. ever the optimists, we have several teams of scientists and casual observers claiming that the phrase "fossil fuel" (which refers to the commonly held belief that oil is generated from decaying plant and animal carcasses) is a misnomer in itself, and that petroleum is actually an abiotic substance that replenishes itself as time goes on. from here, we have speculation that "peak oil" is simply a hoax perpetrated by greedy merchants like OPEC, a way to drive up the prices of crude through scare mongering and claims of helplessness. according to J.F. kenney, some guy with some credentials that i would certainly outline at great length had i not been sitting in front of this paper for several hours, oil is abiotic. here's his story:

is the 1950's, stalin, understanding the importance of oil on a global economy, sanctioned a team of scientists to painstakingly study every aspect of the stuff, from how it was formed to where it could be found to whether it prefers a light italian dressing or a heavy french. this body of work, known as ---, has led to successful exploratory drilling in the caspian sea, western siberia, and elsewhere (though no one seems to explain how it did that, but i'll give them a break. maybe they've been sitting there for a while, too.)

what the theory consists of basically this: biotic proponents believe that oil is formed by the decay of living organisms (primarily - oh, you're gonna dig this - PLANKTON) that proliferated greatly long ago in a brief period of global warming. they've been shuffled and relocated in the crust ever since, which explains the almost irrefutable fact that oil reserves are found in sedimentary rock. however, abiotic theorists claim that hydrocarbons (the building block of oil) are not unique to living organisms. in fact, the existence of hydrocarbons can be found on planets such as jupiter and saturn, far too hostile of an environment to have ever supported life. ergo, the same must certainly apply on this planet, in a process that actually occurs far deeper in the earth's core than we are capable of drilling into, and it is in this way that we can prove that the earth's supply of petroleum is not finite after all. in the most cited example, a field located close to eugene island, an island about 80 miles off the shore of louisiana, was waning in production for several years, until a sudden magical catalyst sparked a marked increase in the fields production, literally doubling the production of the past few years. this is taken as evidence for the "refilling and replenishing" theory.

skeptics argue that it's really not a big deal, all they did was drill a few different holes in the same reservoir and kickstarted a slow refilling process from older sedimentary rock that had migrated downward. to be perfectly honest, i don't care who's right anymore, i've been typing this goddamned paper since 9:30 and am confident that NOBODY will read all of the content anyway (i certainly wouldn't) so if you want to read the rest of the argument against the argument, click the link in the bibliography.

CONCLUSION

it is very likely that we are indeed nearing a time in history where the demand for oil will be larger than the sustainable production rate, REGARDLESS of whether oil is abiotic or not. we can only do so much with the materials we have, and the abiotic theory requires drilling far deeper into the earth's surface that modern equipment is capable of doing. and even if abitiocists are right (which would be a good thing, i guess) we certainly shouldn't let it stop us from addressing the petroleum issue anyway. it may be a boring one (as you've just seen) and it may be a controversial one (to people who write enormous essays much in the vein of this one), but there's no question that it's an important one. and anything we can do to educate ourselves about a topic that you don't hear nearly enough about will be a good thing. a good thing.

i ended my paper with the words "a good thing." wow. i MUST be tired.

i did the best i could in trying to present both sides of this argument, so apologies for the enormous length of this topic. i just wanted to be as objective as possible, and... i don't have my own editor. my god. finally. the end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:


http://www.energybulletin.net - the number one definitive source for being a spectator to the apocolypse. every article is better than this one.

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=9692 - matthew simmons' take on the situation

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=9697 - skeptical take on peak oil

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/davemcgowanstalinandabioticoil05mar05.shtml - more vitriolic attack on peak oil and it's proponents

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511686/ - i actually forget what this one is, but surely it IS something

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1130.html - more neutral assessment on the biotic vs. abiotic theories

http://www.museletter.com/archive/150b.html - less neutral assessment on the biotic vs. abiotic theories (sway is towards the biotic)

http://uregina.ca/~radenbat/envgeol/glaciers/Iceages_climatechange.html - interesting site about climate, ice ages, etc... complete with graphs. GRAPHS!

http://www.peakoil.net - if energybulletin is the stadium, the ASPO is the team of physicians waiting on the sidelines.

http://peakoiloptimist.blogspot.com/2005/04/if-we-open-seacocks-is-ship.html - article from "optimist" blog.

http://anthropik.com/2005/04/on-optimism/ - article from "pessimist" blog.

http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm - where i heard the news. thank you, obsession with morose pieces of literature.

[implode]

ow. my head.

:<3: cory

[exemplary citizen]

:<3:

I need to comb through this thoroughly. This is some good shit, man.

And once again, I reiterate my threat that if you don't at least try to make a living at this writing business, I will never forgive you. You've got the gift, Cory.

[implode]

eeehhh. i'm just worried about how much of it is misinformation. i did the best i could to visit both pro-apocolypse (haha. wow.) and anti-apocolypse sites, but they all seemed to only cite the same few studies and such... i mean, with a problem <i>this</i> daunting, i was expecting a little more information that wasn't slanted in some way. but. whatever. that's what peer review is for. but thanks!

[exemplary citizen]

Yeah, I need to comb through it more thoroughly when I really have a chance to sit down and make some actual constructive comments (durr hurr hurr).

But seriously, though. Information about any kind of theoretical apocalypse is pretty much gonna come from those radical fringe groups. I think you've found one of those places where it gets really difficult to find that balanced argument stuff.

[MST3Kakalina]

i like how you included a bibliography. that was cute.


i actually read all of it. i don't know how to respond right now, except for "oh fuck."


quiet you. i haven't eaten a real meal since nearly 24 hours ago, i can't even think straight.

[implode]

ehehe. what? THE INTERNET IS JUST LIKE BOOKS. DAMMIT.

... dammit.

[MST3Kakalina]

i'm reminded of something else one of my friends here told me, how we're probably going to run out of clean water soon too.

in all of this, it'll be funny when the Amish are the ones to pull through this all. we'll be relying on those quaint farmer folks to provide food and jobs for us!

[Ravenous Monkey]

I believe in the "new technologies and resources are discovered and invented before/after oil runs out" argument, as there is too much at stake.

I would think that "they're" not willing to fully support other techs and resources yet as it's not a problem for them - action, reaction - when things start becoming terrible, there'll be more of an incentive for them to act and create alternative means.


You really should write a column or something, I like reading your essays, they're funny (salty vengeance) and informative.


I'll read the links in your bibliography now.


EDIT: I thought of two things while reading the resource investor article.

If prices rise and 70% of oil goes to transportation than you'd expect travel to decrease and people relying on other sources.

Also, I've read somewhere - I hate using that phrase but it's all I've got - that the US has 500 years worth of coal, that could help right? As we rely muchly on that for electricity.

[implode]

right. the problem with that is, when things start getting terrible, people like myself, in the microscopically low income bracket, are the ones that'll be the hardest hit. any amount of inflation at ALL would almost be enough to put us under. which is... unfortunate for me, i suppose.

the thing about the transportation issue is that we've already destroyed a sizeable chunk of real estate with our incredible interstate highway endeavors. the most logical solution would be to build railroads, as it'll not only give us a suitable form of transportation for our limited energy needs, but it'll also give the proles like myself a steady diet of income... but we'd have to deconstruct much of the interstate system first, unless we just want a painfully congested country with constant reminders of of former prosperity in the form of abandoned highways. and this is assuming, of course, that we have the funds to even do so after the massive fallout the economy would take.

we do have a good reserve of coal, yes. that's one of those things we can actually get an accurate count of the reserves of. if all the oil producing countries would just agree to let non partisan inspectors in (if there even is such a thing in the days of multi-billionaire conmen) we could have a much better handle of the actual severity of the situation.

[Forever Finite]

but coal burns so incredibly inefficiently. it's yucky stuff.

what's annoying is that there doesn't seem to be much in the development of new fuel resources. either (very possibly) it is mostly hidden research or it's really being held down by the oil and car companies. whatever. i know how to ride a bike. all the fat people will be stranded at home when one day some guy goes to fill up his car and the all the gas stations everywhere are charging small fortunes per gallon.

[implode]

the true fallout won't be the loss of automobiles, though. it'll be the loss of both the oil trade and the transportation industry on the economy. our dollar won't be worth the paper it's printed on. we'll have to have a moosey bake sale every time one of us needs a new jacket.

[Chakan]

I read through this all too, and although I know all too well about Peak Oil myself, I still think some of this is doomspeak. Humans have lived without oil for well over 1700 years(I'm only counting AD here, too). Oil was sort of discovered by accident, in the 1800's. You see, lamp oil used to be powered by whale blubber, which was dangerous to get and extremely expensive to the average person at the time. A group of guys whose names I forget theorized that their might be another source for power, the beautiful stuff we call black gold. So they set up a drill and voila, they found the stuff and lamp oil prices went from $2(at the time) or so to only a few cents. And from there, the rest is history.

Now, if the average person in the 1800's could survive off of $2 lamp oil prices before the discovery of oil and live pretty comfortably(relatively) without electricity, and if we survived not only the depression, but the frickin' dark ages, it would be reasonable to expect that we, as a species, could survive without oil. But let us also not forget that we have knowledge that people thousands of years ago didn't have during the collapse of Rome, or the end of the world at the time. You see, we know about other sources of power: wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen(which is not a replacement for oil right now because it is more expensive to refine and get than oil is), and there are even some nutballs out there who think, nay, know we can actually produce oil from turkey guts and carrion. Don't believe me? Type "anything into oil" into a search engine and see what you get. We could effectively say Good Bye to dependance on foriegn oil if we can get the process to work on a mass scale.

So what does this mean? Well, we'd probably be far off from a Mad Max type scenario as outlined by Implode, but probably far closer to maybe the great depression or even before then when we didn't even have electricity. Trust me, we'll be far better off than we think we would be, because we would still have libraries and people/scientists with the knowledge and know how to get us power. A few short sighted politicians like Bush won't destroy the world over night. If Thomas Edison could get us electricity before it even existed in our vocabulary, if scientists from Rome and Arabia and China and so forth had advanced knowledge even before oil, we can too.

However, that is not to say that peak oil isn't a big deal. Oh no, it is, but will we really perish in a widespread blackout? Probably not. There are six billion people on this planet, and if even a billion survive from a short time disaster and wide spread anarchy after the lights go off, we'd be better off than the people who had to endure the fall of Rome. Let's not forget that some people are born leaders, some are born strategists, and others still are born bullshitters and politicians. It would only take a short while before they all came together to rebuild society and lead the masses back into a relative prosperous age. And that's the worst case scenario.

There are people working to find alternative fuel sources right as we speak, and even a business man like Bush can see that oil won't last forever and that we need to stop being dependant upon it, otherwise we won't have an economy to monopolize. So, don't pull out the tin foil hats yet and prepare for the end times, and instead break out your science books, calculators, and other gear so that we might be able to find a replacement for oil together. Sitting around and arguing how the world might end doesn't stop it from ending, but people who are willing to work to find a way to keep it from ending will.

PS I really liked your article Implode, even if I don't agree with it. The beginning story and paragraphs of a future apocalypse was captivating alone, and definitely put Peak Oil into terms we could all understand and empathize with.

[exemplary citizen]

I guess the thing that really sort of rubs me the wrong way about our oil consumption in the first place is that petroleum (as a chemical used in plastics and a bunch of other stuff we really can't make any other way) is far, FAR too valuable to be just burning for fuel.

Side tangent there, sorry.

[Ravenous Monkey]

Things would be a lot better, though annoying, if we all/a majority of us lived in cities.

[Chakan]

I guess the thing that really sort of rubs me the wrong way about our oil consumption in the first place is that petroleum (as a chemical used in plastics and a bunch of other stuff we really can't make any other way) is far, FAR too valuable to be just burning for fuel.
No, I agree. The funny thing is, we can have cars that run off of moss, grass, wood chips, corn oil or whatever, because it's the combustion that makes a motor run, not the fuel it's using as a combustion agent that matters. The first car was invented long before oil even existed as a fuel source, anyway.

[implode]

I read through this all too, and although I know all too well about Peak Oil myself, I still think some of this is doomspeak. Humans have lived without oil for well over 1700 years(I'm only counting AD here, too). Oil was sort of discovered by accident, in the 1800's. You see, lamp oil used to be powered by whale blubber, which was dangerous to get and extremely expensive to the average person at the time. A group of guys whose names I forget theorized that their might be another source for power, the beautiful stuff we call black gold. So they set up a drill and voila, they found the stuff and lamp oil prices went from $2(at the time) or so to only a few cents. And from there, the rest is history.

Now, if the average person in the 1800's could survive off of $2 lamp oil prices before the discovery of oil and live pretty comfortably(relatively) without electricity, and if we survived not only the depression, but the frickin' dark ages, it would be reasonable to expect that we, as a species, could survive without oil. But let us also not forget that we have knowledge that people thousands of years ago didn't have during the collapse of Rome, or the end of the world at the time. You see, we know about other sources of power: wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen(which is not a replacement for oil right now because it is more expensive to refine and get than oil is), and there are even some nutballs out there who think, nay, know we can actually produce oil from turkey guts and carrion. Don't believe me? Type "anything into oil" into a search engine and see what you get. We could effectively say Good Bye to dependance on foriegn oil if we can get the process to work on a mass scale. well, i don't think i was actually implying genuine <i>extinction</i> (yes, i realize i used the word "extinction" in the article, but if you look at the context i used it in you can sort of tell i just used it because i couldn't think of a better word.) i, for one, have absolutely no intentions of simply laying down and going extinct if the worst comes to be. as for converting turkey guts and carrion into oil, i've yet to do a google search (god, i hope i'm not cookied under the image search) but i would submit that that's also a finite resource, and a much less abundant one than oil. not mention that there's no fun controversy over whether turkeys are biotic or not.

So what does this mean? Well, we'd probably be far off from a Mad Max type scenario as outlined by Implode haha. i prefer road warrior, myself. but probably far closer to maybe the great depression or even before then when we didn't even have electricity. Trust me, we'll be far better off than we think we would be, because we would still have libraries and people/scientists with the knowledge and know how to get us power. A few short sighted politicians like Bush won't destroy the world over night. If Thomas Edison could get us electricity before it even existed in our vocabulary, if scientists from Rome and Arabia and China and so forth had advanced knowledge even before oil, we can too.

However, that is not to say that peak oil isn't a big deal. Oh no, it is, but will we really perish in a widespread blackout? Probably not. There are six billion people on this planet, and if even a billion survive from a short time disaster and wide spread anarchy after the lights go off, we'd be better off than the people who had to endure the fall of Rome. Let's not forget that some people are born leaders, some are born strategists, and others still are born bullshitters and politicians. It would only take a short while before they all came together to rebuild society and lead the masses back into a relative prosperous age. And that's the worst case scenario. like i said... yeah. but i think it's almost certain people will die. people will go mad, if the worst truly comes to be, since we'll no longer have the fuel to deliver vanilla coke three times a week to their local convenience store. people are fucking crazy. it will be much better if this comes about gradually, giving everyone time to adjust to life without remarkable convenience. to see the economy just <i>cave</i> one week would not be a pretty sight.

There are people working to find alternative fuel sources right as we speak, and even a business man like Bush can see that oil won't last forever and that we need to stop being dependant upon it, otherwise we won't have an economy to monopolize. So, don't pull out the tin foil hats yet and prepare for the end times, and instead break out your science books, calculators, and other gear so that we might be able to find a replacement for oil together. Sitting around and arguing how the world might end doesn't stop it from ending, but people who are willing to work to find a way to keep it from ending will. i must say, your optimism is enviable. i've actually reverted to a relatively neutral state, after an initial onset of powerful paranoia. it was just too easy to visualize all this nonsense coming to a very abrupt end.

PS I really liked your article Implode, even if I don't agree with it. The beginning story and paragraphs of a future apocalypse was captivating alone, and definitely put Peak Oil into terms we could all understand and empathize with. thanks. i actually don't like the first part. i almost cut it. it should have been better. but thanks.

[Chakan]

haha. i prefer road warrior, myself. like i said... yeah. but i think it's almost certain people will die. people will go mad, if the worst truly comes to be, since we'll no longer have the fuel to deliver vanilla coke three times a week to their local convenience store. people are fucking crazy. it will be much better if this comes about gradually, giving everyone time to adjust to life without remarkable convenience. to see the economy just <i>cave</i> one week would not be a pretty sight.
I doubt the economy would collapse immediately, assuming we don't find an alternate fuel before then. Most likely, oil supply will trickle out after going peak, and only the richest will be able to afford it for a while, then eventually, nobody can afford it. There's going to be a rude awakening for those barely making it, to be sure, but it won't be a country wide black out followed by chaos...atleast I hope not. I know the rich will be living it up for a while, while the poor take to the streets. It might be a miniature dark ages all over again, but with with more sporadic energy use or conservation, but again, it depends.

Also, I'm thinking that right before oil goes peak, the United States will buy up all the oil left in the world and sit on it, only giving it to the rich or possibly even giving it out on a sort of communist like basis, with maybe a gallon a week or less per average person/family being handed out. It sounds insane or absolutely horrible, but I can foresee that happening quite easily. All I can say is that American will be reduced to less than one car per person, that's for sure.

i must say, your optimism is enviable. i've actually reverted to a relatively neutral state, after an initial onset of powerful paranoia. it was just too easy to visualize all this nonsense coming to a very abrupt end.
Meh, I'm only optimistic because I know how people tend to work and that things tend to balance themselves out. You know what they say, the future never turns out as good or bad as Optimists and Pessimists say it will. I just hope world governments and people will be smart enough not to let oil run out without a backup. That's like letting yourself die from an injury or disease that is otherwise cureable because you're lazy.

thanks. i actually don't like the first part. i almost cut it. it should have been better. but thanks.
Seriously, the intro rocked. I don't know how you could make it better than it already was. It really felt like something that could happen, and the way you reported it with a bit of journalism and humanity was cool. It almost sounded like something you'd read in Time magazine circa 2050 or something, heh.

[implode]

Also, I'm thinking that right before oil goes peak, the United States will buy up all the oil left in the world and sit on it, only giving it to the rich or possibly even giving it out on a sort of communist like basis, with maybe a gallon a week or less per average person/family being handed out. It sounds insane or absolutely horrible, but I can foresee that happening quite easily. All I can say is that American will be reduced to less than one car per person, that's for sure. i don't think that's insane at all. absolutely horrible? ... yeah, but we're america. when has that ever stopped us before? the thing is, we'll be competing with china when the price goes up, and as the price goes up and we look down at our waning economy... we won't be able to compete. china has almost double our population (note: figure may be wrong and/or stupid) while managing to use 15% less oil than we do, so they'll be in better shape than we are for quite a while.

[MST3Kakalina]

i don't think they'd hand out crude oil to families. it's not like your average household has an oil refinery.

[KLEIN]

try, "china has over 4 times our population".
But most of china is rural and poor.

[Chakan]

i don't think they'd hand out crude oil to families. it's not like your average household has an oil refinery.
Heh, true, but I doubt it would be the CRUDE, unrefined stuff they would give out to the average American. They would probably dole out something useable to the average person. As for China, yeah, most of them are very destitute and rural farmer types, not to mention the ones that do live in cities or towns ride bikes instead of cars, for the most part. I think if America switched to bikes as transportation within a town or local area, we could probably slow the inevitable to a point where we can figure just WHAT to do about peak oil, but that's not only obvious, but an unlikely scenario.

[Ndoki]

Wow. In spite of that article being as clear as oil to me, (if you would pardon the bad pun) I was always amused with the fact that people may complain about rising gas prices, yet it is far less expensive than buying bottled water at the store which 2/3 of our planet is covered in. I would have to agree with the 'alternate energies' point however.

[implode]

well, that's because it's <i>distilled</i> water <i>enhanced with only the finest minerals</i> to assure you that you will be drinking minerals. plus, it's retail - oil prices get jacked up for retail, too. AND, water isn't really that expensive anyway, unless you demand the convenience of a single serving bottle. you can get a gallon of generic brand water for 50 cents, if you want. the extra $1 poland spring charges is for the cost of paying 50,000 employees to make flip-top bottlecaps every day.

[exemplary citizen]

Actually, most of that fancy-schmancy bottled water comes out of municipal wells (tap water) if you read the fine print on the back. But I digress.

[RCCC]

I believe it has been about a week since my last post. I am sorry if it hasn’t been a week. I am going to limit myself and think about what I say on a post. But anyways…
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It is kind of interesting to see someone post something like this. My last essay I did was a bibliography on Oil Drilling, but I ended up getting a 68 on it due to poor citations (I didn’t use MLA style) If you don’t believe me, I could always attached the documents. For some reason I haven’t deleted it yet.

I didn’t really read much of what implode posted, but for the little I have read it is interesting. I know we as Americans use an astonishing 16 million barrels a day (this is what I read, I don’t know if any data has changed.) Our country is only producing 1 million barrels a day. I am glad to see the oil drilling in the Arctic Preserve has been authorized. There is believed to be lots of oil in 1002 area of the preserve. Yet I am unsure if they are drilling there yet, due to the people that lost the vote, they are doing everything to prevent this; I forget what it is called, but they are threatening to use some sort of Ice Breaking thing (sorry I just don’t remember what it is called.) this will only slow the progress on the oil drilling. I really do approve of President Bushes efforts in authorizing this. We need all the oil we can get.

To be honest, I try not to worry about the subject. It is always interesting to look at this subject matter though. There is many new ways to produce energy coming out, and so I don’t see much danger. What I do know in the near future the government is going to try to slowly convert us to electric automobiles. With gas prices jacking up I think there will be no choice. I am not sure how endangered other countries are to this, but I think it is safe in the U.S.
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Please, if my opinions are stupid or offensive, just ignore them.

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Quote:
Please, if my opinions are stupid or offensive, just ignore them.

that's a silly way to think about it. wouldn't you want to know if your opinions were stupid or offensive, so you could work on formulating some that weren't?

anyway, the point is not that we're running out of oil, and it never has been. the point is that oil will no longer be profitable to buy and sell, which is the staple of the dominant U.S. economy. if the price of oil skyrockets, the stock market loses both the benefits of the transportation industry AND the oil trade, multi-million dollar industries go belly-up, the price of deodorant becomes $75 a stick, and we all share one big bowl of sand-flavored dirt for dinner.

Thank you, that is a good point
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I should have read more. But you do bring up a good subject.

[implode]

Please, if my opinions are stupid or offensive, just ignore them. that's a silly way to think about it. wouldn't you <i>want</i> to know if your opinions were stupid or offensive, so you could work on formulating some that weren't?

anyway, the point is not that we're running out of oil, and it never has been. the point is that oil will no longer be profitable to buy and sell, which is the staple of the dominant U.S. economy. if the price of oil skyrockets, the stock market loses both the benefits of the transportation industry AND the oil trade, multi-million dollar industries go belly-up, the price of deodorant becomes $75 a stick, and we all share one big bowl of sand-flavored dirt for dinner.