Sorry.

On the 100 million barrel per day number, I have long felt that the world suppliers cannot get there either (in agreement with you) but they constantly insist they can, so I simply said, in effect, okay fine, even IF they can deliver the 100 mill, is there any chance that (a) the developed nations can deliver the money it would take to buy over 100 million barrels per day (unless we assume the oil price drops back to $20 per barrel) and does anyone assume that the world, which is already near hysteria regarding carbon release would accept the carbon release from over 100 million barrels per day?

And yeah, Copenhagen was a joke, but it was intended to be from the start, a way to humiliate any of the nations who came there to show off and then couldn't commit (Obama walked into that one, actually Bush used to play it smarter, saying simply that we won't commit to anything because we may not live up to it! He at least wasn't made to look like a loser in front of the world on camara, at least not on that issue) but Copenhagen is a blip, all the political pressure from the greens in Europe and the moderate to left of center in the U.S., Japan and China are on the side of carbon limits, the argument is simply over who is going to have to foot most of the bill.

To your closing point "Modern man owes just about his entire exsistance to fossil fuel and our entire infrastructure is built on it so we aint going to stop using it any time soon, developed nation or not", I agree absolutely. But as many people here on TOD point out, it does not require the stopping of the use of oil to be revolutionary, simply a stopping of the growth of the use of oil would radically alter the economics of the industry. If this were caused by peak supply (as many here on TOD assume will happen first) or peak demand first (as oil suppliers, in particular OPEC, are showing increasing worry about) the effects on the investment of billions of dollars (possibly even trillions worldwide over years) wuld be altered. Why would the Saudi's and others invest in huge development plans if they could not be assured a growing demand curve to help drive price for the product? Why would the Brazilians be willing to spend billions far out in the ocean unless they can be assured of a growing demand curve? The fact that oil will still be used in some considerable amount well up to the year 2100 (and I think that is absolutely the case) does them no good in recouping those massive investments.

Again, sorry if my ideas on this don't seem to suit, but I have tried to chess game this one, and come up with some other sensible option, but I am going to bet with the ones who seem to get things right over and over again, the Saudi's, who are convinced that their hardest job will not be to find oil but instead to find customers with both demand for more oil and with money to buy it. The times they are a changin'...

RC

So we all seem to agree that contrary to what the Saudi's are saying, 100 million barrels per day, never (Christophe de Margerie, exploration cheif and later big cheese at Total of France has been saying that for years), what we are now discussing is whether it will be becausee of peak oil happening befor demand peaks, or peak demand hits before peak supply hits...

And the only reason the order of the above events matter is because one (peak supply first) is much harder on the economy of the world than the alternative (peak demand happens first), because as you pointed out Ron, the two will have to match out before long (supply and demand).

To the question of what will replace oil, I will not go back into how much will move over to natural gas and use of electric grid power to shift off of oil, but that will happen in a bigger way than most folks probably assume (think of how oil use for electric power production essentially disappeared after the 1970's crisis and in less than a decade, one of the most radical switching operations in energy history), but point out that a lot of oil consumption will be wiped out simply by waste reduction (logistical changes in business and transportation) and vehicles that waste less fuel...we could argue the exact technology and details all day, but I am accepting as my first premise that oil consumption will NOT recover as the economy recovers, and that recovery is turning out to be a pretty wobbly one anyway.

The oil companies may have to wait awhile to see any real increase in oil demand...but I don't have to go through all this explanation, simply go and find some old magazines and newspapers from 1982 and points just after, and imagine if the technology to reduce oil waste had been about 10 times better. Even if with crap technology oil demand collapsed for over a decade after the last recession...one wonders when we will see the old high on the demand side this time...my bet, NEVER, but even if it we did get back in 15 or 20 years (and that is not unrealistic even if we ever recover given the example of the 1980's, we would be talking about reaching the old oil consumption high in about 2025 or 2030...but that is assuming a dead technology stop on efficiency design for the upcoming two decades...

I just can't make that scenario work either, but if I'm completely wrong, I will suffer worst, because I am pretty much betting my investment and planning on the scenario I have outlined (no return to old oil consumption levels, or if ever, 15 years out as a hedge bet)...you have to bet your money on something...:-) so wish me luck!

RC

After all what is energy but economic voltage. At least the real potential in the real useful work arena. When the economies of the world expanded to the limits of capacity at the $147. intersection peak demand met peak flows and the 'grid' went down. To my knowlege that had never happened before globally due to (oil) energy constraint. (70's but then the cheap oil flowed again) Now the re-start is proving difficult for many of those economies. You might say the peak demand is still too great.

Those with ample cash or current accounts might shock the patient back to life with real stimulus. Those with energy surpluses have enough real capital to get up and running by drawing from underground or potential real energy accounts. Those inefficient (bloated, high caloric) sections are faced with a new paradigm to overcome. They are in deficit and their economies are not configured properly to function in a lower capacity system.

They can call it peak demand (I know that's not the argument) because the capacity to ultilize the available oil production is hemmed in by the inability to create economic projects on the one side due to debt load and on the other side by unaffordable/unavalable oil. The box canyon. Choices are really limited if these local grids want to get back on their feet. Crash efficiency and conservation along with renewables and a drastic reduction in wealth. (load shedding to stay with the analogy) Or the Olduvial slide.

It won't really matter what the actual price of oil is for them ,there will never again be enough to support most OECD economies in the manner to which they became accustomed. Economies which are getting up and running due to resources, wealth, or efficiency will continue on and outbid them for oil whether they inflate, deflate, or just stagflate on.

Bob,

If you like Pete Seeger, you'll love his new book, Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singalong Memoir, ISBN978-0-393861-4, 300+pages plus an MP3 with snips from hundreds of songs. My wife bought a copy for me for Christmas since I sort of play guitar and some other instruments. A truly amazing book!!!

Stories; words and music to all kinds of songs (some are his, some are others), anecdotes, TAB some for guitar or banjo, some chords and odd tunings, hints galore. It's a never ending stream of enjoyment!

Todd

"Whether one liked him or not, I think the death of Michael Jackson hit the immortal rock generation pretty hard",

And of course the very image of youthful beauty at about the same time, Farah Fawcett. With the loss of George Harrison a few years ago...the seventies suddenly seemed very, very long ago...

I have discussed in posts here on TOD that with or without peak oil, the biggest "die-off" in history is indeed coming, and it has profound implications.

The whole post war economy of the developed world can be summed up in one word: "Boomer". The economy was driven by and built by the boomers. As the boomer generation grew and rose in prosperity, influence and power, so to did the economy. Can we make the assumption that the curve will follow the boomers on into their declining and finally dying years?

The recent so called "banking crisis" was at the essential level the first stripping away of the power and wealth of an aging generation that seems no longer able to defend itself. This is why it was frightening in its implications to boomers. They find that with age comes weakness, a loss of the power and influence needed to defend all they have worked for. They are getting a hard taste of reality, the reality that faces all aging people of every age and time: They are now dependent upon the mercy of the young.

But there are so many of us! There will be so much to take...the homes, the cars, the wealth in the annuities and the pension funds, the benefits checks from the most over insured generation in history, we are seeing the beginning of the greatest wealth transfer from generation to generation in history, and we have a front row seat.

Only the wisest and cleverest of the aging population will be able to defend their wealth in their declining years. They cannot count on "law" to do it: We recently saw conduct by the banking and financial community that would have been considered so outlandish, so immoral, so lacking in any sense of decency or of fudiciary responsiblity so as be considered unthinkable only a few years ago, and the law did and will continue to do nothing to prevent it. The law, like the financial community is now controlled by the young.

This is why men such as Warren Buffet are now the cultural heros to the boomers, the example of the aging man who seems to be able to hold on to his financial power and influence in a world that is decreasingly friendly to aging people.

Surely the most vulnerable are aging single people and in particular aging single females. Who will help defend them as they get older, get ill, who will even help them handle the documents and make the ever more complex decisions as their abilities decline? If the boomers do not begin to relearn how to bond together to help each other, they will be left derelict, alone and pathetic and penniless in a place they no longer recognise and cannot comprehend. The generation that "bowled alone", that renounced in large percentage the bonding of marraige and family, will have no allies.

The fear of such abstractions as "peak oil", even if we are aware of them at all, are pushed aside by the very real battle to survive in an increasingly hostile land.

Some here on TOD often say that the biggest driver of coming change will be resource depletion, and that may turn out to be so. But the assured driver that is already underway is the absoluteness of the biggest demographic change in modern history, the decline and dying away of the biggest, wealthiest, most creative and inventive generation in history, a generation that not only built new ways of thinking and seeing in the cultural and social sense, but also in the technologies, financial and political arts. The world looks as it does, feels and sounds as it does, thinks about wealth and culture and science and art and even sex and love as it does because of the massive influence of the baby boom generation of the developed world. Not since the priests of the ancient Egyptians or the influence of the Latin based church and the Gothic cathedral builders of the birth of modern Europe has any one generation been so influentual at creating a world aesthetic, a world economy, a world philosophy and view of existence, a world as we know it.

Time and death has ordained TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) whether peak oil occurs soon or not (and it will occur if it has not already by the way, we just don't know exactly when). The shock to the boomers at the extinction of the world they have known will be more than enough to break the will of the aging boomers even without peak oil occuring soon. If peak oil is at hand, it can simply be heaped onto the challenges already facing a generation being cut from its existential roots, one more bit of crap to be dealt with in those "golden years"...

Roger Conner

RC

With all due respect, your quote is a bit outdated regarding the soot emissions of diesels. The article's claim about soot uses the word "historically" when referring to soot emissions. The presently marketed diesel designs emit much less soot compared with the traditional designs of a few decades ago.

Furthermore, direct injection gasoline engines have appeared which can operate at the higher expansion rations of the diesels, thus giving improved efficiency over older gasoline based designs. Then too, when coupled to a hybrid transmission system, gasoline engines are already capable of achieving the MPG of diesel designs, even without direct gasoline injection.

One of the big advantages to a hybrid is that the engine can be shutdown while sitting at a stoplight or caught in traffic, further cutting the otherwise wasteful consumption of fuel. Another advantage of a hybrid is the ability to capture some of the energy traditionally lost when breaking, returning that energy to the drive wheels on acceleration. By building a mix of small diesel and gas hybrid vehicles, there's no reason to think that there would be a problem with a shortage of diesel going forward. All that would be needed in the US would be higher pump prices for transport fuel, prices similar to those already found in Europe or Japan.

E. Swanson

The quarterly report to Congress was released Sunday.

This is some pretty explosive information to be released on a Sunday. Usually when the govt. has bad news it is released on a Friday, just after the markets close. Tomorrow should be interesting, whether the information is ignored or bank stocks take a tumble, it will tell us something about the mentality of the investors at this juncture.

Flooding the economy with more borrowed money was never a solution, nor could it "break the fall." It's analogous to a junkie in withdrawal who just can't take it anymore, and begs for one more hit to get him through.

Except that unlike the junkie we're in much deeper now, more addicted and worse off than we were before that rescue-hit was administered. The next time the unwind begins anew, we'll have that much less opportunity and resources to undertake mitigation strategies, like WPA projects or soup kitchens.

Unless, of course, the intent all along was only to save the plutocracy and cut the working people adrift.

E of state, it may be helping but its not doing the trick. If foreclosures are continuing to increase then we are still stuck with how to stop them from continuing to increase. It's like a runaway train that is now doing 50 instead of 70 - its still going to crash, just not as fast.

More like, you jump out of an airplane that's going to crash, but your parachute doesn't deploy. Fortunately, you fall onto the top of a big balloon that is climbing out of control. You're not quite sure when the balloon will pop and you have to fall again, but it's inevitable. When it does, though, you'll be even farther up than when you jumped in the first place. Are you better off or not?

NOliver, We seem to have endless inspired visions from our fearless leaders. As a follow up to how people will not listen, i sent the following letter to the editor of our local newspaper. 1 week later there was no response. Nothing , Zero, Zip, Nada.

When will we get it?

Ten years ago I sent a rather detailed letter, with supporting data, to all members of the County Council, predicting the price of Crude oil would exceed $75.00 per barrel by the end of the decade. I also predicted that would cause economic turmoil. The purpose was to highlight the need for faster implementation of alternative energy sources. At the time oil was $15.00. Needless to say I received polite dismissal of this prediction from both the council and members of the general public.. A couple of inevitable letters about how there is enough oil for ten thousand years hit the press.
Even I did not foresee the rise to almost twice that number, but, in 2008, the world economy melted down two months after oil hit $147 per barrel, I do not believe that the price of oil was the cause of the meltdown, toxic financial instruments did that, High oil prices, and the demand destruction thus created, supplied the tipping point.
The same data and people, who allowed me to accurately make that prediction, now lead me to another. Ten years from today, the world will be producing, and therefore using, 25% less liquid fuels than we do today. There are many reasons for this, some geological, some economic, which I will not get into here, Since capitalism requires growth, and growth, to date, has always required more cheap energy, I am, therefore, very pessimistic about our economic future.
There are far too many variables to accurately predict what this will mean with any precision, but I can guarantee it will not be business as usual, or as we knew it a couple years ago.
I don't wish to leave the impression that the situation we are in had to be this way. There are things we could have done and perhaps still can do, alternatives we could develop. Unfortunately we do not presently have the political will, public support or financial capability to do what is necessary. I hope we can get some of all three soon. We certainly don't have much time.

True NO. Same Wondrous Words we got from Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton. What's that definition of insanity: doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Perhaps President Obama may not have the same opportunity to let matters slide as past leaders have. We've fairly well proved we're not very good at planning to avoid a crisis. But we're hell on wheels when it comes to reacting to a crisis.

Well, to some degree, I still see them as 'squeaky wheels'.. they make a lot of noise, but don't actually throw much weight.. except that they're frequently OVERweight now.. but that also helps reduce the actual 'Throwability'

So what happens when the squeaky wheels who used to get the grease.. can't find any more grease? Sometimes that irritating squeak (like ignorance) can be fixed with a good knock of reality upside the head. Ignorance is a bit of a convenience, and I think we're heading into some INconvenient waters..

This feature was written some five months ago. Does anyone see anything to conflict with what was said? A lot of words have passed but little actually done to mitigate the problem. IMHO People will only re-act to reality in the form of water rising on the seacoast or fuel at well over $10/gal.