Time To Prepare For Global Oil Peak - Fairbanks News-Miner

[hatrack]

EDIT

"I concur with their analysis. In my own book, "Scarcity and Growth Considering Oil and Energy," I highlight other, more complex, arguments behind the peak, but nevertheless a peak in world production will soon be upon us and will hit today's economy even as hard as the 1930s Great Depression. In fact, I predict that an oil price shock will happen in one to five years.

Another organization, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, also supports this timeline. Unfortunately, most government and nongovernment reports support a 10- to 30-year time frame before oil shortages occur. Even so, we must start preparing now for that eventuality, and organizations like the Post Carbon Institute are helping people to do that.

Immediately upon hearing about the peak in oil production, most people argue that hydrogen fuel cells, corn-based methanol, or solar energy will be developed to replace oil. In fact, most members in my own professional organization, the International Association for Energy Economics, believe that technology can overcome any resource shortage, even an oil shortage.

Yet economic evidence shows that high oil prices indeed negatively and substantially affect the economy. Here again the movie does a good job of showing just how difficult it will be for these alternatives to replace oil. If you look at such concepts as the energy per acre of a corn field versus an oil field, then it is clear how inadequate these alternatives are compared with oil."

EDIT

Interesting op-ed, but let's just say I don't agree on his support of coal. :puke:

http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7252~2619370,00.html

[evil genius]

1. you believe anything the News-Miner says?

That bastion of liberal bias? Jeepers. Are you in Fairbanks? If so, how's the twenty below?

[hatrack]

2. No, no, I'm safely way down in the lower 48

I just thought it was interesting that the NM would run anything that didn't follow the party line, given that the Miner makes the Anchorage Times look like the Guardian.

[rfkrfk]

3. behavioral changes, take time

It takes time for an airline to run out
of money, and then conserve {by ceasing operation}.
It takes time, for third world electric producers
that run diesel generators, to run out of money
and then conserve {by ceasing operation}.
There are lots of other situations that are losing
money at USD 42 per barrel, be patient.