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You're begging the question of how large the gulf is between our current standard of living and what's sustainable as well as the time needed to mature the alte
by roc 16y ago
You're begging the question of how large the gulf is between our current standard of living and what's sustainable as well as the time needed to mature the alternatives.
The peak itself was never billed as a dramatic moment of change. It's simply a leading indicator of an impending, rapid, potentially disastrous, reconciliation of past and future standards of living.
In the case of oil, if you don't pay attention to it, you'll never be able to bring up alternatives or nuclear nearly fast enough to avoid serious economic shocks.
Water's easier, at least in America, because so much of it is literally wasted on American lawns. You can avoid quite a bit of economic shock with an order to shut off sprinklers.
But that's what the peak is all about: the canary in the coal mine. You're still alive and well when the bird pitches over. But you should probably take the hint, because you might not have enough time if you wait until it starts to notably impact you.
- tbrownaw 16y agoNo, I'm saying there's really no reason to expect a "rapid" change after peak. It's not like all the world's oil is coming from one upended bottle that'll just suddenly run dry, there are many different fields with different amounts left and different costs of extraction. Right now it looks like some of the larger fields (particularly the alberta tar sands) are becoming economical, and also various alternatives (wind, solar) are becoming economical.
- roc 16y agoI'm using "rapid" as on a time scale of development and rollout of infrastructure technology. If the price of oil triples in 2 years, that's pretty darn rapid, because people will need to adjust their lifestyles for years before the alternatives and technological improvements can possibly be produced, delivered and installed. I'm not suggesting the oil will all one day run out. But the sum production will drop. And the world's appetite will no longer be met and the bidding on the remaining oil production will skyrocket. We saw this when the price of oil shot from 30/barrel to 100 over 3 years. Life changed and alternatives, though now-viable are still a decade away. And that was due a fairly small increase in total demand, due growth in Asia. If you ignore the peak and wait until that first press conference from OPEC, when the world economy starts to regain its footing but they're still cutting production; your electric cars are a decade away from mass production. your solar panels are a decade away from mass production. your nuclear plants are a generation away from being built.