>Energy is fundamental to the economy. It is very fundamental. If a future in which California decides it is expedient to extract the oil under its lands and wa

>Energy is fundamental to the economy. It is very fundamental. If a future in which California decides it is expedient to extract the oil under its lands and waters is one in which there's been widespread economic disruption, it's possible that the total decrease in economic output would lower the price of oil. This is a very good point. Edit: on a related note, though, the state can't really borrow money, and generally spends as much as it takes in. (and tax revenues vary wildly with our rapid boom-bust cycles.) - In a very real way, the worse the California economy is doing, the more each dollar of extra revenue would help. >Peak oil will happen, it's merely a question of when it will (or whether it already has). The economic, political, social, and other factors associated with it may not be triggered for some time after, though again, perhaps they've already started. My problem with peak oil is that we have fission technology right here, ready to go. It's way cleaner, and way safer than coal. We've got enough uranium to party for a few more generations, and many generations after that if we put some effort into using the stuff more efficiently. It's just political resistance that keeps us on coal/gas instead of fission for our 'in place' generation. And yeah, not all of our energy use is in-place. But having a good source of cheap and mostly clean electricity? it helps a lot. Heck, there's a lot of oil about that takes more energy to extract than the oil will yield, right? if we have cheap fission power to pump in, well, more of that starts to make sense. So yeah; while cheap fission will power the gears of industry, and long-term can power much of our transport, well, it's going to be a long time before oil stops making sense for transport. (I mean, electrified freight trains? probably realistic. fission-powered container ships? maybe not so realistic.) And also, I'm being optimistic; I'm assuming that because we have fission, and because it's proven and safe (compared to the alternatives... which is to say, not completely safe, but reasonably so.) we will overcome the political resistance before things get really bad. It's possible I'm wrong.