# How bad do you think peak oil will be **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118 "2010-01-31T17:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/81 "2010-02-02T05:31:11Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > [Nonsense](http://mises.org/story/1892). [1985](http://futures.tradingcharts.com/historical/CO/1985/0/continuous.html) Looks to be an average of approx $28 [Current](http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/M) approx Average $72 Utilizing those figures = 257.14% ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/82 "2010-02-02T05:40:18Z")
[QUOTE=flickster] Utilizing those figures = 257.14% [/QUOTE] Are those in adjusted dollars? IIRC, a dollar in the 80’s is equivelent to about $2.50 in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/83 "2010-02-02T05:42:27Z")
> [@flickster](#): > > [1985](http://futures.tradingcharts.com/historical/CO/1985/0/continuous.html) > > Looks to be an average of approx $28 > > [Current](http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/M) > > approx Average $72 > > Utilizing those figures = 257.14% $28 in 1985 is equivalent to $58 today. The price of oil has gone up less than the price of bread ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/84 "2010-02-03T14:29:33Z")
> [@flickster](#): > > As for the vehicle to person ratio - I doubt there is a significant vehicle per capita difference over the past 25 years As long as we’re betting out of our butts, I bet it’s doubled. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/85 "2010-02-03T16:44:33Z")
World wide or just in the US? If world wide my bet is it’s significantly more than doubled. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/86 "2010-02-03T16:50:38Z")
From this [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States)article: > [@](#): > > Since 1960, the number of passenger vehicles has steadily risen, and since 1972 has exceeded the number of licensed drivers. Considering the population in the United States of 293,655,404 during the 2004 economic survey,[13] there is one passenger vehicles for every 1.20 persons in the United States, meaning that there are 833.34 passenger vehicles for every 1,000 Americans. According to the Federal Highway Administration there were an estimated 196 million licensed drivers in the United States in the year 2003. Considering the slightly lower number of motor vehicles for 2003, there were an estimated 1.17 motor vehicles per licensed driver, meaning that there are more vehicles than drivers in the US, with vehicles outnumbering drivers 1.2 to one. > > The number of motor vehicles in the US has risen by 157 million (212.16%) since 1960, while the population of licensed drivers grew by 109 million (125.28%). Between 1971 and 1972, the number of motor vehicles in the US increased by four million, a record at the time. Since then, the gap between the number of cars and drivers has continuously risen. While in 1972 there were only one million more motor vehicles than drivers, cars outnumber drivers by 35 million in 2003. This means that while there were 0.84% more motor vehicles than drivers in 1972, there are now 17.85% more vehicles than drivers.[1] -XT ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/87 "2010-02-03T18:18:04Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > No, they don’t. What they need to do is figure out a way to make the folks who think Peak Oil is a-comin round the mountain understand basic economics and market economies. The alternatives are ALREADY HERE. But even if you could build one today that made a product priced at $2.50 a gallon you STILL would have trouble selling the process, since there would be a huge initial capital outlay of money to get it up and running. > > -XT And people need to understand that no one is going to make that capital outlay, over a period of years, just because oil pops up in price. If the breakeven point of coal-to-oil is $75/bbl., having one day of $75.01 oil, or even two months of $140 oil, does not justify building a giant coal to oil plant. Any energy exec., for instance, who spent a couple billion dollars to bring online a, say, biomass fuel plant that is only competitive when oil is $100/bbl., might be feeling pretty stupid now. To make capital investment safe, oil has to stay really high, for a really long time. Despite recent spikes, it has not consistently done so, in inflation adjusted dollars, in the past years or decades. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/88 "2010-02-03T19:16:27Z")
Exactly. -XT ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/89 "2010-02-03T23:11:27Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > World wide or just in the US? If world wide my bet is it’s significantly more than doubled. > > -XT Even if it has increased (US), what is the impact? Once you go beyond a ratio or 1/1, it really doesn’t matter unless some people have figured out how to drive more than one vehicle at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Kokopilau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Kokopilau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kokopilau)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/90 "2010-02-03T23:54:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > From [_The City in Mind,_](http://www.amazon.com/City-Mind-Notes-Urban-Condition/dp/B0000C2W6A/sr=8-1/qid=1166738461/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9788122-0265632?ie=UTF8&s=books) by [James Howard Kunstler,](http://www.kunstler.com/index.php) chapter on Atlanta, pp. 73-75: You’ve posted this Kunstler quote (and others) in Peak Oil threads before, BrainGlutton. And I wish you’d stop, because Kunstler is a crank who slavers eagerly over the idea of Western civilization collapsing. He first latched onto Y2K, making grand predictions about its terrible effect on modern society that he’s [recycled pretty much verbatim for Peak Oil](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9746442&postcount=53). He’s utterly useless as any kind of authority about Peak Oil, and even less so about what its true effects are likely to be, because all of his predictions are colored by his hatred of modern civilization. He thinks Peak Oil will wreck civilization solely because he _wants_ civilization wrecked, just like he thought Y2K would wreck civilization because he wanted civilization wrecked. Here’s a sample quote: “For five years, I had been flying around the country \*\*telling college lecture audiences and conference-goers that our fucked up everyday environment of strip malls, tracts houses, outlet malls, parking lots and other accessories of the national automobile slum was liable to put us out of business as a civilization. \*\*I asserted that the culture growing in this foul medium had gotten so bloated and diseased that it would succumb sooner rather than later to its own idiot inertia. I still believe that today. **It is both a conviction and a _wish_** , because to go on in our current mode would be culturally suicidal.” All emphasis added. You can see more about how he’s looking forward to the end of western civilization [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10435326&postcount=27). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/91 "2010-02-03T23:55:58Z")
Alternatives are good, but I don’t know how fast the decline after peak oil will be. If the peak is 80 million barrels a day of oil, the decline might be by 2-3 million barrels/day per year after that. Developing the infrastructure to reduce demand and increase supply (of other forms of oil or other forms of energy) to make up for a gap of 2-3 million barrels/day each year might not be as easy as people think. Like I said earlier, drilling in ANWAR and the arctic will take a decade to see results. By then oil supply may have dropped by 20 million barrels a day. Same with algae biofuels, or tar sands. Unless they can get those up and running to the tune of 2-3 million extra barrels a year, it is going to cause a shortage of supply to meet demand. As a result our lifestyle may have to change for a transition period. However, from what I’ve seen there is a lot of inefficiency (at least in the US) when it comes to oil use, so I doubt it’ll have seriously negative consequences. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/92 "2010-02-04T03:57:01Z")
> [@Kokopilau](#): > > And I wish you’d stop, because Kunstler is a crank who slavers eagerly over the idea of Western civilization collapsing. :dubious: “Slavers eagerly”? I don’t get that from _The Long Emergency._ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/93 "2010-02-04T04:00:02Z")
And, yes, I’ve read _World Made By Hand,_ and it is not in any sense a utopian novel. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/94 "2010-02-04T05:45:16Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Alternatives are good, but I don’t know how fast the decline after peak oil will be. Please, there is nothing special about the day that we start producing less oil than the day before. It’s not like prices are going to be steady and then one day the Coyote looks down and realizes he needs to raise prices. As demand increases, and supply can not keep up, the price will rise gradually. The sudden changes in prices we have seen are a result of cartels and the threat of military conflict. Oil producers are at least as smart as you. They look ahead and try and maximize their profits. If they think that a few years from now they will get two or three more for oil than they get now, they will slow production and wait. ---
**Author:** ![Kokopilau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Kokopilau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kokopilau)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/95 "2010-02-04T14:17:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: “Slavers eagerly”? I don’t get that from _The Long Emergency._ At the very least, he \*wants \*modern Western civilization to collapse, has flat-out said so, and uses almost the _exact same phraseology_ to describe what he thinks the result of Peak Oil will be that he did to describe what he thought the result of Y2K would be. And for the same reason - he’s not analyzing the potential consequences of those looming disasters, he’s using them as a way of expressing his wish that civilization collapse and be returned to a more primitive and “eco-friendly” way of life. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/96 "2010-02-04T14:46:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Who are these people? Nobody is predicting that we’ll develop other sources of energy that are as cheap as gasoline. If there were other sources of energy that were as cheap as gasoline, we’d be using them already. More accurately, the replacement sources of energy are projected to be cost-comparable to gasoline _relative to the size of the economy and average personal income_, even if they’re more expensive on an absolute (whatever that means in this context) basis. The former is what matters in terms of maintaining modern First World lifestyles. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/97 "2010-02-04T14:59:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > An analogy I’ve made before is winning the lottery. A person wins the lottery and their lifestyle is going to change. They can suddenly can afford things they never could before. But the fact that they have a lot of money now doesn’t mean that they have all the money they’ll ever need forever. If they won five million dollars and spend $250,000 a year, they’re going to run out in about twenty years. But somebody tells them _“You only have so much money. You should be making plans now for what you’re going to do when it starts to run out.”_ and they say _“Money’s not a problem. I have lots of money. And if I ever do run out of the money I have now, I’ll just figure out some other way to get $250,000 a year to spend.”_ The analogy is irrelevant, because it attempts to apply the effects of a unique event (winning the lottery) to the effects of a common event (transitioning from one technology to another as problems with the old one or improvements in the new one reach a tipping point), in a case where the effects of the common event are well known from experience and do not bear any resemblance to the effects of the unique event. The Kunstler argument is equivalent to suggesting that you should avoid the water fountain, because **this time** (unlike any of the last thousand times) it’s going to unleash a tidal wave and drown you. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/98 "2010-02-04T15:39:33Z")
> [@Kokopilau](#): > > Here’s a sample quote: > “ **For five years, I had been flying around the country** telling college lecture audiences and conference-goers that our fucked up everyday environment of strip malls, tracts houses, outlet malls, parking lots and other accessories of the national automobile slum was liable to put us out of business as a civilization. I asserted that the culture growing in this foul medium had gotten so bloated and diseased that it would succumb sooner rather than later to its own idiot inertia. I still believe that today. It is both a conviction and a _wish_, because to go on in our current mode would be culturally suicidal.” > > All emphasis added. Emphasis in this version somewhat refocused. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118/99 "2010-02-04T18:21:15Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Emphasis in this version somewhat refocused. Funny that he was flying around. Couldn’t he walk or ride a horse or something? Doesn’t he know that airplanes are an unsustainable blight on society foisted on us by corporations that have an unhealthy relationship with the military industrial complex? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-do-you-think-peak-oil-will-be/527118.md?page=4)