# The end of the oil era: The fall of civilization, or just a bump in the road? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 24, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075 "2003-06-24T17:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**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:** [April 25, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/221 "2014-04-25T23:02:10Z")
And [another](http://seekingalpha.com/article/841401-peak-oil-myth-debunking-the-peak-oil-theory) one: > [@](#): > > Peak Oil Myth: Debunking The Peak Oil Theory > Sep. 1, 2012 9:08 AM ET | Includes: BP, CLNE, CVX, GLF, SDRL, WPRT, XOM > > Disclosure: I am long CVX, XOM. (More…) > > One of the most important energy theories for investors in energy of any sorts is the notion of “peak oil”, or the idea that at some point, we’re going to hit a certain amount of oil production, and then we’re going to have to naturally start producing less going forward from that middle point. > > This makes sense if one doesn’t understand the nature of innovation, the basics of economics, or the business of oil production. But once we analyze those angles, the theory falls apart. > > Most importantly, let’s look at what this all means for those investors of us who are looking forward to being long-term investors in energy of all sorts, including oil and natural gas. > [@](#): > > The Theory: What Is Peak Oil? > > The Financial Times Lexicon explains the definition: > > ``` > "The debate over 'peak oil' - the point at which the world's oil supplies go into irreversible decline - is a long-running argument that has not yet had much impact on energy policy." > > ``` > > For the purpose of this article, we’re focusing on the notion of “irreversible decline.” If production happens to begin declining due to a lack of demand because of electric cars or something, that’s not necessarily peak oil. > > Peak oil is the notion that we actually begin to run out of oil, and production is less because we can’t find enough to produce. Unfortunately, most new research goes against the notion of peak oil. > > Every few years, another author comes out and says that we just reached peak oil and should begin preparing for the onslaught that will be starting to occur – then, of course, it doesn’t occur, mostly for the following 3 reasons. > [@](#): > > Problem 1: Innovation Changes Economically Recoverable Oil Supply > > When economists begin formulating theories, they often make one of the most critical mistakes possible – something, thankfully, the Austrian school doesn’t do. They begin assuming that economics involves static numbers. > > George Soros’s theory of reflexivity is probably one of the most important concepts investors should learn to understand. It’s the notion that people react to people and change their actions, and the other people react to the changes, creating an endless feedback loop. ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/222 "2014-04-25T23:25:54Z")
Hey XT This is starting to feel like Spingears “Will we see $2.00 gas” thread, from back in '07, all over again. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/223 "2014-04-26T00:37:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Very few people use helicopters for casual travel nowadays. People drive cars for casual travel. But suppose the price of cars was going up. At some point, the price of a car might equal the price of a helicopter. > > But that doesn’t mean that people will then switch to helicopters for their casual travel. The people that can’t afford a helicopter now won’t be able to afford a helicopter then either. The difference will be that people that can’t afford a helicopter now won’t be able to afford a car either when cars get as expensive as helicopters. So these people will just not casually travel. Very few people use helicopters for casual travel anymore in the US because the tax breaks from owning private aircraft have largely disappeared. If they were to reintroduce them, then you would see the sky as full of private planes and helicopters as it was in the 1970s. Also, the insurance rates for helicopters is much higher than it was in the past. It’s unaffordable for all but the extremely wealthy to use helicopters for short-range transport. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/224 "2014-04-26T05:59:23Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > Very few people use helicopters for casual travel anymore in the US because the tax breaks from owning private aircraft have largely disappeared. If they were to reintroduce them, then you would see the sky as full of private planes and helicopters as it was in the 1970s. > > Also, the insurance rates for helicopters is much higher than it was in the past. It’s unaffordable for all but the extremely wealthy to use helicopters for short-range transport. Are you saying there was a period when helicopters were used for casual travel in the United States? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/225 "2014-04-26T15:13:25Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I am pretty dang sure that we will not find an energy source cheaper than gasoline in 1990. We already don’t have an energy source cheaper than that, gasoline is much more expensive in 2014 than it was in 1990. No, electricity is cheaper than gasoline in 1990, and if trends continue, electricity from wind and especially solar will be cheaper than it is now, possibly by a wide margin. The problem isn’t with cheap fuel, it is the fact that the vehicles that run on electricity are so expensive. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe electric cars of 2034 will be cheaper to operate or have better performance than internal combustion cars of 2014. But I will bet that electric cars of 2034 will be cheaper to operate than internal combustion cars of 2034. It will be more expensive to operate any sort of vehicle in 2034. Maybe, we’ll see. I guess the issue is with the paradigm shift. Everything is set up to run on gasoline now, and to change that to just about any alternative will require a huge aggregate global CapEx- even if evs turn out to cost only half as much as cars today, everyone will still have to go out and buy one. Going through that process might feel like an extended recession, but once it is complete, who knows, the world of 2100 and beyond may very well run much more smoothly and efficiently than today’s. ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/226 "2014-04-26T17:18:56Z")
Regarding expected hybrid to conventional gasoline mix, have a look at the Exxon Mobil report I linked to. warning - pdf [http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/Reports/Outlook%20For%20Energy/2014/2014-Outlook-for-](http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/Reports/Outlook%20For%20Energy/2014/2014-Outlook-for-) Energy-low-resolution.pdf They obviously are a large company that makes money by selling energy, but given the huge capital costs they incur with significant time lengths on the projects, they can loose truly epic amounts of money if they project incorrectly, so they are somewhat motivated to work on correct forecasts. Well that and convincing shareholders it a is a long term viable business, as getting capital from the markets is actually a requirement for oil companies. On page 20 you have two graphs one showing average vehicle efficiency. Europe rises from 30-60 mpg by 2040 . Note average not the best that is available. US goes from 20 to 38 mpg Car type ( ok light duty fleet they call it) mix in 2010 there are about 700 million cars using gasoline, another 100 million using diesel ( slightly rounding numbers from the bar graph so please excuse a few million car error) By 2040 convention gasoline is at about 800 million ( after a rise to 900 million in 2030) diesel stays rises slightly to about 150 million. There are another 750 million cars ( total of about 1,700 million cars) or which 70 million are full electric, slightly less CNG/lpg and the balance ,35%, ( call it 600 million?) are hybrid. Light duty vehicle’s will account for about 20 million boe/day by 2040. Heavy duty ( trucks and all) about 30 million boe/day To ralfys point about economic growth and energy usage. The report has total world GDP ( in 2005 dollars) going from 40 trillion in 2000 to just shy of 120 trillion in 2040. Energy usage going from 420 to 730 quadrillion BTUs. A one to one match in GDP rise with energy useage is not there, why , increasing efficiencies due to technology and increasing urbanization. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/227 "2014-04-26T17:56:38Z")
The thing is you can’t talk about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. We don’t have electricity mines. Electricity is a product we have to produce out of something: fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar, or hydropower. And of the sources, nuclear is the only one we can really scale up on. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/228 "2014-04-26T18:22:20Z")
:Looks up at glowing orb in the sky: What is that, if not an “electricity mine”? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/229 "2014-04-26T18:45:13Z")
> [@Precambrianmollusc](#): > > To ralfys point about economic growth and energy usage. The report has total world GDP ( in 2005 dollars) going from 40 trillion in 2000 to just shy of 120 trillion in 2040. Energy usage going from 420 to 730 quadrillion BTUs. A one to one match in GDP rise with energy useage is not there, why , increasing efficiencies due to technology and increasing urbanization. Very true. As mentioned in this thread previously, _currently_ the US uses the same amount of oil as it did in 1978, but somehow the economy has almost tripled in size since then. This evidence is not in line with some of the arguments made in this thread: that in order to have a growing economy/civilization you must increase your use of petroleum. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/230 "2014-04-27T00:46:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The thing is you can’t talk about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. 😕 I just talked about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. > [@](#): > > We don’t have electricity mines. Electricity is a product we have to produce out of something: fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar, or hydropower. All electricity is derived from some power input, sure. Plants may soak up sunlight for millions of years, sink into bogs and rot into petroleum, which may be extracted and burned to boil water into steam to spin a turbine. Do it day and night and we’ve got baseload power. Store it in a battery and we have what I think most anyone would agree is fuel, just like gasoline is fuel. Wind and especially solar ‘cut out the middle man’ so to speak. The sun causes the wind to blow, the sun causes photons to blow, whatever. We can tap that energy source directly to generate current, a current that is indistinguishable from a current generated by my oil-generator example, or a coal plant, a nuclear plant, a natural gas plant, or what-have-you. Store it in a battery, and we have ‘mined’ ‘fuel’, no? Wind and solar simply seek energy in the present, instead of un-doing photo-chemical reactions which took place 100 million years ago, which is actually kind of creepy if you really think about it. A wind turbine or a solar panel generate a reliable output, more or less daily, for decades. The best commercial solar panels produce 87% of their original output after 25 years. Compare that to a fracking mine- you get millions of barrels at first if you’re lucky, but it only produces half that within 1-2 years, and drops off to nothing soon enough. Which energy infrastructure looks to yield the best long-run returns? > [@](#): > > And of the sources, nuclear is the only one we can really scale up on. 😕 Why do people keep saying this? [Here](http://i1.wp.com/cleantechnica.com/files/2014/04/global-annual-solar-installation.png) is the history of the quantity of solar installations. In [this [admittedly old] article](http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/cleantechs-quiet-vindication/1510) you can see projections for both wind and solar- together they add up to over a terawatt in _annual_ installations by 2020. Isn’t that ‘scaling up’? The thing about most energy sources besides solar is that they don’t scale _down_. A household nuclear reactor just is not going to happen, and nobody outside of Britain is going to burn coal in their homes. But look at [this](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2013/04/nrel-solar-pv-efficiencies-chart.png.0x545_q100_crop-scale.jpg). Demonstrated photovoltaic efficiencies reach 44%, almost twice what is commercially available today, almost 50% more than what aerospace and the military are using. A 4 kw system will power most homes. Only a few square meters will do it, and the increasing demonstrated cell efficiencies convince me, anyway, that less and less space will be required going forward. Maybe 500 kwh for an electric car. 2000 kwh for a hybrid-electric semi, and the cost of transporting goods actually drops, defeating **ralfy** ’s doomsday peak oil scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/231 "2014-04-27T08:21:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The thing is you can’t talk about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. We don’t have electricity mines. Electricity is a product we have to produce out of something: fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar, or hydropower. And of the sources, nuclear is the only one we can really scale up on. There were installed 35GW new wind power in 2013, and 37GW solar. For an average reactor size of 1.5GW, that is around 48 reactors worth of wind and solar power in 2013. More nuclear would be great but it takes a decade to construct, so in the short time it doesn’t scale at all. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/232 "2014-04-28T18:12:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The thing is you can’t talk about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. We don’t have electricity mines. Electricity is a product we have to produce out of something: fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar, or hydropower. And of the sources, nuclear is the only one we can really scale up on. Are we talking about peak electricity or peak oil? There’s a difference. Are we running out of ways to produce electricity? No we are not. That’s why the peak oil alarmism is so misguided. It is entirely possible that global oil production is at a plateau. If so it will be because global demand for oil is at a peak, not because it is impossible to extract more liquid hydrocarbons from the earth. The premise of scary Peak Oil is: 1. There’s a limited amount of oil in the ground. 2. There is no substitute for that oil, and with global prosperity demand is increasing rapidly. 3. As supplies dwindle, prices go through the roof. 4. When prices get so high that people can no longer afford to drive cars or ship goods or fly in airplanes, civilization collapses. 5. We’re about to hit that point in a few years. The refutations are: 1. There is a limited supply of conventional oil, we might have already have extracted most of it, but there’s a lot of unconventional oil 2. There are plenty of substitutes for oil, the problem is they cost more or are a pain in the ass. 3. When prices for oil go through the roof, the substitutes for oil become more attractive. The postulate is that demand will increase but that ludicrous prices for oil won’t dampen demand. This makes no sense. Prices increase until demand decreases, a middle income guy in China isn’t going to buy the first car in his family when gasoline is $100 a gallon. 4. This means that people can still drive cars even with expensive oil. You don’t have to pay $100 a gallon for gas like you have no choice, you can drive an electric car or a CNG car or a biodiesel car or a coal-fired steam car or a synthetic fuel. 5. We’ve got plenty of oil for decades. Liquid hydrocarbons can be manufactured out of other materials like coal or biomass using nearly century old technology, it just takes capital investment and energy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/233 "2014-04-28T19:02:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The thing is you can’t talk about switching from fossil fuels to electricity. We don’t have electricity mines. Electricity is a product we have to produce out of something: fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind, solar, or hydropower. And of the sources, nuclear is the only one we can really scale up on. > [@JohnT](#): > > :Looks up at glowing orb in the sky: > > What is that, if not an “electricity mine”? 😉 Seriously? I posted two lines and it was still too long for you to read? How shallow do I have to make my argument? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/234 "2014-04-28T19:30:38Z")
Seriously? The Earth gets hit with 20,000 times more energy every day than we consume, and you blithely dismiss the evidence in front of your own eyes with a “there’s no such thing as an electricity mine” comment? There is - it’s called the “Sun.” All we have to do is learn how to mine that… and guess what? We’re doing pretty well at it and will only do better. [http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/how-much-solar-energy-hits-earth.html](http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/how-much-solar-energy-hits-earth.html) ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/235 "2014-04-28T19:51:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Let me repeat once again that I’m not predicting an end of civilization. We had civilization before the age of oil and I’m confident we’ll still have civilization after it. But I think it’s more likely we’ll go back to a pre-oil economy rather than go forward to a post-oil economy. > > It won’t be a total return. Fossil fuels were just one of the big factors in our economic advance. The other - electricity - will still be there (albeit maybe not in the same amount). So the world of 2100 won’t like the world of 1900. But I don’t think the world of 2100 will be like the world of 2000 either and that might not be as positive a comparison. People in the 22nd century might look back on our world as a golden age of better times and envy us for the wealth we had. Why would we do that? Nuclear power is still around and deuterium can be extracted from seawater. There is simply no reason for the advanced societies on Earth to travel backward technologically; they simply adjust their economies and civilizations toward the available energy sources. This isn’t one of those post-apocalyptic films where people are riding horses and wearing rags. If oil were quickly begin to run out tomorrow, nuclear would ramp up to take its place alongside coal and natural gas. Geothermal,hydroelectric and tidal energy also would be moved to the front of line in exploration and production. There’s no reason to go backward because technology has advanced past that point. And given the numbers of people now alive and anticipated to be in the future, going backwards would be the beginning of a huge population die off. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/236 "2014-04-28T21:05:21Z")
Sorry… hit submit too soon I referenced earlier in this thread a [Business Insider article](http://www.businessinsider.com/solar-price-terrordome-chart-2014-4) about a report from Alliance Bernstein, a hedge fund that invests in Asian energy markets who also generates reports about the state and future of the energy industry. [Here is the report itself (PDF.)](http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Bernstein-solar.pdf) The salient information is on the first 3 pages, with the remaining 9 being supporting documentation, their investment predictions for significant companies, etc. But for those of you who don’t want to read that much, here are the main points: 1. In the developing world, solar has already reached a price point where it is competitive with coal, oil, and natural gas. (This isn’t because they have cheaper solar, it’s because the developing world pays more for gas, coal, oil because of a lack of infrastructure.) 2. Given that solar is a _technological_ energy source (as opposed to a _physical_ resource), solar energy is guaranteed to be driven lower in price on a per-watt basis. 3. On the other hand, physical resources, by default, will increase in price with (for example) AB predicting an average $150/barrel price for oil in 2020. Reading further, you will find that these _investors_, i.e., people with money in the game, are more worried about overall energy **deflation** brought about by improving _technological_ sources of energy such as solar, wind, and hydro than they are worried about rising costs of energy brought about by physical depletion of hydrocarbon stocks. And the reason why they are worried is because these technologies, while too small to make an imprint now, will only get cheaper as more people buy into it and, eventually, within 10-30 years, the overall energy market will begin to feel the effects of a virtually limitless source of energy. (Please note that nobody is saying that solar can, or will, power all, but it can power a lot of what oil is currently powering.) And I see reports like this all the time. The BP Report of Global Energy Use that comes out every June. This PDF and others from AB (you ought to see their predictions about coal use in China - it’s going to peak and then drop dramatically because of solar.) Presentations on solar put together by CPS Energy here in San Antonio. So… yes, crude oil is becoming more expensive, but the effect on the overall energy market may not be enough to offset the deflationary pressures exacted by a world going to renewables. At the worst, this means that we’ll have to stop burning the stuff so wantonly. And learn to use it more efficiently so that we can do better than triple our economy while using the same amount of the stuff that we did 35 years ago. (Actually, we’ve done that last already, but nobody seems impressed by it.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/237 "2014-04-28T21:58:57Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > Why would we do that? > > Nuclear power is still around and deuterium can be extracted from seawater. There is simply no reason for the advanced societies on Earth to travel backward technologically; they simply adjust their economies and civilizations toward the available energy sources. > > This isn’t one of those post-apocalyptic films where people are riding horses and wearing rags. If oil were quickly begin to run out tomorrow, nuclear would ramp up to take its place alongside coal and natural gas. Geothermal,hydroelectric and tidal energy also would be moved to the front of line in exploration and production. > > There’s no reason to go backward because technology has advanced past that point. And given the numbers of people now alive and anticipated to be in the future, going backwards would be the beginning of a huge population die off. Cost is the basic economic concept you’re ignoring. You can’t just blithely say “we’ll replace fossil fuel with nuclear power” is nuclear power costs substantially more than fossil fuel. If we could just choose to use any energy source we wanted, we wouldn’t be using the one that OPEC sells. So if we switch to an energy source that costs more, we’ll end up buying less of it. And that means we’ll have a society with less energy being produced. And let me repeat for the twentieth or thirtieth time, I’m not talking about an end to civilization. Although if I stay in this thread, I’m sure I’ll be told several dozen more times that I predicted the end of civilization. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/238 "2014-04-28T23:25:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Cost is the basic economic concept you’re ignoring. You can’t just blithely say “we’ll replace fossil fuel with nuclear power” is nuclear power costs substantially more than fossil fuel. If we could just choose to use any energy source we wanted, we wouldn’t be using the one that OPEC sells. > > So if we switch to an energy source that costs more, we’ll end up buying less of it. And that means we’ll have a society with less energy being produced. > > And let me repeat for the twentieth or thirtieth time, I’m not talking about an end to civilization. Although if I stay in this thread, I’m sure I’ll be told several dozen more times that I predicted the end of civilization. Right…but, again (ironic, ehe? ;)), we don’t have to switch everything right now, today. Instead, you will see a gradual shift as prices rise. That’s the thing that’s the disconnect between most Peak Oil folks and, well, reality. I understand that you aren’t taking that view point, but you are arguing many of their same bullet points. The price of oil or other fossil fuels isn’t going to suddenly shoot up and remain there forever (or increase from there)…nor are we going to suddenly run out of the stuff, leaving us hanging with no energy to shift to something else. Sure, there will be spikes, but the basic trend is a slow, gradual upward shift in pricing, with occasional spikes upward as well as downward. As different price points are reached, things that weren’t economical competing with oil/gas/coal/whatever at one price point might be competitive at another. Or, technologies that the market currently disfavors for political (or other than price point) reasons might have a shift in the market…like nuclear. Yes, energy costs might go up, especially in the short term, but eventually they might fall again, at least to some level. Nuclear energy is certainly more expensive, especially as an up front capital expenditure, than coal or gas (especially when you factor in the risk that no matter how much you spend you might actually never get to complete or use the plant at all). But mainly that’s because nuclear power is front loaded on costs (you have a huge capital expenditure, risk, and you have to plan for the inevitable decommissioning of the plant). But, as we build more plants, and especially more next generation plants, the overall cost for energy production could certainly level off and even go down. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/239 "2014-04-29T15:38:46Z")
I agree that we don’t need to stop using oil. But I think we should be acknowledging the issue is on the horizon and be making plans. For example, suppose we acknowledge that fifty years from now nuclear power rather than fossil fuels will be the primary means of generating electricity. Are we making plans for building the nuclear reactors we’re going to want? It’ll be a lot easier to build them now when we have other abundant sources of energy rather than wait until those other sources are running low. Or consider the multiple uses for fossil fuels. As I’ve noted, we use fossil fuels both as an energy source and as a chemical resource. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we can switch to other processes to generate power but we can’t easily switch to other chemical resources. Doesn’t it make sense in that case to switch over as soon as possible to those energy sources and save the largest amount of fossil fuels possible for use as a chemical resource? You may feel there’s a disconnect between the Peak Oil people and reality. I feel there’s a larger disconnect between the Don’t Worry About It people and reality. ---
**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:** [April 30, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/240 "2014-04-30T02:14:41Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] I agree that we don’t need to stop using oil. But I think we should be acknowledging the issue is on the horizon and be making plans. [/QUOTE] That’s the thing, man…‘we’ are. No one is just letting things go on in the hope that something better will magically spring up from the mind of Zeus…or some genius. The reason why Peak Oil didn’t happen as predicted 10 years ago is because people WERE doing things. They were exploring for new resources. They were developing alternatives. They were figuring out how to exploit resources that weren’t economically exploitable 10 years ago. > [@](#): > > For example, suppose we acknowledge that fifty years from now nuclear power rather than fossil fuels will be the primary means of generating electricity. Are we making plans for building the nuclear reactors we’re going to want? It’ll be a lot easier to build them now when we have other abundant sources of energy rather than wait until those other sources are running low. Well, there are several answers to this. Will nuclear power be the primary power 50 years from now? No idea. It COULD be…but it will depend on the market, a.k.a. all of us. Today, The Market won’t tolerate an expansion of any kind of nuclear. Will that change? Wish I knew, then I’d be able to invest and make a killing, retiring to a beach making 10%. 😉 Are ‘we’ making plans? Absolutely. New generations of nuclear power plants are being developed and experimented with, especially outside of this country. It might be that we need to get the French, or the Chinese or South Africans to build the things for us, but they certainly could be built…if the market drives us that way. The thing about the market is that IT will drive us one way or the other, and when a price point is reached there will be a transition and a shift. This isn’t magic, it’s basic economics, and we’ve seen exactly this same trend over and over in history. Sure, we’ve also seen civilizations collapse because of a scarcity of resources, so that COULD happen. I personally doubt that a world spanning civilization such as ours will not be able to overcome this barrier, especially when there exists today technologies and techniques that can already solve the problem, but are simply more expensive than cheap oil/fossil fuels. > [@](#): > > Or consider the multiple uses for fossil fuels. As I’ve noted, we use fossil fuels both as an energy source and as a chemical resource. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we can switch to other processes to generate power but we can’t easily switch to other chemical resources. Doesn’t it make sense in that case to switch over as soon as possible to those energy sources and save the largest amount of fossil fuels possible for use as a chemical resource? Maybe. But as pointed out up thread, there is nothing stopping us from making basically everything we currently use for chemical needs using other sources…nothing but the fact that the price point isn’t there, so alternatives aren’t economically viable. Today. At the current price point. But alternatives do exist, and people aren’t just sitting around wishing and hoping for some solution when the price cliff looms. Which brings me to this… > [@](#): > > You may feel there’s a disconnect between the Peak Oil people and reality. I feel there’s a larger disconnect between the Don’t Worry About It people and reality. There IS a disconnect between what the Peak Oil/Chicken Little folks have been predicting and reality. We’ve seen that in the last 10 years, as the Peak Oil movement has basically died out except for the really fervent few die hards. As I said, no one is in the Don’t Worry About It People group…at least not that I’ve seen in this thread. That’s really a strawman argument that no one is making. People ARE worried about it…or, I should say, they see the potential issue, and see opportunity in it. That’s why companies have spent literally billions of dollars in R&D and exploration. Because peak oil(no caps) WILL happen. Most likely it will happen because, at a certain price point the demand for oil will drop as we first transition then fully adopt something else. Various companies are betting billions on various potential alternatives. The ones who are right will be the next generation of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. THAT’S reality based thinking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075.md?page=13)