ILX, what do you know about peak oil?

I realise it's somewhat harder adapting power stations etc. to run on it.

It's a bit longer than 10-20 years, is it not?

I mean, also:

Bush was once involved in the oil business, so he can't be completely ignorant of the problem, right? Even Texaco and ExxonMobil have admitted that their supplies have peaked (and many people think OPEC has or is in the process of doing so right now).
Bush has been funneling oil into the US Strategic Oil Reserve for quite a while, despite some complaints that it's driving up the price of oil domestically. Think maybe there's some reason behind that?
And lastly, let's face it: Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism or WMDs, but happened to be an oil-rich country run by a man hostile to the US. What better way to buy a few more years of cheap oil than to invade Iraq, where thanks to sanctions they're too weak to put up as much of a fight as any of the OPEC nations could.

xpost

I originally thought i was gonna be another scare tactics film, but when they show Matthew Simmons (CEO of an energy investment bank, consultant to Halliburton and part of Cheney's Energy Committe) saying, "yep, the games up - from now on it gets worse"...

It's weird that no-one has really picked up on this tho..

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

The whole concept of peak oil is that OIL WILL GET DRAMATICALLY MORE EXPENSIVE IN THE NEAR FUTURE. 10-20 years might be optimistic, actually.

As for alternative fuel sources, there's hardly enough research going into them right now for them to even be a possible solution, but aformentioned vegetable oil cannot be produced in sufficient amounts to meet our energy consumption as a nation.

Much of our energy consumption, in fact, comes from our complete wastefulness with it. Single-occupant automobiles are FAR less energy efficient than mass transportation. We leave lights on in office buildings at night for no reason. We run appliances when we're not using them. We waste waste waste, and never care. Why? because energy is cheap!

But it won't be for long.

There are charts showing how oil field discovery has not kept pace with demand for a while now, but production has continued to increase thanks to a large surplus in discovered fields in the past. That surplus of discovered but not drilled oil has pretty much run out, though.

blimps, yo!

also:

"Hosted by Barrie Zwicker. Featuring James Howard Kunstler, Peter Calthorpe, Michael Klare, Richard Heinberg, Matthew Simmons, Michael C. Ruppert, Julian Darley, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Steve Andrews."

Ha, I've already books by half of those people.

Until a few weeks ago it was my goal in life to help redesign american cities to be more energy efficient and make better use of public transportation.

But now I'm just ready to jump ship and run to someplace that has the right idea already.

here are some good links concerning peak oil. just the antidote for today's horrible mood.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

http://www.peakoil.net/

http://www.rmfdevelopment.com/SaveOilNow.htm

http://www.gasandoil.com/peakoil/

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex43579.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1845_308/ai_112796599 (Harper's 'the oil we eat', article about the degree to which US food production is extravagantly oil dependent)

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/index.html

PS, coincide #2353493:
Bush plans manned expeditions to Mars for the near future.
Hm!

so says Ali Al Naimi, the Saudi Oil Minister, quoted on the Peak Oil site. In this respect I am sure he speaks the truth. But he also said that he was convinced that the very last barrel of oil produced anywhere in the world would be from Saudi Arabia and I'm very dubious about that.

Yes, I remember watching a documentary on a little island that has run cars and everything on vegetable oil for years, as they are sort of war with some one or another, out in the Pacific.

Oh maybe, it was mining for metals! We're not gonna run out of metal, we can just build cars that don't go, we'll all have Flintstones cars.

Besides, we have plenty of metals here on earth, they're just wasted and sitting in people's front yards (broken down old cars, anyone?).