"PARIS - Airlines the world over are raising fares in response to the latest oil price hike, which threatens to choke off a gradual recovery in air travel and deepen the woes of carriers already struggling with bankruptcy."

This is just one story of many you have read and will over the next several years of airlines faced with bankruptcy due to high energy (jet fuel) costs. Airlines facing bancruptcy and demanding pay cuts from pilots and flight crews, and cutting less profitable routes will be some of the first indicators of the onset of the 'Peak Oil' phenonemum on our economy. Whether or not you hold to the false economic principles which place oil in the same commodity bracket as dishwashers or PC's, the truth of the matter is that the global economy is now beginning to experience the impact of chokehold-tight supplies of Texas Tea.

A cooldown of the energy hungry Chinese and Indian manufacturing sectors may tame the beast. But only for a short time.

A sudden turnaround in Iraq which offers a fully producing pipeline may as well. But won't. Iraq's oil output even at peak production is not a statistically significant proportion of the world's petroleum supply.

Alaskan wilderness oil? No, not for many years, and not with any meaningful longterm output.

Hydrogen economy? Not a good idea to begin with, and certainly not with any reasonably realistic solutions over the next few critical decades.

The world currently floats atop the wide, relatively flat peak at the top of the curve of world oil production. That curve will drift gently higher and lower over time with new extraction technologies, and with depleted fields. But it will soon face the inexorably surging world demand curve for energy. It does not need to cross or even meet that demand curve in order for a major global economic catastrophe to occur. Simply approaching close enough for the profits gained by oil drilling to be negated by the costs involved with extraction will make the venture infeasible from a business standpoint.

The head-on collision of energy prices and the global economy, which relies on oil and natural gas for everything from raw-materials for plastics, agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, for the energy requirements of producing, processing, packaging, refrigerating, and trucking produce and products to market, will be huge when it occurs. And the indicators are that it will occur sometime within Bush's term.

That this issue has been ignored by the US government is scandalous but not unexpected. Wouldn't want to alarm the public or hurt the value of TexShellStandardBPO. But no amount of alternative energy programs at this late stage can or will blunt the impacts on the economy of America and the rest of the globe. Solar power, along with wind, tidal, hydrogen, and biomass; will have some potential, but only enough to alleviate the energy demands of relatively small segments of society. To have had truly significant impacts on a global scale, alternative energy needs to have begun serious research and development, along with implementation efforts, thirty to forty years ago.

The issue now popularly known as 'Peak Oil' will need to be addressed seriously. And it will be, whether by elderly citizens unable to pay the heat bill this winter, or by those in position to effect positive change.

And it appears now that the Peak Oil bomb will burst on GW Bush's watch.

God save us.

Yeah we will have to bail out all the US airlines with billions

or trillions. they all are bankrupt

We need to expand production of ethanol and biodiesel as quickly as possible. I know Bush is too stubborn to bother with it, but he'll have to when oil prices skyrocket even higher.

I could accept the Bush National Energy Policy and continued US dependence on foreign oil if we were not being taxed hundreds of billions of dollars to protect OPEC oil which ultimately finances terrorism. 100 % Ethanol can power flex-fuel vehicles. That is why 40% of the vehicles in Brazil are flex-fuel. They cost no more than gasoline only vehicles to manufacture. The US currently produces 2.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year. The corn used to make ethanol also produces a similar amount of high protein brewers grain which is used as animal feed instead of corn. The US could produce 25 billion gallons of ethanol from corn while producing better animal feed.

The US could also convert the cellulose in the rest of the corn plant into ethanol. We could grow switchgrass on the 34 million acre US Soil Bank and produce another 30 or so billion gallons of ethanol. There may be another 100 million or so acres of the Great Plains that is too arid for corn but is well suited for native switchgrass. With the billion of US tax dollars spent protecting the Arab oil that we found and developed we could have developed biomass fuels in this country which do not contribute sequestered carbon from oil to the environment's greenhouse gas proplem and do not finance terrorism. If John Kerry had bothered to mention this during his campaign he could have won Ohio. One of his volunteers took this suggestion to his campaign headquarters, but he obviously decided that a Liberal stance on Public Morality could win in the grain belt.

I have degrees in Physics and Computer Science and I know about all of the energy sources you mentioned and a few more. However nothing is going to change until we have leadership smarter than Jed, up through the ground came bubbeling crude, Clampet! It would be a huge help if Journalists would write about viable sources of alternative energy, unfortunately they also lack the necessary technical understanding to do so. They would rather write about casualties in the battle for Fallujah than farmers cutting grass in Kansas to deprive Terrorists of money for AK47's and RPGs.

It sounds scary, but I am pretty doubtful. Much of the data claiming that this will happen by next Thanksgiving was created decades ago by a man who predicted the world only has 2 trillion barrels of oil. According to the Peak Oil people, we've used about 1 trillion so far. Some people even think that oil is 'abiotic' (non-organic). I really don't know, and I suppose that we won't know unless it is too late.

In short, people can put whatever they want onto the Internet. Could it be possible that the peak oil groups are shareholders of firearms, alt energy groups , etc, looking to increase demand? The theory sounds like there may be some fact to it, but as of right now, it's just a theory. I'm hoping it stays that way.

In the end, I believe that the corporations are really the ones with all the knowledge of a subject like this, and if they saw this as likely to occur, you can bet that they would develop some other way to make money. If you wonder "ok, well why haven't we seen this tech yet?" it may just be because they want to milk oil as long as possible, or other technologies are less profitable, etc.

Our dependency on oil isn't a good thing, but it is unlikely to change anytime soon. Until you see the government reacting to stuff like this, I wouldn't start to worry.

I am beginning to see the real brilliance in John Kerry's energy efficiency plan. If we spent more on insulation, used hybrid vehicles, budget our energy usage and make use of light/heat from solar.....we could in fact reduce our needs by 40% or so. Add that to a 30% domestic source and we have 100% self sufficiency.

10 needs ~ 6 needs with efficiency, 3 self made + 3 existing needs ~ 10

My truck now: 1988 F150 2wd long bed 302 auto
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/4871.shtml

What I should look for: 1988 Ford Ranger 2WD long bed 2.3l man5spd. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/4787.shtml


Maybe I can find a small 4 cyl diesel, and make a ranger into a hybred??? Any suggestions?


http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car7.htm

The idea that peak oil is just the latest of Y2K type doomsday scenarios is false. The data on global production, demand, and estimated reserves, is readily available. Unless you're the USGS, in which case we should all be racing out the front door to buy a Hummer.

Leading energy analyst believes Saudi Arabia’s crude oil supply near peak

"There is no more supply," said Opec president Purnomo Yusgiantoro

Dick Cheney, Peak Oil and the Final Count Down<--our future Vice President admits knowledge of Peak Oil in 1999 (so why was nothing said or done about it in the ensuing years, save by invading an oil-producing country?)

MIDDLE EAST OIL - REALITY AND ILLUSION

The concept of biomass fuels; ethanol, biodiesel, replacing the role that petroleum has in our economy is sadly mistaken. You need to appreciate the scope and pervasiveness of oil and natural gas in our economy; as energy source, lubricant, manufacturing raw material for agricultural fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and more.

Please don't get me wrong. I am a fan of alternative energy technologies, and of science and hi-tech in general. I applaud any gains to be made in solar/EV, solar/thermal, tidal, or biomass. But I'm a realist as well. All of the alternatives taken together will have very little effect, probably less than one percent, in 'solving' the economic impact of the 'Peak Oil' problem. While the target date for the impact has been slated at anywhere from Thanksgiving Day of 2005, to 2020, we're speaking of the biggest threat to modern Human civilization yet, including the nuclear warfare threat of the Cold War era. If America's 'improving' economy tanks before the next election, maybe you will understand why.

Yes but the corporations have been known to lie about their oil reserves. This is the reason we are in Iraq now. Most people believe Iraq has huge unexplored reserves of oil. Iraq could delay for 10 years the cresting of the oil production. the oil in Iraq is easy to get to and produce.

The biggest unexplored fields are probably in the Soviet Union. Along with this, the Canadian oil sands are believed to have about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil, of which maybe 311 billion are recoverable with today's technology. However, this is considerably more expensive so its not any kind of silver bullet.

But not easy to transport to the tankers. It seems that insurgents like to keep blowing up the pipelines.

Peak oil is a myth. They just want steal your money by charging you more for gas.
It is just like the so-called oil crisis of the seventies and that was a lie also.

Wrong. The seventies oil crisis was an artificial shortage brought about by an OPEC embargo. It had nothing whatever to do with actual oil reserves. This time it's different.

We already witnessed the peak of US production in 1971, forty years after the peak in oil field discoveries in the 30's. The production of US oil fields has declined since then, and Alaskan drilling will only slow the decline by too little, too late. The same fundamental pattern of exploration, discovery, oil field development, and decline applies to global reserves.

Read up on Hubbert's Curve . Take a look at the latest projections for world production as of 2004. Read this interview with Colin Campbell , considered to be the world's foremost expert on the topic of energy depletion.

Google "peak oil", "Hubbert's curve", "Colin Campbell", or "Kenneth Deffeyes".

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://americanassembler.com/issues/peak_oil/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/duncan/olduvai2000.htm
http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2004/01/20040118.php

Hubbert's prediction came in the 1950s. Back then, you went to a "promising" field and drilled - maybe you got lucky. We had "elephant fields" like spindletop in texas where you couldn;t miss. Or the 5 big fields in Saudi Arabia.

Nowadays, satellite imaging and seismic techniques can pinpoint exactly where to drill in the non-elephant fields. There is still PLENTY of oil around; in fact, there are more barrels of proved reserves today than at any time in history.

The problem is that unlike Saudi oil which still costs $1.00 at the welllhead, the new high tech oil costs more like $20.00.

Oh, stop crying doomsday again!!!

Worst comes to worst, the U.S. will begin converting it's 400 year supply of coal into crude oil using a process known as coal gasification. Crude oil can be generated in this way at an economic cost of $65/barrel. The Germans used it during WWII when they lost control of the Russian oil fields, but had lots of coal mines in Germany.

But to be honest, I really hope that we can make some progress on alternative energy before we start converting coal into oil.

You can bet that if a new source of motive fuel was or is ever discovered, AND it can't be easily co-opted by BIG OIL, they WILL suppress it BY ANY MEANS!

They will not put at risk their huge profits, no matter what. Just another consequence of BIG BUSINESS CONTROL over us all!

If this is true then it is not a very strategic move on the part of the oil companies.....alternate energies are getting more support and financing because of this myth. The crude oil price is actually hovering in a range where many bio fuels can be made profitably. I think it’s great, it'll empower us to do research into a new field; organic chemistry. { :D } As we look at the natural world around us and try to select an energy option that is safe and powerful. I personally think micro algae grown in brackish water to make Bio Diesel will be our savior. But all the other products that we have made from petrochemicals can be made from other forms of organic matter a well. I believe that a whole new era of super plastics is around the corner..... amongst other things.
Remember Senator Kerry's goal was to increase efficiency of our machines as well as to define a new source of energy. That is what I'm going to do until he says otherwise!