$12 Gas and Rationing? Possible, Says Expert

Source: CNBC

Think $4 a gallon gas is already too much? Then brace yourself, says one expert.

"The prices that we're paying at the pump today are, I think, going to be 'the good old days,' because others who watch this very closely forecast that we're going to be hitting $12 and $15 a gallon, and then, after that, when world oil production goes into decline, we're going to talk about rationing," Robert Hirsch, Management Information Services Senior Energy Advisor, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, but in addition to that, we're not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it."

. . . .

Those who argue that new technology and new types of energy will solve the problem aren't on solid ground, Hirsch suggested.

"There's no single thing that's going to solve this problem, because it;s as massive as one can possibly imagine," he said.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/24725305

---

A little more at link. There's a video also.

Hirsch was the lead author of "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management" also called the "Hirsch Report" which was commissioned by the Energy Department and then downplayed when it came out in February 2005. It even disappeared from the Energy Department website for a while. A discussion of the report and links can be found here.

http://www.energybulletin.net/12772.html

We can thank * for years of wasted resources in an illegal and immoral occupation when those same resources could have been used to prepare the US for the realities of peak oil.

Good luck in dealing with this everyone.

Peace,

freefall

I swear people have resigned to pay 3, 4, and 5$ for a gallon of gas. Do they think they'll push us to 12 or 15?

the slow boil will continue, carpooling is starting to come back in vogue, small cars are actually appreciating in the used car market. Is $12 plausible sure, but when? 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? People will adjust their lifestyles so that they have to spend no more on gas then they have to, companies will have to adjust how they do business, lest they be swallowed up by competitors would come up with innovative ways to cut out the high cost of energy.

and they are going broke at 4.70 a gallon right now. Food stortages, anyone ?

Might not be able to get watermellon in NJ in the middle of winter anymore. What worries me is that we've outsourced our infrastructure and the switch will be painful. We have to rebuild our ability to manufacture locally, which is a good thing for the US and for the environment.

just like "third world" countries. the u.s. is being de-vo'd - just like the repukes want.

its not going to be pretty thats for sure :-(

"downtowns" will reappear. :)

or the ammonia spreaders. Or make the insecticides, for that matter.

Trucks will be going the way of the buggy whip, and will be electric vehicles for terminal 5 mile loop delivery services.
Buy a really good bike, and a better lock.

while the buggy whip will make a stunning comeback!

Still, I'm going to get an electric conversion kit for my bike... and a gun to protect it.

(I'm joking. Sort of?)

A very very big gun, in every sense of the word.

...it has occurred to me that the best plan is to have a motorcycle that gets 60 mpg and a shotgun with a couple of thousand shells. As a 51-years-old, I thought that the economic meltdown would occur after my lifetime, but now I'm beginning to realize that it has already started, with the carefully calculated assistance of Republicans who are evidently insane and suicidal.

But if you are thinking that way, think black powder.

And get a CCW permit. It won't hurt to have when you need it.

There will be bloody hell to pay soon.

:hi:

Hope you find it interesting and enjoy your stay.

Peace,

freefall

it will have to come to that.

It is really gold to many. Guess we will have to learn to live in a different way.

..plastics, fuel and the very food we eat all depend on oil.

Plastics can be recycled, and we can use more reusable containers.
Food can be grown organically.
We can certainly get around with less fuel, and we will.

if it weren't for cheap and abundant oil- many, if not most of us wouldn't be around today.

true- the world did survive without it before- but with MUCH MUCH fewer numbers- and that's the way it's going to be again.

based on steam power. Of course that was less than a quarter of the current population.

Get ready to work on a farm more like the 19th C. with lots of hard work and eat a lot of chicken, catfish, kelp and other non beef protein.
You may not get coffee every day, and if you get bread every day, a lot of it will be cornbread. If you get milk and cheese regularly, much of it will cme from goats.

Try mass insurrection, disease and starvation long before people get back to 19th century farming
anytime soon.

I am pretty much there with the Long Emergency.

But there will be a lot of ways to intensively farm. From commons to sharecropping, the large holders won't be able to extensively farm. Something like serfdom is likely in places.

I am simply reminding the reader that we will not descend directly into agriculture as practiced by the venerable Bede.

But intensive farming will be replacing extensive farming, and it is back breaking work.
Worse because there is not enough animal traction to be of much use at first.

Steam will be easy to produce, and is biomass, wood, charcoal, and coal agnostic. Steam is also low enough tech to maintain with an unreliable supply chain.

..the high-end developed countries attack each other for whats left of the oil and other
resources that are dwindling, rather then devolve into a past way of life that many people
can't or won't be able to adapt with.

Of course, with human beings, anything is possible.

I can set you up and I do have one mule if ya wanta plow that way. Of course you have to find a horse drawn plow and disk.

share cropping or "corporate serfdom" will return.

Oxen and mule driven plows will return.

nt.

>> ummm...no, we can't- that's the point.
>>if it weren't for cheap and abundant oil- many, if not most of us wouldn't be around today.
>>true- the world did survive without it before- but with MUCH MUCH fewer numbers- and that's the way it's going to be again.

FINALLY someone nails it.

it takes energy to make wind turbines.

Unless we as a nation institute major conservation and rationing now, we will be in very deep shit very soon.

Like I have posted before in GD and in the environmental forum; if we can figure out a way to smelt metal without the use of fossil fuels and make lubricants without fossil fuels, we will be fine. If not, we are in deep shit.

If that is achieved, everything else, with the exception of fertilizer, will eventually fall into place.

I grew up before it got to be such a big part of our life and I sure would not wish to go back to say the 30's and 40's when I was a kid. We did have two cars all those years and often a truck along with the two cars and during WW2 is was a big problem just getting gas. We often took trains. I re-call my grandfather's car was 'put away' in the Fall and we took buses and trains all Fall, Winter and Spring if we went to grandmother's. Most people in my town did not have a car and went to work on a bus or with people who had a car, in groups. We had to walk to school. Every one lived near a school. Kids can not do that now. It was just a way of life, for that time.

once upon a time during WWII victory gardens provided 40% of the nations produce.

but then again, gardening was only a small step from the farm in those days.

As late as the 1940's, people were only a short jump from the farm, so they had the tools needed to garden properly.

Now days, many people are so far removed from any sort of farm or fresh produce that they are having to relearn how to grow basic veggies.

those who learn to adapt will live, those who don't or refuse won't. It's really that simple.

Many people are going to radically adjust their lifestyles.

:crazy:

it's entertaining.

Will put people to work and solve the problem. Got to get rid of this North American Union notion though, it won't fit into that equation.

Ethanol made from the waste of the sugar cane plants.

Their economy is booming while our economy is in the toilet.

we also have plenty of oil and gas and refineries too

altho why we bother to drill and refine when certain other states can't be arsed to drill and refine and then crap on us for existing, who even knows

a repuke disney land. I don't see them wanting to change it over to sugar cane anytime soon.

from sugar cane, other states also grow sugar beets. Florida produces about half of the domestic US sugar cane crop.

We simply cannot replace oil with fuel crops and feed millions upon millions of mouths, as well.

Its just a matter of doing the math.

There is NO need to use the food from corn to convert into ethanol.

The husks, and the cobs and the other waste matter will work fine.

The mis-education project has apparently succeeded, and I am not surprised. Whereas the average person has seen few headlines in the normal media decrying the use of oil over the last twenty years, (instead has seen ads for SUV's and for re-modeling to ever bigger houses etc), the moment the ethanol program made a boo-boo, that is all big media could talk about.

The media's "education" program, point one, has been along the lines of "ethanol requires food crops for its conversion." Wrong!
And thus, the following corollary: ethanol use kicks up the demand for food crops, and spikes food prices.

That is only occurring because they are probably "deliberately" using the wrong part of the corn - the kernel, instead of the husks and the cob.

And the perception is that we are burning food for fuel. I work with corn traders, all they know is that Ethanol plants process corn. Kernel, husk, cob... doesn't matter. Thanks to the biofuels mandate, the perception of diverting so much food stock to ethanol production is enough to spike prices in both corn and oil.

Trading (commodities or otherwise) isn't about facts or world events, its about the perception of facts or world events.

That is why it is so awful that the entire public now believes that ethanol is the enemy.

The Big Oil interests have won again.

Not all of it. But certainly some. Believe me, Big Oil invests in Biofuels. They have to, they know, better than most, how much time we have left with oil. If they want to stay in business (and boy do they) they have to get into alternate fuels.

Expect more of their involvement in Hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels, electricity, and so on.

Ethanol is, at best, a stopgap solution until we find something better. But the reality is it's kicked off a perfect storm in food prices and its environmental benefits are suspect, perhaps as bad or worse than burning oil for cars.

Ethanol (corn based at least, sugar cane based is a bit better) is a mixed bag its useful and can be part of the solution. The problem is, we Americans, always look for magic bullet solutions. We though Ethanol was that solution (or at least that's how it was sold to us), now we're learning some of the truth and we're appalled. And, in our typical fashion, totally over-reacting.

We all need to chill out a bit and think this stuff through. Rushing into anything has never worked out for us as a country, see Iraq as a prime example.

CNN's investigation into Oil running out, shown this past Sunday, had their reporter going to Brazil.

Their entire motorized vehicles run on ethanol. They use the wastes from the sugar and so they aren't interfering with the price of sugar - in fact, I suspect a net savings, because they are producing the ethanol at the same plant where they refine the sugar.

Meanwhile here in the USA, the big Oil interests are educating the public to the falsehood thaat ethanol is completely interconnected with needing to use the food part of the corn. Not true at all.

The husks and cobs would be equally good at becoming ethanol, and the corn kernels could be left for livestock and human food. With no food price disruption.

IF the powers that be wanted it that way.

to create the ethanol, rather than corn. Would take up heaps less space too. Most here (on DU, not in the US, sadly) should know the high value and multi purpose of the basic hemp plant.

Cheers
Sandy

But that is precisely why hemp was gotten rid of so many years ago.

The Corporatists didn't care for hemp being a cheap alternative to the forests that Hearst owned for his newspapers.

I think Corporate America has long known of the value of the hemp weed. And they will do anything they can to keep it illegal.

Just as its cousin plant, marijuana is maligned again and again. "Why there has never been a single medical citation as to the effectiveness of medical marijuana," whines the Corporate owned Press.

But if you read the Medical Journals, you realize that the Big Pharma is feverishly working on separating out the cannibanoids so that they can be patented as very expensive medicine for the things that ail humankind. From MS to cancer to asthma.

But they MUST keep it impossible for Granma to grow for free. They know in just a few years Granma's monthly dose of cannibanoids might well put hundreds of dollars in their pockets.

:evilgrin: Many, many uses and a renewable resource. :think:

It's easy to grow, but even a commercial operation wouldn't make much ethanol to satisfy our demand.

We even have a town here called Sugarland that for years was the home of Imperial Sugar Co. My grandpa grew it-actually, it grew it's self. Sugarcane is a grass and as bad as bamboo. But it has great biomass and is perfect for producing energy-better than corn to my way of thinking. But then what do I know, my family just came off the farm one generation ago.:shrug:

I need to go take care of my tomatoes, peppers and onions. Since I just have a patio, that's about all I can grow at the moment.

That if Brazil can produce ethanol from converting the "waste" of the sugar cane crop, then we can create ethanol from the wastes of our "corn" harvest. The cobs, the husks etc.

There have already been scientists interviewed. I think I saw them on "Nova" TV programs saying this.

Our corn etc would work just fine as ethanol. We certainly should not be using the corn kernels, as that drives up the price of food. There was even a couple of world renown scientists saying as much on a "Nova" program on PBS a few weeks ago.

OUr ethanol program was designed to hike up the price of food - whether deliberately or not I don't know.

The Brazilians know what they are doing. We should follow their lead. Any "waste" matter from a sugary crop like corn, sugar or beets should work okay. We need to stop converting the "food" of our crops and use the waste.

Unless we fscking pull our fingers out and halt the climate change.

All of my relatives used to work on sugar plantations way back when.

Millions of acres of unused/unfarmed land. All our roadsides and medians here are grass that they have to mow with tractors anyway.

used only for grass.

I have dreams of golden waves of grain, miles and miles of spinach, tracks and tracks of cabbage, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.

eh, when gas gets to 12 bucks a gallon, no one will be driving anyway. So might as well open those spaces to community gardens.

there is salt spray and toxic combustion products to consider if you want to farm the side of the road.

no it doesn't taste like chicken, it takes like metal.

My dad was a farmer, and it used to piss him off like no one's business when he'd see farmers utilizing the road ditches for crop land. That's where the pheasants, quail, etc. would nest.

"Fuck the world - *my* way of life is NOT negotiable!" :patriot:
:eyes:

which, by the way, not only threatens the excessive american way of life, but our entire species. if the only consequence is to displace some wildlife, i'm all for it. we can't have everything. sooner or later we will have to become realistic about the gravity of this problem. are YOU willing to take a massive cut in your standard of living in order to not displace some wildlife? are YOU really willing to give up hot showers in order to not displace some wildlife? are YOU really willing to give up the pharmaceutical drug industry in order to not displace some wildlife? yeah, i didn't think so. it's easy to take up some moralistic banner and bible-thump others about this issue when you're sitting safely behind a computer in a heated home. things will have to change, and if it means displacing some wildlife to maintain 50% of our standard of living, then that's a fairly minor price to pay. if we wait around to find the perfect solution in which there are no consequences, we will certainly all die (which is the direction in which we are headed).

anyway, i don't think many people, including the three (if you count hillary) idiots we have running for president, truly grasp the severity of the energy problem, and just how much of a threat it is to our standard of living.

also, i'm about the biggest advocate of conservation you will find. it's fairly idiotic to try to pidgenhole somebody on this board as subscribing to the mentality that you cite. i don't think many people here think that way.

> are YOU willing to take a massive cut in your standard of living
> in order to not displace some wildlife?

Yes but I chose to pre-empt it, to do it over time and change my
lifestyle rather than keep trashing the planet because someone's
"way of life is not negotiable".

I've been taking a series of small cuts in my standard of living
not just to avoid "displacing some wildlife" but to avoid having
to take a single massive cut when TSHTF. It will still hurt but
not only will it hurt me far less than those who try to keep the
facade going, it will give my children that much more chance of
surviving than if I simply stuck with the "Fuck 'em" attitude.

> are YOU really willing to give up hot showers in order ...?

Yes and, by way of the above, I have cut down already.

> are YOU really willing to give up the pharmaceutical drug industry
> in order ...?

Yes and, by way of the above, I have cut down already.

> yeah, i didn't think so.

No, you just didn't think.
Specifically, you just didn't think that some people might be ahead of
you in the realisation stakes (much less in the "doing something more
constructive than planning to waste even more of the planet" stakes).

> things will have to change, and if it means displacing some wildlife
> to maintain 50% of our standard of living, then that's a fairly minor
> price to pay.

YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA DO YOU?

"maintain 50% of our standard of living"? FFS!

You mean that you'll "only" consume two and a bit planets rather than
your current four and a half (or more)?

You'll buy a "more efficient SUV" that'll get maybe 25mpg?
You'll bump your a/c thermostat up a degree in the summer?

"That's a fairly minor price to pay"?
As long as you feel the same way when nature displaces you from your
"god of all I survey" place on the top of the dung-heap.


> also, i'm about the biggest advocate of conservation you will find.

I doubt that very much.

> i don't think many people here think that way.

From your post ("Fuck 'em. We're talking about survival here") you do
so that is why I responded to you.

Our current way of life and the global economy is unsustainable (which is the general underlying point of the post)?! No, you don't say. Americans consume way, way too much?! Wow! What a revelation! Unfortunately, I wasn't disagreeing or refuting any of that. Misdirected anger once again. People in the real world are not as simple as the caricatures and ideologues on FOX News and the other tabloid channels. Therefore, your canned attacks and responses are often of little relevance.

You are also very judgmental (as I was too) in assuming that I'm part of the SUV-consume,consume,consume crowd. You tried to make this an ad-hominem thing. However, do not try to lump me in with the Clinton Democrat or Republican crowd. I rarely drive at all, since I am fortunate enough to live near and work for a university. I don't take vacations. I gave up meat after reading about its impact on global warming. I do not use air conditioning, and I live in rural Illinois, which gets pretty fucking hot in the summer (my car has not had functioning air conditioning since 2002). There are several things that I do to try and conserve, those are just a few examples.

And, yes, the end of civilization as we know it may not affect you drastically, but it's going to FUCKING KILL billions of people.
George W. Bush has an environmentalist's dream home. He, along the Gates, the Clintons, the Cheneys, the Gores, and the Waltons are going to be the only people left alive. You, I, and everybody else are fucking toast.

Regardless, though, we're all fucking hypocrites to some extent when it comes to the environment. Do you only take cold showers? If you do, that's great, but if you claim you do, then you're full of shit. You have children, so you've already done more to destroy the planet than me, given that there are already too many people in the world, and you've also just created at least one more American-style consumer. Do you eat meat? That's a huge contributor to global warming. Really, I don't give a shit if you do, but the point is that we're all not as good as we could be about respecting the environment. You're a fucking hypocrite. I'm a fucking hypocrite. We are all fucking hypocrites on this issue.

Contrary to your implications, I'm not at all worried about saving Disney Land, McDonald's, or the NFL, but there are some things about a modern, industrial economy that allow us to live a better, longer life. Of course, the "industrialized economy" is completely dependent on fuel. I'm concerned about the essential things that make us live longer. Do you want to go back to Medieval times? Judging by the fact that you have a computer, I'd guess you don't. There are too many goddamn people in the world, and there are just going to be a lot more soon. I'm not happy with watching a few billion people starve and die like you apparently are. The population boom was built on unsustainable principles and materials (oil as a non-renewable resource, the myth that climate change wasn't a reality, too many people). Again, there are now too many people in the world. Billions of people will die unless we make paradigmatic energy change. I'm not content with just sitting around while billions of people die and, like an elitist, chalking it up to, "nature correcting itself." Therefore, I stand by my original assertion, if renewable, clean energy is available at the expense of displacing some wildlife, go for it. To think that a paradigmatic shift in energy is going to come without hurting something or making a drastic change is naive. Some things are worse than others, though. Displacing wildlife at a controlled level, is a fairly minor consequence as far as I can see. Sorry. I care about people more than I do a bunch of fucking birds. Does that make me a dominionist? No.

Hopefully, though, clean, renweable, economically feasible energy is found in time, and people in general learn to respect the planet. Living within limits, which means being efficient, conservative (in every way, not just as it pertains to energy), not having so many goddamn kids (India and China), and not raping the planet of its natural resources.

"if renewable, clean energy is available at the expense of displacing some wildlife, go for it"

Wildlife is the most efficient renewable, clean energy. Humans have lived couple million years as part of the wildlife energy flows. Cancer-like behaviour of civilization trying to displace its wildlife host and destroy the precondition of its own existance is only 10 000 years aberration of insanity.

I do see what you're saying, but how is wildlife going to prevent billions of people from dying? I mean, beyond the Darwinistic, "the strong will survive" stuff. That's not who we are as liberals.

In practical and more specific terms, how do you suggest we move on as a species? I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious.

By all means, let's try global superstate, eco-socialist, eco-fascist or whatever to attempt as soft landing as possible, sharing what is left to share more equally and as sustainably as possible. I'm all for that. I just don't see that happening but the opposite, with the cliff crumbling under our feet we still keep on accelerating our speed. Miracles can happen, of course, so who knows.

In the meanwhile what I'm doing is learning gardening (most interested in permaculture which is as wildlife as gardening can get) and trying to get the wife more open towards the idea of moving some day into an ecovillage - with poor success so far :-D! Not because of personal survival (not anymore) but because it just feels the right thing to do. Ecovillages are the best practical idea I've come by as a suggestion of where towards we could move as species, organic revolution from ground up by autonomous self-sufficient communities based on ideology of sharing, not taking and controlling. Revolution by multiple generations, needles to say, revolution of learning by doing (rather less than more;-)), with also the task of cleaning up the mess we left behind. Also involved with a local shaman, working together with her on multiple fronts to ease up the pain the planet if feeling, humans included, healing, balancing, connecting.

These are my small ways and I don't mean to present my ways as examplary - I'm not. :-)
Just to share where I now find myself, on this step along a path. Maybe you don't mind.

"not only threatens the excessive american way of life, but our entire species."

Not quite. Only the civilized portion of our species, not the few remaining hunter-gatherers - who are threatened only by the likes of you destroying wildlife and with that their way of living, not by energy crisis.

"sooner or later we will have to become realistic about the gravity of this problem."

Sure. I do hope you became to your senses and face the reality that the mindset you still follow is threatening to kill the whole planet.

"are YOU willing to take a massive cut in your standard of living in order to not displace some wildlife? are YOU really willing to give up hot showers in order to not displace some wildlife? are YOU really willing to give up the pharmaceutical drug industry in order to not displace some wildlife?"

Yes, on all three. But you miss the point, the point is that it's not about ME.

You sound like a sanctimonious douche bag.

Obviously it is about YOU, since you make it into an ad-hominem thing. I'm concerned about the billions of people who are going to die. Are you not bothered by that?

As far as our "way of living" goes, do you want to go back to Medieval times. When you're really sick, do you go to the hospital or doctor? If yes, then you have an interest in preserving elements of our "industrial" (as opposed to your "hunter-gatherer") way of life.

Whose making it into an ad-hominem thing? ;-)

We are all gonna die some day, so what? How do we live our time on Earth, that is more important. Clinging to survivalism leads only to living in constant fear of death and self-pity, so why worry about survival, what use is that? Every moment of life is preciouss gift, complete as it is, so enjoy what you are given and say thanks.

If we care about future human generations (and not only our preciouss bloated egos) then lets think, feel and act in consideration of seven generations, lets look into the root of the problem. I cannot save the civilization from its self-destruction, I very much doubt anybody can. I can't even help civilization to land softly - and I've tried, believe me! So I do understand the emotions you are going through and why you react the way you do, having gone through the same hell. I can't offer much help, but what I know is that life gets much easier and happier when 1 stops believing that 1 is more important than a tree in the forest.

Brazil uses sugar cane to make ethanol and powers half of it's cars and trucks fuel needs with it. The other half is from their own oil, crude oil. And the average Brazil person uses something like 1/10 as much fuel as an America. And the sugar cane is mostly hand harvested by cheap labor in horrible conditions. And it is not from waste, it is from the juice of the cane. Bob

Nah, there's no significant inflation, at least according to 'official' statistics. There's only record amounts of dollars being printed to help bankers, and investment firms, out of their corrupt-paper bunkers.

I guess it is a topic that people are interested in.

Paul Krugman wrote about peak oil in yesterday's NY Times:

Stranded in Suburbia
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 19, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/5ve787

and

The following is old but interesting:

$4 a gallon
by Michael Ventura
September 2005

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A268467

It's not too long and worth reading. Here is the first paragraph:

"America is over. America is like Wile E. Coyote after he's run out a few paces past the edge of the cliff – he'll take a few more steps in midair before he looks down. Then, when he sees that there's nothing under him, he'll fall. Many Americans suspect that they're running on thin air, but they haven't looked down yet. When they do ..."

Again, I blame our political leaders and the MSM for not waking us up to this years ago. We could have been taking steps to prepare but now it is the last minute and we don't have time. As Hirsch says it will take decades. Krugman talks about the time it will take to adjust to the new reality also. The sooner we get started the better.

Peace,

freefall

What has been happening of late was readily apparent twenty five years ago. The oil companies and the oil sheiks have been working this scheme for at least that long.

The politicians and MSM were NEVER going to expose this scheme as they were some of the main players in pulling it off. There were warnings over the years how the corporations were planning to bleed the middle class dry. No one listened to them.

The biggest most arrogant belief by the American middle class is that the corporations would never actually destroy the middle class or they would "kill the goose that laid the golden egg". You are 100% WRONG. The reality is that once the corporations steal all your money, you are IRRELEVANT to them. You will generate no more profits, so you can just find yourself a hole to crawl into and die.

Would a bank robber case a bank for a job after he had already stolen all of its money? No! He would find a new bank to rob that still had some money in it.

To understand the shabby way the Bush/Cheney government has treated returning Iraq war veterans with injuries is easy if you keep the corporate mentality in mind. The vets are no longer able to fight so there is no point in throwing away good money - profit - by treating them. Sound harsh? If you cannot see it, you are a fool and you are doomed.

A wise man once said in another context, "Don't look at what the say, watch what they actually do!"

I would add, "Forget your preconceived notions about how you think people, or corporations, should act, look at what they actually do!"

costs, these problems will no longer exist.


:sarcasm:

DU's financial guru has replied to one of my posts. I am honored and this is definitely NOT sarcasm! Thanks.

:woohoo:

I am always flattered and stunned by such effusive comments. You probably know the Stock Market Watch. Please join us as we attempt to take apart the monumental silliness and criminality that spins our world.

What inflation? CPI is low!

The problem is the cost of everything else goes up when oil goes up - including food and electricity.

takes between 20 and 50 barrels of oil to produce.

The best option would be to buy and old car and convert it to electric.

Electricity is generated by natural gas or coal, usually.

So that electric car is still producing heat, and contributing to the total heat load of the planet.

Just like incandescent light bulbs produce light, but mostly they produce HEAT which the air conditioning must work harder at to eliminate.

So that's where mine comes from.

But I totally understand your point.

I have this concept, naive, but still my concept.

It's the idea of single point pollution.

meaning, if we currently convert all fossil fuel burning transportation, to electric, then the pollution will come from a single source (in theory), the coal plant. From that point, we then put into effect (or along the way) strict controls for CO2, Sulfur, and heavy metals put into the air.

Yeah yeah, I know, it's the wizard of oz dream and yes, I know that there is currently no such thing as a good way to get rid of the gases and heavy metals, but I figure it would be much easier to control it from a "single" source then from millions of vehicles.

I really hope for continued high gas prices. Unfortunately this seems to be the ONLY factor that persuades the Average Joe that they should be concerned about our energy policy and that we need to find alternative fuels.

Hybrid sales jumped 10% and light-duty vehicles dropped 12% in March. Those numbers have a long way to go, but it seems high gas prices that punch the consumer in the stomach is the only medicine that works.

I heard all these dire predictions in the late 70s. Then everyone bought Datsuns, Toyotas, and Hondas. Then gas came down. Gas has been high in Europe for years -- they drive tiny cars and get along fine.

Buuuut, don't you know, if we Americans actually face the consequences of our communal lifestyle choices - everyone will DIE horrible deaths? The poor and middle classes will suffer terrible deprivation? Don't you know it's impossible for people to adjust to change? Why do you hate the poor?



BTW - :sarcasm:

ITs going to take $12 gas before the sheeple wake up to peak oil..

up most of the oil and is running us towards peak oil? When he came into office it was dirt cheap, OPEC says it should be around $60 a barrel and its because of the Enron loophole that now exists? Maybe bush and company have billions of barrels hidden away for themselves and are trying to buy all the oil in the world so they can have the profits. You would have thought that the people with the oil would have had an idea on how much existed in the world 7 years ago and wouldn't have let him buy it all up. They must be the stupidest people on the earth to not realize that they were that close to peak oil and would sell it all off in a few years, after its gone, no more huge profits for them.

In Brazil, the citizens ride in cars powered by ethanol, and it is an ethanol created from the waste left over by refining sugar cane. So they aren't seeing higher food prices in exchange for the ethanol.

Brazil has a booming economy - while ours is fizzling out.

yea sure:sarcasm:

economy as we know it, will collapse. in fact, i believe it would even before $15 gallon gas - try $10!

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3313270>

Many of them believe January 2009 will begin an era of springtime utopia for all of America, and we'll all begin a journey, hand in hand, down the yellow brick road; as if all of the dangers our country now faces will vanish with the inauguration of a Democratic administration.

Many poor slobs are in for a very rude awakening.

speculators cause it, I just dont believe the price has gone up so far in so short of a time because demand has increased so much.
I could be wrong of course and if I am feel free to provide a link showing otherwise.

The oil speculators driving up the oil prices ARE the corporate insiders of the oil companies in cahoots with the oil sheiks of the Middle East.

This is the same scheme pulled by Enron insiders who drove the price up so that they could sell their stock at huge profits.

balls to step firmly on the necks if any such price fixing schemes like that because if not we are all screwed.

Addicts in Denial:

#3: "It's the greedy speculators"

Actually, no. Oil is in global decline, and the loss is hard to take. It's time to move on through the other stages, get to acceptance and start dealing with it.

When demand surpasses supply of limited all-important commodity (we eat oil), price starts to go up exponentially: excellent investement opportunity for financial capital. That's how the "Invisible Hand" slaps you in the face.

little real evidence that the supply itself of oil has been reduced, they are still pumping enough oil to keep things going so far and they have not had to halt production, in fact didnt opec vote not to increase the production recently?

Supply down since 2005:

Flat production and continued growth in demand create a shortfall, and that drives up prices.

EIA stats show that production has been essentially flat since 2004. Meanwhile, demand continues to grow at an average of 1.5% per year.

During that period, demand grew a total of 7%. This creates a shortfall of of 7% for a very inelastic commodity. Given price elasticity for oil at about -.07, that means the price would have to rise about 100% in order to get demand levels in line with supply levels.

If you figure $50-$60 a barrel at the start of that period, that would put it around $100-$120 now, so the extra can probably be blamed on, well, pick your favorite culprit: speculators, BushCo, greedy oil companies, "above ground factors," or some combination.

OPEC could vote to increase production, but that wouldn't result in more oil. It's peaked, and they're hoping no one will notice.

a company involved with oil or hired by the oil companies do you? *grin* hehe sorry had to ask because of the name.
Anyway in regards to your thinking that OPEC is hoping no one will notice do you think that might be because they dont want to encourage research into alternate forms of energy while they can still sell all the oil they can pump?

LOL! No, Austin doesn't have much to do with oil, except for state legislators who come up from Houston. Hi tech and public sector doings are what's big here, and also with me.

As for discouraging alternate energy, the way for OPEC to do that would be to open the spigots all the way -- in fact, that's the story that got around about why the Saudis did just that in the early 80's, when oil got cheaper than Kool-Aid. Apparently, they were very concerned about the alternate-energy efforts that got under way along with the environmental movement in the late 1970's.

If oil is no longer a primary energy source then the US and other countries wont have nearly as much an incentive to try and stay on the good side of OPEC countries and it might even cause the US to hold OPEC countries accountable for their actions more than they do now.

what better place to make money is the oil speculation market...4 dollar gasoline....just think of the money i can make at 12 per gallon...!

It was clear back then that the supply of oil was finite. I see 35 years wasted.

instead of believing the outrageous lies of the criminal ray-gun, and remaining willfully ignorant of the way ray-gun's cabal set up Carter with the Iranians, and had we been working since '76 to create non-petroleum solutions to our energy and transportation requirements, and invested in the research and development of these solutions, instead of pouring trillions of dollars into corrupt military cons like "Star Wars" that enriched the filthy corporatists now in control, we would be leading the world into a post petroleum renaissance instead of the catastrophic and bloody disaster soon to come.

It is America's cowardly fault and we deserve every bit of the hell we will soon have to pay. It would be nice if we would have the courage to demand reckoning from the power elite criminals that have engineered this, instead we allow them to continue to steal elections unchallenged and we still fight wars to keep them in power. It is the Stockholm Syndrome on a global scale. True mass insanity.

for its day, and we should have listened more carefully.

Going faster than 55 mph makes a sizeable decline in MPG on the highway.

Of course, electric cars are making a lot more economic sense these days.

That started in November '73. Under Nixon.

The point is, we knew how vulnerable we were 35 years ago.

shopping and celebrity we might have noticed what was going on and prepared for a post-petroleum world. Instead, I fear you are right and it is going to be a bloody disaster.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

True mass insanity, indeed!

Gosh, soon gas will be 20 dollars a gallon, wont that just be terrible...... people will have to cut back a little.....

By the time gas hits $6, we'll think of something -- electric, CNG, etc.

made from oil, isn't it?

I am on a flat-fee plan, so I pay the same per month year around. When it was renewed last month, they wanted to charge me $120/month ($1440/yr)! I am on a very limited income, so I had to negotiate with them to lower the payment to $80. I will not be using the forced-air furnace next winter. It turns out that electrical heat is far cheaper, because I am on PG&E's low-income discount. I am hoping I can afford to get a small wood stove as a backup.

The World's Top Gas Guzzlers

According to the World Resources Institute, here are the world's top consumers of motor gasoline per capita broken down by region.

All units are in liters per person.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Asia (excluding Middle East):

Brunei Darussalam - 717.7

Japan - 452.1

Malaysia - 364.9


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Central America & Caribbean:

Netherlands Antilles - 884.5

Trinidad and Tobago - 339.2

Mexico - 312.5


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Europe (excluding Luxembourg and Gibraltar)
Switzerland - 656.2

Iceland - 651

Sweden - 593.9


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Middle East and North Africa

Qatar - 1,030

United Arab Emirates - 998.6

Kuwait - 967.2


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

North America

United States - 1,635.2

Canada - 1,203.7


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

South America

Venezuela - 508.7

Ecuador - 177.4

Chile - 169.4

http://www.desmogblog.com/the-worlds-top-gas-guzzlers

....some form of rationing NOW!....keeping prices low and affordable with rationing will minimize the negative impact of higher oil prices throughout the economy....there is no need to go broke making oil companies and wall street filthy rich....

....and what is our worthless government doing about high gas prices?....ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!....the biggest transfer of wealth to occur in our lifetime and our useless government won't even pass a windfall-profits tax on big oil and put the money into healthcare where it's needed....

....and big oil needs all our billions for what?....to explore for oil that doesn't exist?....this is proof our government is completely purchased by the corporate interest, for if it wasn't, we'd be getting relief right now....

....but we're getting raped instead by elected corporate shills in both parties that would rather holds hearings, investigate, study and then do nothing while we suffer....

It will have to go much higher then 4.00 per gallon before they get angry.

The higher they go, the more rationing is effected.

High price is "market guidance" (-> only rich drive and eat, poor die), rationing is governement regulation to spread misery more evenly. To balance the equation, the poor masses about to die have this message for the scared rich elite: give us our daily ration or die in a bloody revolution. Solution: police state.

And shortage is just a myth a this point.
Proof of that is there have been no lines at gas stations, none have run out of gas to sell and nothing about rationing.

The current run on gas prices is based purely on the commodities market. The investor are driving futures higher and higher.

US is not the whole world, the global supply-demand gap is really hitting so far only the poorest countries. That's where the gas lines and run outs and riots are.

from an oil man and his friends?

And what they were paying, say, 5-10 years ago?

has diesel at ₤1.24/liter and regular unleaded at ₤1.12/liter.

That's roughly $9.40/gallon and $8.50/gallon.

Yet people still drive their Aston Martin DB9s at Mach 5 on the motorways here. Must be on expense accounts...

I seem to remember it was around 69p/liter about 5 yrs ago.

I found some listings.

When you factor in the currency exchange rate between then and now, that accounts for some of the skyrocketing prices in the US.

This is as of 2005:

http://www.see-search.com/business/fuelandpetrolpriceseurope.htm

Looks like Europe and UK were around 2-3 times US prices. If that's still true today, they'd be about $8-12 per US gallon.

This site:

http://www.petrolprices.com/

Shows current pump prices in UK. Average for unleaded is 113.7 (pence per liter, I think), which would be $2.246 per liter or about $8.50 per US gallon. (Somebody please confirm my math!)

The UK does have (more and more) far-flung suburbs, but an extensive passenger and commuter rail system. Infrastructure we don't have, as well as a culture where people drive much less for everyday things, like work, school, shopping, etc.

As for the commuter culture here, it's hit and miss. Having also lived in Europe for a while, I personally think the UK is a hybrid of the US and Europe. London is great - I'd never bother to own a car there. But get too far from London, and it's not so great. Out here in the sticks (but still in commuter range of London), many villages no longer have a shop so people have to hop in the car to go into a town to buy anything they need. Apparently an artifact of retail giant Tesco having driven a lot of village shops out of business. Bus service outside the cities is pretty limited, and to commute by train you'll often have to drive a ways to get to a mainline station. Even then the train isn't as cost-effective as you might think. At 25mpg the cost for me to drive the 60 miles to London is about £15, but the cost of a standard same day roundtrip train ticket is £30. European trains are heavily subsidized by their governments, and therefore much cheaper. Thatcher (I think?) denationalized and sold off the trains here, subsidizations ended, and up went the prices. Until that gets fixed the UK is probably closer to the US commuter culture than to the European one.

Welcome to the horse and buggy.

oh wait....

From Oil Prices in 2012



If the price of gasoline tracks the price of oil, the implication is a price of $25 to $30 a gallon by the beginning of 2012. Of course a super-spike like that will cause all kinds of havoc. Now, the accepted wisdom is that demand destruction will then result in a drop in prices. there may be a problem with that reasoning in the context of Peak Oil.

When most people talk about the economics of oil prices, they rarely go past the supply/demand curves they learned in high school. Those curves work (sort of) when neither supply nor demand is constrained. Rising demand results in a rising price, which stimulates more demand, thus bringing down the price. If more supply isn't available quickly enough, the price stays high, some consumers go without, and the price falls. Eventually, when more supply becomes available the price falls and demand picks back up. Nice and simple.

The key to the current situation with oil, though is "own-price elasticity of demand", and what happens when inelastic demand meets a constrained supply. Demand goes up, raising the price. But in this case the supply is constrained by geology and logistical limits, and can't rise to meet the rising demand. As a result the price stays high. So some consumers do without (e.g. Africa and various other poor countries), but the increasing economies of the world (like Chindia) must have oil to feed their growing economies, and the USA and Europe have enough disposable income to pay the high prices so their consumption doesn't go down (that's inelasticity at work). As a result the price never falls -- it just keeps rising while more and more of the world's people are priced out of the market and have to do without.

But here's the kicker. The one thing that would drop demand is a global recession or depression that hits the US, Europe and China. We'll probably get to see one of those within the next decade or so. The question is whether the resulting drop in demand will be faster than the drop in supply. If the call on the supply always stays above of the supply volume, then even in a recession we will still see rising oil prices. That's the painful implication of economic growth that reaches a resource limit before enough substitutes are deployed.

And that, friends, is called stagflation.

This is a novelization of what a post-oil society might be like. Though he killed off most of the population with disease. The town dump became a resource mine. Not quite Mad Max or Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But then the future could unravel in any direction.

Looks like we might all be driving one of these.

This is developed by Abdolhadi Mirhejazi of Dubai. When he says it’s a 1-horse powered vehicle. He means it. An actual horse is running a treadmill inside this see-through van. The treadmill feeds the gears which runs the wheels forward. Ummm… a reverse is possible after training the horse probably to stride backwards? Silly, it’s just a gear adjustment like the regular cars of course.The treadmill also feeds a battery that takes over when the horse either gets tired, or hungry!
http://forevergeek.com/general/single_horse-powered_car.php

How quickly is it likely to get this high?

2-5 years. $5-6 per gallon by inauguration. But more likely they will attempt price curbs, rationing etc. before $12.

The price of gasoline is basically driven by the underlying price of oil. To get a 3.5x rise in gas prices requires a 3.5x rise in the price of oil. Oil is $130 per barrel today, so 3.5x$130 = $450. Oil at $450 a barrel will give us gasoline at $14 a gallon.

When will oil hit $450 a barrel? According to my extrapolation of the current oil price trend in the graph below, that will happen in the third quarter of 2010.



We will see $12 gasoline by the start of the 2010 driving season.

and the data:kick:

First, Minimum wage earners just can NOT afford to work, pay their rent and eat once the price of Gasoline per Gallon equals their income on a per hour basis. For more see:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=586&mesg_id=588
I did the above calculation in 2005 when Minimum wage was $5.15 per hour. According to the Department of Labor Cite, minimum wag goes up " to $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007; to $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008; and to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009."
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/

Thus the numbers I used in 2005 are no longer valid, but the concept is still valid (and the difference is NOT that great to really worry about, so the Minimum wage is now $5.85 instead of $5.15, for most purposes just a minor, maybe even insignificance difference).

The main thrust was to determine when the first large group of Americans will NO longer be able to afford Gasoline. People seem to stop buying Gasoline when their hourly wage about equals the price of Gasoline sold at a per gallon basis. According to the graft $200 a barrel will hit about April 2009, with $300 barrel hitting about January 1, 2010.

Thus by April 1, 2009 a barrel of oil will cost $200. $200/42=$4.76 a gallon. Add 50 cents in State and Federal Gasoline taxes you get $5.26 per gallon, add about 20 cents distribution costs you get $5.51 a gallon by April 2009. That is close enough to the $6.55 effective on July 24, 2008 for it to have some affect (Both the price of Gasoline AND minimum wage per hour are within a Dollar of each other, less then 15% apart from each other).

About October 1, 2009 oil will be about $250 per barrel, 250/42= $5.95 per gallon, add the 50 cents in taxation and 20 cents in distribution costs and you come to $6.65. The minimum wage goes up on July 24, 2009 to $7.25 per hour. Thus by October 2009 Gasoline price per gallon will exceed minimum wage per hour, prior to that date both prices will be about the same, with minimum wage being higher most of the time. Sometime during the Christmas season that should reverse for oil, if the it is still following the above graph, will exceed $300 a barrel by 1/1/2010.

At $300 a Barrel, 300/42=$7.14 a gallon, add 50 cents in taxation and 20 cents in distribution costs and you get $7.84 for 1/1/2010. At that point something has to break, what will parents do when they have no food for their children, do to NOT being able to drive to work do to lack of money for gasoline? The welfare services will be overwhelmed. The court system will be refusing to take children away from such parents, do to lack of a place to put the children. No one will want the children do to the lack of money for foster care for the number of children that will be entering the system.

I can see parents being arrested for shop lifting food, and the courts refusing to put them to jail, do to fact no one will be able to take their children. Notice the problem will NOT be the observed in the Parents, but in the Courts unable to handle the situation. This problem will NOT be noticed at first, do to the fact Children and Youth Courts tend to be off-limit to the public, but it will pick up quickly as people just can NOT travel to work do to an inability to buy Gasoline.

The flip side will also appear, store managers complaining of the lack of employees, even as unemployment skyrockets (Through this may be covered up, for most of the new unemployed will be "Voluntary" quit, thus NOT counted as unemployed, for they are NOT eligible for Unemployment Insurance benefits (They may be "fired" do to NOT being able to get to work, which is grounds to lose unemployment insurance rights, or they may just quit do to an inability to get to work, voluntary quit is another ground for denial of Unemployment Insurance benefits). I see such stores making an effort to high high schoolers. The reason is that such High Schoolers live with their parents and thus can spend more of their money their earn on gasoline as opposed to food and rent. This will bring problems for most truckers want to deliver doing the Daylight period when such teens are in School.

Truckers will also produce problems, as their refuse to deliver shipments that does not even pay for their Fuel (Truckers are doing this today). Like most people caught in such a situation they will want to minimized their time loading and unloading their trucks, so they will NOT want to wait for the teens to get off from School. Truckers may even refuse to drive to a store unless it has the people on hand to unload the truck when they arrive, even if that is in the Morning.

Most new jobs over the last 40 years have been in Suburbia, an area where you go to and from by car. That is the problem with oil, how do we adjust to a less oil base society? That will take time. People do NOT like changing habits, and right now in the US it is to go by car. Society has accepted that situation and have made the car the ways to get around in the USA. On the short term what people can do is limited, most people live to far away to commute by bicycle. A Moped get much better fuel economy then a car, but cars are what people drive and a small moped, like a bike, most people will not drive given that all the other drivers on the road will have faster cars (and I see the police stopping such mopeds as traffic impediment more than the Police cracking down on motorist pushing they way pass mopeds go much slower speeds then the Car).

That brings me back to what will happen first. The working poor will be hit first and hardest. What safety net that exists will be used up by them and given the lack of support for safety nets in the US, I do NOT see additional funding going into such programs.

At the same time, price caps will come into play. The first one about the time minimum wage per hour equals about a gallon of gasoline. How long will that hold I do not know, but when it breaks, the next cap will be the point where they are more people unable to pay for gasoline then they are people able to pay a much higher price for gasoline. Maybe by that time the Government will step in with a solution (i.e. building up mass transit in urban areas, helping the farmer to adjust to using horse and Mules instead of tractors etc). But that is in what I call the "Transitional" phase of peak oil NOT when peak oil first hits and people have to adjust to high prices do to the shortage of oil. Peaking of oil is what we are going through right now, when the vast majority of people accept that and demand the Government to do something we will go into the "Transitional" phase. In the "Transitional Phase" the Government has to look into where we are heading and help guide the country to that end. At the same time, we will still have enough oil to ease the transition. For example, the Government may encourage people to buy mopeds to go from their home to work. That is only a transitional solution to the problem. The long term solution will be to have people live near where the work, but that will take time, in my opinion 20 years. Such a solution, people living closer to where their work, and shop, is what we were before the Automobile. We will have to return to it, but it can NOT be done overnight. Thus the transitional phase will occur as the Government does things, with its remaining access to oil, for people to keep their homes and get to work with the minimum amount of oil usage. You may even see the return of the Wife and children in the suburban home, while the Husband works in the city and lives in a separate apartment, seeing his family once a week when he is off work for a whole day. This will especially be true if both parent's work is apart from each other. One parents moves near their employment with the children, the other 5 days a week lives near the other place of employment.

My point is we will have three phases of the Peak oil Crisis. The Peaking of oil itself, which we apparently are going through right now, the transitional phase as we accept that oil is in short supply, but try to keep what we have when oil was NOT in short supply, finally the final phase as we fully adjust to living is the post-oil age. The full transition may take over 100 years, but given we have about 140 years of oil left (Through each year less and less being pumped) the transition is doable if everyone understands what is going on, accept it as real, and adjust their livelihood to reflect that fact we will be in a post-oil society.

bucks a gallon, there would be rioting in the streets twenty four seven.

It ain't dazzling.

It's a long way from the Matrix of growth economy aka civilization to growing Garden Planet.

posted by Hannah Bell

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3323236

I think the prices could stabilize a bit.

That being said, this would be a total disaster and I feel sad when I see anyone gloating about it.

Doubling the price of gasoline requires underlying oil prices to double, which they have done in the last year and a bit. If oil prices keep on rising at the current rate, that would put them at $250 (and gasoline at $8.00) in mid-2009. That analysis comes from this article: Oil Prices in 2012

What are they supposed to do about that? Will it cost $2,000 a month to heat your home? That is something that you cannot avoid, unless they want people to freeze to death. Not everyone has a wood burning fireplace, which can be extremely unsafe also. Lowering the thermostate won't make much difference either at the current prices.

much of our electricity is hydropower or geothermal...winds up being much cheaper for me than propane...I still want a small wood stove, "just in case"...

I hope this is at least 5 or 10 years away?

I made the case for this in a post just above:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3317769&mesg_id=3320816

Let's car pool, work remotely if we can....mass transit....form van pools....tell the oil execs to stuff it in terms of drilling in Anwar or off our shores.

People are going to work just so they can buy gas to go to work. I say drill.

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