How high must gas prices go before people take to the streets.

[redirish28]

Poll question: How high must gas prices go before people take to the streets.

This is a debate my wife my friends and I have been talking about. How high will the prices go before people say enough is enough and start protesting?

[MercutioATC]

1. Other: They won't.

High gas prices will piss people off, but nobody will demonstrate over them.

(O.K., ALMOST nobody...there are always a few nuts who will protest anything)

[Lorien]

30. I agree-as long as there's "Lost", "Desperate housewives", Wal-Mart and

McDonalds they won't protest much of anything. :-(

[MercutioATC]

33. Bingo!

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

[0007]

72. LOL!! Let's waddle down to Wendy's for a double cheese burger

with bacon and a piece of fried chicken.

At least Wendy's didn't raise the price! Well, not yet anyway.

[Tom_Foolery]

73. Yeah, that's the truth!

We had severe weather move through here on a Sunday, and our ABC affliate had to interrupt Desperate Housewives. Well, there was such an outcry about it that they had to replay it the following Saturday night. People won't stand up against the gas prices and other injustices; but their TV show gets interrupted, well, it becomes life or death.

[rucky]

76. Not with gas.

it's at odds with our "right" to drive to McDonalds & Wal-Mart.

[Hobarticus]

2. At five bucks, Bush will have some 'splainin' to do...

I think everybody has their limits, even the Kool-Aid-drunken will want some answers.

[Warpy]

11. Ten bucks a gallon would do it out here.

but distances out west are great and mass transit mostly in the planning stages (although I'll give Richardson credit, he got the north-south passenger train running, something that's been promised since the 50s). Lots of people think nothing of a 60 mile commute into town so they can live in the mountains or in some of the more picturesque small towns.

The main change I've seen over the past 6 months is that new cars are getting quite a bit smaller. I don't see many monster trucks and SUVs now and I do see a lot of small sedans and even a few compact station wagons. People are downsizing if they can, trading in those big guzzlers for something a little more reasonable.

Light trucks like Rangers are still being sold, though.

Still, at $10 a gallon, people are going to have a very hard time commuting out here, and that will kill any residual support from the Texans who wandered across the border and took up residence here.

[Hobarticus]

16. Rural and farming region, here...

You can't get anywhere 'round these parts without a twenty-minute drive, at least. Plus, figure a great many farmers are going to have one helluva time remaining solvent if their over head doubles in the space of a year.

Rarely see newer SUVs, anymore. Even more, there's still a lot of 'working' pickups (you know the ones....dirty as hell, they're obviously a workingman's or farmer's legitimate vehicle) but a lot less 'soccer mom' pickups that have never seen a gravel road if they can help it. The Ford Behemoth F-1500 with X12 engine or whatever the hell it is? Getting very scarce.

It sucks to see working folks get hit like this, but it's refreshing to see the "I drive it 'cuz I can" folks cooling their heels.

[Warpy]

25. Those monster Ford jobs are on used car lots here

waiting for a farmer or rancher to trade up and get some real use out of them. Most of them were driven by urban cowboy types around here, yuppies who wanted the image and thought a shiny, spotless pickup truck would give it to them.

I hate to see working folks get hit, too, but maybe some of the folks driving those patched together 30 year old pickup trucks will be able to trade up now that the lots are choked with monster trucks and SUVs.

In any case, if it takes high prices to get yuppie types back to a little sanity, I'm all for it.

[AnneD]

50. When I lived in Cloudcroft....

It was not uncommon to carpool of sorts. If I was going down the hill (1 hour roundtrip), I would ask my neighbors if they needed anything. Trips to Alamo were an all day deal. For the heavy duty shopping at Christmas (Las Curses 5 hrs roundtrip El Paso 4 hours round trip) we stayed overnight at a motel. We didn't make many trips but it was still expensive. They are surely hurting because the pay is so little. They try to tell you the cost of living is less but that is BS. As much as loved it there, I could not have stayed and retired too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Gas prices will rise no matter what the politicians do

Anyone who thinks it's "just a trick of the oil companies" and that rioting will make it all better is in denial.

We cannot sustain a gasoline-based economy indefinitely. Within our lifetimes, we will reach the point when extracting oil costs more than it's worth.

More important, the PLANET cannot support our gasoline addiction. Global warming is advancing, and our car addiction isn't helping the least bit.

If you're smart, as opposed to a worshipper of cars and a brainwashed consumer, you'll start changing your lifestyle NOW. You'll switch to a smaller car and/or start making as many trips as possible by transit, bicycle, scooter, or shoe leather. If you were stupid (yes, stupid!) enough to buy a house in the outer suburbs, you'll sell it and move closer to your workplace, preferably to a place where you don't have to drive much (which will save you enough to afford a house closer in). And yes, you WILL survive living in a smaller, older house. You'll shop locally. If a store close by doesn't have what you want, you probably don't need it.

I'm being harsh, but it's the truth.

[msongs]

4. exactly - there is no "right" to cheap gas

to survive, we need some reasonable access to oxygen, clean water, and edible food. that's about it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/impeachbush.htm

[marmar]

5. This country's short-sightedness on public transit...

is going to cost us, big time. They've invested in Europe and Japan in dense, electricity-powered transit networks that make a car completely unnecessary. Our auto addiction and subsequent suburban sprawl are going to look downright silly in the not-too-distant future.

[darkmaestro019]

6. Good. Maybe non-motile households like mine

can pick up a very nice house away from the human noise and stupidity for cheap.... : )

[NorCalDem]

15. I've been saying this for awhile

If you go to Europe they have high speed trains that go everywhere, and are cheaper than flying and infinitely more fuel efficient than everyone driving themselves.

When America was building highways, we should have been laying railroads and making bullet trains. I heard Neil Cavuto say that history is passing France by because they won't let "competition" into the work force. Well, I have some news for Cavuto, when the French can still travel around their country and we're stuck where we are because we can't afford to drive across the country anymore, his tune will change :)

P.S. Why is it that proponents of free-markets always want monopoly for themselves (so that they can price gouge) yet they're adamant that there is competition in the labor force. Methinks they're just selfish, just a bit....

[mitchtv]

20. a lttle good news

They are going ahead with plans to bring train service from LA to Indio.SP is resisting . (Since many immigrants,cannot get drivers licenses it would be a boom for them).

[MelliMel]

68. Great!

I'd like to see one from L.A. to Vegas. :-)

[Sinti]

22. Ever wonder why they decided after WWII to get folks out of the cities?

They built roads and led people off into the hinterland, as it were, instead of making better cities. Lack of foresight, I suppose.

[mitchtv]

42. the tire and auto industries

were largely resonsible for crushing public transportation

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. Yes, the auto companies bought the Twin Cities' wonderfully extensive

streetcar system in 1954 and ripped it up, even burning most of the streetcars, except for the ones that they sold to cities in Latin America, where, I hear, they're still running to this day.

A section of the track remains in the Chain of Lakes area of Minneapolis and one old streetcar runs on it as a tourist attraction.

People began lamenting the loss of the streetcar system as early as 1973 (the oil crisis), but they were about twenty years too late.

[Lorien]

36. Indeed:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/

[DianaForRussFeingold]

38. Thank you, I was looking for this ! An Inconvenient Truth'

"Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their own conclusions in a charming, funny and engaging style, and by the end has everyone on the edge of their seats, gripped by his haunting message," said Guggenheim. An Inconvenient Truth is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share. "It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," said Gore.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/aboutthefilm.html GORE ROCKS so do you!:yourock:

[Strelnikov_]

37. Yes, You Were Harsh. But The Thermodynamic Reality We Are Facing

is also harsh.

[YouthInAsia]

7. they'll never take to the streets.

[Jed Dilligan]

8. Answer:

High enough that they can't eat

[Sinti]

10. Yep, hungry people will take to the streets.

When they're so high that the added cost of transportating your food makes it so you starve, then the people will begin to revolt. Until then... what's on TV?

[jsamuel]

9. 50.00

[file83]

34. LOL - at $50.00/gallon you can kiss the global economy bye-bye.

:scared:

[jsamuel]

41. people have forgotten what real war means

if your opponent controls one of your vital resources, you will starve for it...

[RB TexLa]

12. No price, people complain about it but people complain

when the market price of anything they buy goes up.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. It's a non-issue. This is Peak Oil. Nothing else is relevant.

This isn't about gasoline prices, or the inconveniences of paying more for keeping the old battle wagon on the road. This is what "Peak Oil" is all about. In a couple of years, when we're POST Peak Oil, the price of $25/gallon gasoline will be an afterthought -- there will be frequent blackouts, not enough heat in the winter, and agriculture will begin to fail in the Third World.

Folks, this isn't the 800-pound gorilla in the living room, this is Godzilla munching the head off that gorilla.

We have a few things we could do to survive. Nuclear energy is able to fill the gap, but many people fear it, though that will change in a big hurry. Alternative energy sources are unproven, but a decade of concerted effort could put them to work, and we'd be damned fools not to make that effort. Or, we could wait until the other 6 billion people die, and take the world for ourselves.

Of course, I wasn't being entirely serious about that. What IS serious is that the American Way Of Life, as we have known it, will soon be over. "Wrap your head around it" today and avoid the rush tomorrow.

I have seen the future, and it sucks. But how hard it sucks, and for how long, are entirely up to us. Will it be a speed bump, or will it be a death plunge over the cliff?

--p!

[Sinti]

14. There is no peak oil emergency, thermal depolymerization can fix it easily

Nearly all your waste could be turned into oil, gas, fertilizer, and so on. They just need to ramp it up to scale. Not that you shouldn't conserve, but technology exists to avert this type of crisis entirely.

Thermal depolymerization article -- http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/turkey_trash.html

[NorCalDem]

18. First law of Thermodynamics

Energy can niether be created nor destroyed, only converted between various forms (heat radiation being a primary form of energy "destruction")

TDP will only work with the input of other energy sources, and although does work to make useful products from wasteful ones (i.e. chicken/turkey guts) it will still require energy to work (and by definition you'll get out less than you put in). That's is why it is called "thermal" depolymerization, as it requires the input of heat, or thermal energy, in order to work.

Where we gonna get that energy when we've run out of oil?

[Sinti]

21. They currently use the oil product they create to run the factory not oil

This is from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization

The company claims that 15 to 20% of feedstock energy is used to provide energy for the plant. The remaining energy is available in the converted product. Higher efficiencies may be possible with drier and more carbon-rich feedstocks, such as waste plastic.

I don't think this is a permanent answer. But, I'm not afraid of peak oil.

[Dogmudgeon]

47. You shouldn't be afraid of Peak Oil

You should be afraid of the political stupidity that has led us into this situation in spite of half a century of well-reasoned warnings.

We have the ability to prevent our stupidity from turning into tragedy. We've done it before. But there is scant evidence that anything beyond small, prototype, and symbolic efforts are being made to turn us from this particular disastrous course. In addition, we now have an epochal climate-change to deal with.

The rational, activistic answer to Peak Oil is to promote, agitate, and demand the changes and improvements we need -- not just TDP and other alternatives to petroleum, but well-designed changes in social and financial organizations that don't require us to use the oil industry as an umbilical cord.

There is no reason why we should destroy our entire global civilization(s) simply because we're being led by fools.

--p!

[Bushwick Bill]

45. Please

Our entire agricultural/livestock mechanisms are run on cheap plentiful fossil fuels. We basically pour natural gas based fertilizers and pesticides on our land/crops, use diesel powered quipment to cultivate them, and use same to feed all of the animals whose guts we would use in depolymerization. So, depolymerization is really a derivative of our current fossil fuel based system.

[NickB79]

49. The waste is produced FROM oil

As oil becomes scarce, there's gonna be less waste to feed into TDP plants.

Turkey offal, using the commonly-quoted feedstock, is produced by growing grain in fields using diesel fuel, harvested using diesel fuel, transported to the turkeys using diesel fuel. The feed is fed to the turkeys, which only convert a portion of the grain to meat, and then the turkeys are shipped to a slaughter plant using diesel fuel. After they are slaughtered, the now deminished amount of material left as offal is fed to the TDP system.

Can you see how you will obtain far less fuel back from the turkey offal than you just used up growing the turkeys to begin with?

[paparush]

75. MMMMmmmm Turkey Fuel...don't forget all the 'lectricity...that runs

the plants that processess the live turkeys into offal (awful)

[Lorien]

39. Climate change is relevant-and the answers to both are the same.

We'll lose not only "the American way of life", but life, period. People don't seem to get that (although a few DO: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/ ).

If we can put a man on the moon and develop the atom bomb, we should sure as hell be smart enough to come up with renewable alternative energy sources. It's more a matter of political will than anything else.

[B Calm]

17. A freeper told me today it's all Clinton's fault because he didn't

have energy plan..

[windy252]

64. *sigh*

The Clenis strikes again.

[Ron Green]

19. When an electable politician finally says "SUSTAINABILITY" loudly enough

for the corporate media to notice, we will have turned the corner.

Unfortunately, it will be too late. It's too late now.

[kevinbgoode]

23. The grumbling is growing at the gas stations. . .

It's like the number one topic of casual conversation when pumping gas now - and no one is happy. Just this afternoon, I put $13 in my little Mirage - a whole 4.89 gallons. Two years ago I could almost fill the tank on that amount.

[Neil Lisst]

24. ten. it ought to be six, but Americans have become so accepting

of this kind of thing

[fortyfeetunder]

26. The protest won't be on gas prices

I don't think it will be the gas prices that will get people up in a tizzy, it will be the high prices trickled down to consumable goods.

And the outcome is going to be an economic protest, for some people will have to choose between fuel or food.

Each dollar/gallon increase zaps another layer of the working class.

[brazil]

28. Connecting the dots

I think the last six years have proven just how good the average American is at connecting the dots. The high price fuel leads to higher costs of transport, which leads to higher costs of goods and service, which (in a corporate setting) leads to tighter belts and reduced wages for workers, increasing the pressure on them still further.

Meanwhile, the oil companies will take advantage of the confusion - claiming "supply shortages" etc, whether legitimate or not, in order to jack up prices. It's not like this administration is going to investigate them or anything!

[brazil]

27. "Take the the streets" - I like that.

How will Americans "take to the streets" if they can't afford gasoline?

Even if Americans weren't so car-dependent, many wouldn't be caught dead protesting. Unlike the French.

What form exactly would the protests take? Against the gov't, the oil companies, each other? Will SUVs be torched in the streets like Paris? Or will ChevronTexacoConocoPhilipsExxonMobil stations be torched instead?

Most of the owners of such stations don't make a lot of money - but they are the visible face of a huge oil conglomeration which, while still technically three separate companies, was once one that had to be broken up by the government. Take it to the executives of those companies. We're all getting majorly screwed by them while they claim "refining can't be increased any more".

There's no competition, it's just like Standard Oil 100 years ago.

[KansDem]

53. "Take to the streets"--They'll have to. If gas goes up much more...

...they won't be able to afford to drive. They'll have to walk everywhere!

[DianaForRussFeingold]

29. Ready for $262 a barrel oil? $10.00 a gallon

Two of the world's most successful investors say oil will be in short supply in the coming months.
By Nelson Schwartz, FORTUNE senior writer
April 11, 2006: 2:31 PM EDT


DAVOS, Switzerland (FORTUNE) - Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That's the message from two of the world's most successful investors on the topic of high oil prices. One of them, Hermitage Capital's Bill Browder, has outlined six scenarios that could take oil up to a downright terrifying $262 a barrel.


Investor George Soros says Iran is heading for a confrontation with the West. over its nuclear power program and doesn't show any signs of compromising. "Iran is on a collision course and I have a difficulty seeing how such a collision can be avoided," he says.

Another emboldened troublemaker is Russian president Vladimir Putin, Soros said, citing Putin's recent decision to briefly shut the supply of natural gas to Ukraine. The only bit of optimism Soros could offer was that the next 12 months would be most dangerous in terms of any price shocks, because beginning in 2007 he predicts new oil supplies will come online.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/27/news/international/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

[file83]

32. People will have no choice BUT to "to take to the streets" at $10.00...

...because they won't be able to afford to drive.

[Strelnikov_]

40. The Thing Is, Even These Guys Don't Get It

The only bit of optimism Soros could offer was that the next 12 months would be most dangerous in terms of any price shocks, because beginning in 2007 he predicts new oil supplies will come online.

Problem is, George, all that new production will probably not even offset depletion of mature fields.

North Sea, Prudhoe, Cantarell, Burgin, all depleting at 5-10% per annum.

Saudi Arabia, 8%

Saudi Aramco's mature crude oil fields are expected to decline at a gross
average rate of 8%/year without additional maintenance and drilling, a Saudi
Aramco spokesman said Tuesday.

[Dogmudgeon]

48. Soros is right -- and dead wrong

Several new oil supply lines WILL be available next year.

But, simultaneously, both the Ghawar and Cantarell oil fields -- the world's two largest -- will be failing in the same period. They are each now producing oil ONLY by the injection of large volumes of seawater, a process called "water cut", which forces the remaining free oil out, while destroying the surrounding rock-bound oil that could partially replenish the field, albeit at a slower rate.

It seems as if ARAMCO (Ghawar) and PEMEX (Cantarell) have decided to abandon long-term plans, and suck out what oil they can in the next few years, taking the money and running.

I'm sure there will be more "maintenance drilling", but there are no more mega-oil-fields left on the planet. Most of the petroleum is bound in rock, shale, and sand deposits which are physically, ecologically, and economically poor sources (until the price of crude rises to about $300/bbl).

Soros would be better advised to invest heavily, and invest NOW, in next-generation (and safer) nuclear, and alternative energies.

(Yes, I know, a lot of my readers are strongly anti-nuke. I understand your fears about it. But the "equation" includes the lives of six billion people who could die if coming energy crises should destroy global agriculture. We can't take anything off the table -- but if the prospect of nuclear energy gives us a goal to achieve and exceed, but with alt-energy instead, it will have been useful none the less.)

--p!

[Strelnikov_]

70. EROEI Is Going To Wreak The Cornucopian Dream

The 1st half was the easy, high EROEI oil. The half now remaining is the hard, low EROEI stuff.




Spindletop's Boiler Avenue, 1903




An Ailing Thunderhorse Deep Water Platform




Tar Sands - Bitumen Processing Facility

[GliderGuider]

57. Even with massive infield drilling, SA will only slow the decline to 2%

Saudi Arabia is predicting an increase in their rig count to 120 from the current 70 or so. That's a huge ramp, considering the demand for rigs world-wide right now. But it won't help. You can't just drill more oil out of an emptying field. It didn't work in Texas, it didn't work in the North Sea, it didn't work in Pruidhoe, it's not working in Cantarell and it's not going to work in Ghawar. They know it, too:

Saudi Aramco's mature crude oil fields are expected to decline at a gross average rate of 8%/year without additional maintenance and drilling, a Saudi Aramco spokesman said Tuesday.

But Saudi Aramco has taken a number of measures to offset a decline in output from the country's aging oil fields, the spokesman added.

"A variety of remedial activities are always being taken in oil fields influencing their effective decline rates," the spokesman said. "The drilling of additional development wells in the producing fields is Saudi Aramco's standard practice to offset normal declines of older wells."

This is particularly important when oil fields are progressively depleted under a well thought out strategy of maximizing the sweep and displacement efficiencies, leading to high ultimate oil recovery, the spokesman said.

"This maintain potential drilling in mature fields combined with a multitude of remedial actions and the development of new fields, with long plateau lives, lowers the composite decline rate of producing fields to around 2%," the spokesman said.

New fields with long plateau lives? "A well thought out strategy of maximizing the sweep and displacement efficiencies"? Who is he trying to kid? Saudi Arabia has peaked. We're done.

[Dogmudgeon]

69. Ghawar is likely to collapse first

Water cut has been going on since the early 1990s, and it's been the only way they've been recovering oil for several years now.

ARAMCO petrologists are alarmed by this. Nobody thought that Ghawar would peak and decline so fast, but ARAMCO execs have been "correcting" the estimates of their reserves for years. Oil reserve estimates, worldwide, may be over-estimated by as much as 50%.

Geologically, if the Ghawar field(s) was left alone for a decade or two without the water cut, a significant amount of refilling might take place from the surrounding matrix rock. It wouldn't be like it was in 1970, but it would be a nice production site again for a while, possibly in an era when that oil could help with ongoing development of a new energy infrastructure.

God knows how long it will take for the salt water pumped into the Ghawar field to be dispersed. It is quite likely that the salt itself will decompose or ruin the chemical alkane mix (oil) that saturates the surrounding rocks. The basic materials will still be there, but the re-formation of petroleum might take a long, long time. So the field could have significant petrochemical reserves that will now be lost for millions of years instead of a few decades.

We have to build alternatives NOW. Yes, even nukes, if it means saving people from dying cold, hungry, and sick. Any and every solution -- nuclear, mixed, or nukeless -- will require an immediate committment to not only a short-term fix, but long-term changes in the design and the very philosophy of our industrial and financial world.

We can do it. It is worth doing. It could be quite profitable for everyone, even The People themselves. So why isn't it being done? It's the people like BushCo with narrow, small, parochial interests and mindsets. We have the brains, the ideas, the can-do; the problem is we also have dinosaurs in charge of the world. It ought not take a comet strike to change things.

--p!

[Ilsa]

31. I'm glad it is higher than it was. People need to learn to conserve,

including me. And it hurts that blivet in the white house. But the high price will tear up our economy! As one woman said during an "on the street" interview, "It just means I'll have less money to spend on other things."

[DianaForRussFeingold]

35. We will take to the streets.Will be waiting in line for blocks.

Just like the 70's. It was anoying waiting in line for an hour to fill my VW Bug.I didn't like it and neither did Herbie.:eyes:

[leftofthedial]

43. If it gets much higher, people won't be able to "take to the streets"

[genie_weenie]

44. Never.

People will not take to the streets because it would be too expensive to get anywhere in the spread out US. The genius of 20th century politicians was learning from all those riots in the 19th century and spreading people out to limit their ability to come together...

[NickB79]

55. That's an amazing observation

Almost creepy to think about it.

The only reason the massive rallies of the Civil Rights era were successful was through bus transportation bringing in protestors. Without cheap transportation protesting becomes less and less effective.

[Bushwick Bill]

46. Kunstler articles

Petrocollapse
We've entered a permanent world-wide energy crisis. The implications are enormous. It could put us out-of-business as a cohesive society.

We face a crisis in finance, which will be a consequence of the energy predicament as well as a broad and deep lapse in our standards, values, and behavior in financial affairs.

We face a crisis in practical living arrangements as the infrastructure of suburbia becomes hopelessly unaffordable to run. How will fill our gas tanks to make those long commutes? How will we heat the 3500 square foot homes that people are already in? How will we run the yellow school bus fleets? How will we heat the schools?

What will happen to the economy connected with the easy motoring utopia - the building of ever more McHouses, WalMarts, office parks, and Pizza Huts? Over the past thirty days, with gasoline prices ratcheting above $3 a gallon, individuals all over America are deciding not to buy that new house in Partridge Acres, 34 miles from Dallas (or Minneapolis, or Denver, or Boston). Those individual choices will soon add up, and an economy addicted to that activity will be in trouble.
http://www.kunstler.com/spch_petrocollapse.html Text

The Long Emergency
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency/?rnd=1144952585630&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1040

[The2ndWheel]

51. Protest geology?

I think protesting has just jumped the shark.

[GliderGuider]

52. I see a lot of people on this thread who "get" Peak Oil.

There are knowledgeable experts out there with strong oil industry ties who get it too.

James Kunstler, Colin Campbell, Ken Deffeyes, Richard Heinberg, Matt Savinar, Matthew Simmons - the list goes on and on. They are unanimous in their view that we are at or near the point of maximum oil production, the point past which the world supply will inexorably decline. What we are seeing right now, with oil at $68 (on edit - oops, now it's $69)/bbl, is the so-called "bumpy plateau" that disguises the arrival of the mathematical production peak. In this plateau phase supply and demand are balanced on a knife-edge, and small disruptions have disproprtionate and chaotic effects on price.

One thing the current price situation emphatically is NOT, is the oil companies' fault. The global oil market is probably the closest thing to a pure free market we've ever seen, especially now that Saudi Arabia has lost the capacity to act as a swing producer. As the realization of Peak Oil penetrates further into the traders' brains you will see an ever-stronger upward pressure on prices. At some point soon the supply figures will show a 1-2% decline for two consecutive years, even in the face of very high prices, and the oil market will fully grok that we are now supply-limited. At that point the psychology-driven super-spike kicks in, and the prediction posted above of $262/bbl comes true within two or three months.

The Peak Oilers are still debating the details of the coming scenario. Are we at the peak now (or last December 16 as Dr. Deffeyes contends), or is is still five to ten years off? How steep will the decline be on the far side? To what extent will the exploitation of unconventional oils (Canadian tar sands, Venezuelan heavy oil, coal gasification etc.) slow the decline? How much coal will we begin to use for electrical generation? What is the real potential as opposed to the hoped-for potential of renewables? What will our social response be? What should it be? How many of us (speaking globally) will face privation or even death as a result?

But despite all these hotly debated questions, the Peak Oil community is unanimous in their verdict that oil production is about to slide over the peak of its bell curve and start heading down. When that happens, gasoline prices of $10 or even $20/gal within ten years are not out of the question. And all the protesting in the world won't change that. Protesting will make you feel better, and may make some politicians make some VERY bad decisions, but it won't change the outcome. This is a question of geology, not politics or marketing. and as the previous poster said, it doesn't do much good to protest against geology.

For a look at what some of the dispassionate, quantitative, well-informed Peak Oilers are thinking, visit The Oil Drum.

[NickB79]

54. It amazes me that more people don't realize Peak Oil

I didn't consider myself a star pupil in my circle of college friends, but when I started talking to them 4 years ago about the possibility of Peak Oil, they thought I was nuts. Now that gas is almost $3/gallon, many still don't listen to me. My best friend's brother-in-law just bought a new Chevy Tahoe! The same friend's cousin is looking for a Nissan Armada! This same friend's dad just bought a Hummer H2 two years ago! My sister is looking at a new, albeit smaller, SUV (it would still only get 20 mpg). My mom bought a Ford Escape SUV last summer.

The disconnect between reality and the "American dream" of living large is disturbing. When the dreamers hit reality head-on in the form of outrageous gas prices and gasoline shortages, I fear that many may react violently, very violently.

[Bushwick Bill]

59. Only two issues to debate.

When and what will the effects be? Peak oil is incontrovertible. And with public declarations that the Burgan and Cantarell are in decline and Ghawar has likely peaked, we are talking about peak oil within a couple of years at latest.

I am always freaked out by this Simmons quote:

In the public domain there’s the field-by-field reserve estimates of Aramco when it was being run by Exxon, Chevron, Standard Oil of California, and Texaco, and they had the best people in the world doing these complicated reserve calculations, working on these issues. This was the biggest deal they had. They thought that all the fields, collectively, had 108-billion barrels. They thought Ghawar had 61-billion barrels - we were told in February that Ghawar has already produced 55 . Now 61 is not total - it's the amount they could recover, so if it turns out that these guys are sort of correct, and it's interesting, one of my neighbors in Maine is the retired Chairman of the Board of Texaco. I saw him in Maine after the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) thing, and he said, ”Boy, every Texaco employee that I've ever known has been on the phone saying, ‘do you have any idea who this Simmons guy is?’” And he said, “Yeah, he's my neighbor.” So we were chuckling about that, and I said, “Hey Butch, tell me now, seriously, back in the ‘70s, how dumb were you guys?” Butch is about 6 ft 8 in., and he looks at me and says, “Well you're not calling me dumb are you?” And I said, “No, I'm just joking.” But I told him these numbers and said, “Your best people at Aramco thought that Ghawar had 61-billion barrels and it has now produced 55-billion barrels, but the Saudis claim that Ghawar has another 125-billion barrels that it can recover; 126 plus 60 is 180, could you have missed Ghawar by 3-fold?” And it's the first time I’ve ever seen this gentleman not in a jovial mood. He said, “Those are real numbers, you know. We couldn’t have missed by over 20 percent - that's impossible.” And he said, “We had better people working on these calculations back in the ‘70s.” Because we’ve really deteriorated as a society in the ability to do these complicated reserve calculations; ah, we've created a generation of what a couple of my scientist friends call ‘Nintendo Geologists’ who just sit at a workstation and do modeling and say, “Oh, look at that field.” And if it turns out that the old ‘75 numbers are right, then we really are almost to the end of the miracle, and we should be preparing for the beginning of steep declines in the 5 great fields, and so my bottom line on all this is not to say I know that this is going to happen, because I don’t, but I think this is an enormous worry for the well-being of the world, and I happen to believe that, in fact, as much as you might dislike energy, it's the best thing that we ever had, and it’s modern energy that's created basically every aspect of our society today, and unfortunately, there are still 5-billion people on earth who are just starting to use modern energy, and this is a bad time to say, “Oh, no, that era ended.”
http://www.energybulletin.net/1264.html

[GliderGuider]

62. Wow. That is one seriously shivery quote!

If Ghawar is really that far along, it's about to walk off a cliff. I've heard it has 55% water cut now, so Simmons' conclusions don't really surprise me. As Ghawar goes, so goes the world. Nice knowing you
:nopity:

[melm00se]

56. gas prices will go as high

as the market will bear. As prices go up, consumption will drop. Also as prices go up, alternative sources of energy become more and more cost competitive and will break into the market, and once widespread adoption of the new technology occurs the price will begin to drop further increasing the pricing disparity between oil and this new energy source.

[GliderGuider]

58. So the economists keep telling us.

You need to look a bit more carefully at the multitude of roles oil plays in modern society, then try and imagine a replacement for each of them thsat works on a global scale. You also need to look at how long it takes to put new replacement infrastructure in place, for everything from transportation fuel to electricity to plastics to fertilizer(!). Then try and figure out if we have enough time left to get the replacements ready before the impending social dislocations make it impossible.

I think you'll find that the devil is in the details.

[melm00se]

71. I am not suggesting that

there won't be pain...there will be. It's just that the "end is nigh" crowd as it relates to oil seem to view the world as a static place, that if we run out of oil, there will be no replacement. there are replacements, its just with the price being as low as it has been historically, the other choices make little or no fiscal sense:

non-petroleum based bioplastics exist
non-petroleum based alternative fertilizers exist
non-petroleum based power generation alternatives exist
etc
etc
etc

But, they cost more, produce less and/or are less efficient (I am not going to debate the relative merits of each, it is off topic), so while altruistic motives and responsible citizenry will drive some folks (a very small minority) to make the change, the harsh reality is money in the pocket, regardless if you are corporation or a private person and the average consumer will not make the change until or unless it affects their wallet or some other thing they hold dear.


Just this morning I say an article about E85, according to this article, the average wholesale price of unleaded regular is $2.25 and the wholesale price of ethanol is $2.57, a 14% delta. While the gap is narrowing, until the price point is matched (or beat), there is little financial incentive to make the change (not to mention the fact that, apparently, there have to be significant changes to an engine to make this work properly). Oh yeah: switching to ethanol for combustion still produces C02, and will have little effect substantive effect on greenhouse gas emissions.


one other point: remember the old saw "necessity is the mother of invention"? I think as oil prices spiral (and/or availability dwindles), necessity will go up (rather dramatically) and with the amount of potential dollars on the table ($332 billion in revenue in the last year for Exxon alone), there will be no shortage of folks lining up to either work on development or roll out their option for alternatives to dino oil.

[Bushwick Bill]

61. Because energy and technology are the same!

:sarcasm:


May 2, 2005,

<snip>

The fact that energy and technology are not the same thing is crucial to understanding our predicament. There are really only five energy sources available to us: non-renewable oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, and renewable solar (which includes wind, hydro, photovoltaic, and bio-mass, all dependent on sunlight acting on the earth.) The hope is that technology will somehow allow us to capture an equivalent amount of energy from renewables that we now get from non-renewables. This is the central fallacy of techno-hubris. And this popular delusion is one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of America's successful landing on the moon in 1969 -- the idea that we can do anything if only we wish hard enough. Talk about diminishing returns as expressed in culture!

Of course there's a catch with the theoretical 37-year supply of world oil. The catch is that we don't have to run out of oil, or even close, to have trouble with a depleting supply. All that's necessary to destabilize the major industrial systems we depend on is a fractional yearly decline in production, say two or three percent, because that will mark the end of conventional industrial "growth" that global finance requires to continue operating. It also matters that the US has been depleting its oil at about that rate for thirty-five years and that we make up for our declining oil supply by importing two-thirds of the oil we use from other nations, many of them unfriendly.
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary13.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

66. We've known all this since the 1970s

but the idiots of America, living in their fools' paradise, voted Carter out for telling the truth and listened to Reagan's siren song about needing to do no more than find new oil fields.

The economical "tuna can" cars of the 1970s were rapidly replaced by the SUV.

It is infuriating to think that we could have spent the last 25 years building mass transit and pedestrian and bicycle pathways and intercity rail, converting to greener agricultural techniques, and conducting intensive research to find alternative technologies for generating electricity and creating substitutes for the plastics that are so much a part of our lives.

But no, the oil companies had to get their last couple of decades of maximum profits.

[melm00se]

74. and you sir

what do you suggest?

if we can not "...capture an equivalent amount of energy from renewables that we now get from non-renewables." then what are we to do?

Neo-Luddism?
Curl up in a corner and wait for the end times? (of oil that is).

perhaps that is your path, it sure is hell isn't mine.

BTW, IMHO, Kunstler and his CNU buddies are a bunch of loonies: all bitching and their solution is some Neo-collectivism utopia. Great while doing some navel gazing, but, like all utopias, they only exist in people's minds, the real world is too busy getting in the way.

[bdamomma]

60. how high does this count have to

go before we get into the streets again.

Casualities in Iraq.

2364 soldiers' lives


We lost ten since yesterday.

[ThomWV]

63. Mexicans Took To The Streets At $2.50

And most of us didn't have the balls to join them. Me either.

The smartest thing the Democratic Party could possible do is show up in mass and with signs saying DEMOCRAT in support of the Mexicans. They aren't going back and we absolutly need them to win in 2006 and 2008. By a simply show of support we could win very very big here.

[MelliMel]

67. ?

What does immigration have to do with the OPs question?

[NNN0LHI]

77. We don't have time to worry about gas prices. The Mexicans are coming! n/t