July 3, 2005
hamish & alternative fuel etc.
Hamish, “The world is going to run out of oil” is hardly news. I remember talking about it with my grandfather when I was seven.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so I remain optimistic. 150 years ago, people couldn’t imagine a life without killing massive amounts of whales to fulfill their daily needs. But then things changed, as they do.
Viable alternatives to oil will only emerge when real and actual necessity dictates it. As long as oil remains cheap and plentiful there is no real necessity to speak of, so no point holding your breath.
Right now alternative fuel is just a niche business, like PCs were in the 1970s. I don’t expect it to remain that way forever.
That was a very interesting presentation, which nicely complements the Clusterfuck Nation weekly editorials by Jim Kunstler which I recommend reading:
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/
Right on.
Humanity as a species has a funny tendency of grasshoppering until the first blizzard hits.
Using it all up is the only guranteed way to force us onto cleaner energy.
That’s the spirit, Solios. Let’s all drive V-10 Suburbans. That way we’ll get to the future faster. Seriously.
p.s. Kunstler rocks. He may be a tad gloomy, but his thinking is right on. That, we will reach peak oil production worldwide this year is something we need to deal with. Now, not later.
I’m all for optimism and for technology, but it’s crucial to remember an important dictum from finance that applies here:
“Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.”
Hmmm. But but didn’t we stop relying on whales only after we’d driven some species of them to extinction and others to the brink of it?
“As long as oil remains cheap and plentiful there is no real necessity to speak of, ”
Erm … global warming? (Or are you another one “sceptical” about the science?
Global warming is still in its infancy, as far as issues go.
Give it 50 years or so for the problem to be considered “serious” on a non-abstract level to most Westerners.
The shit will fly when the North Sea Oil begins to run out (give it another two years). Compound that with the U.S. and U.K.‘s less-than-stellar relations with all of the oil producing Muslim countries in the Mid East who would love the chance to really fuck us over. Once the price of petrol and heating oil doubles, don’t be surprised if there is rioting in the streets.
Read Kunstler’s book, “The Long Emergency.” The author has done his homework – cheap oil has been the flux that has been keeping the world economy moving. The good old days of cheap oil are over.
The day of reckoning is closer than any of our politicians will admit.
Not to break the always witty and acerbic commentary, but… Seems like this issue is always looked at from a very static point of view. We, however, live in a very dynamic, organic world. Cheap and plentiful is a good way of saying the other alternatives, by a relevant opportunity cost are priced out of the market. 10 years ago no one ever thought of making an alternative fuel vehicle because gas prices and the cost to change a car’s engine keep the overall cost of acceptance too high, but now, as oil and gas prices skyrocket, they’re beginning to seep into the awareness of the general public..forgiving the obvious clean air benefits, it’s likely we’ll see more advertising and market acceptance of alternative fuels as oil prices continue to rise. Malthus wasn’t right in his hypothesis, it doesn’t happen at the drop of a hat, change is a gradual, slow process…
Kunstler says alternative fuels, while perfectly well intentioned, will not save us, because the model for their implementation and use is based on the old model we’re using now…the cheap and plentiful oil model. As we run out of cheap and plentiful oil, an entirely new model has to be brought online. And fast, if we’re to avert widespread cultural upheaval.
Isn’t this more fun to consider than who’s doing what with their blog?