I had heard of Peak Oil as early as the end of last century, however I didn't pay much attention to it that time.

With all the news coverage lately about increasing oil/gas prices, I started researching a bit about Peak Oil, and the current status of world oil production.

After a few days of quite intensive reading and thinking, I have some preliminary conclusions:

1- This world is even more dependant on cheap oil than I thought, even in the most important things such as food. Did you know, for example, that virtually all steps of modern agriculture involve a significant amount of oil? Fertilizers, pest control, all the maintaining and harvesting of fields, obviously shipping I was truly surprised after reading some reports.

2- I realized that Peak Oil looks to be getting really close (in the best case 15 years away, in the worst case very soon), and frankly it looks quite worrying.

3- Both the mass media and the financial media aren't doing great coverage of some issues, which seems to cause most people to think Peak Oil theories are just from a bunch of lunatics. Most people don't know that many countries are proved to have peaked already, and the biggest producer (Saudi Arabia) seems to be having difficulties increasing production.

4- Investment in renewables doesn't seem to be happening fast enough to counter the increasingly expensive fossil fuels (oil/coal). This might cause some countries to increase investment in coal, which is the most pollutant of all fuels and would cause even faster global warming.

This is a very big subject, and there's probably some important things I forgot to mention, maybe they'll pop up when some of you reply.

I don't want to go into the more controversial stuff here, such as economical doomsday scenarios, but let it be said that my view of the world's future is more pessimist than it was a few months ago. I'm usually a very optimistic person, but I do think that the world isn't keeping up in getting ready for increasing oil prices. I'll be keeping a close eye on this since I don't want to lose the money I have invested, in some sort of stock market crash.

I blame Wii Fit for peakoil!

No really, I have looked into it for some bit and the only possiblle way I see in the near future is going nuclear. Most of our powerplants now still run on fossilized fuel, we can and have to conserve most of it by at least trading in our old powerplants with nuclear ones.
That way we can, at least fro some time - find a way to convert our existing fuelburners like motorized vehicles and as you mentioned agriculture to none-fosilized fuel.

I think we should replace all combustion engines with probability drives.

This scares me, because the world seems to be very slow to grasp the fact that this is happening.

I think I went through the same thing as you mid way through last year... back before we hit $100US a barrel. Now we're up to $120US? and Peak oil was apparently meant to have occurred for it to hit 100? We're fucked!

1) Yeah, i knew that. That combined with the oil situation, and China needing more oil and their using more of their ariable land for construction is why the price of food has went up like 50 cents on EVERYTHING and people in poor countries are having an even harder time scraping by.

That and Ethanol. Which we really need to get off of and focus on a REAL solution.

The countries that are going to be hurt by this the most won't be the western countries, it will be the deloping countries... and the poor countries. If and when this hits without a solution countries will focus within and the aid that so many countries depend on will dry up.

It will be a painful transition for the developed nations, but one that they will survive. Ironically, it may just be what the US car industry needs to get itself back on it's feet since importing by boat will become too expensive and will add to the price of ever car.

People become more isolated as it becomes rapidly more expensive to travel. Airlines that aren't run by the government shut down and are only open for important buisness and expensive seating. Since we really don't have effective alternative fueling for them.

Mass migration in the US from Suburbs back to the cities.

Travel overseas becomes practically impossible except by expensive boats and Military Engagements... Tourism drys up in some places, rises in others that are convient to get to.


Worst case scenario I see is...

Wars break out in the Middle East and elsehwhere were their are still strong oil reserves. Perhaps America might actually begin a war for oil themselves. Or even more likely if things are bad enough... the Entire UN Security council under the guise of "settling an area that is in massive turmoil." (After they find a way to cut Russia out of the security counsil.

Iran probably tajes Iraq before hand, either through war or a deal for protection. Same with Kuwait. Then the UN comes in and takes them out. Terrorism hits Europe hard. (As no one can get to the US anymore, so there are really only the sleeper cells already here.)

US drills in the wildlife perserves.

Heck maybe even a World War 3 happens. US & EU vs Russia, China and the Middle East.

Would be an amazing thing to read about in a history book or watch in a simulation.

Will be a hell of a thing to live through if things go that poorly.

Wow, that is a bleak worst case scenario.

Peak oil production is just a situation in which no additional barrels per day can be pumped. It is only a problem if at that moment demand exceeds peek oil supply. If it does, then cue Kasz's scenerio. If it doesn't, then we are fine, but we have to remain vigilant.

Premumably, supply will dry up at a steady rate. We must therefore make sure that demand slows down at an equal or greater pace (of slowdown), if not the threat of the scenario will still loom.

Energy efficiently and changing people's views on energy is what will have to change soon and more so over time. The sooner people start voluntarily making those changes, the longer we will delay and even elliminate the need for governments to force the changes on us.

One day, and I hope to see it, the oil that gets pulled from the ground will go exclusively to the ends which it is best for: using it to make plastics and chemicals that can only be made with hydrocarbons. Right now, we burn most of those versatile ingredients.

Energy, we have hundred of sources of, but plastics that don't contain any oil dirivaties, forgettaboutit. (Sorry, I just watched Donny Brasco on Blu-Ray)

If you are interested in the subject of peak oil, I'd suggest you read a book by James Kunstler titled "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century".  In fact, I'd suggest everyone read it even if they aren't interested.  It deals with more than just peak oil, but thats part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency

An excerp is available here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

Also, @Dogs Rule, there's no way we're going to prevent demand from exceeding supply.  China and India alone are likely to drastically increase their oil usage so even if the US suddenly drops its demand, they'll just pick up the slack.  Also, you're assumption that supply will dry up at a steady rate isn't likely.  If you read up on Hubberts peak theory, you'll see that its a bell curve.  The peak is at the top of the bell and the slippery slope on the other side is extremely steap. It's likely to be like a tap being turned off.  One year we're pumping out oil like normal, the next year its gone.  For a historic example, do some reading on US peak oil in the 1970's. 

Keep in mind that the reason we keep pushing peak oil further back is because as the price of oil goes up, more of the hard to get oil becomes profitable to extract.  15 years ago when oil was sitting at 25$ a barrel, the oil sands in Alberta, Canada were considered way to expensive to exploit so they weren't included in oil reserve calculations.  Now that oil is sitting at 120$ a barrel, it's worth it to develop these sites and therefore they get included which makes it seem like oil reserves are climbing when in reality nothing new has been discovered.

Essentially what people really need to be paying attention to is how fast we're using up our easily extracted and processed oil, not the oil sands or hard to reach oil reserves.  They won't matter much when the world runs out of the good stuff.

Anyway, it's nice to see this issue getting some attention since it is a far more pressing and dangerous issue than the theory of anthropogenic global warming.  When the oil runs out, it'll sure cut human produced CO2 and we can all hail the kyoto accord for finally triumphing! =)

At the current moment the demand is equal to a year ago. The market price very muchs steers the demand.
The current price is way too high, but that's mainly due to investment funds trying to make money out of oil. Imo commodities shouldn't have interference from money-hungry financial people.

Peak-oil is a myth by the way. It's true that the EASY OIL is mostly gone, but that doesn't mean these recources are depleted. There is still a lot of production from enormous oil fields in Saudi, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Iran etc.
Once Iraq and Nigeria stabilize production can be upped even further.
Problems are not to be expected for the next 20 years or so. Saudi alone can provide the world for about 10 years with oil, and they haven't even looked much beyond their know petroleum system.

And there's still a lot of exploration for new hydrocarbons. Thee Canadian tar-sands, deep-sea, the arctic. There are still a lot of regions where we haven't even really started because of the big investments needed, but where the high oil price allows for investments now.
Just in the last 3 months two enormous oil fields were discoverd off-shore Brasil.
Alaska should become the next Gulf of Mexico for the US within a few years.

That being said: it's very important to increase the usage of alternative sources of energy. Partly to release the pressure from the oil producers, that constantly have to max their production and to account for growing demand. But most importantly to spare the environment. CO2 reduction is of imminent importance.
Also it makes very little sense to use oil as a fuel, where it is simply burned, while it's such an important chemical component in all artificial created materials, like plastics.

Heh yeah, it's definitly a worst, worst, worst case scenario... but that's how my mind works.  Would make a good basis  for a Videogame really. 

Wouldn't sell though.  Likely a small Arabian country like Kuwait would be the protaganist with the EU, Russian/Chinese and Iranian sides all being in it for themselves.

Only way out of it would be if you use that as the backdrop, and had some country like Japan develop some sort of cold fusion device that gets stolen by Russia... and later by Iran to make sure they held the market on energy with either an all Japanese commando force or Japanese with Western help to get it back.

Probably with Western help with them betraying in the end as well.

That would sell better I imagine.

Yeah, that's also how my mind works. 

US consumption is falling by the week due to people switching over to mass transit and scooters. I think before 2050 the U.S. will be near energy dependent (U.S. produces more oil than anyone else, relies on imports for whatever it can't supply)

The real problem is Europe, China, and Japan. They have little to no oil reserves. Even if they cut consumption by 90% they still need that 10% from somewhere. Oil will hit $200 a barrel by 2010 and things are going to start to get bad in countries that have no natural oil reserves.

The solution isn't hybrids or electric either, batteries on those things don't last more than a year. IMO we need fuel cells (which would require mass construction of Nuclear plants to supply the electricity for the hydrolysis).