PowerSwitch

Orlov wrote:

Observe that the upward slope has a lot of interesting structure to it. There are world wars, depressions, imperial collapses, oil embargoes, discoveries of giant oil fields, not to mention the ugly boom and bust cycles that are the bane of capitalist economies (whereas socialist ones have sometimes been able to grow, stagnate and eventually collapse far more gracefully). It is a rugged slope, with cliffs and crevasses, craggy outcrops and steep inclines.

Now look at the estimated downward slope: is it not shockingly smooth? Its geologic origin must be completely different from that of the upward slope. It appears to be made up of a single giant moraine, piled to the angle of repose near the top, with some spreading at the base, no doubt due to erosion, with a gradual transition into what appears to be a gently sloping alluvial plain no doubt composed of silt from the runoff, which is then followed by a vast perfectly flat area, which might have been the bottom of an ancient sea.

If climbing up to the peak must have required mountaineering techniques, the downward slope looks like it could be negotiated in bathroom slippers. One could do cartwheels all the way down, and be sure of not hitting anything sharp before gently rolling to a stop sometime around 2100.

Mathematically, the upward slope would have to be characterized by some high-order polynomial, whereas the downward slope is just e-t with a little bit of statistical noise.

This, you must agree, is extremely suspicious: a natural phenomenon of great complexity that, just when it is forced to stop growing, turns around and becomes as simple as a pile of dirt. The past is rough and rocky, but the future is as smooth as a baby's bottom? Where else have we observed this sort of spontaneous and sudden simplification of a complex, dynamic process?

Physical death is sometimes preceded by slow decay, but sooner or later most living things go from living to dead in an abrupt transition. They don't shrivel continuously for decades on end, eventually becoming too small to be observable. The model on which the estimate of future oil production is based must be bogus.

And so I like to call this generic and widely accepted Peak Oil case the Rosy Scenario. It's the one in which industrial civilization, instead of keeling over promptly, joins an imaginary retirement community and spends its golden years tethered to a phantom oxygen tank and a phantom colostomy bag.

Full article

jonny2mad wrote:
When I was a Mormon...

paul m wrote: How is the electricity for that car produced?

fifthcolumn wrote:Some who are reading my posts may think that I'm advocating doing nothing because of my belief that there are solutions which will allow the continuation of the current paradigm of industrial civilisation.

To those who believe in the concept of scaling down industrial civilisation, cutting back on consumption, emptying the cities, downsizing the population and going back to the land I have nothing to say to you other than wait and see who is right.

To the rest:
Peak oil is very real and very dangerous and it could indeed lead to doomer scenarios if we get an out of control response to an attack on Iran or a war and consequent cutoff of oil supplies lasts a significant period.

Additionally if the decline rate (once we come off this plateau of oil production) is significant (i.e. 8-10% which is possible though at the lower end of likelihood) then yes we will see significant dislocations and the global economy could go through something like the 1930s with significant portions of it collapsing (though not all and not every region).

If the decline rate is less (4% or so) then I have confidence that the resulting combination of price spikes and subsequent strings of double and triple dip recessions will make the population start to switch to a combination of natural gas, electric, mass transport, bicycles as well as fuel efficiency which will enable a bumpy but nevertheless more or less normal facsimile of today's world.

I personally plan to buy a high mpg small vehicle soon and an electric vehicle next year as well as other more or less logical steps such as greater home insulation, converting all my lighting to low energy, slowly building up a quantity of solar panels etc.

I am *not* going to start preparing for armageddon or try to go back to the land or imagine that I can switch to wood burning stoves etc.
Those who think they can burn wood will find they can only do so whilst the rest of the population are not. If the population en masse tries to do that, the wood will be gone post haste. These types of "solutions" are not.

On the other hand, if all you can do is make small changes then do them. Making small changes are still changes that will make a difference.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

jonny2mad wrote:
When I was a Mormon...

When was that then?

Are you seriously now trying to convince us you come from a mormon background?

I think "Jonny2mad" is not a genuine poster, but somebody pretending to be an ultra-right-wing lunatic in order to make right wing lunatics look ridiculous.

woodburner wrote:
There's a wood fired power station on The Isle of Thanet.

It caught fire recently.

UndercoverElephant wrote:I think "Jonny2mad" is not a genuine poster, but somebody pretending to be an ultra-right-wing lunatic in order to make right wing lunatics look ridiculous.

fifthcolumn wrote:........If the decline rate is less (4% or so) then I have confidence that the resulting combination of price spikes and subsequent strings of double and triple dip recessions will make the population start to switch to a combination of natural gas, electric, mass transport, bicycles as well as fuel efficiency which will enable a bumpy but nevertheless more or less normal facsimile of today's world. ........

Ludwig wrote:

woodburner wrote:
There's a wood fired power station on The Isle of Thanet.

It caught fire recently.

I trust those "oops" emoticons aren't meant to imply you were involved, having got a bit carried away with your sobriquet?