PowerSwitch

There's no doubt that our present economy is built on oil. So what would the economy look like without oil? Could a modern economy mutate to function without oil? It would certainly look very different from today's economy. Today, what's valued takes forgranted that oil is readily available. But if oil wasn't readily available would we value the same things? I suspect a non-oil economy can exist but we haven't had one for at least a hundread years.

In a non-oil economy bulky items which are transported from far away would be unaffordable. Instead people would trade local produce. Items which do not depend on oil would once again become valuable: horses, stone, wood, gold, etc. Items which require lots of oil to run or make them would be of little value. I'm sure whole theses could be written on this but my simple view is that a non-oil economy could function. After all, they have in the past. Somehting like gold would provide a perfectly good medium to store value in.

The really scary bit is how you get from an oil economy to an non-oil economy. Lots of people are going to lose lots of money and it's not going to be pretty....

You could look at this two ways:

What would the econ be like if we had no oil at all?

Or

What would the econ look like after oil?

The first one I think the econ would not have looked much different. Oil is not the only way to power cars etc. For example, steam was used to power cars to start with. If we had carried on with steam maybe we would have been able to make steam cars that could be as good as petrol cars. There is also the diesel engine, which was original designed to run of bio-fuel and I?m sure we could have developed non-oil based air transport. So, the world may have been a bit different but I think the eco could have been much the same.

For the second question, we could go anywhere form PO not being noticed to a depression to a recession to a TEC depending on how well we plan and how much we dig our heels in and refuse to change. I think recession or depression is the most likely out come but I think we should plan for a TEC.

There is also another side to this, you could as ?what kind of future do we have the potential to make?? There, I would envision a society that is not money centric, that is in balance with nature and technology is used for people benefit. I would see people living in cities that a vertical not horizontal with a high standard of living where production / work places are close to home. Cities where the transport system is an integrated part of the city so people do not need cars. ? I could go on but I think you get the picture

<<The really scary bit is how you get from an oil economy to an non-oil economy.>>

Yes, especially if we have a TEC. But then the plan is to form a network of communities that are self-sufficient.