ITT, I will answer questions about Peak Oil.

I've been reading on this subject for maybe six months at this point, and think I finally know enough to host a thread like this one.

Just to kick things off, here are a couple of websites I've read.

http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php
http://www.dieoff.com/
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ but it's not updated so much these days
http://www.energycrisis.com/de/lecture.html
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

The last one has a pretty good overview, and you should be able to make your way through the majority of the reading in an hour or two.

Today I'm reading Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over."

I am of the mindset that after oil peaks, there will be massive upheaval in the financial system of the world. I'm not really sure what will happen at that point.

Fire away.

Do they just become worthless or do they finally have to pursue alternate energies?

that'll be the next "finite" resource....

That's a new one on me. Do you have any links or research to support this? Kind of like Total Recall, right? One company supplies all the water. You don't pay your bill, you don't get water.

and Heinberg talks about it towards the end of his book.
Water processing plants would cease to operate.

Once they have no oil to run the plants, how will they "control" the water supply?

How funny, seein' as how I'm a stockbroker.

I think it depends on what business the oil companies are in. There used to be huge railroad companies that had a monopoly on moving freight from one part of the country to another. Men became very rich on the backs of the railroad workers.

Eventually, cars and trucks displaced the railroads. The railroad men mistakenly believed they were in the railroad business instead of the transportation business.

If the oil companies realize they're in the energy business instead of the oil business, they might have a future. Otherwise, the value of oil company stocks will dry up.

Santa Fe and Transocean are probably fucked. The others might have a future if they retool.

The short story is that the probably won't. They'll continue to lie about their reserves to keep from panicking investors. It will all come apart in a day or two, maybe a week. Their stock prices will plummet to WorldCom levels.

Or, they could start building solar farms and wind farms and tide farms.

Thank you for taking questions! You should be on TV!

Really.

A better question to ask is, "What stocks will do well when energy resources are 10% as efficient as they are now?"

do you see any plausible scenarios for avoiding a complete economic collapse, or at least softening the blow as much as possible?

Heinberg's book, mentioned by the initial poster, explains WHY
we cannot avoid this.
He actually give some historical anecdotes as to how previous
advanced cultures were wiped out once they had expended their energy
sources. "Wiped out" is a rather harsh phrase...they were simply
"scattered".

Another thing...those in power have already chosen the road that is
to be taken: war...

I consider fission to be an option, and there's every reason to believe that "hot fusion" can work, if we quit fooling around and work out the kinks.

I guess I have to read the book.

Mind you, I'm unconfortably aware that we currently *aren't* doing anything constructive, and the clock is ticking.

However, it's only for individuals. The rich do not concede without a fight to the death.

Get yourself some land that can be used to raise food. Or, a good plan B is to acquire a skill that will be valuable in the event we have no food, water, or electricity.

You close with your family?

it can be avoided by the means that you have expoused. MAYBE we could
expand it to smaller communities that are willing to pull together.

But cities would collapse, there's no question about it. Remember,
most metropolitan cities only have 3 DAYS worth of food available for
its inhabitants withing supermarkets, etc. 3 DAYS....

The reason is this: even if I set myself up with some land and a sustainable plan, I'm going to have to try and defend myself against the other 6 billion people who *didn't* prepare, and who are now starving and desperate, and mobbing my doorstep.

I just don't see myself fending off the savage mob, a la Road Warrior. Especially since the mob is billions of people.

I think survival through the "worst case" scenario is pretty much an ugly crap-shoot.

Cars? Trucks?

The idea is to live off the land. Construct an Earthship while you
still can (not to mention being able to get the individual components).


This is why I tend more to agree with communal living. Reason:
you will require the skills of other people.

One possible solution is to load up on food and guns, and hole up til the overpopulation problem has "taken care of itself." I went through a period where this was my mindset, and I now have something like 600 days of food and water stored up, along with enough weaponry to annihilate.... you get the picture.

It might be interesting to note that a 50# bag of rice at Costco goes for about $14, and contains enough food to supply a 2000 calorie day for about 40 days.

400 days for $140.

Three years for $500 or so.

Throw in a couple bottles of multivitamins and a couple bottles of Vitamin C, and you should survive for years. Long after everyone else has died off.

Even thinking about this situation is complete insanity. How can you even think about this? It's too weird to contemplate. It's much better to think about cooperating with neighbors on some kind of communal food growing/harvesting operation. Biodiesel. Solar. Biomass. Bicycles.

Anything but shooting your hungry neighbors.

there's no other explanation for Shell's reduction of their "proven"
oil reserves by 20%. Another thing: why do you think the bushistas
are going for one last oil grab...?

Peak oil is here, question is: how BAD will its repurcussions be?

I personally believe that things are being "arranged" to annihilate
a good portion of the world's population via diseas, famine and war
in order to "trim down" our numbers. As peak oil passes and energy
prices go through the roof, there is no question that the world's
economy (as we know it) will come crashing down. Of course, this
MIGHT be delayed somewhat by the reintroduction of coal as a means
of energy.

Either way, the folks that will feel it the most will be the endebted
"middle class" that has much to lose. The ultra-rich will not be
affected and the ultra-poor have nothing to lose...ergo, we'll
just be pushed down to where "we belong".

I'll add a couple of links as well:
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwopopcnsaglobal2000report10mar81.shtml

http://www.durangobill.com/Rollover.html

http://www.oilcrash.com/eating.htm

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html

http://peakoil.blogspot.com/

Plenty of reading material abounds.

Or do any of these links include information on how to avoid the meltdown?

Depends how far you have ventured into the consumerism society....

There is a solution. Eat less, drive less, etc. Buy things that will be useful to you in the open. Solar powered battery rechargers will probably be worth ten times their weight in gold. Food, water filters, solar water heaters.... there are tons of useful things to stock up on now that will help you later.

Sure, the loss of oil as an energy source will go along with huge troubles!

But does anyone know how to replace synthetic material which is made nearly completely of oil?!?

and that's another issue all together. Look around you...
There are OVER 500,000 items that are made from oil or oil by-products.
Imagine what would happen if oil were to suddenly jump in price to
its reall value (estimated to be around $182/barrel...). Just imagine
the impact. All these items would become ridiculously expensive to
manufacture...distribute, etc.

Its not just about gasoline people...its MUCH more serious than that.

And if Oil hits peak first, how fast will it pull Natural Gas prices up?

Check out:
http://www.peakoil.net/

Apparently, we're waaaaay out after the peak on domestically produced natural gas. We're going to have to bring NG to the US as LNG, or Liquefied Natural Gas. It's terribly inefficient and quite expensive relative to NG just going WHOOOOOSH out of the ground, through a huge pipeline, and WHOOOOOOSH into a power plant.

Now it goes WHOOOOOOSH out of the ground into a plant which slows it down, freezes it, tanks it up, hooks the tank to a truck which tows it to a boat, which carries it across an ocean to another truck, which pumps it into something else which goes somewhere else which ends up finally at the power plant.

Make sure you shut off the light in the bathroom when you're done.

Unlike the graceful bell curve of oil production, gas depletion falls off a cliff. Now you see it, now you don't.

THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

including the Mark Taper forum, and a church in Pasadena. I imagine the schedule is on your website, no? If not, I'll post a schedule.

Actually, in this scenario, we still use oil, but we don't pump it out of the ground. We manufacture it from waste organics, in a sustainable cycle, using something like this:

http://www.changingworldtech.com/home.html

To drive the cycle, we can use: solar, wind, fission, fusion (if we ever get it working), tidal, geothermal. Anything we can get our hands on.

This scenario has the advantage of allowing us to continue using our existing transportion and chemical/materials infrastructure, which are both based on oil.

there is no combination of alternatives that will allow us to keep consuming at the rate we are now. Get ready to get by with less, folks.