After the peak, it could still be another 200 years until we use up all those reserves completely, but seeing supply is now being capped, it follows that we can't continue to grow the demand. The world economy is going to be completely re-shaped over this period, whether we want it to or not.

We will not ever use up all the reserves completely. Peak oil has to do with the disparity between the amount of oil we need and the amount of oil we produce and the added cost attributed to it. Eventually oil will be too expensive for anyone to afford and we will switch to alternatives. This will happen probably centuries before we come close to using up all the oil in the world.

It's also unknown whether we are at a local max or at peak oil. There are a lot of contributing factors as to why oil production has remained approximately the same for the past few years. The least of which is not the wars and unrest in the largest oil producing region in the world.

I beileve the largest contributing, at least in the US, factor is the economy. Between less money in people's pockets and the price of gas, people are only driving where they need to, for the most part.

Granted though it'll be centuries before we use up all the oil, that doesn't mean our import/consumption can't and won't take a great hit. If the ME decided that most, if not all, the gov'ts need to be overthrown and replaced, then oil exports from those regions will stop. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, those are the major oil producing countries in that region. If they go to shit again, we're screwed. So in the interest of national security and to prevent us from leading, if not solely fighting, another war, clean-energy, IMHO, needs to be a priority. Even if we do need to "spend".

I beileve the largest contributing, at least in the US, factor is the economy. Between less money in people's pockets and the price of gas, people are only driving where they need to, for the most part.

Granted though it'll be centuries before we use up all the oil, that doesn't mean our import/consumption can't and won't take a great hit. If the ME decided that most, if not all, the gov'ts need to be overthrown and replaced, then oil exports from those regions will stop. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, those are the major oil producing countries in that region. If they go to shit again, we're screwed. So in the interest of national security and to prevent us from leading, if not solely fighting, another war, clean-energy, IMHO, needs to be a priority. Even if we do need to "spend".

Just to be clear about my opinion, I don't think we shouldn't be developing green technologies/alternative energy sources. My opinion is that oil is not a sustainable source of energy because it becomes non-realistic as our energy demand increases because of it's physical characteristics, not because of its supply. Because of that I fully endorse alternative energy sources and research in them. I just don't think that the reasons they are commonly endorsed are 100% accurate. There is some truth behind all of them, but I just find their significance very often overblown.

Maybe it's just me but solar technologies are very close to be affordable right now.
Feb 16th, San Francisco, 3rd thin film conference. Maybe have a look if you're there. A company is promising a tech to make up thin films at 50 eurocents/Wp (manufacturing cost only). I've seen poly up and running (all inclusive) for about 3Eu/Wp. I know a guy who is going to have a plant installed for 2.3Eu (but the contract is not signed yet and I'm not aware of the details).

Maybe it's just me but I perceive the Fermi of the month quite more expensive[size="1"] (pun intended).

I think Hodgeman is making the biggest point here( though a ten fold population increase is a bit stretched). The malthusian concept that humanities growth is exponential, while resource production is closer to linear.
If humanities growth continues at the pace it has, within less time than our civilization has been around, we will have turned every bit of energy into our personal batteries, and then there will be nothing left..

The last question

thanks for the link to the last question. nice story.

thanks for the link to the last question. nice story.

Just a way to show that the "problems" we face now are not new, but have been known for sometime. The real problem is getting the masses to see it, understand it, and care enough to make change.

Actually many biological systems have an exponential growth phase, bacteria, virus, rabbits in new environment, humans etc.. but u don't see a world composed of all bacteria or rabbits, because biological systems mirror the capacity of their environment to support them and self regulate. Populations collapse or are kept in check by 2ndary networks of predators or disease, or systems evolve to suppress their growth because they fundamentally change it, like how plants pumped oxygen into the environment leading to animals/insects which then started to eat the plants..

Humans will not overpopulate because the system will self regulate, either we'll cull ourselves through war or immigration. Do you really think people from the future want to live in megaoplisis where each person is allocated a space the size of a modern bathroom? No people will start to immigrate to space if that is the case.. People of the future are no different from us, same dreams, same goals, same desires.. As for energy, it's a false dilemma, the amount of energy hitting the earth every day is more than 100x that of all the energy harnessed so far by the human race.. And the Sun outputs a billion billion times that .. The real question is, are we smart enough to harness it? If the best humans can do is pump for oil from the ground then yeah , were gonna be screwed, but i suspect humans are smarter than that..

-ddn

Actually many biological systems have an exponential growth phase, bacteria, virus, rabbits in new environment, humans etc.. but u don't see a world composed of all bacteria or rabbits, because biological systems mirror the capacity of their environment to support them and self regulate. Populations collapse or are kept in check by 2ndary networks of predators or disease, or systems evolve to suppress their growth because they fundamentally change it, like how plants pumped oxygen into the environment leading to animals/insects which then started to eat the plants..

Humans will not overpopulate because the system will self regulate, either we'll cull ourselves through war or immigration. Do you really think people from the future want to live in megaoplisis where each person is allocated a space the size of a modern bathroom? No people will start to immigrate to space if that is the case.. People of the future are no different from us, same dreams, same goals, same desires.. As for energy, it's a false dilemma, the amount of energy hitting the earth every day is more than 100x that of all the energy harnessed so far by the human race.. And the Sun outputs a billion billion times that .. The real question is, are we smart enough to harness it? If the best humans can do is pump for oil from the ground then yeah , were gonna be screwed, but i suspect humans are smarter than that..

-ddn

I don't think you fully understood my post. Malthusian checks such as war have not kept our population in check as much as Thomas would have liked.

Immigration? how exactly is that going to help things? I'm sure you mean emmigration, but again that is not a solution. And as far as your energy debate, you are saying that a finite resource(the sun, or all the stars combined for that matter) will be enough for an ever growing population, with ever growing consumption, and this is just not possible. So maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sometime we will run out, entropy always increases. I strongly suggest you actually read the link in my previous post, for it's that kind of thinking that the last question is really weighing in on.

Of course all this could be thrown out the window with new discoveries in science, ground breaking revolutionary things in the vein of newton/einstien, but in our current paradigm, it cannot be.

According to The Economist the growth of human population is starting to decelerate given the declining birth rates worldwide.

The increase from 6 billion to 7 billion will be the last to happen in such a short space of time. The next billion will take slightly longer—13 or 14 years—and the billion after that, which raises the population to 9 billion, will take 20 to 25 years. By that time, around 2050, the momentum will be slowing towards zero—and the world will be approaching a roughly stable population for the first time in centuries.
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