welcome Peak Oil

[chelidon]

Gasoline set to surge
Pump prices could shoot up about 25 cents a gallon over next few weeks to record high: analysts.

Heating oil is over $2.15/gal here right now.

Oil prices will continue to fluctuate up and down, but they will be trending up more and more frequently, as the reality of Peak Oil begins to set in.

I strongly, strongly recommend this book.

It's not the end of the world. But it will likely be the end of many things we take for granted as "normal," that are actually artifacts of unsustainable, artificially low oil prices. And these trends are directly related to our current level of "involvement" in the Middle East -- don't let anyone tell you differently.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Comments

[eeedge.livejournal.com]

If there weren't already good reasons to switch to hybrid cars, here we go. I really hope we can afford one when our cars finally die.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Hybrids are nifty -- a good transitional solution, and everyone I know who has one is very happy with it. That is one of the possible silver linings here -- if and when oil prices really start to spike, there may be a lot more research money going into alternative energy and efficiency-related technologies. It'll just start to make the most economic sense. The biggest problem, though, is that so much of our economy and infrastructure depends on cheap oil, from transportation to food production. Once the balance shifts, things really start to change, and it's hard to guess how swift or drastic those changes may be.

Not all of that is bad -- while the typical commuting/suburbian sprawl pattern may become much more expensive, perhaps impossible to maintain, it may also no longer be cheaper to ship goods from around the world right to your back door, instead of just making things locally. If that balance shifts, there could be a lot more local jobs created, which has its own plusses and minuses. For example, one of the reasons New Hampshire is so comparatively pristine at the moment is that most of the non-high-tech manufacturing (mills, industrial production, etc) has moved elsewhere. If heavy industry comes back, so does heavy industry pollution.

Still, I'm glad that in my neck of the woods, there's a couple of big hydropower plants, one that burns sawdust (waste from the local lumber mills), and a wind farm in the works. Non-oil-based energy is a good thing...