Peak Oil

[Ban my account ffs!]

Peak Oil is a myth.

Why has world oil production flatlined since 2004?  Surely there was lots of economic growth and high demand for oil from 2004 until the recession hit.

It is no surprise to me that oil skyrocketed in price from 2004-2008.

As soon as the economy begins to take off again, it'll be right back up there again.

[??????????]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

More people need to learn about the Fischer-Tropsch process.

It's a net energy loser. Useful for storing energy, and more efficient than existing batteries, but it doesn't produce power and therefore cannot replace petroleum.

I guess Jeffrey Sachs lied to me then(he shrugs off peak oil as a problem in Common Wealth partially based off of the process).

I'm not saying that it could replace oil. I think that it could prevent a peak oil disaster and would buy us time to change our infrastructure, living standards and expectations. Something like Fischer-Tropsch, especially if the process is improved upon, could give us a century of slow decline based on depleting petro resources as opposed to maybe one or two decades of complete chaos.

[opebo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Talk about wishful thinking!

[hotpprs]

Real peak oil is probably decades away. But to me, it's not really about the peak itself, it's about when the oil reserves we know about, are too expensive to retrieve vs other energy sources. And probably the demise of oil production will be brought about by natural gas. It is so plentiful and cheap, that sooner or later there will be much oil just left in the ground as engines and generators will more and more be adapted to burn natural gas, along with the increased use of clean energy sources to supplement fossil fuels.
So it's not like oil is just going to run dry as people imagine. There are still huge amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia, Canada, Brazil and even right here in the US, so right now the peak oil debate is a scare tactic to be used for whoever needs to use it for their benefit, whether it be politicians, investors or environmentalists.
The only real worry we have about oil right now is how oil prices will be manipulated like they were a few years ago when gas was close to $4 a gallon.

[Torie]

There is almost unlimited fuel in shale. The "only" issue is how much it will really cost to extract.

[Yelnoc]

Space-based Solar Power.  It just needs a bit more development to be workable and is by far the best of all possible solutions, yet recieves so little attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

[John Dibble]

Space-based Solar Power.  It just needs a bit more development to be workable and is by far the best of all possible solutions, yet recieves so little attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

Methinks you are underestimating the amount of work that would be required to make that practical.