See

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/archives/africa/africa.html

The point is the have the highest engergy cost per GDP thus
every increase removes some fairly critical usage.

Sure they use a lot of wood but not in a sustainable way.

Next I don't separate Oil producers from consumers since there in this game together. I assure you if depletion is quick the oil producers will bear the brunt of the troubles.
Ask an Iraqi.

The oil based economy can fall apart very quickly once its known that supplies are running out and there are disruptions.
None of the oil producing nations outside of Russia have sustainable economies. There is no doubt in my mind if America crashes hard it will take everyone with it. If the depletion in the Middle East is real then for them and the governments that do know about it to hide it is a crime since it could lead to the deaths of BILLIONS.

Finally I think it is too late to prevent major disruptions in America but look at it this way our current oil production internally is plummeting we need secure oil supplies Mexico is pretty much a goner and the oil sands won't come on line fast enough. Were not going to be able to play the invasion card that many more times and oil production in a war zone as we have seen is problematic at best.

But its gonna take a lot of oil to kick the oil habit we have to used our oil based infrastructer to create these new electric rail lines and vitalized urban centers its a massive construction project.

Start working through the material and energy costs of de-oiling america there tremendous. We will need every barrel of oil we can get our hands on when we finally wake up and do something about it.

So figure we won't do anything till the second year post peak work a forecast for say 2% 4% 6% 8% depletion rates.

Add in some fairly massive demand destruction to some extent esp in the 3rd world. We would at that point have given up a lot of our excessive usage and simply from recession.

But take a good hard look at Africa they can't seem to get out of the quagmire there in and the root cause is lack of resources to create infrastructure. It takes money to make money. If were not careful to much of the world will tilt into the same situation as Africa.

Sorry for the rambling but yes at some point times will get very very tough world wide and we will need every drop of oil and coal to make it through it. And if you remove the small amount of oil that Africa can afford from there grasp you push a whole continent that not doing well into desperate straits.

How to finish...
Get everything we can into production depletion and skyrocketing prices will take care of wasteful demand and maybe if we do this we can keep Africa going and get our economy converted.

I am afraid that I have to agree with Memmel on the sentance:
 "I think the future will show the lack of transparency on the part of OPEC was the biggest crime commited in the 20th century.", and I have made this opinion clear in prior posts.  In todays interlinked world, simply because you own an asset does not give you the right to be secretive, and go even further and possibly be outright misleading in your public pronouncements if you wish to be an accepted and trusted supplier and modern world player.

Every modern and trusted player on the world stage, be it large company, charitable or non-governmental not for profit,  and/or natianal or governmental entity is now expected to accept standard accounting practices, outside auditing, and third party confirmation or oversight, if it expects to be accepted as modern and trusted, with the stunning exception of the energy industry, that most CRUCIAL of all modern industries.  It is truly outragous and astounding.

OPEC, and it must be said, others including private large oil firms and other governmental oil concerns around the world and energy information agencies, go further than just being secretive and silent, but instead are perfectly willing to put out their own brand of decietful "dis-information" to sway events.  This only serves to even further expand their crime of "lack of transperency" and make it a crime of misleading and false statements, false advertising (Exxon, remember?), and when they give this testimony to the U.S. government and other international governmental judicial bodies and legislatures, it elevates it to outright perjury and obstruction of justice, as well as falsifying evidence, evidence needed in the preservation of whole nations.

Memmel is correct.  If the "doomsters" are correct, and against all the misleading, lulling, comforting testimony of the oil companies and OPEC, a rapid and soon occuring decline in world oil production begins, the OPEC cartel and the private oil companies should be held accountable for making proper preparation all but impossible to win support for through their misleading statements and secretive policies.   Allow me to quote the phrase that goes right through me..."well, BP and Exxon say....and they ought to know....", which is used by every man and woman on the street to shoot down any cause for concern, and instead to continue the waste and poor policy of business as usual.

I have made this case before.  If the "peak aware" community has awoke us to a great imporatant fact that is ALREADY a fact ( because peak, let's admit, we just don't when or how it will occur yet), it is this:  The United States and the industrialized modern world is in a very dangerous position in running completely without guidence and forward visibilility.  It is like running a car down a dark road at night at high speed with no lights.  Nothing may go wrong.  But do you want to take that chance?  And if you should hit someone or something in the dark, do you think you would be held  legally accountable for your actions?
The same goes for OPEC, the private oil firms, the EIA and the IEA and the USGS, among others.  (CERA for instance, should be sued out of existance if they are as wrong about crude oil as they have been about natural gas, and keep spreading the same disabling and lulling propaganda when once they clearly know better.

In the meantime, every responisible business, Civil Defense agency, local, municipal, county, state and federal agency, along with critical services and utilities, hospitals, and on and on, have a civic obligation, and a fiduciary responsibility to their stakeholders to inform them of the blindness we are running in and the need to prepare as though the worst could happen.  One of the great services the Peak Aware community performed for me when I first discovered them (and TOD, by the way :-). was to help me see that what I thought "we knew" we most certainly did not "know", and to see the danger of the complete lack of forward visibility we are living with.   (I was blind, but now I see that I was blind, and that is a great bit of sight indeed!)

This is a service "we" must keep performing.  It is one of the most valuable services of the peak aware community.  Thank you.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout