126 comments on Peak Oil Overview - June 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
126 comments on Peak Oil Overview - June 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
- What "Lower Consumption" Means
- Tricking and Treating the Future
- Meeting Energy Decline Part-Way - Potatoes?
TOD:Europe
- The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part IV: Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion?
- The US stimulus and "green jobs"
- EROWI - energy return of water invested
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- The Bullroarer - Saturday 7th November 2009
- The Bullroarer - Friday 30th October 2009
- Details of Solar Flagships Released
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.










GAIA Host Collective
I think this is right. The middle class of the western industrialized world might well be one group that is priced out of oil consumption. I was thinking more of the developing world and the misery already being caused by high global oil prices.
I agree that population growth and global per capita energy consumption is a useful way to look at future demand, with the caveat that global per capita energy consumption would change significantly if for example 300 million Americans suddenly became 50% more energy efficient. One consequence of sustained high oil prices will almost certainly be greater energy conservation and investment in energy efficient technologies among the richer nations.
Anyway, it's important to understand that the drive to energy efficiency and conservation caused by high prices will obscure peak oil for years, even if those high prices are caused by peak oil. Most of the potential/foreseeable effects of peak oil will obscure it in the short term, including a global recession, a massive effort to improve the energy efficiency of the industrialized world, continued trend toward nationalization of oil resources and "resource nationalism" among the major producers, etc.
I also recognize that there are other potential mechanisms besides price for the allocation of scarce resources. Thinking outside the box, an extreme form of future resource nationalism might be an oil producer suddenly deciding not to export any more oil. It doesn't seem likely, but you can imagine a revolution based on the idea that oil is too important a strategic resource to export.
I think this is right. The middle class of the western industrialized world might well be one group that is priced out of oil consumption.
They have to compete VS the rich, the military, the farmers and the subsidized poor.
Once they become the poor, then they can be helped!