I don't really see the airlines as being immune. Their volume business comes from the masses, and discretionary spending is going to take a real hit.

This time around it seems that finances, at least in the US and UK, will be so dire that the ability to subsidise will be limited.

I think that they will loose a huge amount of volume, and that will creep up and hit the business market too.

It also perhaps puts into perspective claims that we ‘should’ be prepared to pay a heck of a lot more for relatively carbon free energy.
The ‘pay more’ for many could be with their own lives.

The irony of Britain actually exporting oil. It makes me want to cry. How could the British government have been SO stupid ? Presumably they must have had some idea about the 1999 peak in production ??

55,000 die each winter because of cold-related illnesses,

That figure is bogus. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574 Try 20,000. With GW this can be expected to reduce.

You have to be careful when you take figures from a right-paper criticizing a left-wing govt.

Also, studies have shown that home heating is not so relevant, the common factor for the elderly is waiting at cold bus stops, since most don't drive.

Hi DaveMart, Leanan, and Sharon, here is the collapse:

Peak Oil means that the U.S. lacks the energy necessary to provide for transportation, food production, industry, manufacturing, residential heating, and the production of energy. Oil shortages and natural gas shortages will generate multiple crises for the nation: (1) Shortages in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will limit travel to work for oil rig/platform workers and technicians, coal miners, highway maintenance personnel, and maintenance workers for electric power generation stations and power lines. (2) Without truck and air transport, spare parts for virtually everything in the economy won’t be delivered, including parts needed for highway maintenance and energy production equipment. Matt Simmons notes that 50,000 unique parts are necessary to create a working oil field. Many more parts are necessary for ultra deep water drilling operations, including a variety of high tech ships, remotely operated underwater vehicles, seismic survey equipment, helicopters, and technologically complex platforms (see The New York Times and click on Multimedia Graphic). Thousands of corporations around the globe manufacture these parts, and many of these corporations will fail in the Peak Oil crisis. (3) States governments will lack funds for maintaining the Interstate Highway System, including snow plowing, bridge repair, surface repair, cleaning of culverts (necessary to avoid road washouts), and clearing of rock slides. A failure in one section of the Interstate highway will cut off transportation for that highway and everything it carries: food, emergency supplies, medicine, medical equipment, and spare parts necessary for energy production. (4) The power grid for all of North American will fail due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance for power lines and electric power generators, as well as from shortages in the supply of coal, natural gas, or oil used in generating electric power. Power failures could also result from the residential use of electric stoves and space heaters when there are shortages of oil and natural gas for home heating. This would overload the power grid, causing its failure. The nation depends on electric power for: industry; manufacturing; auto, truck, rail, and air transportation (electric motors pump diesel fuel, gasoline, and jet fuel); oil and natural gas heating systems; lighting; elevators; computers; broadcasting stations; radios; TVs; automated building systems; electric doors; telephone and cell phone services; water purification; water distribution; waste water treatment systems; government offices; hospitals; airports; and police and fire services, etc. Phillip Schewe, author of “The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World,” writes that the nation’s power infrastructure is “the most complex machine ever made.” In “Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means To You,” author Jason Makansi emphasizes that “very few people on this planet truly appreciate how difficult it is to control the flow of electricity.” A 2007 report of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) concluded that peak power demand in the U.S. would increase 18% over the next decade and that planned new power supply sources would not meet that demand. NERC also noted concerns with natural gas disruptions and supplies, insufficient capacity for peak power demand during hot summers (due to air conditioning), incapacity in the transmission infrastructure, and a 40% loss of engineers and supervisors in 2009 due to retirements. According to Railton Frith and Paul H. Gilbert, power failures currently have the potential of paralyzing the nation for weeks or months. In an era of multiple crises and resource constraints, power failures will last longer and then become permanent. When power failures occur in winter, millions of people in the U.S. and Canada will die of exposure. There are not enough shelters for entire populations, and shelters will lack heat, adequate food and water, and sanitation. (4) Water purification and water distribution systems will fail, leaving millions of metropolitan residents without water. (5) Waste water treatment systems will fail, resulting in untreated sewage that will contaminate the drinking water for millions of residents who consume river water downstream. (6) Transportation and communications failures will cripple federal, state and local governments -- leaving and residents without emergency services, emergency shelters, police and fire protection, water supplies, and sanitation etc. (7) Mechanized farming will cease, and harvested crops won’t be transported more than a few miles. (8) Food won’t be transported from the Midwest, California, Florida, and Mexico to the U.S. population. (9) Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides won’t be produced. (10) Due to limited farm acreage, most cities and towns will be unable to support their populations with sufficient food from local farming (see Paul Chefurka and Paul Chefurka). (10) Homes across the U.S. will lack heating. Even if homes are retrofitted with wood stoves, local biomass will be insufficient to provide for home heating, and it will not be possible to cut, split, and move wood in sufficient quantities.

In the coming years, the U.S. faces multiple energy crises. Each crisis will generate delays in handling other crises, thus making it more and more difficult to address multiplying problems. The worse things get, the worse they will get. A grid lock of crises will paralyze the nation.

But, don't worry, FEMA will come to the rescue.

Well, as someone who is the last person on our power line in the boonies, my expectation is that lines like mine will be abandoned over time. My line serves about 20 households spread out over 6-10 square miles.

Just to get to parts of our line require a 4x4 truck. Which leads to an interesting story: The last time our power was out the guy wanted to check the line on the lower part of our land. There was snow on the jeep trail leading to the lines. He had a 4x4 bucket truck but with city tires. I said it was a bad idea and rode along with him. He got stuck a quarter mile in. There was a cliff on one side that his truck wanted to go down. We spent nearly two hours winching his truck around so he could get out.

I see that sort of thing leading to our provider, PG&E, saying the heck with it.

Todd

'I think that's quite possible. Which would mean the grid collapses...or at least contracts...in roughly the reverse of how it was built.'

What if we no longer own the electrical grids? Suppose all or part of them are owned by SWFs that might want to pursue different interests than the prior owners? Isn't it interesting how conflicting geostrategic goals continue to pop up in the midst of FF depletion scenarios. :)

...snip...'At a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing on the topic of SWFs, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) painted this extreme hypothetical:

If I were China, I’d put my sovereign funds . . . in the energy field of the United States. I’d buy as many electrical utility companies as I could. And then, at my own desire, rather than send an army over here sometime in the future or an airplane to do damage, I’d just issue the order as the owner of the electrical utility networks in the U.S. to turn off the power. What’s going to stop them from doing that?'

That scenario reflects the growing concern that SWFs might pursue strategic and political objectives rather than purely economic ones.'...snip...

http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/FTBs/FTB-033.html

Do not underestimate very old cultures and societies...they have been playing the game a lot longer than America.

"Then there's the problem of increasing vandalism. The cost of metals has increased so much that people are stealing light poles, stadium bleachers, signaling cable, train tracks, etc. In some places, they are switching to fiber optics because copper is stolen so often. I think it's quite possible that maintaining infrastructure will be an uphill, and ultimately losing, battle."

Cheers Leanan.

One of my old jobs used to be country assessments. One of the indicators for a destabilized country was theft of vital infrastructure elements like power lines. It is indicative, not only, of a break down in the rule of law but also in a society's ability to care for those who are not so well off. In the end, once the support structures fail, lawlessness and brutality are not too far off. Seems that what was once the curse of Africa is starting to shift and become more general.

Yes - its a death by a 1000 cuts not a full crash - in order to maintain the grid diesel based trucks and other equipment needs to be deployed.

Once the budgets get strained due to high costs and electrical based replacements are not available (how are we doing with industrial electric based mobile equipment?) then less maintaining is done - if the problem is ignored then its just a matter of time before the grid is effectually off line.

I don't think this will happen, but the people need to wake up and deal with reality very soon with realistic plans to be implemented.

Totoneila,

haven't you read John's posts? the free market will provide! Africa is merely an example of poor management and has nothing to do with oil prices surging and increasing demand meeting limits to growth

John 15, I've tried, I practice trying to be more optimistic - I talk to physicists with whom I am friendly, and a number of them shrug off the problems like you and say "It'll sort itself out" or "we'll come up with something, I'm not worried" - when I press them on details, they tend to be short - "oil shales?" "nukes?" "fusion?" "aren't there a lot of tar sands?" etc. etc.

when I point out the problems with any or all of their "solutions", they shrug and say "we've worked it out in the past, we'll find some technological solution"

it worries me - these are VERY smart people, people who are not math challenged like so many in our society - people who face the exponential function every day in their work - and yet, when pressed for details on solutions they shrug and act as though a Deus ex machina will solve it all for us (I think as physics budgets rely on Federal budget surpluses, there may be an intrinsic desire/hope for a magic solution that does not allow these scientists to see the magnitude of the problem)

I see possible mitigations (conservation and increased reliance on renewables) - but more, I see your precious "Free Market" fighting many of those solutions - I see GM & Ford getting the Federal Gov't to block California's mandate to higher mileage (as if California doesn't have a right to want cleaner air! you want to sell cars in Cali? come up with a car that gets decent mileage for God's sake!), rather than coming up with a hybrid that actually competes with the Prius - I see Oil interests manipulating the Gov't for access to
offshore and AWR drilling, rather than investing in large PV farms in the Mojave - in short, I see the free market attempting to game the system, rather than adapt. And at the same time I see the US gov't trying to do the same; rather than encourage conservation (how about better tax incentives for insulating homes or adding pv or solar heating?) or helping developing markets in PV and wind - they waste taxpayer $ on ethanol mandates and wars in oil countries - they decry Chavez as some sort of monster and Russia for charging what they want for gas and oil - in other words, they play the system to benefit a few, rather than encourage workable solutions (how about Alan's rail ideas for God's sake?). I see France's non-free-market solution with electrification of their trains (and Russia's as well), France's single (apparently) very safe nuke design - and I see mitigation, preparation - and guess what? not a completely "free market" solution. AND they aren't setting the system up for short-term gain by a few in the way our "elected" officials are

and then I despair - and I think your little links about some new battery or an electric scooter are going to be far too little and far too late to prevent the sort of catabolic collapse Leanan is talking about

I am very glad that you will cheerfully postPeak volunteer to laboriously rickshaw transport these power plant workers back and forth to their daily jobs. Of course, entirely at your own expense and repetitive injury, no matter how deep the snow or mud.

The power plant workers will take the company bus. they'll be paid to spend their week in a boarding house near the plant and go home on the weekends.

of course, they could just use more fuel efficient cars and conserve.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2008/03/339-cargo-scooters-and-bicyc...

I think the knock on effects will be profound. Imagine a major city/cities with a grid that went down for a day or three? Do you know how much food that is that will be thrown out from warm freezers? If there is a meat availabiity problem, etc No one will be able to restock for months maybe.

That is just the problem with freezers thawing out, what others?

LOL, it's always fun to talk with you and hear that whooshing sound.

Or "slowly, slowly, so slow that no one hardly notices."

Where do you get that from? I don't see it.

Well, it sure as hell contributed a lot more to the discussion than did your post.

I thought so, as I was confirming that people who with very different outlooks may both feel that the decline will be rapid.

Most people who post do so with the impression that they are contributing something, even though you may disagree.

I have more trouble seeing the point of your post, which after all prolonged a discussion you already felt pointless!

Perhaps you have not used the net extensively - most posts are not of earth-shattering importance, but obviously meant something to those who posted them.

It is usually best just to pass over those that don't do anything for you, as you will certainly not succeed in getting others to post according to your criteria.