The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Letter to Garnaut: Implications of Oil Production Decline

27 comments on Letter to Garnaut: Implications of Oil Production Decline

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Dan Browne on October 1, 2008 - 7:45pm

Matt,

I think that the above poster is right: We are most likely out of time.

There is a silver lining, however.
We've made massive progress on solutions technically in the last ten years.
We have (costly) high EROEI solutions, but they have to be built.
We ARE building them, though it's likely we're going to suffer a large shortfall and a concurrent crash in our standard of living, but I personally doubt (big wars and fast collapses notwithstanding) that we will see a complete crash down to mad max or even kunstler levels.

What that means for most of us is getting used to a 1970s European style standard of living. (e.g. take the bus, take-out food instead of restaurants, apartments instead of suburbia, high unemployment, high inflation etc etc). It will only be the upper middle class who will still be able to afford to drive.

In the meantime, more renewal, nuclear and coal fired electrical capacity will continue to be built.

IF and I will repeat IF the upper middle class go for electric cars in a big way then the manufacturers of those vehicles will eventually be able to ramp up production and (electric) car ownership will eventually come back to the masses and we then may be faced with (was it Stuart Staniford?) the 4 billion car scenario.

This is a big if, however. We could just as easily do *everything* wrong and end up with the majority of the 1st world as 3rd world hell holes with no hope of recovery.

Here's hoping for good choices and lots of good luck.

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Neil1947 on October 2, 2008 - 12:49am

Dan,
You are expressing an opinion that we can have a dramatic reduction in oil use and still have a reasonable standard of living. This seems to make sense if you look at your own and your neighbors life-style and options to change.
Almost all of us could cut back on vehicle use and in time manage with a vehicle getting twice the fuel economy, we could either take public transport more or at least drive to the nearest bus or rail line, or at a pinch car pool.
I don't see how we have to economize on restaurant meals, as most of their cost is labor, or give up vehicle ownership, as long as we drastically reduce VMT. Our economy has become very service based, and there is no reason why energy intensity will not continue to decline.
I am not sure what we would have to do wrong to end up as a 3rd world hell hole ? Australia had a fairly low standard of living in 1950's , imported all their oil, and most people didn't have cars and yet we were definitely not a 3rd world country.

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Joe Average on October 2, 2008 - 1:21am

Thanks, Dan. Certainly it's hard to remain optimistic these days, with all that's going on... And all that's not! Having said that (and perhaps because I work from home) I've always liked the idea of solar-charged golf carts and 40km/hr speed limits - cheap and enviro-friendly batteries are the first obstacle though, right?

Regards, Matt B
Perhaps Generation-Y may save the day? :)

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