The Oil Drum

Do you have any idea how slow the ramp-up in production of non-conventional sources is? We are talking about 10's of thousands of barrels per day (at best). What we are discussing here is the need for between 1 and 3 million barrels-per-day of new production - every year.

We are just talking about oil. Battery cars and synfuels aren't oil.
Cheap oil is a low capital and investment cost way to make things like gasoline. Now we have to switch to high capital and investment cost ways to make things like gasoline. That and accept the kind of performance limitations of battery cars. Think of battery cars as being the equivalent of reducing gasoline consumption of your car by 90% at the cost of doubling the price. You have to buy two cars. The battery car for most of the time, and the regular car for when you have to drive farther than the battery will let you.
And by the way, the kind of thick steel needed for synfuel plants is also in short supply, in the form of iron ore, coking coal, steel blast furnace capacity, and tube and rolling mill capacity. Not to mention large valve forging capacity, large pump and motor capacity, and engineering, construction, and infrastructure capacity in general.
I expect that OLED wallscreen telecommuting will kick in around 2010 as resolution goes up high enough to overcome the psychological barrier to virtual environments and we progressively reduce commuting. This will probably be more important as a way of coping with peak oil than synfuels and battery cars combined.

Jack,

  You probably have not had a chance to read Bubba's article on oil shale.  I don't think oil shale, or one CTL plant will save us.

Jack, don't you understand physics....you need an energy supply to make shale into gas.  And the best source is natural gas....now that we are in a decline in natural gas...it becomes too expensive each year gas becomes more rare...so shale and tar sands will not be the miracle people are looking for in the future....because....within a few years...the natural gas that is used to produce this energy source will be 5-10 times the price.  

Maybe if we built nuclear reactor plants by these shale and tar sands, can they be produced...but that would take 10 years.  People need to stop this wishful thinking.