Oil will crash by the end of this year, or early next. Greedy investors who bet their life savings will be leaping form 60th story windows.

China’s economy will tank soon (double-digit inflation) which will free millions of barrels.

And I will continue to happily drive my Dodge Ram.

Nothing. NOTHING can sustain such a crazy spike. Not even oil.

For stationary power, nuclear, geothermal, and maybe OTEC are options. This can buy the time for the development of energy storage technologies that can allow replacement with renewables. One thing on the political front that is needed is the willingness to build SOMETHING. In the current climate, windmills get protested by locals (e.g., Cape Wind and Long Island), LNG terminals are opposed, and even transmission lines and substations are having approval issues. If this continues, even the new technologies will have trouble.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080106202952.htm

The clock is ticking - time will tell - but maybe now there’s a mix of doom and gloom, coupled with innovative possibilities that can transcend the dovetailing of global warming and peak oil into something much more benign.

Of course one could move toward higher density energy sources. If nothing else, they might buy the time to figure out if the lower energy density alternatives would work or if better energy storage could be developed. I realize most of the folks on this blog would not prefer this, but this might be the plan B you are speaking of…

I read Twilight in the Desert, Peak Oil, and numerous articles on the internet on a multitude of websites, and have so far seen no way out of a major contraction of the World economy. Cheap oil has greased the economy with cheap energy, fertilizer and plastic products that are the foundation of the economy. The World uses 85 million barrels of oil every single day. If demand goes up to 95 mbd and supply can only provide 85 in total liquids, then the 10 mbd gap will cause a huge price increase and subsequent contraction of the economy. That’s not wishing it will happen, it’s simply a logical progression of facts.

Sure, we can blindly hope that non-dense forms of energy will fill the gap, but how? I see all these prez candidates rattling on about being energy independent from the Middle East, but how exactly? With what? Algae ethanol? No, it’s still in R&D. Tar sands or liquids from coal? What are the costs and scale of these operations? Are they economical or is the oil so expensive that the price goes up to 200 bucks a barrel? What is the threshold price of oil that exceeds economic sustainability?

I have to wonder what people are thinking, when they say, “Oh, I don’t care how much I pay at the pump”. It’s not going to be about individual capability to pay for a gallon of gas, but rather the integral capacity of the overall economy to handle a dwindling staple commodity. Fact is, humankind as a whole drove the Chevy to the Levy, but the levy was dry, and good old boys… you get the point. There was no plan B.

As to Richard’s comment: more of our total energy now comes from oil and natural gas than it does from coal. Yes, coal is the dominant fuel for electricity in many countries (e.g., the US), however my reading of our past energy transitions (i.e., the majority of energy transferring to a different fuel) has been one of moving to higher power density fuels.

I also agree with you on renewables to the extent they can contribute. I am not so sure about “smartgrids” as you properly mention the need for an economic and high density energy storage technology (e.g., a cheap superconductor). Such a technology would indeed allow one to harness the wind in Montana and power Florida. However, other than pumped hydro storage (which is site limited), I have not heard of anything on the horizon that is cheap enough that combined with renewables will be attractive vs fossil w/sequestration or nuclear. Efficiency is fine, but even if the US disappeared, you would have increased electric growth with Asia and Africa having only 25% of the US per capita electric demand.

I would see a combination of efficiency, renewables, with the baseload being sequestered fossil fuel, geothermal, and nuclear (maybe OTEC in tropical regions). If energy storage comes to pass, you can replace the fossil and nuclear. I believe we need to use current technologies to buy the time (and move the debate from either/or) to see which technologies can be brought to fruition.