…we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.

But we don’t in fact need liquid fuels for much of that. Much of Europe’s railway system is powered by electricity, as are some routes in the northeast. A comparatively small capital investment could electrify the rest, once the price of oil rises to the point where it’s an attractive option. The lower cost will then attract much of the freight hauling that is now done by truck.

Much mining equipment is now powered by electricity, not petroleum. Likewise, it’s possible to run ships without liquid fuel, using technologies ranging from sails to nuclear reactors. The combines & tractors could be running on biofuels generated from crop waste…

In short, there is no shortage of ways in which essential infrastructure could be run without petroleum. The problem is that so far petroleum has been too cheap, and become too entrenched, so there has been no great incentive to change.

Peak Oil is about production or flows. Of course reserves must exist and be exploitable, but that is all the concept means. If one has reserves the size of the moon, that can only be produced at 100,000 barrels per day, that is what they are worth. 100,000 barrels per day. The worlds oil reserves cannot simply be produced at any rate.

Oil production is a race bewteen bringing new production on; and declining production at existing fields. Once you understand this simple concept, you can understand peak oil.

Actually peak oil is only part of the problem. The rising price is causing economic boom times in exporting countries. Along with boom times these countries are burning their own oil much faster with double digit growth rates in oil consumption. Most of these countries also have declining oil production. This means oil exports are declining rapidly. In fact oil exports are down 2m barrels per day since 2005.

If you doubt this consider what happened to the UK. Peak oil and exporter in 1999, the UK becoming a net oil importer in 2007. That is less than 9 years. Mexico is forecast to stop exporting oil in 2011. The trend is truly alarming.

This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue until all recoverable oil is extracted.

Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.

Surviving Peak Oil: We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.

This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/