Our fast-paced, materialistic, and individualistic society (I don't mean to blame any person in particular, but the society as a whole) does tend to worship the automobile and that's a shame, but here's the thing: everything is structured in a way that makes a lot of people dependent on it whether they like it or not, especially in rural areas, small towns, and even some metropolitan areas. The area where I used to live, along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, is one of the most densely populated areas in the country, yet if you want to get to towns and cities that are too far away to plausibly bike to, you pretty much have to drive there because there isn't that much by the way of a public transportation system, even in the cities. I imagine it's the same situation in a lot of other places, we just don't have the extensive public transportation systems that places like Europe, Australia, and Canada have. And in a particularily sparse place like, say, North Dakota, you don't really have much of a choice (here in Saskatchewan, which is pretty sparse itself, there is at least a provincial bus service that will take you to most of the cities and towns in the southern half of the province, which is a help). Amtrak is a wonderful, cheap alternative to driving and flying, but it can be pretty slow, so if you're on a time limit (which many people are much of the time) it's not always the best option, plus there are a lot of places it doesn't go. Also, many people can't afford more energy-efficient cars yet. I don't think my parents have ever been able to buy a new car in their life, and they have a pretty solid middle class income, so I can imagine how difficult it would be for other people to afford them. Also, when two people are working different hours and have busy schedules, it's very hard to just have one vehicle. Lastly, some people live in dangerous areas where it isn't safe to walk or even wait at bus stops at night. It's certainly true that there are things we can do-live closer to work, carpool, bike and walk, take the bus and train if we can, get by on as few vehicles as possible-but only so much. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to get by without a car for now, living in a city with a pretty good bus system, but I can't say I blame others for having one or two and driving them (unless its excessive and unnecessary) because I know that a lot of people don't really have any other good options. What we need is a better and more extensive public transportation system and more fuel-efficient vehicles and alternatives to oil, and we don't have those things right now. The money, resources, and technology are there, but change is pretty hard to come buy when many of the people with the power to implement it have sold out to to the oil industry.

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Isn't that the same as not having any gasoline? If it's all going to run out anyhow, then why not just run the whole thing into the ground ASAP. Isn't that the way markets work?

If you have some other set of values to offer as a substitute for the market, let's hear them. Otherwise stop the crying and complaining, because it's simply obnoxious. (Although journalists never seem to notice.)

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* I wonder if economic professors use our energy "crises" as case examples of how well the free market works when the government is willing to do everything it can to create and then to prop up an industry.

* I am tired of people saying we must have cars because we all live so far apart. We live so far apart because we have cars that let us do it! The two are linked! We can stop this insanity starting immediately if all the cities and towns across America immediately stop making it very easy for developers to buy land on the outreaches of municipalities that require roads and more box stores with massive parking lots to serve the residents moving their from other places.

* I am tired of hearing people say Americans do not walk or bicycle or take public transportation when governments across the country have made it virtually impossible to do anything but drive. Look at how much of the public transportation budget goes towards sidewalks, public transit, and new roads. I have been ridiculed for complaining about sidewalks not being clean of snow/ice in winter and of grass/untrimmed plants in the spring and summer. I hear an amazing number of people say they wish they did not have to buy a car but that there are no buses to use as alternatives. The federal government promotes transit sharing during business rush hours, but there is no similar interest in making sure people can access grocery stores, community meetings, and public parks in the evenings, on holidays, and on weekends.

* We demand apartment buildings and retail stores have parking places for automobiles, but we do not require parking spaces/garages for bicycles. I have advocated for years to persuade municipalities that require one or two parking spots per tenant to eliminate some of hte car parking spots and require some bicycle storage lockers. I live in small apartments. I do not/cannot carry a bicycle up two or three flights of stairs at the same time I am carrying groceries or other items, not to mention I do not really care to have a bicycle covered with dirt and other debris from the road in my living quarters.

* Even businesses and government agencies in cities that have good public transportation do not take advantage of it. Look on the websites of these places, check invitations, and otherwise pay attentions to businesses or agencies that provide driving directions. Do they also say which bus lines run by the state capitol, city hall, or their store? Heck, if the United Way started requiring the non-profits it allows to share in the fundraising drives to include public transit information that would be something good.

* As a pedestrian, I have thought about asking cities to keep snow emergencies in place until all the sidewalks are clean. I have been disgusted by numerous high schools across the country with students complaining that they have to walk a few blocks because they cannot park their cars closer to the high school. I have asked grocery stores to provide places where bicyclists and pedestrians can repack bags that were bagged for people who have cars. (For those of you who do not carry bags long distances, there is an art to balancing the weight and the volume to make carrying the bags easier.) Some stores do acknowledge their customers use buses by placing bus schedules in a convenient location so someone with milk and meat knows how long the wait for a bus will be.

Changing from a car culture will not happen overnight, but we can take considerably more action than we have. First, we have to make it easier for people to walk and to bicycle, should they choose those options. Second, we must condition people to realize that there are options to private automobiles. These are steps that we, as individuals and as governments, can take today, with little or no expense, but with a large payoff.

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The previous posts make a good point about the feasibility of voluntarily abandoning our car/oil addiction. Our country's infrastructure simply isn't set up to operate any differently. This leads me to believe two things about the future:

1. Social/Economic collapse is necessary: Americans are going to put off honestly dealing with this problem until it is absolutely unavoidable, and at that point it will be too late. The irony is that social collapse seems to be the only thing that will shock us into taking the necessary actions that might have prevented, or at least eased the collapse in the first place.

2. Any successful transition will be local in scale: One of the realities of "Post-Peak" life will be that we will live much more locally than we do today. Because of this, any meanigful plans to deal with rising energy costs will have to come from the local level. An honest national debate on the subject needs to happen. And with its resources, the federal government has the potential to fund a lot of good local/regional projects that would help. But I don't expect the President or congress to come up with a "one-size-fits-all" solution, because one doesn't exist.

We're facing a situation that will require us to make a huge cultural shift. We're going to have to give up something (mass motoring) that to our detriment, we've allowed to define who we are as a people. That's a tall order, but it's going to have to happen. To paraphrase James Howard Kunstler: Either we deal with the future now on our own terms, or it's going to deal with us on terms that we probably won't like very much.
- Mike Lorenz

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Peak Oil Debunked

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I guess this won't make me many friends, but here goes. As long as high gas prices don't make people demand and buy renewable fuel and affordable cars that are not gas guzzlers, gas still seems not expensive enough in the USA (at least for this European looker-on).

Actually, gas is still dirt cheap in the USA compared to many other countries. Most of Europe would be deliriously happy to pay $3 a gallon. Let's take Germany for an example. Gas prices there are certainly not the cheapest in Europe, but neither are they the most expensive.

One liter of regular gas costs around Euro 1.30
Euro 1.30 converts to $1.61
1 gallon equals 3.85 liter
One gallon of regular gas costs around $6.20

In the long run, energy-efficient technology and renewable fuels are the only way to prevent more wars for oil and cheap gas, no matter which country or continent.

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Quit blaming "us"!

The technology has been around for decades for, yes, green cars!

So please, we didn't buy up the patents, we didn't ask for gas-only as fuel, we didn't profit on oil ad-nauseum and suppress other technologies. Did we buy what we were offered? Yes. Would we have bought green cars if they had been offered and sold to us with the same zeal? Yes!

You can't blame us for holding back the technology. You can blame us for not taking a strong enough stand. You can even blame us for believing our leaders. But now? I'll bet even NASCAR would go green if they had the technology available. I'll bet they are giving it a good hard look.

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Sure its us, actually civilization. We are talking about a complete remodification of our commercial, political and social infrastructures. That is simply not going to happen in the time or depth to relieve our energy stress.

You are right to put the shoe on the right (or left) foot, but we the people will gain nothing by just stopping driving. We must do what is starting to happen and that is to scream bloody murder at the pols and the greed masters that things must change. Unless the top begins to change, the bottom will just go on suffereing either on foot or whatever.

Most people have little choice but to operate a vehicle for a variety of demands (jobs, kids, food, and a little fun). Desires notwithstanding we cannot become overnight pioneers in back to the future.

We have the DEVELOPED technology for fuel cell engines, but right now the only participant in the auto industry is TOYOTA. We the people can make that happen by demaning, screaming, marching, etc for the change to a new technology to come about NOW. WE will not change the world or this dire crisis by walking or riding bicycles!!!!

NOW lets pay 5.00/gallon with the monitored stipulation that 1.50 of that amount goes into a development fund that will support the design, development and production of fuel cell vehicles. 1.50x 146 billion gallons (yearly consumption) would yield a development fund at the end of the first year of over $200 billion. Now come on what can we NOT design and produce for that much money? Make it a five-year plan and we will have generated $1 trillion dollars. Somebody out there will do the job for that or even less.

Lets get with it now.

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I need to take my life in my hands and bicycle to work, find six neighbors who want to go to the grocery store with me, MOVE OUT OF MY NEIGHBORHOOD AND CHANGE MY JOB IF IT'S TOO INCONVENIENT TO WALK TO A MOVIE??

OK. I'm not the world's biggest gasoline user. I put about 4,000 miles a year on my Honda. But I'll consider any change of lifestyle, even drastic ones, if it means that I'll be part of a system committed to maximizing alternatives to fossil fuels.

This means:

The prioritizing of a low-cost, government subsidized, country-wide system of trains which makes it easy to get from one coast to the other with lots of stops in between without air travel or the internal combustion engine.

Large incentives for automobile manufacturers to implement the viable technology for fuel-efficiency and emissions control that they already know about and have shelved, with greater incentives to develop new breakthroughs.

HUMONGOUS tax relief given to purchasers of the most fuel-efficient and hybrid automobiles, and very little incentive given for the purchase of Monster Trucks, instead of the other way around, the way we have it now. (This would seem to be so obvious as to make a person want to tear out her hair in clumps when she thinks of it, but maybe I'm just being over-rational.)

An energy policy for the country which actually promotes the use of the latest methodologies for alternative energy sources which were gathered in good faith and evaluated, instead of the policy we've got now, which is informed by the conduct of some secret meetings designed to head off the enemy.

It also means that I will never again have to implode twice a day watching some smug asshole say we can't really effect a change in gas prices and that there was no collusion, when in fact twenty refineries were closed in the last ten years for the sole purpose of driving up the price of gasoline. I should never again have to have an afternoon grand mal episode when I remember that the price for re-opening even a few of those refineries is a lethal relaxation of environmental laws.

I don't believe we should waste gasoline. I think we could do a lot to conserve energy, and should. But taking swats at the general public for its unwieldy habits while the effing Popes of Bloat have themselves an 'eighties party every day is bad aim.

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I agree with fairywearsboots, and have been saying the same thing for years. Gas should NOT be cheap.

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Among other factors (increased demand, peaking production, war/terror premium), oil is expensive because the dollar is cheap.

Four years ago, I was getting Euro 1.15 / Dollar, today I would get Euro 0.81 / Dollar. The dollar has lost around a third of it's value w.r.t. the Euro compared to four years ago.

Look also at the price of Gold. $320 four years ago, $635 today.

Perhaps, in 2004, if the masses realized just how far the wool had been pulled over our collective eyes, President Kerry would be now cleaning up the mess President Bush had gotten us into.

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<rant>

I'm sick of people whining about how inconvenient it would be to change their lifestyles to conserve fuel.

It infuriates me every time I pass our local elementary school and see the line of Hummers, Escalades, and Yukons driven by the soccer moms who insist upon taking their offspring to school.

Has anyone heard of a SCHOOL BUS?!?

</rant>

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I don’t understand all these incentives for hybrids. All we are doing is encouraging car makers to build hybrids that use this technology to increase power and acceleration while doing little or nothing to reduce oil consumption.

What we need is incentives to reduce the number of gallons per mile. It should be just as simple as that.

If we object to paying $5 or $6 per gallon, then we can achieve this by taxing cars according to it’s mileage. I bet a lot less people would be driving large SUV’s if they had to pay a $10,000 yearly tax surcharge. I know lots of folks will violently object to this solution, but the alternative is no less than the total collapse of our way of life.

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Jan,
Hey buddy. I don't think you used the word figment correctly.
In fact, is there any way to use figment other then one of the imagination?
Just sayin'...
-AG

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The same thing happened last summer. The price of gas shot up and people complained. But did they change their habits? Nope. People still drive just as much. Some people still bought gas-guzzling SUVs. Whenever they interview someone on TV, the person says they're having to cut back on other expenses. Therein lies the problem. People are buying essentially the same amount of gas despite the higher price. At the same time, they're buying less of other goods and that's going to have a ripple effect on the economy. It's like the demand curve for gas is completely inelastic. I've got enough dislike for the energy companies to want to find ways to cut back on gas purchases. So now I just drive to work, run errands, and visit friends in town. What I don't do is take road trips or drive around town with friends just cause we're bored and looking for stuff to do. If my city had a decent mass transit system, I'd be the first one in line to use it. As much as I love my car, I don't need to drive it everyday. What bothers me most about this situation is that my tax dollars aren't being used to build a decent public transit system. Urban areas are decaying so people have to live far off in the suburbs just to find decent housing, safety, and good schools. Too bad the jobs are all in the city. Maybe if we took the tax dollars that we waste on baseball stadiums or stop giving tax breaks to churches, we could use the money to build decent public transportation.

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The energy companies did it to California in 2001 and they have been doing it to us with a conscious decision to reduce refining capacity. Read a report by Senator Wyden from 2001. From 1995 to 2001, the report states, 830,000 barrels per calendar day in refining capacity were removed from the system.

More recently we have this from Rep Joe Barton, R-TX:

“How do we make up the difference if we do not expand capacity domestically? We increase imports,” Hall said. “Again, Oil Daily reports, ‘To satisfy demand, imports of finished motor gasoline have increased by nearly 100,000 barrels per day to 555,000 barrels per day in May.’ These are staggering numbers. This is sobering news.”

“The lack of refinery capacity needs to be addressed. Today, demand for refined products outpaces supply by 10 percent, the difference coming from foreign suppliers,” said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “Domestic refiners are producing flat out, operating at more than 95 percent of capacity. Forecasts show no appreciable increase in refining capacity, all the while demand is ever-increasing.”

That letter is from July 15, 2004 (based on the web address) and says that we are importing 550,000 barrels a day in gasoline, and yet 3 years earlier Senator Wyden reports that domestic refining capacity was purposefully reduced by 830,000 barrels per calenday day. By my calculations (assuming no more closings and no new construction) we could have 280,000 barrels a day in extra capacity were it not for the efforts of Big Oil to reduce capacity to increase profit margins in refining. Read Wyden's report it is powerful information, but will make you want to vomit.

I agree, that we who comsume the gasoline are part of the problem (I only drove 2,500 miles in the past 4 months which is far lower than average), but the sharp rise in prices of gasoline have more to do with a bottleneck in the refining capacity than anywhere else.

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I bicycle to work sometimes. On days I bicycle, I feel more energetic and generally better. I pollute less. And I help to create the atmosphere that bicycle commuting is OK. It's pretty lonely and dangerous bicycling because we don't have enough of us doing it. If ten times as many trips were made by bicycle, it would still be a minority of the traffic, but it would have a huge impact on society.

Hope to see you out on your bicycle!

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I bicycle to work 7 days a week usually. I guess I'm not a typical American.

I've been bicycle commuting since I was in the 2nd grade. When I moved out of my parents house, I didn't have a car, so I used my bicycle to go everywhere. I didn't even get a car until at age 32, I realized that women in L.A. were unlikely to date a man without a car.

During the gas crisis of the seventies, I was in college. Despite being much farther from class than anyone else; I was the only with a perfect attendance record in my illustration class. My secret, I pedaled. I've owned a few cars, I admit, but there was only one job that I never bicycle commuted to. I took the bus. I know that there is a place for the car. My wife and I did very well as a one car family. For many families, that is probably the right balance.

I think that we as Americans have to lift the veil of convenience that has been cast over us. The American dream was cooked up by bankers to get us deeply into debt buying overpriced real estate, automobiles and furnishings. We took the bait. Because we were willing, civil planning got wrapped around this new gasoline inebriated lifestyle. It's time to put the gas pump down and admit our problem.

The answers wont be immediately apparent. We have to stop crying about not having transportation and pointing fingers. It's childish and a waste of time. It's time to open our minds up to a new American dream. One not based on commercial values. Its time to look and explore new avenues. My best recommendation on where to start is Copenhagen, which calls itself the City of Cycles.

Be sure to watch the video, it's in English.

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A republican I know just bought a new, big SUV. He also voted for Ronald Reagan, who trashed most of Carter's conservation programs, which, if continued and expanded, could have gone a long way to reducing our dependence on foreign oil. The right wing and some democrats have continually fought raising the C.A.F.E. standards, which may have forced Detroit to produce more energy effecient cars.
But hey, corporate America calls the shots, the people be damned. The Japs and the Koreans will continue to kick our collective asses and the pols will blame the Arabs.

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Of course it's our fault.

Look at how we're dressed.

We were asking for it.

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are you gonna offer an alternative? Otherwise your whining and complaining is just obnoxious. I think i heard that once today.....

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America hasn't seriously focused on the need for clean non-fossil fuel - until now. I see the beginnings of something hopeful as gas prices rise. Imagine a future without fossil and nuclear fuels... Imagine we developed natural tecnologies from sun, wind, hydrogen, biofuels, and others as yet unknown. Imagine homes fully insulated with new materials, new ways to heat our northern homes in winter. The past is done. We will have a transition time now for X number of years, until we figure this out. Let's get going!

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This country has spent years developing a nonsustainable lifestyle called suburbs, where we could each have a little palace of our own, lest we be contaminated by proximity to our workplaces and the common masses. Nothing essential to life is within walking distance: not food stores, schools, libraries, hospitals, social life or work.
Then we made it "cool" to drive oversized, personal armored cars that get horrible gas milage. We also went to the trouble of dismantling clean, efficient neighborhood mass transit systems called streetcars, and replaced them with noxious, fume belching buses and the dubious privilege of driving our own private "limos" anywhere more than a few steps away.
A few people got very, very rich, and the rest of us got screwed. Lulled by a couple decades of artificially cheap oil, we spent vast sums of money and sunk ourselves in debt so that we could live in sustenanceless enclaves and spend hours commuting to CENTRALIZED businesses and factories (they're not dumb), only to be merged, out sourced, downsized and automated when we became unprofitable.
Greed and delusions of individual grandeur have gotten us in this fix, and more of the same are not going to get us out.
And we are now being played like fish, in order to lower corporate environmental responsibility, price gouge, and drill in environmentally sensitive areas to increase oil profits. Likewise, it is the greatest folly for Bush to suggest that we stop filling our strategic oil reserves in the short term, when prices can only rise and supplies become more unstable in the future - we can pay now or pay MORE later.
There is no magical, technological deus ex machina that is going to rescue us. Ethanol barely breaks even; biofuel depends on oil and natural gas based fertilizers, will also soon become untenable as we have to decide between bio-fuel and food. Hydrogen is, literally, too explosive. Fuel cells also depend on petroleum based manufacturing and have to be replaced, expensively, every few years. Electricity, as a vehicle "fuel" only works over short distances, and electricity is mainly produced from natural gas and coal, although we could start building more nuclear plants again; at least no one has ever died in the US from a nuclear accident, and the technology has genuinely inproved.
So what to do?
Get a smaller, high MPG car. Start walking and biking. Support local efforts to (re)install streetcars and light rail. Lobby for secure bicycle parking at the places you shop/work. Pressure your BOEs for smaller, more localized schools. Boycott Walmart and use your local businesses before they are gone forever. Suburbanites, refuse to drive your kids anywhere unless it is more than 3 miles away. Dump your McMansion and look for smaller, older, or infill housing closer to shopping and other amenities.
Stock up on food, so you don't have to go to the store more than every couple weeks. Grow some food; make use of some of that precious suburban lot and start an organic vegetable garden and plant fruit and nut trees. Open your windows in the summer and use ceiling fans; sit out on the porch (or build one if you don't have one). You might even get used to knowing your neighbors again.
Ask yourself: IS THIS TRIP REALLY NECESSARY?

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All it would take, is for people to not buy gas for ONE DAY.

We're the ones feeding the oil beast.

We're the ones shelling out the money.

Well, DON'T SHELL OUT THE MONEY. Plain and simple.

Exxon made a quarterly profit of $10 BILLION. And that's just Exxon, and that's only 90 days of the year.

Do the math, the oil companies would take a very serious hit if everyone would walk, ride a bike, carpool, take mass transit--just for one day, and stayed away from the pumps.

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It's nice and all that everyone is discussing cheap gas and "green" cars but auto fuel consumption is only about half the picture. Factor in jet fuel, distillate fuel oil and other petroleum fractions and you begin to see the broader spectrum of of all petroleum distillates. We are dependent on oil for much, much more than just powering automobiles and jets. I fail to see anyone addressing how we are going to solve this little problem. Your computer, cell phone, television, tires, car interior, carpet, couch, shoes, shirt, etc. (this list could go on forever!!) are all petroleum fractions or at the very least contain a good number of them. There really is no viable alternative to oil for use in the manufacturing of such items. Sugar cane and corn are not going to help manufacture a flat screen monitor or cell phone with built-in camera. . . When the oil runs out we are going to be doing more than bemoaning the idle status of our gas hog Mustangs, F-250's and BMW's. You can pretty much kiss all the rest of those items listed above off too. I know - science is going to fix that little problem for us right? We are always turning to technology to solve the problems that technological "advances" created in the first place. . . The world would actually be a much better place without oil but we have crossed the Rubicon and nobody is going to turn back now.

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What you readers may not know is that your actual fuel combustion is maybe around 15%. 85% of your fuel is emmissions. The earth's atmosphere is about 19.5% oxygen so you can't get a clean combustion burn. It's amazing that the basic combustion engine remains intact.
I don't expect that a lot of readers even know how a car works these days. Can you even change the oil?

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