Peak oil.

I learned this term in one of the classes I'm taking this semester, Environmental Problem Solving.

Q: What is Peak Oil?

A: Peak Oil is the point in time when, on a worldwide basis, we will be extracting the most oil per day from the ground that we ever will. Before Peak Oil we were not extracting as much, and after Peak Oil we will not be extracting as much. Peak Oil is the point in time of maximum extraction.



-In the past few decades, there has been enough oil to meet demand because the supply has been growing at the same time demand has been growing. This will no longer be true after Peak Oil. Demand will not be met as supplies dwindle and oil prices will rise.


-Peak Oil will affect every aspect of global industrial society that uses energy directly or indirectly. The price of gasoline is one small part of the picture.


-We have extracted about half of the oil we ever will – about one trillion barrels out of a total two trillion barrels that the Earth has provided us.


-Oil production is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Initial efforts yield a lot of oil easily, but later efforts become more and more inefficient (you get less output for your effort), until the point arrives when it's not worth putting more effort into it.


-Worldwide discovery peaked in 1964. Every year after that, we have discovered less than the year before. We are now using about five barrels of oil for every one barrel we discover.


-As long distance transportation for food and other important goods becomes too expensive and energy intensive with declining oil supplies, local communities will have to become more self-reliant and self-sustaining. In effect, the process of globalization will reverse as a massive economic re-localization effort begins out of necessity.


-Peak Oil will call into question our growth-based economic system. Thus the rising standards of living to which we have become accustomed may actually begin to decline after the peak. At the same time we believe that our quality the life may actually rise as people become more interdependent and cooperative within their local communities.



-Living in a suburb will become more difficult since cars won't be able to be used as much to get around. Families will likely spend more time with each other. There will be an increasing interest in organic farming out of necessity as food prices continue to escalate.


-Alternatives can provide energy, but not in the amount it takes to satisfy the growing consumption of global industrial society. This means that it will be impossible to maintain the same level of energy use we currently have.

All information are taken from

http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.html



-Technology is machines that use energy. New energy technology is an oxymoron. Energy comes from the earth in the form of wood, coal, oil, gas, uranium. Technology has only invented ways to use energy. A nuclear power plant is a container for uranium reacting. Also new technology normally takes more energy.


--------------------------------------------------

I found some of the ideas very interesting. Because of the running out of the oil, our way of living might become more community-based, and interdependent.