An apology to all future generations: Sorry we used up your oil...

  • Thread starter Zardoz
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Zardoz
Ion thrusters

Are you really betting on "anti-matter engines" to power airliners?

And, as you said, nuclear power is not viable on aircraft.

This guy does not share your optimistic outlook on the future of commercial air travel:
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I never said it would be easy, cheap, or soon. I was just suggesting [somewhat] viable alternatives.

IMO, once scientists get over the volatile properties of matter/anti-matter technology (ie. anti-matter explodes with a force 100x that of nuclear fission/fusion (forget which, don't hold me on that one) ) things will look very bright in the future.
 
This is a direct quote from Zordozes link to airliners.net for Chrissakes ! It just proves that any insider to any industry dependant on large oil flow knows the startling truth and only those old cronies Government & media are in denial so their flock won't resort to rebellion & panic !!!!! ;
before this direct slab quote the author (Drs. Alex Kuhlman) says that small airlines without hedging contracts on fuel will suffer in the short-term & that in the medium-term only middle eastern airlines will be set to prosper, then this ;
Long Term:
In a worst-case scenario, the long-term future for aviation is disastrous. As oil prices continue to rise, the world economy will be confronted with a major shock that will stunt economic growth and increase inflation. The chief economist of Morgan Stanley recently predicted that we have a 90 percent chance of facing “economic Armageddon.” During the transition period to a post oil era, there may be massive disruptions to transportation as the global decline of oil deepens. There will be social unrest and a strong reduction of business and government activity and very serious unemployment. Eventually, a large proportion of the demand for air travel will be almost completely destroyed, with the risk of the aviation adventure going out of business, with the exception of perhaps a handful of airlines. Once again, air travel will be reserved for the rich and for government business and the world will become a larger place again.

Solutions Must be Grounded in Science:
If we want to have at least a shot at changing this gloom-and-doom future scenario, it is vital that we fully understand the problem. It is what some call "an outside context problem"—so far from our normal realm of experience that we are collectively having a hard time processing it. The decline of oil is a certainty and is guaranteed by the natural laws that govern our physical world, and nothing in science, technology or engineering can prevent it. The world needs to prepare for a post-oil era and make huge commitments and sacrifices to avoid a deep crisis. With the little time that we have left, we need a well-orchestrated and large-scale intervention by governments from around the world to conserve the underlying fossil fuel base required to develop and implement sustainable energy sources capable of running countries like the United States—or even a substantial fraction of it—the way we are running them now. With a dwindling energy base, we may simply lack the tools and time to replace a fluid so cheap, abundant and versatile.

The traditional view of economists that the ever-insightful market will solve all problems is a fallacy. The supreme goal in all countries to raise incomes, living standards, and the GDP as much as possible, constantly and without any notion of a limit, is unattainable. On current trends, a country like China will be requiring 99 million barrels of oil per day by 2031, while total world production today is only 84 million barrels. Even present levels of production and consumption are grossly unsustainable with a shrinking energy base. The theory that economic stimulus will spur discoveries, and the market will maintain equilibrium, ignores the serious technical limitations of various replacement technologies. Furthermore, it assumes that the supply side can respond quickly in the short term, ignoring the long lead times required for any new oil projects and alternative energy projects to go online (up to 10 years) while disregarding the huge cost involved in modifying the trillion-dollar global infrastructure that was predicated on consistently low oil prices (aviation included). Finally, fundamental economic theory fails to address the laws of physics and thermodynamics. For example, looking at energy equations, to extract oil from the highly glorified tar sands takes two units of energy to produce three units and its net energy value is therefore marginal. In the early days of oil discovery, this ratio used to be 1:20. There will always be large deposits of oil left in the earth that would simply require more energy to extract than they yield regardless of the market price.


🤬

It's all over the net but not on cuddly little TV or in people's conciousness in general for certain aforementioned and obvious reasons. Now for some more work ;
MrktMkr1986
Yet again, this is an example of the elasticity of demand. Demand constantly fluctutates.
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Please , MrktMkr , there's a dispute brewing that needs some closure . I would like proofs furnished that Global Demand for Oil , let's say taken quarterly has ever fluctuated downwards in the Current Century . Demand Growth might display such a propensity but Ide find the former a little hard to swallow and it is the former statistical case that impinges heavily upon this argument , vis-a-vis Peak Oil but Peak Oil is all about certain head-wrecking difficulties with supply and Consumption of said resource does not seem to encounter any difficulties wanings or as Danoff has indicated price-induced consumption shrinkages pushing 'industry' or whatever to delve hardcore into anything seriously worthy of being termed an 'alternative' or 'replacement' for Oil .
If these are your areas of expertise , judgement or assesment on GTP , please post up some meat on this thread or youre just a bunch of lily-livered OSTRICHES !
​
 
DeLoreanBrown
Please , MrktMkr , there's a dispute brewing that needs some closure . I would like proofs furnished that Global Demand for Oil , let's say taken quarterly has ever fluctuated downwards in the Current Century .
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What does this have to do with anything? Why should global demand go down when prices have remained so low? Oil prices have NEVER reached a high enough point to stifle demand... that doesn't prove that they CAN'T reach that point.

Find a new argument - other than the "but it hasn't happened so far" one.
 
danoff
What does this have to do with anything? Why should global demand go down when prices have remained so low? Oil prices have NEVER reached a high enough point to stifle demand... that doesn't prove that they CAN'T reach that point.

Find a new argument - other than the "but it hasn't happened so far" one.
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Direct Quote from link @ Bottom ;
“Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century, and one thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over.” Chevron

Over the past year, benchmark oil prices shot up from a little over US$40 per barrel and reached just over $70 a few weeks ago. As of this writing, prices have fallen back to about $64, but that probably reflects the end of the summer driving season in the US, which somewhat reduces pressure on gasoline supplies. A lot of optimism also animates the markets, in spite of the havoc Hurricane Katrina wreaked on American oil production and refining capacity. The markets look to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) early September decision to coordinate a release of 2 million barrels of oil and oil products per day, for at least 30 days, from its 26 member countries' strategic reserves and supplies.

These developments appear to have helped the global economy avoid becoming instantly impaled on the over $100 per barrel oil "superspike" predicted by Goldman Sachs last April. Yet supplies of refined products remain tight everywhere, leading Japanese producers for example to look askance at their government's commitment to ship gasoline to the US where refineries are unlikely to be brought online again very soon. On top of that, damage from repeated hurricanes, including Ivan last year and Dennis nearly two months ago, greatly set back production in new fields in the Gulf of Mexico. An anticipated new flow of 600,000 barrels per day by 2007 has been slashed by half. Moreover, as we head towards fall and winter, current projections are that heating oil and natural gas prices are likely to climb by as much as 24 percent from their current elevated levels. These developments have led energy analysts, who last year predicted an average oil price of $39 per barrel for this year (as of mid-September the average is $54.77), to revise their estimates. For example, after looking at supply constraints and the continuing expansion of demand, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's chief economist now estimates that oil prices are likely to average $84 a barrel in 2006, $93 in 2007, and $100 in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Jes' l'il ole me , Huh ?http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/507
I would still require proof on any of the projections above that demand is diminished in any meaningful global manner . Fourth Quarter 2007 we will be into GT5 as GT4 now , ime working to collate present figures , ile have something up before Christmas . Get My Drift ?
 
DeLoreanBrown
READ THIS IF YOU BELIEVE OIL IS NOT FOOD IN MODERN TIMES
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Thanks for posting that link, DB. Its the most comprehensive essay on what oil has meant to food production that I've yet seen.

In the end, all of this is about population, isn't it? A few excerpts from the above link:


"Food is energy. And it takes energy to get food. These two facts, taken together, have always established the biological limits to the human population and always will...

...The end result of chemical fertilizers, plus powered farm machinery, plus increased scope of transportation and trade, was not just a three-fold leap in crop yields, but a similar explosion of human population, which has grown five-fold since the dawn of the industrial revolution...

...the single most telling gauge of our dependency is the size of the global population. Without fossil fuels, the stupendous growth in human numbers that has occurred over the past century would have been impossible. Can we continue to support so many people as the availability of cheap oil declines?...

...Even though it may not be politically correct in many circles to discuss the population problem, we must recognize that we are nearing or past fundamental natural limits, no matter which course we pursue..."

If there were only a billion of us, we could go on pretty much indefinitely with no worries about running out of much of anything. With six, eight, or, God forbid, ten billion, we may face a bleak future.
 
Again, the free market comes to the rescue.

Food prices will go up as food becomes harder to provide to the population. As prices go up, people will find that they can't afford to have children. The result will be that many families will only have 1 or no children where they might have had 2 or 3. Food demand will, eventually, decrease as the population decreases (it happens).
 
Zardoz
If there were only a billion of us, we could go on pretty much indefinitely with no worries about running out of much of anything. With six, eight, or, God forbid, ten billion, we may face a bleak future.
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Tell everybody in Asia and Africa to stop having babies, then. Let me know how that works out for you.
 
the world population is going to go down? yeah right. if a family has two kids, and they have to kids and then those kids have two kids... the population isnt going down. maybe in the 3rd world that happens but not here.
 
THE ED3
the population isnt going down. maybe in the 3rd world that happens but not here.
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Actually, the population of the "third" world is increasing much much more quickly than it is in modern industrialized nations.
 
yes but i said that theory may work in the 3rd world as people have much less money there. Here in america i dont see the price of food going up so much people stop having kids.
 
In third world countries people die younger, that's the reason why it would mean a decline in growth of population when they'd have 2 kids per family. There is enough food in mostdeveloping countries, it just isn't distributed properly. Owners of farms rather sell their bananas to rich countries, than to their own people, since they will pay more. Or they'd choose to plant tobacco, which can be sold at higher profits than wheat, even though people in their own society are dying from hunger.


In rich countries you have people keeping their great great grandmothers alive, that's why there isn't really a decline now. The real problem in western countries isn't maintaining the amount of people at the same level, the real problem is the old people not dying. They will cost society a lot and if there isn't a huge work force of younger people to support them, it will be a crappy situation.
 
Zardoz
If there were only a billion of us, we could go on pretty much indefinitely with no worries about running out of much of anything. With six, eight, or, God forbid, ten billion, we may face a bleak future.
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Not necessarily. That's what population control -- err -- family planning is for. j/k

Back on topic:

It's not a matter of controlling the population... it's about controlling the elasticity of demand. Oil companies do not want to increase the elasticity of demand lest they hurt their sales. The trick is to wean ourselves off of oil. Raising prices will do little to reduce demand. We have to change the way we think.

How to define free trade:

smellsocks12
There is enough food in mostdeveloping countries, it just isn't distributed properly. Owners of farms rather sell their bananas to rich countries, than to their own people, since they will pay more. Or they'd choose to plant tobacco, which can be sold at higher profits than wheat, even though people in their own society are dying from hunger.
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Duke
Actually, the population of the "third" world is increasing much much more quickly than it is in modern industrialized nations.
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The more backward and traditional the society, the higher the birthrate.
 
Well, this thread put a damper on my already crappy evening.
As a car guy who has vague hopes of becoming a pilot, I'm not happy. I'm not looking forward to electric (soulless, boring, etc) cars, and the death of all things involving the Internal Combustion engine.
It is coming, and I've gathered that much from common sense, the internet, and this thread in particular. The big question is, when is it coming and how can we hold it off?
I think everything that can be done should be done to a certain extent to conserve the black gold left.
- Mandate that all cars be well tuned/running properly. No use in putting gas through 6 cylinders when your car is only running on 5! Encourage the implementation of cylinder deactivation when possible.
- Cut the use of heating oil! We're not in the '60s anymore! Electricity is cheap, and by using heating oil, you're also driving up the price of diesel.
- Switch from coal/gas fired powerplants to solar, wind powered, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, or even garbage burning plants. We're eventually going to have to make the change, so we might as well do it now and try to save what we've got.
- What ever happened to walking and riding your bike? Even a motorbike is better than most cars. What did people do in China, Japan, etc. before cars became widespread? They walked, rode bikes. I don't see why they all have to switch to cars now. Poorly built, emissions spewing, inefficient cars at that (in China).

I also think that the car-neutral person shouldn't have their 300C Hemi, Ford Exploder V8, and Lexus RX 330. If you honestly don't care much about performance and live in the city, get something smaller and more efficient. Get the V6 instead of the V8, the I4 instead of the V6. Let those who will enjoy it (the racer, the car-guy, the person who has fun behind the wheel) have more of it(oil). In fact, if you really don't care, get a hybrid!

I'm not sure about what can be done for airtravel and the airline industry. It is rediculous to think the airlines will all switch to the best efficiency-per-passenger airplane when they are only saving a couple grand on a fill-up (Keeping in mind that a relatively small aircraft such as a Boeing 737-700 will take 20-26,000 gallons of Jet-A to fill up). Factor the small savings against the enourmous cost of new aircraft, and you will have alot of bankruptcy protection going around. Shipping, too. I don't think there are a whole lot of efficient options there. Nuclear ships? Well that depends. Are you willing to sail a nuclear powered ship to Korea, Iran, China, etc. and then back to your home port?

My point in this post being that we will need to start conserving fossil fuels in the near future. There are a number of things that will need to be done anyway, so why not get started now, and mabye save us a bit for later in the process? And if you don't need your freakin' Ford Expedition, then don't use it!
 
Population Resource Center

  • World population exceeded 6.1 billion individuals in 2001, and is growing at about 1.3 percent annually. Over sixty percent of the world’s population lives in Asia, 13 percent live in Africa and 12 percent live in Europe; the remaining 14 percent live in the Americas and Oceania.

  • Demographic trends vary extensively in different regions of the world. Most of the developed world will experience aging and population declines, while less developed countries will continue to have growing populations. International migration and urbanization will enter the forefront of demographic issues, escalating concerns over international health and the environment.

  • According to medium projections of the United Nations, the world’s population will be 9.3 billion in 2050. Between 2000 and 2050, less developed countries will account for almost 99 percent of world population growth, with a population increase of 61 percent. Sub-Saharan Africa will grow by 143 percent, and Near Eastern countries will grow by 132 percent. In contrast, the European continent will lose 86 million people, a number slightly larger than the population of Germany.

  • The United States is the only industrialized country expected to rank among the top ten nations in population in 2050. Seventeen countries will have populations of 100 million or more by mid-century; India and China will have 1.6 and 1.5 billion people, respectively.

  • Total fertility rates have fallen from 4.9 births per woman between 1965 and 1970 to 2.7 between 2000 and 2005. The highest fertility rates in the world are in Africa and western Asia; Niger (7.5), Gaza (7.4), Somalia (7.3), and Yemen (7.2) have the highest rates in the world. The lowest fertility rates are in more developed regions, particularly in Eastern and Southern Europe.

  • About half of the world lives on two dollars a day or less, and 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day in 2001. Almost two-thirds of the population in developing countries lives without basic sanitation, one-fifth do not attend school through grade five, and one-fourth are malnourished.
 
Well, this thread put a damper on my already crappy evening.
As a car guy who has vague hopes of becoming a pilot, I'm not happy. I'm not looking forward to electric (soulless, boring, etc) cars, and the death of all things involving the Internal Combustion engine.
Click to expand...

I know how you feel. this is like seeing a pile of dead puppys. i'm sad.
 
Slicks
As a car guy who has vague hopes of becoming a pilot, I'm not happy. I'm not looking forward to electric (soulless, boring, etc) cars, and the death of all things involving the Internal Combustion engine.
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That's what I'm apologizing about. Because of our excesses, your options will be reduced. It isn't fair. That remarkable resource did not belong to just four or five generations, but we've been acting like it did.
 
Zardoz
That's what I'm apologizing about. Because of our excesses, your options will be reduced. It isn't fair. That remarkable resource did not belong to just four or five generations, but we've been acting like it did.
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Good lord Zardoz. Our excesses? His options reduced? I probably belong more in his generation than the "excessive" ones, but it's ridiculous to say that he's gotten the shaft by previous generations. Future generations will have what they do because we worked as hard as we could to push technology and science as far forward as possible. Stop thinking of oil as a mircale substance, think of it as a natural resource that we put to good use. Our understanding of it (and conservation of it) has gotten better as time has gone on, but the current generation owes future ones nothing.

yes but i said that theory may work in the 3rd world as people have much less money there. Here in america i dont see the price of food going up so much people stop having kids.
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Either we stick with the doomsday scenario or we don't. Either food prices are going way up or they aren't. We can't have a discussion if we're not using the same premises.

Brian
It's not a matter of controlling the population... it's about controlling the elasticity of demand. Oil companies do not want to increase the elasticity of demand lest they hurt their sales. The trick is to wean ourselves off of oil. Raising prices will do little to reduce demand. We have to change the way we think.
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Increasing the price of oil slightly isn't going to do much to encourage alternatives. But if the price goes WAY up, alternatives will become very attractice. Raising prices is just about the ONLY way to "wean" ourselves off of oil. What else did you have in mind?
 
THE ED3
I know how you feel. this is like seeing a pile of dead puppys. i'm sad.
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It's not just depressing . . . it's mind-bending , before i embarked upon my current line of research , i did'nt give the fabric of my society much thought. But it's like Modern Man is an animal whose Habitat is Oil , that Habitat is effectively eroded & it's now time to adapt or die , we've always prided ourselves above lesser creatures by out self-perception of adaptability & Now that it's time to put up or shut-up as a species we are collectively sucking our thumb in the nest . Don't tell me you knoe what to do or trust other more 'competent' (Higher?) agents because ime guilty of exactly those two fallacies of complacency , it's not a matter of being 'green' it's a matter of testing , invention , innovation, hey even wild exploration could open the correct door somewhere and bring a problem of truly enormous proportions ( bigger , i believe than climate change ) into perspective. Otherwise, you run the very real danger of letting a select few insulate themselves from projected aftershocks at the expense of all others and my question to GTP would be does American Citizenry in itself guarantee that you are one of the chosen . Think of the largest stocks of this substance , your government has , then consider your own daily ration of food as a physical entity , because every single third world mother & baby has . Somewhere there is a netty perspective but ime a long ways from a definition and fudging fact for rosy tints will never sway my quest for one.
 
We owe future generations everything. We owe them a planet.

In regards to tangential issues mentioned in this thread:

Population Growth:

Population growth has already stalled or reversed itself in most first-world countries. There are a lot of countries on the open market for labor and immigration because of this. Certain European countries have lowered barriers recently for immigrants because of declining birth rates. Japan is making it easier now for immigrant labor.

Third World Countries, however, do not seem to be slowing down. What global economists or ecologists see as population control, families below the poverty line see as wasted potential. To a blue-collar western worker, more kids= more expenses. To a poor rural family in the third world, more kids= more farm workers. To a poor urban family, more kids= more breadwinners, more scrap collectors or beggars. Suffice to say, population growth is not going to level off any time soon.

The Church is not helpful in this case. The Pope has just released a statement urging Catholics to have more babies. A lot of poor African nations are Catholic. Do the math. Add to that the heavily anti-contraceptives stance of most religions.

Oil Demand - Automotive:

Expensive oil is starting to affect the purchasing decisions of American motorists (finally!), but it's not enough. There are still too many gas guzzlers on the road. I won't argue with people who need power, but a majority of buyers do NOT utilize cars in the manner for which they are designed. People use sports cars and SUVs to commute. Not for track days and farm work. Neither of these have fuel economy as their major selling point. In a rational world, we'd all be driving Toyota Echos... but let's face it, they're really cheap and **** small, and until gas prices reach double what they are now, not many people are willing to switch.

In markets where prices are high relative to buyer income, car engines are smaller. In some European and most Asian countries, 1.6 liters is the norm. In the US, though, most 1.6 liter cars are not offered with anything smaller than a 2.0 or a 2.5 liter engine, and most buyers go for V6s or V8s.

With a large consumer base, China poses a real threat to the world oil supply through auto sales. Thankfully, after an initial bull run, sales are slowing down, as economic realities sink in, and the actual size of the consumer market stabilizes.

Oil Demand - Industrial Use:

Sadly, Third World Countries need oil. Lots of it. Now. Rapid industrial development in China has also increased the demand for oil. While oil prices may be going up, as long as cheap industry in developing countries can undercut prices from first-world concerns, oil demand will keep going up.

Other Alternatives:

Ion thrusters - no. Not practical for anything but space exploration. But they're a very cheap form of space propulsion.

Nuclear Energy - it costs a lot of money to build a nuclear plant, and it takes a lot of energy to dig up nuclear fuel. Fissionables are like fossil fuels, you have to dig them up, purify and process them and transport them. And they're in limited supply. Nuclear Fusion was thought to be the future, but even with the amount of money spent on fusion research in the past 30 years, we are no closer to creating a self-sustaining Fusion Reactor.

Anti-matter. It takes Megawatts of energy to create even the smallest traces of antimatter. Unless an anti-matter asteroid takes residence in one of our Lagrange points, there's no way for us to use anti-matter for energy within the next century.

What is possible and doable right now:

- Geothermal Energy - there aren't many places we can do this at... and we're already doing it at those places already.

- Sea Energy - Wave generators have gone out of vogue, but they're developing them again. Thermal generators based on differences in surface and deep water temperatures are doable, but require a lot of investment in construction. Biggest problem is how to transmit this power.

- Wind Energy - getting cheaper. Becoming more effective. Becoming more widespread.

- Solar Energy - cells are getting cheaper. Production is still too small. This might be our best bet for the future.

- Bio-fuels - expensive to grow and process, compared to fossil fuels. But in the future, vegetable oils may be our only source for plastic and lubricants, and vegetable alcohols our best source of volatiles. But whether we can build a large scale economy based on this and still provide food for everyone is a big question mark. And we definitely won't be able to maintain the same standard of living that first worlders are enjoying now.

One further note on Bio-fuels: These are definitely not possible via US or European farming methods, which are machinery dependent, and not cost-effective anyway (considering the large and often extravagant subsidies that rich nations give their farmers). But in Third-World countries, using old methods (dependent on human and animal labor) and with low labor costs, it's definitely doable. Before anyone reacts to this, remember, we are talking about a future with either no fossil fuels or limited fossil fuels to power farm machinery. And a heavy tech investment for farms would raise the cost of bio-fuels through the roof.

Again: we're looking for exotic solutions. And again: if it's not natural and abundant here on Earth, there's no way we can use it without spending a lot of energy to get it.
 
We could still generate electricity worldwide for the next 2 or 3 three centuries using a) Fission , not as bad as it seems if you trust proffessional conduct and invest in it's strict adherence + b) Coal , which is abundant but a pain in the ass enviromentally , unless you are willing to invest wholesale in sequestration technologies . Electricity is therefore Doable, to use Niky's term.There's a Bonus with cabled powersources , a silvery quality; research can be maintained even if other areas of our civilization go 'down' for a while , let us put our faith in the internet et al and not in Media fronts that are not willing to engage the gears when the corner appears .
Transportation is a Quagmire , a mess and a pity considering the visions of most members here but , nonetheless , people will move with their goods from A to B even if it means breeding Shire Horses. Sticky, but doable in a sad way.
Food w/out catastrophe :banghead: , Most polymers/chemicals/technological :banghead: products ; as far as i can make out at the moment Not-Doable . This is the real bummer and the area ime trying to squeeze truth and projection from.This is where research has to be poured ; sustainable foodstuffs and materials as they have been overshadowed by our reliance on fossil central .
 
DeLoreanBrown
We could still generate electricity worldwide for the next 2 or 3 three centuries using a) Fission , not as bad as it seems if you trust proffessional conduct and invest in it's strict adherence + b) Coal , which is abundant but a pain in the ass enviromentally , unless you are willing to invest wholesale in sequestration technologies . Electricity is therefore Doable, to use Niky's term.There's a Bonus with cabled powersources , a silvery quality; research can be maintained even if other areas of our civilization go 'down' for a while , let us put our faith in the internet et al and not in Media fronts that are not willing to engage the gears when the corner appears .
Transportation is a Quagmire , a mess and a pity considering the visions of most members here but , nonetheless , people will move with their goods from A to B even if it means breeding Shire Horses. Sticky, but doable in a sad way.
Food w/out catastrophe :banghead: , Most polymers/chemicals/technological :banghead: products ; as far as i can make out at the moment Not-Doable . This is the real bummer and the area ime trying to squeeze truth and projection from.This is where research has to be poured ; sustainable foodstuffs and materials as they have been overshadowed by our reliance on fossil central .
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👍 That's a nice thought. But it means we have to build new and reliable plants NOW. While we can afford them.

I pointed out a zillion pages ago that the internet HAS to stay for us to continue research and development in many fields of science. The energy required to run a worldwide network is relatively small compared to the possible benefits. Other benefits include standardised education, educational development, developments in agriculture, the check and balance required to redistribute resources required for industry and agriculture, and maintaining our links with the rest of humanity.

Air transportation may very well die out unless we go back to more fuel efficient (thus slower) forms of air travel. Blimps and prop-powered gliders (solar or - bio-diesel will work, or combinations of the two) are two solutions that are easily buildable in this day and age. The only reason we don't have fuel efficient air travel is that oil prices are NOT HIGH ENOUGH to encourage airlines to sacrifice speed and convenience for economy. Plus the initial investment per aircraft is so high, we are likely to keep the fuel-guzzling jetliners for decades after they become unfeasibly expensive to use.

Sea transport is a question-mark. We definitely won't be able to run tankers on wind power. There are some advances in sail technology, most notably ones using omni-directional wind-plants (sort of like cylindrical windmills) to generate power for the screws, but the transition won't be easy. Plus construction and maintenance of these monsters requires cheap energy... which we get... yes, from oil.

Land transport may not be as endangered as it may seem at first, but there will definitely be fewer cars. The only way to go is smaller and cheaper or bigger and slower. Say goodbye to sound insulation, houses on wheels and ultra-stiff steel chassis'. Say hello to plastics. Hello to lower power, bio-fuels, electricity and (possibly) hydrogen.

I still think we can do polymers without fossil oil, but we need to bring costs for bio-plastics down (Yes, Virginia, we can make plastic from corn). With the insanely strong negative reaction the public has to genetically engineered crops, we're not seeing these miracle crops any time soon, though.

The food crunch is definitely going to be a big issue. I don't really want to be around for that, but I might not have a choice.

The biggest question is whether we can transition quickly enough. This depends on:

* Political will to curb oil usage. 👎 - Oil usage = money, neither developing nor developed economies will want to slow down industry.

* Development of biological alternatives to oil products (may involve genetic engineering). 👎 - Strong cultural bias against GMOs. Research slow, products still costly.

* Development of alternative power sources. 👍 - wind and solar, 👍 - biofuels, 👎 - shipping and air transport, 👎 - cultural bias against nuclear power.

* Population control - 👎 - cultural and religious bias against depopulation.
 
Yep , it's largely a public-perception as motivation issue as a lot of the very good alternate branches you've taken the care to posit , Niky are Major sacrifices of convenience and shortfalls in wealth-aggrandizement for the sake of immediate technological implementations . A real thorny one . One british scientist of note has actualy reversed his stance on the nuclear fission issue ; James Lovelock , who is also the propounder of the scientific 'Gaia' theory or the planet as self-regulating process which needs to be viewed in a gestalt or totalist perspective and not fractured throughout variuous disciplines and sub-disciplines that dilute any formative actions that can be taken globally in the face of the results of , well . . . Globalization.
We have'nt nearly explored our Fauna resource to any degree and this is largely due to the plateau that oil-driven industrialization and it's pseudogreen 'caring' counterpart has created , very stagnant . whereas we should be probing and illuming all corners at light-speed if we're to come up w/ the goodies before the buzzer sounds.
 

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