Will America be ready when oil supply peaks?

[4dsc]

The answer is NO!!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.oil12aug12,1,2383621.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

BUDGET DEFICITS explode. Inflation rules. Stock markets plunge. Houses foreclose. Great powers clash. This may be our future if we do not take more serious steps on energy than those offered in the energy bill that President Bush recently signed.

With oil prices hitting all-time highs and war raging in Iraq, serious concerns about "peak oil" slowly have appeared on the public radar screen. Simply put, peak oil refers to a key turning point when global oil production peaks and then begins to decline, signaling a future of dwindling supplies.

First, in the absence of serious alternatives to oil, oil prices will spike possibly to more than $100 dollars a barrel in anticipation that demand for oil will slowly outrun supply. That could trigger a global recession or worse. Even if rising prices spur research into affordable alternatives, it will take many years, perhaps decades, for the global economy to shift to them because oil penetrates all walks of life. We can't switch away from it overnight. Even if peak oil comes in 2020 or 2025, we are still behind in the race.

[opihimoimoi]

1. NOT if we control Saudi, Iraq, and Iran....

A Massive Die Off(Famine) will occur resulting in far less consumption.
The NeoCons wait for this day....

[Double T]

2. Consumers of oil and its products, with HEAVY EMPHASIS on.....

American consumers, are unwilling to leave their 'comfort zone' to do anything about conservation and the reduction of oil consumption that has run amok. The consumers will continue to buy gas hog SUVs and live in homes that are much larger than necessary and require substantially more petroleum based fuel products to heat and cool those houses, believing that the day of peak oil will never come. We all had the warning signs decades ago and had actually taken steps to move in the direction of conservation. When unrealistic corporate profits became the only goal of the entire planet, all conservation measures have been trashed and the 'live for the day' and 'we'll worry about it when that day gets here' mentality set in. The recent ENERGY BILL by the Bush administration is a gift to the energy producing companies to lower their taxes and provide corporate welfare for some of the richest companies in the world. The US should be spending its wealth on developing alternative energy solutions, but the two idiots that run this country are part of the oil industry and a part of the problem.

[Massacure]

3. Five years, martial law.

Stalin was good at large projects, if you took a look at what he did, you would know it could be done.

[Mari333]

4. Americans are using credit cards in droves

where I work, to buy their food. Trying vainly to keep their lifestyes in place, and chalking up credit for everything. The house of credit cards will fall, and its a perfect storm just waiting to happen. Thats why I live like a pauper now, and dont owe anyone. The tsunami will hit the US economy, and I dont want to drown. A lot of customers look really unhappy when they whip out those credit cards.

[Canuckistanian]

5. It'll be crisis long before the peak

The price of oil will be so high only the very richest (and most well-connected) will be able to afford the cost of gas for everyday use.
The rest of us will be car pooling in hybrids or hydrogen-powered cars or even (gasp!) public transport.