[ExI] Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 12:01:22PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> I see the point, and wonder whether in fact we are not already in such a
> trap.
> 
> OTOH, rather than going for a replacement with lower-EROI alternatives
> which is becoming increasingly unlikely for the reasons explained therein,
> perhaps we should make use of whatever resources we can still put on the
> table for breakthrough-oriented research programmes.

We pretty much know where to sink the bulk of the money and resources
we still have (which are going, going, gone) -- it's increasing electrification wherever
possible, energy conservation in nonessential areas, synfuels, thin-film
PV and so on -- I could give a long list but nobody will read it, so I won't.

There's sure some low hanging fruit in R&D still but we no longer can
afford throwing around rapidly evaporating funds for high-risk high-payoff stuff. 
That's because we've waited to long, the right time would have been
early 1970s (some early projects were started then but were cut in
early 1980s because people are poor in foresight).

Now we're out of time and money, need to focus on boring, sure winner areas.
Deploying rather than developing. Germany does some of that, but also
too little, too late.

I'm sure many people will fail to see the lesson nevermind to learn from it, 
and will fail to assign blame where blame belongs.