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

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 01:52:35PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> If the direst forecasts are true, this would risk however being futile.

Nothing is ever futile. The higher the conversion volume done sooner,
the less the pain. The question we're facing is how dire the energetic
austerity is going to get, and how many people will have to starve.
 
> Italy, eg, wasted substantial resources subsidising (corrupted and
> anti-economic) developments of solar and aeolic, and is now already

Italy should do very well with solar and geothermal, particularly given
that the panel prices will be soon at the point where feed-in tariffs
are immaterial.

Where most countries fail so far, is synfuels. Germany is further
ahead given that it will reach the point of >100% peak demand filled
with renewables reasonably soon, and will face the dilemma of using it
or losing it. The national natural gas storage infrastructure can buffer
up to 3 months and take up to 5-10% of hydrogen with no modifications,
and of course there's Sabatier. Methanol or formic acid from scrubbed 
carbon dioxide and hydrogen is also not very difficult.

> reducing such incentives (paradoxically, when the return would be somewhat
> higher!), because the previous level was unsustainable - especially given
> that we have seen the light, and know by now that all money must go to the
> banks where it belongs. :-)
> 
> So, perhaps high-risk, high-yield (that is, fusion), is our actual chance
> out of the trap.

Terrestrial (or even for the inner solar system) fusion for energy production 
isn't going to happen. It's really hard to compete with the Sun.