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

[The Avantguardian]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> To: The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 3:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil)

 
> Only to a point.  If the price of crude oil were to skyrocket to 1000
> times its present level, there are already solutions that could and
> would be brought online quickly, capping the price of "oil" as 
> you're
> using it here.  Yes, there would be a crunch during the transition,
> but crude oil is not so completely irreplaceable that the lack of it
> would be a holocaust.

The price of oil need not skyrocket. It could creep past the DDP by a cent and we would be equally screwed. The DDP is a fairly robust measure because it would factor in any "price-capping" that the oil-companies might attempt by blowing the dust off of old patents and trying to build them in a hurry, even as they struggle to pay their employees? Yeah right. The point is how fast can the oil companies come up with an affordable synfuel that can work in the cars that are on the road RIGHT NOW? If their answer is greater than a week, then we are fucked.

You say the skyrocketing oil prices wouldn't cause a holocaust? Are you factoring in civil unrest? Let the average American have to choose which of their two-point-five children to feed and they will most likely hoist the black flag and start slitting throats. Say what you will about us, even the vilest American loves their children.
 
> More importantly, the oil companies themselves would be the
> most hurt by this crunch.  That's why they're hedging their bets
> with alternative fuels, in so far as this crunch seems likely.

If the oil companys' ace-in-the-hole isn't already online or deployable in a week or less, then it is time to get a shotgun. 


Stuart LaForge
 
"The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting by fools." -Thucydides.