As the oil price has risen more and more threads seem to reference it either in terms of the impact on our economy, our future way of life, house prices, inflation and so on.

I thought it may be interesting to have a thread where articles, ideas, thoughts etc, concerning the future development of the car/engine and alternatives to the petrol/diesel engine, can be discussed.

I'll start with a few links that have been posted recently. I know there are some very knowlegeable people on this site in the energy area so hopefully they will join in. I am not one of them. I am simply interested in how alternative energy is/will be deployed in the auto industry in the future.

I'm happy to say at the outset that as far as the UK, and probably many areas of Europe, and perhaps even urban areas in China, the Far East and South America are concerned I believe there is a future for alternative energy driven motorcars, and we appear to be at an exciting time on the cusp of these new developments being deployed to the market. Even in the oil obsessed US I can see a future for such technology. Perhaps even more reason for them to develop and adopt it.

Please add your own examples and thoughts as you come across them.......

Mercedes developments....

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/motor...icle1314732.ece

Electric bikes, scooters, cars in California

http://www.zapworld.com/

Danish electric vehicle project

http://www.greenbang.com/2750/project-bett...ars-in-denmark/

Israeli electric vehicle project

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1705518,00.html

Shai Agassi's EV battery car project

http://www.projectbetterplace.com/

This video is well worth having a look at I think

http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/the_long_tai...etter-stor.html

Interesting stuff, but where are we going to get all the extra electricity from? If we don't start thinking about extra generation and conservation elsewhere, then when everyone plugs in their car the grid is going to crash.

I can forsee a world with electric cars but only as long as car usage is less prevalent than it is now.

I think that personal transportation, bicycles aside, will soon cease to be considered as essential.

Not really much point in debating alternatives to fossil fuel powered conveyances as replacements will not be affordable.

"The Air Car! A French company, Motor Development International, based in Nice, created an
engine that runs on compressed air. This technology has been licensed by India’s Tata Motors (TTM) and
Tata will have MDI’s OneCat ® economy 2-seat model available for sale in India late in 2008.

An American startup company, Zero Pollution Motors, based in New Paltz, New York, will bring this
technology to the United States in late 09 with a vehicle called the Air Car ® that will seat six. Prototypes
will do 96mph, and can be “tanked up” –recharged with compressed air- either from a gas station-style air
pump (like the one you use for your tires) or via a plug-into the-wall electric compressor. The Air Car®
prototype reportedly will go 1000 miles once its compressed air tanks are full."

http://www.theaircar.com/

I agree, once Peak Oil starts to bite, we will realise that driving [and flying] are the most trivial of the current uses of oil.

It does appear from the postings on most forums I read, that most people still don't GET IT. It is probably just that they think of petrol/oil is something that is purchased by car drivers so this is the only problem that needs a fix.

It is MUCH WORSE because oil & gas powers/feeds all of modern economic activity!!

My first post:
I'm a great believer in cycling and have seen the number of cyclists nearly double in London over the last couple of years, which has made most drivers more 'cycle aware', so the roads feel slightly safer. “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”—H. G. Wells, 1904

The 'Air Car' has been pretty much dismissed as 'snake oil' over at The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future

but electric 'plug-in hybrids' could offer up to 150 mpg.

Red Kharma: One link to add to your list would be: AFS Trinity Power – A revolution in Fast Energy Storage™ featuring the Extreme Hybrid™.

Two SUV's built in 6 months by a team of engineers can go 40 miles after an overnight charge on battery alone and on long trips achieve 150 mpg, so could be readily bought up by one of the big manufacturers. Of course they could have had this or similar in production many years ago. With the big US car makers on the verge of bankruptcy it would almost be suicidal for them not to develop along these lines. Suspect Big Oil has killed the electric car in the past, and would not want to see too many of these in production.

The following page documents the principle: AFS Trinity Power – A revolution in Fast Energy Storage™ featuring the Extreme Hybrid™

1929crash: The whole point of overnight charging is that it uses unused capacity in power generation, that is necessary to keep the Grid going overnight, which explains why off-peak electricity is so much cheaper than peak electricity. It's things like air conditioners that can bring the system down, not overnight charging.

What's certain is that the high cost of oil is already having some positive effects, especially in the US where petrol being less highly taxed has increased in cost proportionally much greater than here, (despite being cheaper there), so this has had a greater impact there on the suburban lifestyle where people regularly commute 100 miles or more to work:

Ryan Avent: How high oil prices are changing America's way of life | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Of course the US response to Peak Oil is to try to grab it by force (Iraq), and to force the World to Starve as it devotes the growing of Corn for biofuels (responsible for 75% of the recent price increase according to the World Bank).

This is an interesting point. However, can we be sure that recharging will be confined to overnight periods? As I understand it, electric vehicles' main problem is their relatively short range, so if they were being used over and over again during the daytime, there would be a need for daytime recharging.

Even if we assume overnight-only recharging and adequate grid capacity, there is still the "upstream" problem of energy to produce more electricity. Power stations which would nowadays be taken off-line at a certain time would have to remain on-line all night.

Of course, the idea that we can have personal transport on anything like the scale we have now in a post-carbon era is a beguiling fantasy IMO.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/laugh-at-high-g.html

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg.

Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle -- so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers -- stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.

But VW's decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.

I understand that most people driving around town rarely do more than 40 miles and if they do, then the small petrol engine of a hybrid kicks in and charges the batteries. You could go longer distances even more efficiently by driving on and off trains that could take you city to city.

I don't think power stations shut off at night, maybe throttle down, but just maintaining availability of electricity requires energy to send electricity down AC power lines at high voltage and further losses occur when the voltages are reduced by transformers to 230 V. To turn power stations off would increase losses as electricity would have to travel further from those still running. (One of the reasons why microgeneration - smaller power sources closer together - makes sense).

A quick google search reveals a report from the US Dept of Energy that 70% of light duty cars and trucks could be powered from overnight charging: here. If you add into the mix significant power from wind, solar, wave, then it might be possible to get that nearer to 100 %. And getting 100% of vehicles to plug-in hybrid would take quite a few years anyway.

We have the technology now to build dynamic demand control technologies into most energy using appliances as a lot of power is wasted by running the grid at anticipated maximum demand and then an extra margin. This technology could even out power consumption at times of peak demand to save considerable amounts of energy. For more info visit: here.

DC power lines into Europe from Africa could provide for all our energy needs (less than 0.3% of the entire desert areas of the World could produce enough solar energy to power the World). DESERTEC.

The technology exists, but the political desire and cooperation needed is not there. The Oil industry is a powerful force with political power and many of these technologies are not in their best interests. If humans were rational and intelligent then all the world's problems could be solved. The problem is we are running out of time to set all this up, as the days of cheap oil are coming to an end, and the kind of infrastructure we need for the future will take time, expertise, and energy to build.

Post peak, routine personal transport other than bikes will be a past memory

A more probable electric vehicle

I agree. And what's more, people do not really appreciate the amount of oil you need to produce a vehicle in the first place.

It's not just the energy expended on manufacturing processes. It's also the question of oil for petrochemicals to produce plastics and the like.

With schemes like street car I suspect ownership will fall over time particular in urban and suburban areas. People will largely rely on public transport and hire a vehicle on the occasions they need one



http://www.streetcar.co.uk/vans.aspx

University of Birmingham have a big Hydrogen vehicle project going at the minute, they've just had the first Hydrogen fuel station in the west mids installed (maybe the first in the UK). Their vehicles are battery/fuel cell hybrids whereby you fill the hydrogen tank to power the fuel cell which continually charges the battery as you drive, so you extend the range and do away with the need to charge overnight.

This is the website:
http://www.microcab.co.uk/

Where do they get the Hydrogen from? currently its either extracted from nat gas, or water and electricity. Neither solves the ultimate problem of energy supply. At this stage Hydrogen fuel is little more than a party trick.

The problem with hydrogen is that it is so chemically reactive and light. That means that it is either bound up with other elements in a compound, requiring energy to liberate it, or it has escaped from planet Earth altogether.

I fear that barring a change in the laws of physics, it will always remain a party trick.

Incredible. Hats off to VW if it can really do 282 mpg! Having said that the current crop of 70-odd mpg cars that will carry 4 people is also impressive. But I imagine petrol efficiency is ultimately only a shorter-term solution.



I haven't seen or heard of this before. Thanks for posting. Some form of electrically powered cars appears to be where manufacturers are headed, along with more efficient internal combustion engines whilst oil is still viable.

Can the oil energy used in the manufacturing process be replaced/augmented by more electrical energy?

What about the oil derivatives used - the plastics and so on that have been mentioned. Can these be recovered from existing plastics or is that too energy intensive?

Those of you who don't see any future for "cars" - what do you imagine the manufacturers will do and when? Just scale down over time/shut up shop? Morph their businesses into something else?

Good point. Some oil based products will become very expensive, making the purchasing of electric cars the province of the ultra-wealthy. The rest of us may have to rely on cycles, walking and public transport, and the distance we travel in our lives may have to drop considerably.

Did you see "The History of the World Backwards" on BBC 4 (October 2007) by Robert Newman, who makes Peak Oil and the history of oil a basis of much of his humour? Search for Robert Newman on YouTube. I'd agree with him that to some extent that we will be forced to go back to technologies that we relied on before oil, (so going forward in history will be a bit like going backwards) but with maybe updated versions of sailing ships, steam trains, horses, cycling, walking. The trouble is that these forms of propulsion, energy available to agriculture etc (fertilisers made from gas, pesticides from oil) will not sustain the rapidly approaching world population of 9 Billion, so that is where the problems of the coming 100 years will lie, as a massive "Die Off" occurs, as even plentiful electricity (if made available by an 'enlightened' world leadership) will not be enough to replace all that products that oil and gas provided.

On the electric car front Gordon Brown has become a big fan of electric and hybrid vehicles: Gordon Brown: Motorists should switch to electric cars and learn 'eco-driving' - Telegraph. He is also pushing for nuclear power. Of course he may not be prime minister for very long, and even if he is saying the right sort of things, it will likely as not translate into any meaningful action (look at the true figures for CO2 under Labour including shipping and aviation). Btw watch the G Wiz crash test in the video in the above article at 40 mph to see how likely you would survive a crash in one of these vehicles!

It seems like Sarkozy and Brown may have been reading my posts (delusions of grandeur) :

£37bn plan to power EU with the Saharan sun | Environment | The Guardian

I'll have a look for Robert Numan - Thanks.

What is an updated version of a horse?

The Hydrogen is simply a mobile energy storage medium. You could feasibly produce it at plants on the coast using wave or offshore wind power as a source of electricity then pipe it wherever you like.

A plug-in hybrid version?

I'd like to reinforce what some other posters have said: hydrogen is very much on a par with batteries and compressed air, it is an energy VECTOR, not an energy source.

Frankly I think there is an almost infinite supply of fossil fuels, plenty of coal, and according to many commentators, plenty of oil, as long as the price is right, and we don't mind ripping up some of the few remaining wilderness areas of the planet (which of course we won't).

A bigger problem is finding the air to burn it all in.

Agreed.



"Almost infinite" might apply in human terms to energy from the sun, but not to fossil fuels under the ground - even coal. If you're having a laugh - you tease you! Nearly all the oil fields in the world are declining in production and there hasn't been a major find for over 30 years. Time to get educated, start listening to those who were predicting Peak Oil many years ago, and the present economic crash. Try reading Shell Energy Scenarios as a gentle, but worrying introduction to the subject from an oil company. For 'Scramble' read 'more oil wars'. 'Blueprint', a planned global energy policy - unlikely? Increasing coal use will just make Climate Change worse.

The key problem is not the amount of oil and coal under the ground/or in oil shale, but the fact that the easy oil has gone. What's left is expensive to get out and takes more energy to get out of the ground. When it takes a barrel of oil energy wise to get a barrel of oil out of the ground and to it's destination then the game is over. Look out for massive problems over the next 5-10 years: The era of oil wars - Michael Meacher

The Long Emergency has started!

No renewable energy source is infinite - the ability to capture renewable energy is constrained by the amount of available capital to invest in the technology of the day (PV, solar thermal, wind turbines etc). In that sense renewable energy is a very finite source which shouldn't be wasted - like any other energy source.

Pessimist, notice I did caveat my statement, "if the price is right". I agree the era of dirt-cheap oil is over, however the current oil price is just as much a bubble as the housing bubble. Driven by speculators. If there's a shortage, it's a shortage of refining capacity not the raw material.

I'm not sure of the details but a few years back there was a "deregulation" of the oil finances, in other words licence for the City, Wall St et al parasites to rip off the real economy even more than they already were. The graph of oil price increases started then and has been up ever since, there's a surprise.

Most oil wells were capped after giving up 30-35% of their reserve. At the new higher prices it will be economic to go after the remaining two-thirds. Even in our north sea, about half the oil is still down there, and there are still unexplored areas.

Perhaps "almost infinite" gives the wrong impression, however I think the real limiting factor for fossil fuels is the greenhouse effect.

Meanwhile.....VW has a prototype golf electric-diesel hybrid that does 113mpg.

From Autoexpress article:-



I wonder why they're waiting 'til 2015 if they have the working prototype available today? Waiting for countries to gear up their electricity generation capacity perhaps?

Was reading about this MUSIC engine design in a magazine just this morning

Claims to reduce consumption in petrol engines by up to 20%, could make a significant Impact I think. British design too!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle5010490.ece



Looks like this is now starting to become a reality in the UK.

Of course there is still the question of electricity generation, but when you look at the CO2 reduction targets, the nod to new nuclear power stations and now this I think it becomes clear in which direction we are headed.

I've a few comments form throughout the thread

'where does the electricity come from, capacity ..Environment' - Yes capacity may well need to increase, but local generation is the way to do it, less reliance on central power and less transmission losses. Even if the electricity is currently generated from fossil fuels, it is still good to encourage the technology development. Generally electric motor driven cars are significantly more efficient than petrol ones, even if the power comes from a petrol engine. If would also help to add solar panels to cars to topup stored power, say while the car is sitting outside your work. There are many weight efficient solar cells around and now nano-solar may offer cheap power.

'Hydrogen' - currently no way to store it, AFAIK most of the concept cars the fuel leaks out after a couple of days. It is also encouraging IC cars which as I have already mentioned are inefficient. A a portable power source, fuel cells..ok we can use them to supply the electric motor cars by simply dropping in an appropriate module, but please no IC hydrogen engines.

'Safety' - Yes electric cars have been made very light to increase the range and acceleration. Acceleration should not be an issue and there are plenty or electric sports car around. An electric motor is about 4 times more powerful than an IC engine weight for weight. Storage is the main problem, lithium polymer works well and for model aeroplanes (and even 1 full size one) lithium/electric is level in speed and duration and a petrol+IC engine. IC engined cars have just become heavy and safer because we considered that the fuel was cheap and limitless, we can have safer electric cars at the expense of efficiency and speed, just in the same way we have done with cars. The geewizz thing runs on leadacid batteries, hence it has no margin on storage. Electric motorbikes are more efficient, but don't keep the rain off, we just need to know how safe it is to make a choice. Most parents would not take their kids to school on a motorbike.
The problem with Lithium polymer is it is expensive.

For now I would say the answer is to ban cars where the IC engine drives the wheels, or to mandate a minimum 100mpg. This will allow technology to develop and for us to have a huge step change in mpg, cost increase will be significant but medium term saving also comparable.

from Auto express - no link


So, small capacity turbo charged IC engines with 95mpg available very soon and electric powertrains following within a few years. Provided they're not prohibitively expensive, 95mpg should pay for itself over the life of the car on just an average mileage.

now with oil at $65 it looks like you lot where suckered into a bubble


we are all going to start eating grass because oil to make food will be too expensive
we are going to fight Russia with nukes for drops of oil
we are going to invade the middle east to control oil
oil will go to $500 the day after tomorrow
peak oil
chinks driving more
Indians using more energy
personal transport will be no more in 5 months time

idiots the lot of you.


Like I always said, we can reduce our oil use 75% quite easily. We have plenty of energy. Energy in one form can be turned into another like coal to liquid fuels.

On a more positive note, the future of car tech vs fuel..


in the next decade or so we will see the introduction of self drive cars. These cars will pick you up and drop you off at your destination. More importantly the cars will pick up passengers on route.

For example if you are driving from Scotland to London the self drive car will alter the route slightly to pick up others whom want to go from Scotland to London thus what would have been a 1 man per car trip is a 4-6 man per car trip. That in effect reduces congestion greatly but it also means instead of 4 cars doing 40mpg each we now have one car doing 40mpg or in effect that car is doing 160mpg.

Same theory with shorter trips. I live in a small town and drive about 20 miles to work and back. There are others who live in this town and work at the same place yet almost none share trips. With self drive cars this will again reduce 1 person per car to 4 people per car.

Worldwide it will have the effect of reducing car miles by perhaps upto 75% almost overnight. Travailing by car will also be far far cheaper and the number of cars produced will drop by 75% as the world only needs 1 car for ever 4 it required before.
When self drive cars become a reality within 5 or 10 years I think very few people will have their own cars.



An alternative to this which can be done right now is a large network of super efficient taxis. You order a ride entering where you are and where you want to go and when you want to start your trip. Just like with the auto drive system the taxi driver will have a sat nav and a central computer directing him to his routes to pick up and drop off people in the most optimal way. It would be like groups banding together to share a taxi but done automatically. I think that has the potential to cut trips by 25-50% quite quickly. It would also be cheaper than owning your own car.

Care to put a date on it?

I bet you this time next year I will still be driving my car.
I bet you in 3 years I will still be driving my car.
I bet you in 5 years I will still drive meh car.
I bet you in 10 years I will still be driving my car.


Technology will save the day even if peak oil becomes a reality and so far it is not, over the last 10 years we have INCREASED production by 10m barrels a day. How on earth do you call an increase of 10m a day over 10 years peak? Coal and gas production is also up 35% on a decade ago.

Given that EROEI has been falling for all 3 fuels output would have to rise just to cheap energy supplies constant.

Increasing output just brings us nearer to the point of exhaustion (not physical but where the energy required to extract the fuel / process it exceeds its energy value) unless of course you subscribe to the abiotic oil/gas/coal theory.

Que for Beefheart

You have changed your tune on the issue of technology - everytime someone here talks about something relatively low tech - but very effective measures you pitch in with your buy a jumper / live in a freezing cold house arguement..........

Hmmmm - perhaps that increase has brought us to the peak - certainly in terms of oil production. Sure - we might see a few million extra barrels of production but no one nowhere has the capacity to increase another 10 million in the next 10 years - not against the backdrop of so many major producers having experienced their own peaks. 2005-2015 is the favoured date range for peak oil. I bet oil production has fallen below 80 MBPD by 2015.

You clearly have absolutely no understanding of peak oil, or indeed the nature of the planet you are currently standing on, although you may be currently driving your car. It is unfortunately finite and we haven't quite figured a way off this small globe yet. Obviously the moon was a good start, but it is a barren rock. We need to go so much further, and we will run out of energy long before we can figure out how to build the starship Enterprise.

I'll bet you that you will still be driving your car next year.

I'll bet you that you will still be driving a smaller car in 3 years.

I'll bet you will be carefully considering when you should drive your car in 5 years.

I'll bet you will either be hiring a car or driving as part of a car pool in 10 years.

I'll bet in 20 years you will look back on your car driving days with fondness, as you watch the elites glide by in their Mercedes. Obviously if you so much as raise your voice in protest you will be removed to a concentration camp.

I'll bet in 30 years you will wish you were living now, as this will be seen as golden age. Cars will have ceased to exist as a mode of transport, unless drawn by horse.

Energy drives technology, not the other way.

The future isn't bright, it is quite gloomy.

Cells, 'cell' more like with your intellectual capacity.

One of the things you list as weird predictions by those with an awareness of Peak Oil have already happened: the invasion of a Middle Eastern country to control oil. The other things you mention are not real predictions, apart from increased energy use of China and India. My understanding of Peak Oil is that there will be increasing volatility in oil prices tied in to volatility in the economy.

The only thing that has driven the cost of oil down has been a global economic depression. Reduced consumption of oil for the duration of the recession will just prolong the inevitable. The fundamentals remain the same. The recession caused to some extent by high oil prices will also slow down the development of new oil fields. Oil companies who are flush with money at the moment may find that the return on investment at current prices is too low to justify massive investments. The smaller companies involved in exploration are finding that no-one will lend them money to continue their drilling.

If a way can be found out of recession, which is not guaranteed, then we may well find the rising costs of oil will throw us back in again.

[Cells, 'cell' more like with your intellectual capacity. [/quote]





How dare you insult Cells. Didn't you know - he is one of this Countries finest Fisiks graduates

i try to put reality back into you freaks.


you lot think we will be fighting Russia with nukes to control Saudi.
i say us wearing jumpers and not using the central heating so much is the more likely outcome.

I don't think you can know you are at the peak unless you look back. When I look back to 1997 compared to 2007 we have increased production by 10m barrels a day. Massive increase!! that shows that during 97 to 07 we did not peak and in fact now pump loads more out. Same with coal and gas.

Now I don't know if we are at peak but I don't pretend to know unlike you who says Monday 14th jan 2009 at 4.25pm will be peak.


Will oil peak one day? Yes
Is the peak really important? A bit, like no shorts in the winter rather than nuclear bio engineered Russian attack cats vs uk mechanised chav armies.

Such an ignorant post.


My grandparents live in a village of perhaps 250people and a perhaps 1 car trip a day is used by the 80 odd families. Most people burn wood or dress appropriately for the time of the year and hence don't need much heating.

Their energy use is probably only 5% of yours or mine.


When I visit them am I unhappy at not driving so often? No
when I visit them am I pissed off that I cant war a t-short and shorts when it is snowing outside? No
do I miss my energy intensive lifestyle when I visit them? No


I and you and the western world can easily and with little effect on us cut down our energy use by 80% and at a push 90%.


that means if world production went down 80% we would not have much of a problem and even idiots on this site don't think we are going from 80m to 15m any time quick. The transition period of 5 or tops 10 years might be difficult for some but so what.

Add to this that all forms of energy are linked. If oil production drops back to 97 levels (ie 10m less a day) but coal/gas production goes up 50% then there will be little effect on the world as coal/gas will be used where oil was before.

You lot really do work yourself into ignorant rants.
Hopefully in 10 years time you will come back to this thread and figure out how stupid you have been (btw less oil production can still mean you have been stupid as you predicted the results incorrectly which are far more important)

Hey kurt I suggest you start training you and your families/friends stomachs to eat grass now. When peak oil hits you lot will happily graze on grass and laugh at all the non peak oil losers who have upset stomachs as they didn't train to eat grass.

Perhaps technology will save the day eh Cells

In a few years time I will be able to have a genetically modified rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum implanted.

I think the 'freaks' as you call them are those like yourself who deny the reality of 'Peak Oil' and it's economic impact. We've grasped the low hanging fruit of energy, what's left will be more expensive to get out of the ground. Look at the environmental impact of turning oil shale into oil, and it's poor returns on energy investment. New oil finds involve drilling deeper than ever before, drilling through salt domes deep beneath the oceans. Coal is not the answer and will not power our transport systems, it's increasing use for power generation will only contribute to climate change.

We are going to see more fundamental changes than just 'wearing jumpers' and 'turning the heating down a bit'. Gas prices have remained high, despite the drop in oil prices, throwing millions into 'fuel poverty'. People's habits are still changing after the last oil shock, fewer cars on the road, more journeys by bus/coach, fewer flights, buying of cheaper food etc. Most of the predictions made by the Peak Oil lobby are starting to come true.

The only hope now is for a "Green New Deal" which can help revive the economy and build an infrastructure that will make life viable in a post peak world. Recession may buy us a few more years, but may also prevent the necessary investment in sustainable energy and transportation.

Agreed. Which is why I am looking at car manufacturers for clues. There has been a step change in the last year or so in announcements of new ultra-efficient IC engine models followed by electric only/hybrid versions. They are tooling up now. Imho this isn't because of the oil price rises over the last 6 months. They know perfectly well what is coming and are planning for it. Under Obama it looks like the US will "get it" too. I find it fascinating. My main concern being whether we have left it too late to build sufficient electricity generation capacity. I suspect the answer is a resounding yes.

Maybe those of a more optimistic inclination could be called "the jumper wearers". Whilst those a bit more pessimistic will be the "grass eaters".

What is scary, is not the over simplistic opinion of the majority, and Cells is in the majority because very few people have actually thought our energy dependence through. We all take it for granted, and we all take it as read that things will pretty much continue as they have done in the past, except with cooler gadgets. No, what is scary, is the when the optimistic majority and deprived of what they assume is their god given rights. Cells telling everyone to wear a jumper and turn down the thermostat isn't going to work when the people require a scapegoat. Who will it be this time I wonder.......?

As for cars, I'm sure we may improve our energy usage, but when petrol starts getting really expensive people will be very unhappy indeed. In fact, those who can still drive will be targeted for some very nasty abuse.

All retired I guess.

We can cut down energy use no problem. The flipside is we all get poorer. There really is no way out of this conundrum, no matter how much you protest.

energy in the form of coal/oil ect does create wealth as using a combine harvester instead of 1000 men is more efficient.


but most of our energy does not go on productive things. i drove 400 miles this week down south burning about 50kg of petrol doing so. i did it because i could and fancied a trip to Coventry. if i didt have that trip i would not have been any worse off nor would the economy.

the same is true for central heating, there is no economic value gained in heating our homes.


90% of energy use is optional.


and like i said, peak oil is not that important, peak energy is more important.

You are all making fools of yourselves. Just like the food bubble there was a speculative oil bubble wake up.


Some facts for you all.

• Oil production is up by 10m barrels a day since 1997 (thus not a peak in fact massive new supply)
• coal production is up 35% since 1997
• gas production is up 35% since 1997
• technology can reduce our energy use. such as self drive cars which would be the equivlant of adding 15m barrels a day.