clv101

Excellent post, those 4 points sum up the current situation very well.

Not quite free since to get a barrel of oil you need to build and operate survey equipment, drilling rigs, pumping equipment, tanker fleets, pipelines, the lifestyles of all the thousands of employees etc... all of which requires energy. Decades ago oil had a EROEI (energy return on energy invested) ratio of about 100 to 1, that's fallen and now is below 30 to 1. Still good going, you only need to use 1 barrel of oils worth of energy to get 30 barrels back. The problem will oil depletion is that all other forms of energy are significantly lower, and many like hydrogen and corn ethanol produced in the states are negative in that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen or ethanol that it actually contains.

If you believe that then you fundamentally don't understand the global energy market. Being energetically viable trumps being economically viable. It's economically viable to make Duracell batteries - that doesn't mean Duracell batteries are a solution to future global energy supply.

And what does the energy budget look like? How much energy does it take to make a litre of biodiesel compared with how much energy the biodiesel contains? Gotta count all the energy inputs like the energy the farmer used to grow the plant in the 1st place... Biodiesel can’t ever been a global source of energy since globally we can’t grow enough food to feed ourselves, let alone grow enough to have spare to make bio diesel: These facts suggest on a global scale there isn't 'spare' agricultural capacity for biofuels.

Look it's really quite simple - Hydrogen does not exist naturally, we have to 'make' it. The action of making it uses more energy than the made hydrogen contains. It's exactly like a battery. A battery isn't a net source of energy, it takes more energy to make a battery than the battery contains.So, I think we can all be clear than hydrogen is not a source of energy for mankind. Mankind’s energy comes from primarily from coal, oil, gas. Our demand for energy is increasing and the ability of these sources of energy to meet that demand is soon going to fail. You ask for a constructive suggestion? The only 'solution' to the problem of using more and more energy each year on a finite planet with finite reserves is to stop using more and more energy. We need to operate in a sustainable manner, not drawing down on finite sources. This means using LESS energy than we do now since sustainable sources cannot provide the amount of energy we currently get from non-sustainable sources. We can either choose to use less now and avert the worst of the problems or we can wait until nature forces us to use less causing great problems.

What do you mean by 'solution'? Hydrogen is not a source of energy!! Biodiesel has potential but only for a small scale, we can't produce millions of barrels of biodiesel per day, certainly not a significant amount at sub $50. I don't know what you mean by solution, but what has to happen in the future is for us to work out how to live a good life with less oil. That's the challenge, not to maintain business as usual in the face of oil depletion. That's imposable.

Global oil prices are going up, this article from today is interesting: ChevronTexaco's CEO banking on peak oil situation

Why won't interest rates fall when we join the Euro? What's the earliest timescale for joining? Now that the UK isn't a net oil exporter could the Euro could be here sooner than previously thought?

I must admit that I'm very surprised by the lack of response to my post about UK electricity supply? People on this board seem concerned about house prices but not about the very real chance they will be sitting in the dark in a decades time.

they might:I've done a little investigation on the UK electricity supply, the mix is something like 38% gas, 35% coal, 22% nuclear with about 5% from hydro/wind/oil/import from France. From that mix all but one nuclear power stations are being decommissioned over the next 15 years and by 2020 North Sea gas production is predicted to be virtually non-existent. The coal CO2 problem prohibits growth there. Given that electricity demand is increasing 1.5-2% pa and economic growth is (or at least has previously been) impossible without growing the electricity supply the UK is facing an energy crisis. Gas also heats ~70% homes. It's said we can import gas from Norway (also facing similar gas depletion to the UK), Russia via pipeline and from the Middle East, especially Qatar via LNG but the cost is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than our North Sea gas due to overseas national profit, infrastructure costs, competition bidding up the price not to mention the reduced security of supply. We could be ~50% short within 15 years, with serious shortage occuring much sooner. Given how inelastic to price electricity demand is how expensive do you think it's going to get?

What are you on about!? Do you know anything about the housing market? The price is absolutely negotiable. As for haggling, I haggle when buying everything over a few hundred quid, be it a house, car, TV, carpet, camera etc. Saved thousands over the years. Only a fool would pay the asking price for a house today.

This could push crude prices lower, 450k bpd drop in demand! Refined goods like petrol (in America) could rise though. If however it was anything other than an accident and aditional 'fear' factor could be added to crude prices if it apears than oil infrastructure could be a target.

Judging by the follow-up at the end it looks like they still are!

Does anyone know when the 2005 Q1 data will be available? Mid-April?

Okay - you are getting more accommodation... but you are spending an extra £2400 year + extra council tax, bills etc. Can you find an equivalent room in a shared house for say, £300 a month thus saving £1500 a year? That's what I'd call cheaper. However if you can share the £625 place with someone else then you're laughing.

An intriguing new definition of the term 'cheaper'...

When was the BBC site last updated? Do those quarter drops refer to Oct-Dec last year? If so can't the Christmas slowdown be blamed for much of the drops... Also the posts here seems to be cherry-picking the areas that are dropping, plenty of areas saw a rise last quarter.

If anyone has any questions about Peak Oil, fire away! I've built up quite a collection over the last 18 months.

Hello all, totally new to this site. Renting and saving at the moment do to partner's career moving shortly. No intention to buy whilst it appears that prices are falling by more than rent costs! See my thoughts in this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17388808

Small holding in the country with a few acres and no mortgage might be better! But yeah, oil majors and particularly oil industry services companies are likely to do well in the short/medium term, sure to outperform the market in general but as the whole market slide they may well drop in absolute terms.The real canary in the mineshaft is the airline industry - they need $36 oil to be profitable. The only airlines still showing a profit over the last 12 months are those previously cash rich and able to hedge long term. However, with sustained high oil prices even that strategy eventually unwinds.

I'm a total newbe to this site - only finding it a couple of days ago. These are my uneducated thoughts on the subject. I'd be very interested in others opinions. I posted this here a couple of days ago: It appears that the government are finally accepting that house prices are falling: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9dfb629e-9725-11d...000e2511c8.htmlI recently found this area on the BBC site which looks at average house prices in different areas, has some interesting information about how although areas are still seeing 12-month increases, the last quarter has seen a marked decrease. For example: City Of Bristol Average Cost: £172,100 Detached: £319,481 Semi-detached: £179,432 Terraced: £162,249 Flat: £157,661 Change in last quarter: -5.6% Change in last year: 5.4% Sales: 1791 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_d...tml/county1.stm The amazing thing is that losing 5.6% in three months of a £172,100 house is like losing £9,637, about double the average quarterly earnings! It’s an expensive business owning a house. I firmly believe we are on the crest of a housing market collapse. I think this graph is good: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3936889.stm The graph stops in 2003 but we know there was an ~15% rise in 2004 so it’s fair to say we’re about as high above the long run average that we’ve ever been. This graph also shows that the decline (when it does occur) from such a peak is not a gradual 1% per year like the FT article reports the government expect. When decline sets in, it’s rapid. We already know there aren’t any 1st time buyers left in the market – the stamp duty change isn’t going to improve that significantly, without 1st time buyers there won’t be 2nd time buyers etc… Once it’s clear that prices are falling then the few people who are still buying are going to pull back. This feedback loop is what prevents the gradual declines. Declines increase in speed. What do people think? Are we facing a house price crash? 20-30% wiped off the value in 18 months? Are prices going to carry on increasing or level out?

There's a lot of miss-information in this thread. Peak oil is the single most significant issue facing modern civilisation. Timeframe is imminent. Check out: http://www.peakoil.net/ http://www.peakoil.com/ - news portal + active forum http://www.asponews.org/ - excellent monthly newsletters http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/ - lots of video downloads http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ http://www.oilcrash.com/ The record prices seen on Wed, Thu, Fri this week are due to supply being unable to increase as fast as demand is increasing. This is the 1st indicator that global peak is imminent. OPEC are already at max production, the 500,000 barrel a day increase they announced this week is just on paper, OPEC are already exceeding the quota by more than this amount. Their announcement means nothing in practice - hence why the market subsequently bid up the price. For a good overview of what this means for the UK read (and sign!) this petition. http://www.petitiononline.com/PeakOil/