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In the early days of oil production in the US it's estimated that it was necessary to burn one barrel of oil to get up to 100 barrels. In the 1950s the ratio was about 1:50. By the 1980s it was about 1:10. It's now heading for about 1:5, except for tar sands/heavy oil production where the ratio is more like 1:2, not including the energy required to rehabilitate the devastated landscape resulting from this form of production. Of course you don't always literally burn oil to get oil. North Sea rigs, for example, are powered by gas turbines using gas extracted from the oilfields.

Incorrect. It's powered by the electricity resulting from the combination of hydrogen and oxygen into water.

Impossible. Somewhere along the way more energy will be used extracting the hydrogen than will be gained from burning it or using it in a fuel cell. If it were otherwise the laws of entropy would be broken.

It's not pedantry to point out that the car is not, as you claimed it was, powered by water. If it were powered by water it would be either magic or based on entirely unknown science which appears to break the laws of entropy. Splitting hydrogen from oxygen is a non-trivial operation which requires a large amount of energy, exactly what we're going to have less of as peak oil and gas hits us. It will not 'solve the problem' except in the fantasies of the brain-dead who believe in the 'hydrogen economy'.

So the car is not powered by water, it's powered by hydrogen. You cannot power any engine with water.

You cannot power a car or anything else on water. Either the advert was misleading or you misinterpreted it.

There are and will be no electric tractors or combine harvesters. Even if they did exist, you'd still need to somehow produce a colossal amount of electricity to power them. Solar panels and windmills just don't cut it. Fertilisers and pesticides essential for high productivity are made from fossil fuels.

10 million is a favourable estimate. During the Middle Ages, for example, the population maxed out at around 3 million. (However they didn't know about crop rotation and they didn't have highly productive crops like potatoes or maize). Without fossil fuel inputs, agricultural productivity per acre is about one seventh of what it is today. You also have to take one third of all productive land out of human food production to feed working animals like carthorses and oxen, unless you fancy pulling the plough yourself. Don't even think about running a tractor on either solar panels or batteries. Don't think about running mechanized agriculture on biodiesel. Too much land would be required just to provide vegetable oil to power the machinery, not to mention the industrial infrastructure, parts and maintenance required to sustain modern agribusiness. I would argue that the government is already losing control of this country. Every week i read about some innocent person being beaten to death in the street by some random group of thugs. Imagine what it will be like when the thugs are also starving. i don't wish to discuss Rome with you since you only seem to have a schoolboy understanding of the subject. Your assertion that the Roman empire 'fell' betrays that.

Anyone who thinks that there will be a smooth transition to some kind of solar-panel utopia must be out of their minds. Most people will 'solve the problem' of peak oil and gas by making fundamental changes. The main change they will make is turning from being alive into being dead. Food production is dependant on oil and gas for fuel, fertiliser and pesticides. Less oil and gas = less food. Less food = less people. Without food imports or fossil-fuel based farming, the land mass of Britain can only support about 10 million people. Assuming a best-case scenario with no nuclear war or mass epidemics, this means 5 out of every 6 people in the UK will die as a result of resource depletion. Without cheap energy the systems that sustain our current massive population will slowly break down or become available only to elites. I'm talking here about things like a clean water supply, sewage services, waste disposal, electricity, food supplies, jobs, medicine and law and order. The Roman empire was unable to maintain control over its provinces as resources became scarce and it became too costly to provide any benefits for its subjects. in our time we will also see central governments, particularly of very large countries, lose control.

The main problems as i see them over the next 50 years are:- 1) Overpopulation 2) Peak Oil 3) Peak water (water supplies already becoming strained due to climate change) 4) Peak food (food production globally has been falling since 1999) 5) Climate change 6) Pollution (apart from greenhouse gases) 7) Economic collapse 8) Increasing government control over populations 1984 style 9) epidemic diseases 10) Nuclear war It's a big sh1t sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite! Enjoy!

Muhahahahahaha!!! Let the wailing and lamentation begin! Popcorn anyone? H0m30wN3Rz Pwn3d!

Agreed. The last thing America needs to do is to try and prop up the crumbling interstate system. That was a 20th Century paradigm and we're now in a different (and in some ways much worse) era.

STFU n00b u g0t pwn3d by my 1337 haXX0r sk1llz!

I was right anyway. He exhibited the signs of an ignorant person. He knows I'm right, he's just trolling.

Oh Jack, Jack. You can't change your trolling style halfway through - but full marks for trying. I particularly like the way you're dropping in words like 'articulation' and 'introspective' inappropriately, while misspelling words like 'got'. Good stuff - but perhaps try again under another username?

Oh Christ, he's still here. Jack, don't take this the wrong way. Find a shovel, and bury yourself. Report back in a few weeks to tell us about the experience. Alternatively, go play on the freeway.

PWN3D is the correct 1337 Sp33k method of spelling 'owned', but i realised people might not understand, hence the edit. (i was using 1337 Sp33k ironically, of course). pwn3d 1: Losing badly at something 2: l337 (online) slang for 'owned' 3: The mis-spelling of 'owned' 4: Getting showed up/embarressed in a public event by someone/something Example for 1: Ryan loses to Brian Brian: "Hahaha, you got PWN3D!" Example for 2: "omfg d00d i pwn3d him cuz i r r0xx0rzz" Example for 3: "And then I pwn3d him at Halo" "Whoops, I mean owned" Example for 4: Person A: "I spent a long time writing the entire script to Harry Potter" Person B: "Yeah, I downloaded it off the internet too" Person C: "PWN3D!"

OWNED

I'm not talking about typos, as you well know. It's your writing style, which betrays all the signs of an ignorant person struggling to appear clever but failing abysmally to do so. Very much like another poster here, the name escapes me for the moment...

That doesn't change the fact that you're only semi-literate. See my edited post above for an example. And see me after class.

You'll hopefully be banned soon m8, on the grounds that you are clearly another poster posting under a different identity for the purpose of annoying people. Your florid yet slightly illiterate writing style gives you away, i'm afraid. Next time try altering your style - it makes for more successful and enjoyable trolling! edit to add: There has been no house price crash despite much talk throughout economic communities. 'economic communities' ? What exactly are they when they're at home? Good grief man, at least get some kind of education so you don't sound like an idiot!

oh for god's sake, the population of the uk hasn't suddenly jumped by 10,000,000 people in the last few years, has it? how do you explain the 80's boom and crash? You're an imbecile, and a troll to boot. Admin, please lock the thread and ban this user.

You're an unbelievable moron. Don't you see the connection between high energy prices and the collapse of pretty much all of the rest of the economy? High energy prices = less spare money = recession = crash. It's not rocket science for goodness' sake.

Price is now just under $67, up $1.06 in a day. $70 by Sunday? We are so f.ucked.

See 'Eating Fossil Fuels' by Dale Allen Pfeiffer To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.9 According to The Fertilizer Institute (http://www.tfi.org), in the year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the United States used 12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.10 Using the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 96.2 million barrels. Of course, this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the energy requirements for modern agriculture. In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased 3-fold.11 Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt. More... http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/...eating_oil.html