I actually never read that before, my source was a printed science magazine from some years back. Maybe their source was a wiki article? Hmmm. . .

well hopefully by then we will have efficient fusion reactors and alternative energy sources for powering cars. fusion power could be a huge advancement if it could only be perfected. That generates a ton of energy but unfortunately to sustain it we have to use so much energy it's not really worth it.

That's very a common thing for "tech" or "science" magazines to do when they don't really know anything about the subject.

I was going to recommend a book that I read a while back, taught me much about quantum computers, but I can't seem to remember it's name. (and I can't find it on any list, I think it was c.2001 publish date, had lots of humor in it too)

Ok, back on topic about the oil problem...

My sister worked for El Paso Natural Gas Company for about a year, and this is something interesting that she noticed in their files...

There is an inexpensive way (less than $1000) to convert your normal gasoline powered car over to Natural Gas. There are many benefits to doing it too. You could easily have a gas line in your garage so you can fill up at home... Natural Gas is one of the few "unlimited" resources we have... It burns much cleaner than gasoline... It is much cheaper per gallon than gasoline... The US is second only to Russia in Natural Gas extraction...

I could say more, but it's early, and I need my sleep...

"It seems like the global oil supply has been on the edge for a very long time. And every time something happens such as a war, the oil executives SAY that they are going to raise prices because oil is running low, but then, AH! More oil, so they get to make a lot more money, and you don't get a refund or a discount."

That's what my MOM told me, and it seems to go inline with how greedy big business can actually be. I can't really decide on it, but yeah, it's out there.

Its always on the edge because that is when you can jack up the prices. people dumped milk off the side of the roads from the big tanker truck to increase the demand for it and with less milk a gallon can go up several dollars. But it is really coming down to were ARE running out theres no cover to hide that.

Oil is so easy to replace:

For cars just use ethanol

For plastic use glass

Sure prices are going to go up, powers shift but..
Problem Solved.

That would be awesome to carrying groceries around in a glass bag

If You're planning on doing that, good luck, I am sticking with cotton.

Ever heard of Organic Plastic? No petroleum needed...

I'm assuming it's impractical though, I'm providing the developed technology I know which we have right now which would save us if all oil dissapeared right now.

That's the problem with assumptions. Organic plastics can have the same durabilities as petroleum-based plastics, and would be far less expensive to produce if there were as many production facilities as there are for the petroleum-based.


Glass is very expensive when compared to plastic, and would be impossible to use as a plastic replacement material.

Okay just want to say that I was just kidding to those who actually thought my comment wasn't a joke.

I meant Glass for general hard pastic like bottles
cotton for softer plastic like bags. I posted that later.

Still far more expensive than plastic, and the infrastructure needed for producing it on the scale necessary would cost trillions. Even using metal would be less expensive.


Again, cotton is far more expensive, and the infrastructure necessary for is it prohibitively expensive. Also, you can't use cotton as a replacement for Ziploc freezer bags...

Ok, I assume you know that for a fact, my general point was there is already materials which can replace oil.
So I am sure we will be fine.

Yeah, I did a study of the issue for one of my English papers... Got an A+, and caused most of the "Oil Problems" posters to come down from the on-campus billboards...

Oil has had a backup for all of it's uses since before gasoline powered engines came out, it's just that it requires a greater variety of materials (not usually price or time) to produce the products when you aren't using oil. (thereby spreading the wealth among several dozen companies instead of just one)

Which will be a rough transition I can imagine, but I don't care. It will be better for the world afterwards.

I remember seeing that in SimCity 2000. I didn't realize it was anywhere near doable.



I looked at the story and did a quick search on google. Your article is dated Feb 13, 2008 and mentions soon the USGS will release a report regarding the amount of oil. Well I think this is that report:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

They're saying it's closer to 3.5 - 4.3 billion and it's questionable how much of that is really recoverable. Even at 4.3 billion barrels, that's a little under 7 months' worth of oil based on the USA's current rate of consumption. So that's good news, but not a fundamental game-changer.

As for wave and methane power, I'm less concerned about actual electricity production, since the majority of oil isn't used for that anyway.

Not really. It certainly has for the United States, but globally, it's only gone up and up until about 2005. Global DISCOVERY tapered off in the 60s however. Politics and economics off course have affected supply and prices through history of course, but that's more of an artificial limitation.

It's POSSIBLE we could make some miracle breakthrough here, but right now there isn't enough farmland on the entire earth to produce enough ethanol to replace our current consumption of oil.

Not across the board, though for many products there are alternatives. This is an area where the market adjusting to the demand argument has some merit. Oil has a lot of unique properties to it, however most of oil is used for fuel anyway. If that stopped, we would have enough oil for plastics and many other industrial applications for a ridicluously long time.

The military is already looking into doing it to power soldiers in the field where it's hard to get other fuels. I figure we could probably kick-start the same sort of program to provide energy for the public with... oh, about what it cost to build the fleet of stealth bombers, in today's dollars. At least, that was the estimate I read a few years ago.