fossil fuels

[nibot]

Supposing that we have already passed the time of peak oil production, my question for you is this: in what year will we see fewer cars on California roads than in the previous year?

At what point will the Interstate Highways be fossil roads, abandoned relics, like the decaying steel towns of Pennsylvania, like the Erie Canal?

When will Phoenix be Detroit?

Or will someone invent the coal-powered car and doom us all? (The plug-in Prius actually burns coal.)

Comments

[chris-acheson.livejournal.com]

Localize production and have the mega corporate military-industrial complex lose their competitive advantage? Slavery would become legal before that would happen.

Though they are heavily distorted, there are still market forces at work here. Centralized production (to the degree that it exists today) wouldn't make sense to begin with if it weren't subsidized through tax-funded construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. As the cost of transportation increases, these subsidies will become less effective, and there are practical limits to further subsidization.

The world will move on to the next technology and people will always need to be moved from one place to another, people will always want material things, their own place to call home, mechanized comforts and powered luxary items.

Obviously oil won't be our primary energy source forever. This doesn't mean that the next big transition won't be preceded or accompanied by a reduction in the popularity of long-distance automobile transportation. Increased costs could drive a shift to localized production, reversal of the suburban sprawl trend, and a preference for mass rather than individualized distance travel. In the face of the resulting decline in highway use, it would make sense to abandon some of the less popular routes in order to concentrate maintenance resources on the others.

There's too many feasible sources of power already in existence for this Road Warrior fantasy to be possible.

Feasible on what scale? There's a handful of electric vehicles out there, a handful of hydrogen vehicles, and a handful of biofuel vehicles. The fact that they exist on the scale that they currently do doesn't indicate that it's going to be feasible to use them to completely replace the vehicles currently on the road before the cost of oil becomes unbearable. It's possible that scaling back automobile transportation will be more feasible than implementing these technologies.

[ansitron.livejournal.com]

My goodness. We're years away from depleting fossil fuels. We could already use hydrogen/electric hybrids if we wanted to set up the infrastructure. Soon, it'll be more cost-effective for each house to have solar panels to generate electricity. We've already got nuclear and all kinds of ways to harness natural energy. The Brits are building wave catchers with impressive capabilities. Granted, our first attempt at a tether into outerspace failed, but once we get that mastered, we can produce all the energy we want offsite. If anything, this will afford more mobility than now. I just wouldnt worry about anything too drastic happening. A slow transition with a key tipping point (for infrastructure changes) seems to be more rational. We have a growing world population to contend with. Keep in mind that a lot of the world is already more densely populated than America.

Fun topic though, I guess. I wish I had more time to dig into this and seem like less of a fool.. Didn't mean to troll.