Thank you for posting this, Rose. I think it is extremely important for our next president to place a system of bringing our goods and service industries back to the US. We may be an oil-dependent society, but we don't have to be totally dependent on everything. That will seriously impact the transportation industry, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Besides, with the cost skyrocketing so, it sounds like it will become too costly to import. That's what Walmart gets.

It doesn't take a math major to figure out that what takes centuries for fossil fuels to form, we use it up in months.

We, here in the US, have enjoyed cheaper oil than the rest of the world...for years.

It's not that we are dependent on fossil fuels, but that we are dependent on the fact that the products produced by US manufacturers are designed to run only on fossil fuels.

I expect to be dead by 2030, but I hope the world situation improves by then. We've got to cut our oil usage! How about solar and wind alternatives?

Solar and wind are available.
You can convert your house to all or partial solar power.
Wind power is in use here in parts of the US.

Question is..are you willing to invest in it?

They can start using the rail system more for transporting good around the country.
Leslie

The rail system is powered by diesel fuel, so that's not going to help. It's more efficient than trucks but also slower (less point to point distribution).

The problem is, China is fast becoming industrialized and sucking down more and more oil, and that's putting great demands on supply reserves, too.

Rose

I don't know if the question is are you willing to pay for it, but can you afford to pay for it. I would love to live in a solar powered home, but the cost is beyond my means.

Rose, is it really fair to call that the problem? It sounds like you're blaming China. I don't know how China can be blamed for doing now what we've done all the long, as if they are not entitled. Did I misconstrue? My problem is their growing economy is at the expense of our decline. And that is our fault.

I'm not blaming China at all. I'm just stating the fact that as they become industrialized, they're gonna start consuming oil at a rate comparable to America and when 1.5 billion people use as much oil as Americans, the oil supply is likely to be exhausted *much* faster than if current rates of consumption remain the same.

I'm a big believer in solar power but we don't know how to harness solar power for our CARS or for industry and those are the big oil consumers now.

Rose

We can have hydrogen fuel cells for our cars. Right now I think the secret is just to consume less and we are almost forced to do that with fuel prices.
There are a lot of windmills in of all places - oil rich Texas.

Not even counting fuel, but oil products are huge in raw manufacturing materials, not even counting any energy used to make them.

China's hunger for raw materials has been huge in pushing up construction material costs for some time now too. The old law of supply and demand is at play here, and now there is more demand worldwide than ever for raw materials, energy, food, etc.

Personally, I do not believe that all the oil fields that are lying in reserve will be depleted in that short time. I have cut back because of cost. But I really don't think any of us wil still be here to see all of the earths oil used up.

JMHO

PVP

We're looking to build our dream home next summer, off-grid in Canada - I've already thought about animal energy - remember the horse an buggy? Maybe we should be thinking along those terms again...may be an option going forward.

I agree with PVP. I was raised in the oil field, and DH has worked his entire life in the business. The technology they are using to find and extract oil is mind-boggling.

I'm NOT implying that we aren't a spoiled nation or that we don't consume more than we should. And personally, I do believe in global warming, so I wish we weren't so dependent on oil. I'm simply saying I don't think we'll be out of oil by 2030...and personally, I'd take the site more seriously if there wasn't so much for sale there.

Just my two cents...

It took millions of years to make the oil.

All that we'd used prior to a hundred years ago ... you could stick in your eye.

Interesting, isn't it, some of the things that we remember? After two years of University, I went to north-eastern Sask. as a summer student minister, working in four tiny churches that only had church in the summer, where people lived many of whom had left the treeless prairies in the Dirty Thirties when the wind blew the crops away, with all that they owned on a wagon rack.

In ten to fifteen years, some of them had begun to get back on their feet, in that area where there was usually somewhat more rainfall ... and some (smallish) trees.

If you asked me what other things I preached about that summer, I couldn't tell you ... but I remember saying that we'd been using up petroleum for the past 20 years, from 1929 when many people drove Model "A" Ford cars, till 1949, just after World War II, like it was going out of style ... and that some day before too long, we'd run out.

The Shah of Iran said quite a few years ago that we in the west were crazy to use large quantities of petroleum, including natural gas, which should be used for portable power (e.g. in autos), for fuel source in immobile power-generating plants, for within not too many years it would become very scarce.

I remember when the price went up - was it around 1974? - when the OPEC people were cutting back, and Ronald Reagan said that they'd fix them ... they'd dig more wells around home and become less dependent on foreign-sourced oil!

And I thought, yeah, darned fool ... dig up and use your own oil when it's currently plentiful and cheap ... and after while, when the main sources have been drained, yours will be gone, and you'll be forced to buy from other suppliers ... at far higher prices. Wouldn't it be wiser to keep some of yours available for use when supplies become scarce (and hugely expensive)? Don't we owe something to our grandchildren??

Next time you walk down the aisle in your favourite store, look at all of the plastic stuff there ... including a great deal of the packaging ...

... and wonder how many gallons of precious petroleum it took to make all of that stuff, for most of it uses petroleum feedstock.

Next time you take the cap off of a bottle of water, wonder the same thing.

Problem: possibly it's a different portion of the original crude oil that they use to make the plastics. For example, we can't use the part of the crude to make gasoline (or maybe only a tiny oportion of it) that's used for asphalt for the roads, or the dark and heavy bunker fuel used in some ships (that's so thick that when travelling in very cold climates, they have to run steam pipes through the tanks to make it flow, I've heard).

Last year it cost more to repair my 19-year-old car, after an accident had the rear wheel track crooked, than I'd paid for it about 6 mos. earlier. But I felt that, at about 190,000 km. (120,000 mi.) it had a lot of useful miles left in it, if treated with care, and it would take quite a lot of labour but not a lot of materials to repair it. But it takes a large amount of energy to build ... and haul component parts around, prior to final sale of the whole car ... a new car.

Recently when I was having a hard time passing my driving test and wondered whether I might be forced to stop driving ... I cried in my beer a bit, thinking that if I had to sell it ... that there was no way that I could sell it for more than half of what I'd put into it at that time.

I look upon that extra cost as part of my contribution to reducing usage of precious petroleum, while reducing adding more heat and pollution to our atmosphere ... also precious, but often taken for granted.

Some time ago when on a daily phone-in program the public radio broadcaster was discussing on our province-wind network, using solar and wind generators to replace some of our coal- and nuclear-powered generating systems, one of the people connected with Ontario Hydro, our public corporation generating and distributing power, called in to say that there was a major problem with wind, for major demand was in summer for air conditioning and in winter to provide heat, but the major winds took place in this area mostly in spring and fall.

One major drawback is that we haven't found a useful way to store major quantities of electricity.

Further, batteries also use precious resources, and some of them contain hazardous materials when it comes time to recycle/scrap them.

It's time for us in the Western world to cut back on our consumption.

It's hardly fair to tell Chinese or Indian people or others with growing wealth that they can't increase their appliance consumption to have a fridge and TV in most of their homes, when we have about four dozen appliances in each of our homes ... and consider it an additon to our economy when we currently build them to last 10 - 15 years, when the fridges built in the early years of their manufacture here would last often for 40 years.

What a crock that is ... we can no longer afford such foolishness.

And for the formerly impoverished people to boost auto production to have a one car in 50 driveways, when we feel deprived if we don't have three per household.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Mother's Day. And be thankful for the great things that your Mom has done for you, every day (apart from spoiling you). Or, if not, that you can find it in your heart to forgive her for having neglected you, if that was your experience.

ole joyful