[methemom]

technology to save the day. sounds like this might go somewhere?

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/01.11/ondemand.html


fuel on demand through a biological process, genetic engineering of
bacteria, something to keep watch on.

 

[Westfalia]

It’s extremely hard to know how the technological development will progress.

Peak Oil is a much debated subject and how this will play out will only be clear in a retrospective. No one knows. It’s only more or less educated guesswork. The main problem as I see it is that economical growth and growth of the population has been the truth for almost 200 years and is something that affects all ideologies and political perspectives. It will be extremely hard to get this question on the agenda. This contradicts everything we know and expect.

Is it possible that technology will find solutions? Yes.
Is it possible that we will not find any solution that can provide the energy we are use to have from oil, gas and coal? Yes.

The main problem as I see is ideological: We may sooner and later have to adjust to a world where resources and energy is not as widely accessible as today. Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Left, Right, Democrat, Republican or whatever you wish to call it is focused on the world as it has been for a long time. Even if the proof of trouble will exist they may not be able to understand this from the circumstances that may emerge.

Article about Peak Oil: http://sibitotique.blogspot.com/2010/07/peak-oil.html
Article about The Limits to Growth: http://sibitotique.blogspot.com/2010/12/limits-to-growth.html

Movie about the subject that I highly recommend:

 

[hillsidedigger]

The production of oil has peaked and can only decline even though demand will increase.

Fuel from biomass, algae or bacteria might one day be of a considerable volume but still will only amount to a tiny fraction of the volume of oil that was easy to pump out of the ground.

The same is true of electricity. Wind, solar and hydro maybe tidal and geothermal may produce a great amount of electricity but it still will be only a tiny fraction of the electricity currently produced with fossil fuels.

Prepare to live without the use of much fuel or electricity for they will be outrageously expensive soon.

 

[chir]

That technology is cool and I think they are doing something similar with Alge. However. Did you read the output. 800 barrels of crude per acre per year.... The US uses 20,680,000 bbl/day. Thats PER DAY.
This does not mean it should not be developed. Even if we developed it enough so that it served 1 million barrels per year (1250 acres). this would be 1 million barrels of arab oil we do not have to import. This would keep 100,000,000.00 dollars in the USA.
I would develop this as fast as possible while we can before we are too poor to do it.

 

[Smokeyr67]

The production of oil has peaked and can only decline even though demand will increase.

Prepare to live without the use of much fuel or electricity for they will be outrageously expensive soon.

As you allude to in your last para - there's plenty of oil under the crust, but will we, the consumer pay the price to have it extracted?