Politics: Peak Oil

I've written about Peak Oil before and there's a nice article in Wired news about it too, I pretty much agree with what's in the Wired article.
I also noticed a link to another wired article talking about Brazil's use of biofuels. My next car will probably be a 'flex' fuel car which can take Ethanol and/or regular gas. It's a nice hedge on future fuel prices.
Marshall Brain's blog has a nice article which I agree with even more:
The very simple explanation for why this will happen can be summarized in about 15 words: As oil gets more expensive, other technologies will compete on price and replace oil.
My take on the whole Peak Oil situation is that by 2010 if you are poor, you'll be taking the bus a lot. You'll be able to by a big second hand gas guzzler very cheap, but won't be able to fill it with gas. The rich have more options, they can buy new, fuel efficient cars that can take a variety of fuels - plus, of course, they can afford the gas, even at US $5.00 a gallon.
But I think the real benefit will be that other technologies, like wind power, or solar power will be given an even chance. I think that even nuclear power may have a comeback and some environmentalists might even be proud to have one in their backyard. As Marshall Brains writes later:
The advantage of artificially increasing gasoline prices is that it would make all of these new technologies viable more quickly while, potentially, reducing global warming.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Shortest Sudoku solver in Python

Dot to Png

Seven Segment Display in Inkscape