Well a couple of facts, aluminum is used for transmission lines, but
they have steel core because aluminum is not strong enough.
Aluminum cannot be used for building wire because it breaks when drawn
into conduit and is too stiff in the sizes that are bigger than copper
of the same current capacity.

So we have a peaking problem there OK ?

Spindoc,

you can add 'Shale Oil' to the known's now:

It's clearly uneconomic, $42B in investment in the US alone in 2012, Return on energy invested (which by the way is the crucial factor in the supply and demand market and additionally the rate of production to drive the ever needed economic growth given our fraction reserve banking system) was $32B or thereabouts.

Shale Gas has a defined decline rate of around 60 to 80% per well/pa.

You don't have to be a genius to realise that without 'cheap oil' our current industrial based economic future faces a number of head-winds that will continue to challenge us into the foreseeable future.

Solar, Wind, Geothermal etc are not the panacea everyone is seeking, unfortunately oil (that being the cheap stuff we are all used to) is in terminal decline, global exploration and discovery peaked in 1968 and yes there has been an unimaginable amount of technology that has provided a brief stop gap that has ameliorated production loss from long-lasting historic fields, unfortunately global decline now exceedes discovery by a factor that is strangling EROEI.

Physics is the name of the game, not economics.

Gas is going to be our transition fuel into the future, provided we can find a suitable, cheap and abundant source of energy that can provide our exponentially growing population into the future.

I am not a 'doomer' but nothing to date even comes close to closing the energy decent gap and nothing is on the horizon that shows any real 'policy' shift toward a better energy/economic future.

Substitution and efficiency can only go so far, after that it become a zero sum game.

Just saying!

Shale gas:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9975652/Shale-gas-could-heat-all-homes-for-100-years.html

And abiotic oil is contradicting the peak oil syndrome.

Thorium is the way to go.

Cohenite,

sorry but shale gas changes nothing see:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-28/the-shale-gale-is-a-retirement-party and

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-24/will-the-final-blow-for-america-s-shale-gas-revolution-be-high-prices and this

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-25/commentary-awash-in-misinformation-america-s-domestic-tight-oil-bump

As for Abiotic oil, well that just made me laugh. Peak Oil is not a syndrome it is a reality, physics guarantees it.

Thorium is obviously part of the future, unfortunately it will take 20 to 30 years to fully transform our existing energy grid.

Do we really have that much time up our sleeve?

Geoff

Here Here Geoff;
One thing though I will question on.
Geothermal, at least the hard rocks version.
The energy source is granite and it is heated by radio active decay and
would have thousands of years of half life.
There is one hell of a lot of energy down there.
It is not just in South Australia but in Nth NSW as well.
Surely whatever it costs to perfect the techniques it should at least
have a multi decade attempt to make it work.

The companies working on it ran out of money but they did get as far as
blowing steam out the pipe. I believe corrosion was the problem.
That project is so important that if it cannot be funded by such as
Origin the government should take it on. Any source of energy that
has the promise of perhaps thousands of year has to be attempted.

"physics guarantees it."

Then how to explain the hydrocarbon seas of Titan:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/02/14/2162556.htm

Shale gas is not limited:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/shale-revolution-takes-the-world-back-to-the-future-on-fossil-fuels/story-e6frg8zx-1226425744364