Bazz
The fact that infinite growth on a finite base is impossible, may sound compelling at first, until you realise it’s meaningless for practical purposes unless you specify a time-frame for when the crunch comes. (If it’s in 10 million years time, so what?)

But as soon as you specify a time-frame, you immediately immerse yourself in all the problems of economic theory that you so superciliously pretended to be above. The fact that resources are scarce does not signify the end of economic theory: it’s the major premise of all economic theory.

The original economic problem, which gives rise to all human action, all economic activity, and all economic theory, is that there are not enough resources to satisfy all the human wants that they could go to satisfy. Therefore there is a need to economise, that is, to decide how to allocate scarce resources to satisfying the most highly valued ends.

To say that oil is becoming scarce, far from being a fundamental challenge to economic theory per se, only signifies that the price is likely to go up: Economics 101.

Your brainpower unassisted may find it impossible to work out a solution to the problem. But the combined brainpower of 7 billion people, co-operating through specialisation and division of labour, with the best ideas most rewarded, is a different matter.

In any event, the matter is off-topic unless you are going to assert that government can overcome the problems of oil shortages *economically*, in other words, without greater sacrifice of human values than would otherwise have been the case, however one defines the ultimate human welfare criterion.

Government intrinsically cannot do it, Foyle is flatly incorrect, and it’s as simple as that. To understand why, instead of confusing trite truisms with profundity, everyone should read “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth” by Mises: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf. In this short essay the arguments of all the Foyles, Keynesians, Marxists, communists, fascists and statists in the world have been irrefutably and conclusively proved to be so much nonsense.

Jardine,
I am surprised that with a bit of thought that you have not
realised that all the economic theory and manipulations can do is shift
emphasis inside what is possible given the availability of energy at any particular time.

Regarding a time line, well there are varying opinions.
Some expect a decrease in tight oil to occur between now and 2017.
If so, the price will rise and reduce demand.
Then a little later conventional supply decline will be visible as
tight oil declines and around 2020 and the price will rise again.

However that is not important, what is important is the economy will
have less energy available because of reduced demand.
The economy must then operate at a lower level.

Some believe the above timelines are 5 to 10 years too early.
I don't have access to the information that those people have but it
is available if I wanted to spend the time necessary to reinvent the wheel.

Bazz
"I am surprised that with a bit of thought that you have not
realised that all the economic theory and manipulations can do is shift
emphasis inside what is possible given the availability of energy at any particular time."

I have realised that.

And what are you contributing to the discussion that is any more than that? Nature imposes limits on human action that cannot be made to go away; man must adjust his action to such limits if he is to have any hope of success in aiming to get what he wants.

You’re not proving economic theory is wrong, you’re proving it’s right.

“However that is not important, what is important is the economy will
have less energy available because of reduced demand.”

Don’t you mean reduced supply?

How is what you’re saying any more than that you expect supplies of fuel to diminish and the price to go up?

So what? Why does that mean that
a) you are not engaged in economic theory?
b) you know how to fix the problem better than everyone else?
c) Governments are capable of fixing it without sacrificing more important values?

The truth is economic theories are very rarely proved and in the vast majority of cases simply do not accord with reality. It has been shown time and again that the forecasts of any group of economists is likely to be worst than just a plain guess.
One reason economists get it wrong it so frequently is by confusing political ideology with the real world. A case in point is the present government believes they are going to create lots of jobs over their first term in office. Why because they think their understanding of how the economy works is superior to labours though it should be obvious that if the government cuts back on spending and sacks lots of people the result is almost certainly not going to be a jump in employment.

Jardine I think you simply gloss over the fact that money has to be created from nothing at some point and then has to be passed on from the creators to the rest of the community.

Bazz
I do not think that energy availability is any way going to constrain the economy. While at present we use vast quantiles of fossil fuels we know of numerous other ways of generating power which if push comes to shove we will roll out.

The article makes s very serious mistake in thinking that the only benefit of the NBN will entertainment. It will become the backbone of every modern successful economy , and in fact the internet is already is already vital to just about every aspect of modern life. The view that NBN is pointless is on a par with saying who needs electricity when candles do the job just fine.
The silliness of bringing climate change denial into a discussion on the economy leaves me dumbfounded. In fact it makes me question whether the author is in any way credible.

Warmair, well you are right if you factor in unknown/unproven sources of energy.
The only known & proven source is nuclear and if things get desperate
enough will it be too late to start a crash course in nuclear building ?
Geothermal, if it can be made to work, would solve many problems.
Also energy storage for solar and wind would also be a life saver.
So far there seems to be fundamental chemical and physical barriers.

There seems to be lots of "How about these technologies ?" but there
still seems to be nothing coming over the hill.

My argument is that no one,especially govt, is advocating a mitigation study.
It is one of those things that led to the collapse of civilisations.
As I have said here previously global warming is the wrong problem
to worry about.

"My argument is that no one,especially govt, is advocating a mitigation study.

How could they do it without using any of the economic theory that you keep saying is misguided?

What makes you think government has the capacity to know what all the relevant factors are? Do you? What are they?