Is peak oil the end of the world?
In a really sudden oil crisis, governments would mandate emergency rationing to essential infrastructure. Most Australian’s live on the coast. Interstate trucking could be replaced by cargo ships quickly converted into emergency sailboats. This could be a worldwide trend. The United Nations reports that “Half the world’s population lives within 60 km of the sea, and three-quarters of all large cities are located on the coast.”
http://www.unep.org/urban_environment/issues/coastal_zones.asp

We’ll probably reduce some lines of supply and relocalise as others have suggested, much like the WW2 Victory gardens or even the extreme gardening makeover Cuba went through as the Soviet Union collapsed, their only way of buying oil. We’ll develop apps that help us car-share, use buses and public transport more efficiently, and of course, we’ll buy more bicycles. Indeed, as many become unemployed in oil vulnerable industries, the population could become a lot fitter as rickshaws and bike-trailer industries spring into action to supply our goods and services. Goods arriving by cargo ship could be distributed by bike-trailers. Why not? I’ve seen groups that move house by bicycle!

Mines could replace diesel trucks with electric trolley-buses. It’s an old and proven technology. In a hideous emergency, coal-to-liquids could be implemented in Australia, keeping at least some infrastructure. But the climate implications are awful. The rationing and substitution programs above would see us through the bottleneck as corporations like Tesla suddenly exploded onto the world stage.

A study by NREL in America concluded that 84% of family cars and light trucks, including buses and council garbage trucks, could run on today’s grid – if all power plants were turned up to full. That’s most cars and light trucks running on electricity. I saved the study here.
https://eclipsenow.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/phev_feasibility_analysis_part1.pdf

So much for light trucks and cars. In the next post, what about diesel?

But what is going to replace diesel for that difficult interstate trucking? The cargo sailing ships will have to deliver our goods until the next big thing. But what might that be?
My first preference where the route is busy enough would be rail. It can use electricity directly and efficiently. That would reduce the traffic on the roads, and is my first preference.

But what about routes that are not frequent enough, and might only require one delivery truck every few weeks? There are 2 main options:-
1/ Dr James Hansen thinks one contender might be boron. It is discussed in a book Hansen recommends called “Prescription for the Planet”. See Chapter 5 “The fifth element” on page 155.
http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/prescription-for-the-planet.html
2/ “Blue Crude”, or SYNTHETIC DIESEL from seawater can be affordable, with the cost of building the nuclear power plants that run the process included! Diesel trucks can gradually switch over to synthetic diesel which is infinitely renewable as the industry ramps up the other side of any peak oil bottleneck or rationing crisis.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/01/16/zero-emission-synfuel-from-seawater.html

Nuclear power has an EROEI of 75, more than enough to run all of society, including the transport sector.

It will need government with a attitude of whatever it takes.
If all diesel that was available was reserved for food transport and
all rail movement was reserved for food transport many problems could
be worked on with less of a sense of urgency.
Certainly petrol & diesel rationing will have to be implemented.

The trouble is all these ideas that we may have will be either possible
or impossible in varying degrees, depending on exactly what does happen.
The really big worry is the Seneca Cliff effect and the phenomena
of the Collapse of Complex Systems.
The Seneca Cliff means that the system maintains itself with increasing
difficulty but then suddenly collapses.
Trainter's Collapse of Complex Systems shows that such systems have
declining returns on effort which when I read his book was just
another way of saying ERoEI. Seneca and Trainter 2000 years apart
described the same phenomena.

Gazza put your posts up again in 100 years time and we can see if those Micky mouse stories you read have any merit. The doomsayers international.

Exactly Doog! There *are* alternatives to oil, but we may have left it too late for an *easy* transition. There could be some sort of rationing, even major economic crisis with a bit of a "war-time-economy" emergency measure shifts if necessary. However, there is a *vast* difference between even a Greater Depression and Mad Max. Nuclear power has all the EROEI we need for it to recharge the other transport industries.