Bernie,

"But the Krell forgot one thing .... Monsters, monsters from the not all humans are created equal (or fair) ID!"

Remember, in all thermodynamic systems (including and especially in human civil populations given our long hstory of war) any sudden increase/REDUCTION in per-capita-energy leads to new Thermodynamic states/ENDPOINTS. The trajectory of the change is CHAOTIC with an INTENSITY proportional to the time-rate-of-change of the energy addition/reduction.

In human populations, no amount of logic,reason,good intent or education can change the outcome. As human populations are a pure thermodynamic system, they MUST obey the laws of physics the same as any other thermodynamic system under change.

The mechanics of human thought/behaviour during such rapid thermodynamic transitions is complex and may even be rationalised as a free will response to hard times. However in reality such human complexity of thought and reaction is nothing more than an involuntary-time-etched response to thermodynamic forces in the social fabric.

Its all Thermodynamics, It REALLY is!

Don't be an Alice-in-Wonderland or Pollyanna.

Australia must not be the odd man out in a global PEAKOIL crowd crush if we want-to-survive!

Australia's Thermodynamic decay under PEAKOIL will NOT become CHAOTIC if we go NUCLEAR POWER now.

If however we create hot rock geothermal-power-stations for all capital cities within the next 10 years that would be a more satisfactory alternative.

Good News on the Geothermal front! As of today, this report indicates the full scale mining of Canada's OILSANDS:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/10/1194329565004.html

It has 6 times the capacity of all Saudi oil fields.
This development could delay PEAKOIL for up to a decade to around 2035. If that transpires and Australia invests in hot-rock Geothermal power now, then we will not require Nuclear power to bridge PEAKOIL.

Given John Howard's electoral stink and Rudd's uninformed stance on ENERGY and science, I am not holding my breath.

However, global and local events now brewing may force a LAbour government to become more serious about the Geothermal option and if necessary the Nuclear option as well.

For practically every suggested alternative to oil, I can likely find a reason why that suggestion won't make much difference to the looming crisis of peak oil. eg: Canadian oil sands (Bitumen by another name). The following few lines from an Online article sums it up rather nicely....

"Replacing conventional crude with oil sands to meet the world's energy appetite would require about 700 additional plants the size of the existing Syncrude plant. Together, they would generate a waste pond the size of Lake Ontario. While oil sands represent a potential energy asset for Canada, they cannot make up for the inevitable decline in the global production of conventional oil."

The whole article can be viewed at...
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/tarsands/

There are dozens more Online articles to counteract the perverse notion that tar sands will in any way extend our ability to maintain our current lifestyle, which in turn is dependent on cheap and abundant oil. Also, Canada is struggling to maintain sufficient electrical production on which tar sands rely heavily for steam production, not to mention the massive waste of water.
Aime.

Spot on Aime!

Oil sands are not going to help. In fact there is not much that will help (short of changing the way the entire developed world works).

As I've said before; "oil is essential for our way of live" -- although it may be better stated "oil is essential for our current way of life". For those of you who disagree take a look around your office and try and workout where oil is used be it in transport or manufacture. Then imagine an alternative to either transporting or making it.

If we where going to do anything about Peak oil it needed to be done years ago, my fear is there isn't the time left to change before the price of petrol goes though the roof (and takes food with it) and economies start to contract, there by destroying the wealth needed to fight climate change and Peak oil.

Oh, Charger, Aime,

From one Extreme to the other!

Please understand the following.

1. PEAKOIL will not destroy your precious lifestyle ... It is going to kill you.

2. Without sufficient Geothermal and or Nuclear power stations to replace declining oil stocks 7billion people out of the projected 9billion will die in wars, civil conflicts and disease epidemics by 2025. There is no doubt that under such a threat, a way will be found to extract at last 1 out of the 6 Saudi oilfield quantities from the Canadian sands. That should prolong our civilisation for 10 years to 2035. But then the former constraint will kick in if we don't go GEOTHERMAL/Nuclear and 7billion people will still die.

3. The BIGGEST problem is humans, backed by idiot polititions and selfish business interests, immigrating their fellow countryman and increasing the energy demands for the future and the rapidity that PEAKOIL will hit Australia. Add to this the baby bonuses, child care and other political incentives and Australia will not be able to reach its energy output requirements even if we go NUCLEAR.

4. No Nuclear bomb or bombs have even 1/10th of the destructive capability as the human population bomb. WE are our greatest threat.

5. Australia must have energy self sufficiency using a geothermal/Nuclear mix by 2015 or it won't be our lifestyle under threat it will be our lives. Wake up!

6. Howard still believes that his Titanic tax surpluses will be worth something to buy our way out of the looming PEAKOIL iceberg collision. Money isn't everything John .. it really isn't.

Rudd's Labour doesn't even know about the most important aspects of GEOTHERMAL power and is nuclearphobic based on negative media polls that could change to pro-nuclear in the wink of an eye.

Now I believe that there is enough smarts in the Australian community to cut through all the BS and get GEOTHERMAL and Nuclear power happening real soon, in time to insulate our lives, (forget the bloody lifestyle) from PEAKOIL.

KAEP - Can you please provide me with just one example from human history of the last 10,000 years that suggests the sorts of catastrophes that you are talking about - 7 billion dead? I'm not aware of any examples of wars and similar turmoil caused by a shortage of a natural commodity.

I believe history will give us pointers to the future, so have a look at Thomas Cech's 2003 book "Principles o0f Water Resources: History, Development, Management and Policy". In it, he talks about a study by Dr Aaron Wolf of Oregon University which shows that there have been some 3600 water treaties around the world over the last 5000 years and only one war over water some 4500 years ago in what is now Iran. I interpret this to mean that, as oil becomes short, there won't be wars claiming billions or even millions of lives. Instead, governments at the insistence of their citizens will sit down and negotiate mutually acceptable outcomes so as to avoid war and share whatever oil is left in the world, regardless of where it comes from.

I completely reject your armageddon scenario as being totally unrealistic and unlikely.

Hello Bernie,
The transition protocol has been suggested to enable a fair
distribution of the supply and hopefully that is what will get adopted.

I do draw your attention that this problem is somewhat different in nature to those that have gone before.
Until now, looked at in a say 100 year cycle, energy changes have all
been towards greater availability of energy.
This time will be the first time that there is a change back to lower
energy density systems.

It is the energy density of oil that has allowed the big increase
in population since 1900.