Bazz,

20 more ploughmen? Or just 20 days instead of one day?
20 ploughmen need 20 horses, at 20 acres to feed each horse, equals 400 acres (for sustenance); to plough a mere 200 acres? (Once of course, in one day; but the rest of the time I am sure these horses, and their ploughmen, wouldn't be sitting on their asses.)

But then, these will be contract ploughmen of course, each with his/her own horse and their own 20 acres or so, each. Problem solved?
I agree of course that by this arrangement overall food production would take a major backward step. (Unless perhaps they could breed 'super horses' capable of ploughing 20 acres per day, and on only 10 acres per year of sustenance pasture.)

How come you are so sure oil will never 'run out'?
Surely this is counter-intuitive, or just wishful thinking?
Unless you are meaning we will be able to 'grow' our own oil?
(Instead of growing food?)
(Back to whale oil?)

Deep-sea drilling; Saudi and other current reserves running down; pure 'spiv' misinformation about 'new' reserves (which would take more energy to tap than they could replace - even 'if' they could actually be effectively tapped); and ever increasing demand from an energy-hungry, development-hungry, population-explosive world.
Finite, billion year old fossil fuel aggregation, being 'consumed' as if there is no tomorrow.
At this rate, there can be no 'tomorrow' - at least, not as we currently know it.

You would have to be pretty good to do 20 acres a day Bazz, particularly with todays horses & men.

We had a market Gardner across the road from us, on the black soil plains of the Macquarie river. He still used horses in the 50s, but no horseman, it took him at least an hour to catch one, & I doubt he managed more than a couple of acres any day.

Here south of Brisbane, on improved pasture, fertilised & irrigated, I can only handle one horse to two acres at the best of times. This year our retired showjumping stallion, not much more than a pony has needed 5 acres.

If the fuel is going to run out, I wish it would hurry up. I've been ready to breed the horses we would need since the mid 80s, & it still hasn't happened. This fellow is well into his 20s, & won't be around much longer.

He has sired some beautiful foals, but as I lost at least a thousand dollars on each one, I stopped doing it.

Sorry Saltepre & Hasbeen, I should have made clear my figures were
guesses from memory of an article.
However Saltpetre you have seen the implication of the point I was making.
>How come you are so sure oil will never 'run out'?

We will never be able economically to extract all the oil and when
we stop using it for personal transport like we do now the highest
priorities will still be there such as food production and medical
plastics etc etc.
If oils use was restricted to the most important usages then it would
last many hundreds of years.

It might be technically possible to use electricity for ploughing etc.
After all in olden days long cables were used by steam engines to pull
farm machinery and ploughs back and forth across paddocks.
This was done as the industrial revolution got under way and farm
labourers left for the mills.
Why not supply power via a long cable or like trolley busses ?

Bazz,

I still like the idea of 'hydrolysis power', and can remember from many years ago seeing (on TV) a top-level automotive designer with his neat little water-fueled open-air roadster - and, when he took off, it was clear that there was plenty of 'oomph' under the bonnet.

Battery (or two), jug of water, hydrolysis fuel-cell, and off you go; water in, steam out. Fantastically environmental.

Never saw anything about it again; so I suspect some major automotive 'consortium' may have purchased the intellectual property rights, and quietly 'buried' the whole concept.

I am hopeful that, in the not too distant future, the world will move to a new 'cooperative' and collaborative paradigm, with all intellectual property being freely shared (albeit perhaps for a miniscule royalty).
I can't wait for an end to top-down Capitalism - when it is finally realized that the survival of the human race - with a reasonably 'intact' environment - will ultimately depend on cooperation and 'sharing'.
I'm not talking about everyone giving away property rights and living in 'communes', share-farming, and everyone being totally 'equal' - as per the 'communist' model - but in 'reasonable return' for endeavour and contribution.
It will always be necessary for those who make breakthroughs, who are more highly skilled, or who work hardest, to be duly recognized; otherwise there is no incentive to really put in the 'hard yards' or to make progress. But, I am talking about an end to obscene Capitalist and Individualist 'largesse' and predation of the weak - though everyone will have to live within their means. No malingerers - if possible.
TBC>

Continued:
Some talk down a 'new world order', but a truly benign and cooperative approach to governance could only be a massive improvement on the way the world is heading now.

We need technological breakthroughs and innovation, and the Capitalist model is only willing to invest in researching those things that will provide a large return on investment, so some things, like the development of new antibiotics (or of a better non-petrol car) take a back seat.
It will be up to governments to change the model, to invest directly in innovation in the public (and world) interest, and to put a dampener on Corporate 'pirating' of humanity's future - in the 21st Century and beyond.
Unfortunately, I won't live to see it (unless maybe I can make it to 120yo or longer).

Ahh Saltpetre, surely you haven't swallowed that old one about running
cars on water ?
It is the energy equivalent of the perpetual motion machine.
It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen holds.
Everytime you change the form of energy you lose some of it.

Reading your replies, what I think you are looking for is the Transition Town Movement.
There are a very large number around the world see this link;

http://www.transitiontowns.org/

It all started in Totnes UK where they even have their own currency
so as to keep as much wealth as possible in the town, The Totnes Pound.

Let me know what you think about Transition Towns.