Re: OT: The price of Gas..
 

Imagine a chart showing the price of gasoline against time (months, years, whatever). This will be a squiggly, upward-moving line, or curve.
Now picture similar graphs for alternative technologies, superimposed on the first. While the prices for these technologies are currently higher than the price of gasoline, it is also true that the curves for the prices of these energy sources are flat, or even downward against time. When the economic situation is such the curves are about to intersect, we will find a very rapid transition to alternative energy sources.

Re: OT: The price of Gas..
 

There is problem with that...
Oil/Gas is far superior to alternatives in such areas as: Energy Density per volume/weight, Safe handling, Distribution/Transportation, and Refueling ease/speed.

The Global Economy depends on the economies of scale.
Large scale resouce centers for lumber, food, minerals, and fibers depend on cheap transportation.
Large scale manufacturing centers depend on cheap transportation for recieving raw materials and delivery of goods.
Large scale retail centers (malls, big box stores, supermarkets) also depend on consumers with cheap transportation.
Large scale population centers depend on all the above three.

AND all of them use energy/oil while taking care of buisness.

A quick radical change in oil/energy prices will devastate the global economy. It would be difficult to prevent further collapse of society/population. (No nation is more than 3 meals away from a revolution). Reorganizing energy production/comsumtion without the energy to bootstrap the change could prove impossible.

Slowly rising prices would increase transportation costs, thereby causing large scale centers to be reduced in size and dispersed. This could result in lower production and higher costs overall. The farming and food distribution systems would sustain fewer people than before.

Re: OT: The price of Gas..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">LOL what does this have to do with the price of oil? Maybe if you started a thread like... strange anomalies

Re: OT: The price of Gas..
 

Wardad...when I say "quick," that's a relative term in this case. It will be quick when compared with the length of time we have known the crunch has been coming. It will naturally take several years to accomplish.