Quote:
Originally Posted by chrispedersen
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdmiralZhao
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrispedersen
Why do you suppose the world doesn't destabilize over, say, platinum? Or paladium, or uranium? What is it specifically about oil that makes it so inherently destabilizing?
Secondly, while I do agree that a tipping point for total oil production has been reached, I don't agree with the concept of world population needs.
Demand for any commodity is elastic. As price goes up, other alternatives become more attractive. Spurring the development of other alternatives. Free market economy in action.
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After a certain point, the demand for oil is elastic only in the sense that the groups that cannot afford it will die off. Oil is vital to nearly every aspect of modern society, and in particular to the industrialized agriculture that America uses to feed our population. Without at least a baseline amount of oil, the truck which delivers food to the grocery store does not arrive, and I have go Hinnom-style on my next door neighbors.
We have many trillions of dollars of infrastructure which can only use oil. And because everything currently relies on oil, any effort to upgrade this infrastructure will also require large amounts of oil. The scenario that people are worried about is that the free market doesn't start responding until oil is scarce and difficult to acquire, and at that point we don't have the energy resources to both maintain our society, acquire new oil, and upgrade our infrastructure.
This is one of the reasons why oil is different from platinum, paladium, or uranium. Society does not need constant inputs of these metals to function, and we can develop alternatives to these metals without needing large new stocks of these metals.
This is also why people want to see early development of alternatives to oil. When oil starts running low, we want oil to be in the same category as platinum, paladium, and uranium, i.e. something that is not hugely vital, and that we can continue to phase out without needing large new inputs. |
'Die off' is a bit melodramatic. We just absorbed a tripling spike in the price of oil, and as far as I know, no deaths have occured because of it.
In point of fact, you are quite incorrect about society needing constant inputs of these metals. These metals are essential to hydrocarbon cracking, to computers, to Grignard reagents.
Yes, the scale of need is smaller - but that has to do with price. which was sort of my point. As oil increases price its relative importance will diminish.
It is critical now, because it was easily exploitable.
We continue to try to exploit oil, because even at its current prices, it is *less* of an lifestyle change than the alternatives. |
No, I'll stand by my original statement. A die off would be an accurate description of what would happen to America if we could not procure a baseline amount of oil. This time around, please note that I am using a qualifier in my sentence. I am not saying that we will all die if we have to reduce our oil usage by 5%.
You do raise several interesting points in your response though. The price of oil did recently triple, due to minor variations in supply and demand. This is a good illustration of how inelastic the demand for oil is. If there were readily available alternatives, people would use them rather than paying through the nose for oil. Another interesting point is how no one died over the recent price increases. While I apologize in advance for mixing my flamewars, there is certainly an argument to be made that the primary reason America is in the Middle East, and has been for the last N decades, is to secure our access to oil. Many people have died because of oil prices, and to secure access to oil.
Again, I would say that there are critical differences between the metals that you list and oil. As an example, if we were to completely run out of Paladium, it would indeed interfere with the production of new computers. However, since we did not burn the old Paladium, it could be recycled from older computers to create new ones. Also, because the computers that we have will continue to play Dominions 3 without us pouring more Paladium into them, there would not be any immediate disruptions to my turn schedule. Running out of Paladium would certainly cause large problems in some segments of society, but it would not prevent us from developing and implementing solutions to those problems.
I agree that as the price of oil increases, the free market will act to develop alternatives. Again though, the worry is that the free market will begin to act too late. As Barak Obama put it, we need to stop hiring the mercenaries of cheap oil, and start investing in the Claws of Cocytos of alternative power for when the Tartarian Cyclops of peak oil teleports onto our capital.