$12 Gas and Rationing? Possible, Says Expert

Holy Crap!!!!, WEll if it ever comes to that, at least we positioned ourselves in a neighborhood that I can walk everywhere if I really had no choice. I have a major grocery store within walking distance and bike riding distance and the train station to get to work is also that close as well as everything else we need...

But this is really a scary situation. Lets truly hope that by the time this may ever occur that cars will be totally run on electric and hydrogen at that point....

 

The downside won't even be in the cost of transportation, although certainly that will hurt plenty. The real downside be in the incredible increased cost of goods and services. Inflation isn't a strong enough word for what may happen if petrol hits those levels.

... Brad

 

This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
What do you mean, "biblical"?
What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Exactly.
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

 

Oh no, not dogs and cats living together...!

I guess who'd know better than the Devil's advocate.


ZC1

 

Somewhere between denial and the apocalypse is the likely scenario.

Lets visit Cuba and see how a lack of oil has affected them.....

 

What I find amazing is that in the past 35 years, the number of American oil refineries has declined about 50%, all while dramatically increasing production in the ones left. The remainder of gasoline demand must be met by refiners in other countries

Everything comes at a price, nothing is free and certainly gasoline isn't some sort of Constitutional Right. Far from it.

If we want more domestic oil, we have to take a bite out of the s*** sandwich and face EROEI of 20:1 and lower. A lot of that pricey oil only breaks even - has a reasonable ROI - with oil priced as it now is, preferably higher

Of course, you can't pump crude oil into your tank and expect the Prius to run. You need refineries, ethylene crackers, all that wonderful petrochemical engineering to make it work. Let's not forget water, the ratio of oil to water consumption at a typical refinery is about 1:1

Considering how much folks are worried about potable water supplies, where will that water come from? I know, we can build a bunch of nuclear power plants, use that electricity to desalinate water, and pump the water to the refineries

"Point of diminishing returns" is the phrase used here

 

not impossible, after all, who could have imagined that 19 guys with box-cutters could have done a 9/11 lane:

 

This is silly. Demand is already declining (at least in the US) for gasoline. Another dollar or two and nobody will be leaving home. If gas ever does hit $12 a gallon something else will take its place (electric, biofuels, whatever).

Or we'll have a real war for oil, which Iraq obviously was not since we're having this conversation.

 

No, no. We can make artificial vehicle fuels, even from non-fossil carbon sources, for roughly $5 per gallon. For one possibility see
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL): Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air

 

Checkout the current issue of EnergyNewsRecord. Construction, Building & Engineering News: ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction

Corn-based ethanol is on it's way out because of public reaction to how it is affecting the food supplies (even though diesel transportation is what is driving up food costs). BUT, cellulosic ethanol (from all plant matter that is rich in cellulose) is expanding quickly right now, and the U.S. Dept. of Energy expects 13 Billion gallons of ethanol fuel to be produced from cellulosic ethanol by 2012.
Additionally, a company using proprietary technology has signed a deal with Tyson chicken to obtain chicken fat (waste for Tyson). They have developed a process that converts chicken fat into aviation fuel. 25 years from now, when oil is gone or almost gone, airplanes will be fueled from chicken fat. (Americans eat millions of pounds of chicken every day)

 

Anybody can predict anything, the interesting thing here is the guy's no lightweight. He works for SAIC (major public/private think tank/tech solutions firm), and did an apparently important report for US DOE in 2005 on what to do as oil production falls. Here's the wikipedia cite, with references to his DOE report.

Hirsch report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That report looks to be well worth reading.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

I've just skimmed it but it brings together a lot of relevant information and reviews the historical data on the last oil shocks. My favorite quote so far:

"As illustrated in Figure IV-2, oil price increases have preceded most U.S.
recessions since 1969, and virtually every serious oil price shock was followed by a recession. Thus, while oil price spikes may not be necessary to trigger a recession in the U.S., they have proven to be sufficient over the past 30 years.:"

On the other hand, he seems to have called it wrong for natural gas (though it will take some time to determine whether or not that's true -- looks like there's a lot of additional natural gas to be found.)

In terms of substitutes, he says the time lags in getting them to fill the gap in oil production will lead to multi-year shortfalls if we don't act before the peak in oil production. No idea how good his calculations are, but the relevant quote is:

"Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action
leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two
decades."

So, if the peak is now-ish, he's calling for 20 years of chronic liquid fuel shortages.

Puts a new perspective on EV's, doesn't it? Instead of a (say) $15K premium for an EV, your choice could be having guaranteed local transport for that additional $15K, or having sporadically unavailable transport if you rely on a gas-only car.

 

Burn the Red, Green tastes too good.

 

This is all silly. Without an estimated date on these predictions they are meaningless. My grandfather recalls filling his gas tank at less than $0.25 per gallon when he started driving. In his lifetime you could buy a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom 4000 sq. ft. house for less than $20,000.

Gas has increased 1600% since then. I see no reason why it wouldn't or shouldn't increase another 1600% over then next 50 years. I fully expect to see $15 per gallon gasoline in my life time, and I fully expect to see the average 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house price over $1 million.

Assume an inflation rate of 3.5%, and that gasoline and housing doesn't increase any faster than inflation (unlikely). Assume gas price of $4.

Under those simple assumptions gasoline will exceed $12 per gallon in less than 32 years.

If you are willing to believe that gasoline and housing costs will grow at a rate of 4.75%, and if you start with $4 per gallon and $100,000 for a house today. . .

Gasoline will exceed $12 in 24 years, and in 50 years gasoline will exceed $40 and the $100,000 house will go for $1 million.

 

Danny, I'm with you there.......

His prediction of $12/gallon is meaningless without a timeframe reference. Had he said $12 within 3 years, that would mean something. If he said $12 in 30 years, that wouldn't be quite so earth shattering.

You know we in California have a >99% likelihood of having a major earthquake in the next 30 years. Wow! Sell your houses and move to another state before California breaks (like a Saltine Cracker) at the borders and sinks into the ocean!

I agree, we'll see gas at $12/gallon...eventually.....if for no other reason than inflation. Quickly followed by the wrath of God stuff....dogs and cats living together......etc....

 

We're pretty spoiled here, driving huge suv's and pickups to work, living far from our place of employment. Demand for gasoline is almost a vertical line if graphed wrt price. A huge change in price will only moderately effect demand

When fuel here is priced the same as the EU, we may see purchasing and consumption habits change. The giant suv's and pickups will be rusting in a field, a lot more tiny cars like the Yaris, Civic, etc with small 3 cylinder motors will be on the roads

As far as not leaving home, with the current housing meltdown, more than a handful of folks won't have a home anyway

 

This seems similar to the Haber-Bosch Process, which has been used for almost a century. True there are efficiencies with modern process technologies, but I believe $5/gal is optimistic

 

Contrast the price of a gallon of regular unleaded starting in 2000. Notice how quickly it increased in just a handful of years? Back in the early days of PriusChat a lot of us were made fun of for predicting $2.50 a gallon gas.

Ah, the good 'ole days when gas was only $2.50

 

What was it ... maybe a year ago? . . . that newsclips warned that "Gas COULD het $100/barrel". Today already it's doing $130. Ask folks with river ski boats, & motorhomes etc, about it and you hear total denial. You can't get folks to face reality without hearing that, "you're just a doomsdayer". (shaking head)