Peak World Articles

Rich countries, or should I say spoiled countries take their current lifestyle for granted. This lifestyle has been enabled by abundant and relatively inexpensive oil and energy. Oil output will eventually decline over the years and as a result lifestyles will be forced to change in these countries. Even if you don’t believe in peak oil, you can see that prices are skyrocketing for energy which will force changes in lifestyles as well.

I often hear the argument that yes oil output may decline but new alternative energies will take up the slack. I wish that were true, but currently I don’t see the right solution that will bail us out of this mess. Yes, things like geo-thermal energy, wind, solar etc. can help, but they certainly aren’t in a position to replace oil yet. Some solutions just cause other larger problems. Look at Ethanol as a misguided example. The intentions of Ethanol are great, to give us other energy sources that can be grown in each individual country. No more dependence on foreign oil, right? Wrong, Ethanol is a great idea, but if it were produced in the amounts we need to replace oil most people would starve to death. Ethanol wastes farm land and huge amounts of water, all things we desperately need to conserve. There are some other great alternative energy ideas floating around, but they are too elusive at this point to replace oil.

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