As I said before this is a policy debate not a math debate. I appreciate you questioning my math skills but thats not what the OP was discussing. 

I was not only talking about wind energy there are other options out there. 

Yet you say 

Do you suppose we not invest money in our energy future? 

P.S. the link I had in the previous post had a link to a bunch of tax incentives from energy.gov

Oh and here is an interesting link  about another potential source for renewable energy. 

After all the point of a forum is to exchange ideas not rant and swear like a child

I'd be the first to admit that psychoak is a rhetorical thug, but you're wrong here. People new to an argument and people vexed by severe indecision can easily 'live on both sides.' As a lapsed philosophical anarchist, I feel that way about my commitment to democracy. I'm no Tory, but Winston Churchill and I agree on the basic notion that although democracy is an awful mess, all the alternatives seem worse.

Also, I suspect psychoak is indeed still thinking about things and not simply joining a popular crowd of bullies. Tawdry romances with liberty are what the fringes of both 'the right' and 'the left' share much more than the 'center' of either side do. If nothing else is clear about psychoak's politics, it's obvious he's an outlier no matter what sort of policy-preference/party-membership map you might like to apply. Just think of a Venn diagram with 2-5 circles that all share a zone of common overlap--the dot for psychoak would be away from that common center no matter how you cared to define your 2-5 sets. Unless perhaps one of them was devoted to artful rudeness or something odd like that...

psychoak - once again, you are wrong, oil has been heavily subsidized for years:

Like the percentage depletion allowance just described, the oil depletion allowance lets certain companies deduct 15% of the gross income they derive from oil and gas wells from their taxable incomes, and continue to do that for as long as those wells are still producing. Some smaller companies get to increase the deduction by 1% for every dollar the price of oil falls below $20 a barrel.

This tax break, on which we lose about $1 billion a year, can add up to many times the cost of the original exploration and drilling. In fact, it formerly could amount to 100% of the company's profits-in which case the company paid no taxes, no matter how much money it made. Presently this is capped at 65% of profits.

Read here, for example:

 

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Welfare/Oil_Tax_Breaks.html

Peak Oil is interesting. I love watching documentaries and Peak Oil has come up once.

It all looks quite scary but I'm trying to look forward to it. In the western world, we have become comfortable and weak, kinda like the Halfling king in Overlord. After Peak Oil, it will be a darwinistic world where the strong rule and the weak will be culled. And I intend to be one of the strong.

 

But I try not to worry as things will probably work themselves out. We'll find other energysources. Just take all those inventions that the oilbosses locked away. An act of congress or President and we'll have them back and be back on track

I suspect peak oil is 'upon us.' However, some debate the issue of when. However, it will happen as oil is neither a renewable resource (in our lifetimes) nor is it an inexhaustible supply. One thing is clear, however. The West's dependence on cheap oil has a high political and human price. And that political price is paid, often times, with the lives of soldiers and 'civilian' causalities. In addition, this dependence on oil from dictatorships (kingdoms) also hampers the willingness of the West to stand up globally for human rights more fully. Further, whenever the oil peaks, and then dwindles is a moot point. It will peak, and it will dwindle. 'When,' not 'if' is the operative word here. Folks discuss and debate the 'when.' Oil will, eventually, be used up. So, as wise and caring people we should, right now, use some of the cheap energy (and materials) that come from this cheap oil to make an infrastructure that get its energy more directly from the sun, and not indirectly, via the foreign oil fields. Look at what Denmark and Germany have done with wind power. Perhaps, if the 'renewable' energy industries were given the same percentage of tax breaks that big oil gets (like an effective tax rate of zero / AND extra subsidies that actually make some oil companies cash cows at Tax dollar expense), then wind and other solar powered infrastructures would emerge and thrive. And the centralized power held my these oil giants would weaken. As solar thrives we can kiss the foreign oil blackmail good bye. And than say hello to the possibility of a more just and equitable world.

You are right to look at it as a chain, but you are forgetting something very important. The warehouse owner is now paying more and passes the cost along to the retailers who in turn increase their prices to the end customer. Neither the retailer nor the warehouse owner have netted a substantial gain as the price increase has gone to cover this increased cost of oil. However, the end customer is now passed along the bulk of this cost in the form of higher prices. Thus, at the retail level, the retail workers who have not been given a pay increase must pay more for the goods as an end customer, and at the warehouse level, these warehouse workers too must now pay a higher price for their goods as end customer. In most general economic models, the end customer is a faceless consumer, while the supply chains are represented by businesses. This makes for an understandable model, yet ignores the recursive nature of the system itself. Thus, the warehouse owner who increases the cost to the retailer who increases the cost to the consumer must eventual increase his workforce's base pay as they are now the ones who have their overall cost of living increase. This in turn causes the process to worsen as this new cost of the increased pay is passed along. However, looking at recent history, we can actually see that this second part, the increase in wages, has actually not been happening to a significant degree and instead these individuals are simply becoming poorer and poorer.

 

The effect translated into the economy as "stagflation". The economic activity plunges, because people have less purchasing power due to the higher living costs, and yet the prices of energy and basic commodities do not decline as well as in normal recession, because it's more difficult to produce them and they are less plentiful. It's a combination of stagnation and inflation. 

 

Perhaps the greatest impact on the western world would be the terminal destruction of the "perpetual growth" paradigm. All financial institutions work on the premise of future profits - banks loan money, because the enterprises are expected to make profits to pay interest and still thrive. That requires growth potential - new land, resources and cheap, impoverished labor, preferably somewhere far, where they cannot endanger your political stability (China).

 

But all that is in short supply now - and once net energy supply starts to decline, the financial system will collapse. You can imagine what that means, when most today's enterprises are loan based. 

The real problem overarching all is that fact that the elites that run this circus don't seem to suffer for the welfare of the masses. Our infrastructure is crumbling and we are at war everywhere for the remaining resources of the planet. We now have billionaires and billions of terminally poor. The main factor in all this seems to be that in this game of planetary chess some seem to be able to play blindfolded while the rest are merely blind.

There are too many humans now to feed and water. For how many millenia has this been so? The "miracles" of technology from the age of Science have left a poisoned and dying battleground. I am not a doomsayer. Mankind will survive but not all men are kind. Stick around, we are cursed to live and then die in interesting times.

(At least we have Fallen Enchantress to look forward to!) [e digicons]:karma:[/e]

avec la fonte en antarctique vont puiser les ressources pétrolière a nouveau...

http://www.liveoilprices.co.uk/oil/oil_prices/04/2011/wti-oil-trading-over-111-imf-joins-the-peak-oilers-party.html

 

According to recent IMF report, they admit that oil has peaked globally. Since major oilfields (including those in Saudi Arabia) are in decline, no one can see these lossed replaced in any way short-time. Short-time, we are talking another depression/recession, demand destruction, and worse.

 

Where are those alternatives people keep talking all the time? The price of crude is rising, yet nobody has come up with anything viable - yes, we have pipe dreams like thorium reactors, algae oil, shale gas, tar sands, oil from plastic, and god knows what, but all of them have one major flaws - much lower energy return on investment.

Fuel is everywhere, right? You can use wood, old blankets, tires, excrements even - but can you run global industrial economy on it? I think not! 

kenata's onto a very important point in reply 66. It isn't really peak oil that's the greatest problem. The more important 'graph' is the intersection of spiking population and spiking automation in a world where the mega-corp market/culture still pretends to respect consumers as citizens when it in fact treats them as something much closer to the commodities they consume than as fellow human beings. 

We don't need it. In fact we were fine without it for decades. Only recently have people rushed to run off to poor labor markets in order to save money. The irony here is that this is impossible without low prices of oil/transportation. Also in developing there are huge growing markets of buyers that can grow exponentially. Companies rush there to sell not only to produce.

I won't argue that third worlders don't have it tough but they choose to take jobs they aren't forced to. They gain advantage from it, and eventually wages rise as the countries develop, ie China. The problem with third world countries is that they are third world countries, not that companies are abusing them. They were poor way before the companies arrived, and no matter how little they are paid companies are actually helping them, even if by nature companies help as little as possible.

We don't steal oil. We pay for it, usually from OPEC who are the real thieves, and would be illegal in any country on earth. Who is we anyway? I am Canadian.

Yes because the amazonian Indians are a widely regarded as a role model in anything, oh wait no they are not. Feel free to live the amazing enlightened life of a amazonian Indian. Nature is competitive by nature, it's always looking to screw you. You have to continue growing or eventually someone tougher will show up, or nature will hit you with a plague or natural disaster and that will be the end of poor little static you. Attempting to stay static  means you are actually regressing, it may just not be noticeable until it's too late.

As for the OT I would say that while peak oil may indeed upon us, what is almost as bad is demand. Demand for oil is at record highs because third world countries are becoming rich because of their nasty slave owners the big bad companies. This is causing crude prices to rise dramatically. I predict lean economic times ahead as high oil prices start to really hurt the economy for all the reasons people have listed above.

 

 

500-600 euro for an iPhone is NOT cheap