reprint of 5 Billion Less People on Earth?

When I wrote this article, shale oil and fracking were not in full swing worldwide like now. So, the end of oil was a foregone conclusion. Also, Solar cells hadn't reached the point where Solar Energy became less expensive than any other source of power on earth for places like China, California and soon to be everywhere on earth. So, don't freak out when you read this now. However, wars, and natural calamities where oil can't be transported to regions will wipe out almost everyone there within 25 years of not being able to get the oil if they don't have solar cells and wind power right then. So, in this sense "5 billion less people on earth" is still relevant for countries that get "cut off" from oil at reasonable prices still.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

5 Billion Less People on Earth?

My son was streaming the documentary "A Crude Awakening" and was telling me that the scientists in the documentary thought that there would be a 5 billion reduction in world population when oil ends within 25 years or less here on earth.  This likely wouldn't happen immediately but likely would slowly happen over about 100 years when the population would reduce naturally by about 5 billion people. Without oil those 5 billion could not be sustained. And their projection would be that population would stabilize at about 2 billion worldwide because that is all that could actually be sustained without oil here on earth. Because at present there is nothing that allows the present use of energy like oil does that exists in present day technology worldwide. And the other factor is simply the conversion factor to wind, solar, or natural gas  (natural gas won't run out nearly as fast as oil will worldwide). And one of the countries with the most natural gas is the U.S. Another thought I was having was "Could the methane in Siberia be harvested as some form of natural gas?"

No one planned for this to happen because most people unfortunately believed that "Oil would last forever." However, this was never true in the first place. And so because of this mistaken assumption likely 5 billion people on the poorer end of things likely won't be alive 100 years from now. I think after this massive loss of life that there will likely be more foresight regarding supply and demand on many levels into the future worldwide. Because this is a horrific "Oops!" by the whole world!

In some ways this one fact makes me wonder whether or not the last "Great Recession" was actually engineered by NATO and the United Nations to make this reduction more slow by reducing consumption drastically in the U.S. and Europe like has happened since about 2007. Because

"It looks like the upper end of per person consumption of oil in the U.S. per day  was 2.7 gallons in January 1982.

The recent peak of oil consumption was in 2005 at around 2.65 gallons per day. It has headed downhill to about 2.35 gallons per day per person in the U.S. early in 2010. I found this graph at seekingalpha.com on a graph there. The long term average is 2.56 gallons per resident per day from 1982 to 2010 even though in March 2010 it was about 2.25 gallons per day. The graph goes from January 1982 until March 2010." end quoted statistics from seekingalpha.com

So, reading all this there is about a 1/2 gallon drop in average oil consumption per person between 1982 and 2010. This, per  person reduction in oil usage is a Very big drop(If there are 300 million people in the U.S. this means a savings of 150 million gallons a day or 54,750 million gallons a year or (54 Billion, 750 million gallons a year for the U.S. as a nation). and this has  changed worldwide dynamics and worldwide prices. Because of this drop in consumption everyone on earth will pay less than they would have for all oil products than otherwise. But, since nations like China, India, Brazil and others are increasing consumption they likely more than make up for what the U.S. and Europe's economies don't use. So, even though the U.S. and Europe are now using less, much of the world is using more. So, in some ways consumption is at or above Europe and the U.S.'s highest consumption rates in the past. So Worldwide the problem is not being solved and only getting worse as far as oil is concerned even though because of the "Great Recession" Europe and the U.S. have drastically reduced their per person consumption  of oil. However, in 25 years the U.S. and Europe might be better prepared for no oil because of having been through this time of preparation and reduction of consumption of oil. This will drive the U.S. and Europe in specific towards re-evaluating their relationship to how they will produce energy to keep their civilizations going the next few hundred years.

So, it makes me wonder if NATO and the United Nations and individual governments realized that if they didn't reduce consumption when the "Shit really hit the fan" all at once when oil ended the societal reactions worldwide would be so catastrophic to the point where human extinction might be the result. Because how do you tell 5 billion people that they will go extinct when oil ends?

So, when I look at the world in this context it makes perfect sense that governments conspired with the Wall Streets of the world to reduce consumption so that civilization would have another alternative to ending when oil ended within 15 to 25 years here on earth.

Also, oil doesn't just allow vehicles on land, air and sea to move, it also lubricates everything and turns into plastic of all kinds. Plastic mostly doesn't exist without oil. So, if you don't have oil you don't have oil to burn as gas and diesel or jet fuel, you don't have plastics of all kinds, you don't have lubricants of all kinds etc. So, what energy source will power sources of transport in the future? Likely the water in the ocean and that we drink since it can be separated into Hydrogen and Oxygen. But even more likely fuel cells that run on water will convert their power into electricity. However, what happens when water runs out? Because if you convert water to hydrogen and oxygen you don't get water (Except as a by product). So, every time you consume water you have that much less of it on the planet. So, in the end likely fusion in a controlled way might be the power source of the future if it can be controlled and not just turn earth into a sun with us on it. So, in the end logically it makes strategic sense to cause a "Great Recession in the western world by governments in order to minimize the chaos that is coming with the end of oil within 15 to 25 years. As the end of oil nears the price of gas will slowly skyrocket to about $75 a gallon over the next 10 to 25 years. Hopefully, it will give all civilization on earth enough time to adapt to reduce the chaos, starvation, war, revolutions and other factors caused by people who may not be aware of all this or who are just desperately trying to stay alive any way they can. So, as the volume of oil decreases all peoples will find ways to adapt as best as they can.

So, was this an orchestrated recession or not? I don't know in the end. It could have even been engineered by non-governmental investors who aligned directly or indirectly. Or it could have been an accident or a combination of factors. It's really hard to say and likely no one will ever know for sure either way.

Here to me is one of the craziest facts of all: The U.S. now exports more oil than it imports. What does anyone do with that information?

Later: As I thought more about this I realized that it was extremely important that oil doesn't suddenly go to 2 times, 3 times or 4 times what people are presently paying for it anywhere on earth. Because that kind of thing just brings an extreme amount of chaos.

The first important problem becomes food. Because if oil, gas and diesel doubles, triples, or quadruples food becomes impossible to grow so that anyone could actually afford to buy it but the richest of people on earth.

2nd electricity become unaffordable wherever there isn't hydroelectric power generated that keeps electricity cheap.

3rd if you live a long way from your work you might not be able to drive your car there, though you might be able to car pool, take a bus or take a train.

4th it would be important to think sort of like we all did up until about 1900 or so. Because the next few generations might not ever ride on a plane ever because it might be just too expensive and people might not travel that much unless it was on foot, by bicycle, bus, or train or sailboat. So, what I'm saying is in some ways we would have to return to before 1900 on some levels. However, likely(if we had satellites we still might have satellite internet when the wind or sun generating enough electricity for us if we have solar cells windmill generators and batteries to store what we generate for later usage. So, as long as satellites could be maintained usefully in an economic way we would still likely have computers and internet until we couldn't maintain satellites anymore because of not enough fossil fuel.

So, it is beginning to make more sense why there were not over 1 billion or 2 billion people on earth before the 1950s and 1960s. The reason is that there was that oil resources were not  developed yet until the 1880s through the 1950s  through a multiplicity of inventiveness worldwide. But as soon as oil is gone likely we might have to go back to 2 billion people again worldwide sooner or later somehow.

end quote from:5 Billion Less People on Earth?