[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’m beginning to wonder about the limits of fossil fuels. I read the other day that by 2020, China will have 350 million middle-class people with automobiles, more than the U.S. This demand for oil from China did not exist at all 30 years ago. Combine that growth with the middle-class growth in India and I have no doubt we are definitely straining the world’s oil production capability.

I also believe that the 500 year supply of coal was for a fixed U.S. population that existed around 1970 and that per-capita energy consumption would not increase.

Lastly, “net energy” from oil shale and oil sands is considerably below “net energy” from petroleum extraction. In other words, it takes a lot more energy to extract and process a BTU of liquid fuel from oil sands and oil shale than it does to pump oil out of the ground. That doesn’t bode well for liquid energy prices.

[ScratInTheHat]

This is where everyone has there heads in the sand.

It’s like the wind energy crap. The amount of energy it takes to build the machine to capture wind energy negates the amount you will get out of it over it’s working life.

Without Oil everything they are working on gives back so little return (except nuclear) that it’s just never going to fly.

Consumption is going to outpace supply in the next 10 to 20 years at the latest.

[kAcknor]

My main point isn't supply, it's market. The artificial price of oil is preventing any real progress to energy alternatives. Who wishes to invest in any kind of product that can be undermined at the whim of oil suppliers? With a simple decision they can drop the the price to $50, $40 or even less per barrel, undercutting any kind of competition before it can gain a foothold.