TEOTWAWKI - 2022
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:36 am
Get yer doom fix here :
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/we-all-fa ... ears-away/
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/we-all-fa ... ears-away/
I know these predictions can be a bit... misleading but it's interesting discussion about the practical challenges of dwindling EROEI for the industrial economy. I enjoyed the read, if you can use such a word. The dramatic title was my addition.For the average barrel of oil this may happen in 2022 — just 6 years away.
So by 2022 half the oil industry is likely to be out of business. Oil production won’t end — there will still be “above average” barrels produced, but dramatically less and less as we fall over the energy cliff, with the tail end around 2095.
The rapid end of the Oil Age began in 2012 and will be over within some 10 years. By 2022 the number of service stations in the US will have shrunk by 75%.
The critical parameter to consider is not the million barrels produced per day, but the net energy from oil per head of global population, since when this gets too close to nil we must expect complete social breakdown, globally.
We are in an unprecedented situation. As stressed by Tainter, no previous civilization has ever managed to survive the kind of predicament we are in. However, the people living in those civilizations were mostly rural and had a safety net, in that their energy source was 100% solar, photosynthesis for food, fiber and timber – they always could keep going even though it may have been under harsh conditions. We no longer have such a safety net; our entire food systems are almost completely dependent on the net energy from oil that is in the process of dropping to the floor and our food supply systems cannot cope without it.