[ I believe, as Ryan says, that this *will* be the defining issue of our lives. Arguably, people my age (25) will get another 40-60 years, at least, of lifetime. The peak production tipping point is probably, according to what I've been reading today, no more than 15 years off. That means that we'll all be right around 40 when the shit hits the fan. We'll be suburbanites with 1.75 kids and a dog, and a house in the burbs, 20 miles of bumper to bumper traffic away from our jobs. Our kids may be just old enough to say "Hey, thanks for fucking up so bad... you too grams and gramps... good job."

I'm not entirely convinced that's the outcome we're going to see though. The signs point to, at least, an uncomfortable, probably painful few decades, as we adjust our lifestyles to one in which energy is less plentiful. As I read this article, I began to think of the ways in which my lifestlye is inefficient... of the things I could be doing to curb my usage. For one, I could turn my computer off. It runs, now, 24/7 and pulls probably 200-250 watts, which is around 1750 kWh/year, or somewhere around $200 a year, just for one machine (and we have a few, of course). Certainly, there are lots of things we could (and should) all do to limit our energy uses, but in the big picture, people are assholes and won't do that too much until the economic realities force them to. So, solutions then...

From all that i've been reading, historically, and today, the most touted "alternatives" under heavy development these days are probably a minimal help, if any. Hydrogen is still a viable container format, *if* we can get the electricity needed to produce it from a non-fossil source, since, as noted, H2 is a net loser in real energy terms.

I'll start rambling here, but I've come to think that more than likely the next breakthrough in energy production (or savings) will be the work of a materials scientist. I don't see wind, tidal, hydro or geothermal cutting it, for a variety of reasons (though many are environmental, which may get backseated when the knife's to our collective necks). Atomic may work, but more efficient means of acquiring the raw materials will be neccessary if that's gonna happen. Currently, solar power is in the same boat... it's inefficiencies make it expensive ($0.35 - $0.50 / kWh amortized... something in that range I think) and it's production is both energy consumptive and envrionmentally problematic. Still, I think we have a better chance of coming up with cheaper advanced materials for solar cells than we do of overcoming the hurdles in any of the other possibilities. Plus, solar cuts out the middleman, so to speak, which makes it attractive, to me at least. People could be self-sufficient, or we could work out a nice distributed power grid like the hyper-optimists over at Wired are always yammering about. (High temp superconductors could eliminate the 5-10% transmission losses in the grid, or provide non-chemical "battery" technologies... nice stuff, also to be found by a matsci).

I did some napkin calculations and I think I've decided that an overall system of around 33% efficiency (including cell and storage) could support a 2 kWh/day lifestyle, even in not-so-sunny places, with about 200 sq. feet of exposed cells, which seems not unreasonable.

I'm done rambling. Thoughts? Am I retarded? -k]

Observations and the State of Affairs - Peak Oil