As predicted by Frank Zappa, society will Freak Out!

I can't get rid of my car, but I can jetison anything
that is dependent on fossil fuel. Just don't let the
oil companies get control of any other energy
source. Greed is driving these prices.

Wow, so maybe those "dang fur'ners" aren't so stupid after all.

You can bet that once it's inevitable that mass transit will be the only way to make money, the infrastructure will appear really fast.

I agree Allen.
I think if someone decided to privately build a mass transit system, they could make a killing in about 5 years or so.

Thats if there truly is peak oil. But if oil is indeed of abiotic origin, as many scientists have proposed, then we have just "begun" to explore the world's actual oil reserves. And still we have oil sands (6 times saudi arabia's reserves, but in a more difficult form and costs $35 per barrel) and oil shale (just as much as oil sands if not more and costs $60 per barrel). World's discovered uranium reserves are enough to power all humanity's current demand for 67 million years if we reprocess them using fast breeder reactors, etc (technology feasible today if people give it a chance). There's enough "known" coal to last 200 years if we switched to it completely and we do have coal -> gasoline conversion process known as synthetic crude. Not saying that they are all clean, but that they do exist. So should we still believe that there is a pending "energy crisis"?

Jeez, what a wimps!
In Europe we pay US$ 9+ per US Gallon (€1,56 per liter, for petrol or diesel), and we are still addicted to our cars.
I guess price-elasticity for fuel is pretty ehhrr elastic, don't believ the priests of doom!

What is becoming clear is that the USA has run out of cheap oil.

What to do? The top contending choices are ...

Use expensive oil in inefficient cars and pay pay pay
Use fuel efficient cars on expensive gas and pay less
Toss the cars, use public transit or bicycles
Switch to Electric cars and renewable energy sources.

No doubt all these solutions will be tried.
Guess which will become the #1 choice.

This, if it comes to pass, is great news and not a moment too soon.

Varun, if we switched over to maximum nuclear electricity production, we would run out in about 40 years, not 67 million years. This was in an article in New Scientist in the last year.

Do you remember the NASDAQ at 5000. That was a speculative bull market just like the oil market today! When "all" the experts say that oil will continue to go up forever watch out. By the way traders use that very indicator to trade whether stocks or futures. when you get extremes bet the other way. As long as oil prices continue to make new highs the bull market continues, when its hits a high has a significant pullback then gets close to the high then goes back down its over. The NASDAQ was the perfect example. Its less than half 5000 8 years later!

What concerns me the most is that we are still arguing about whether we are in an energy crisis and whether we will pay $10 per gallon for gas. Does it really matter and do we really need to waste time arguing about it? We know there are far more efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost effective ways to supply energy than by drilling for the black crude. New "green" attitudes, technologies and jobs will fire-up the economy, get us "couch potatoes" outside and moving more, and make our environment a lot cleaner. If the American public would simply stop with the jabber and get something done to benefit all of us, we would see a tremendous change and optimism for the future. I, for one, do not want to pay $10 per gallon only to continue to pollute our environment. That's depressing! There's no future in our dependence on oil-based lifestyle.

Jeff is talking about $7 gas in 4.5 years? Pretty optimistic I'd say. Parts of the USA are over $5 now. $7 is a probability before the end of 2008. Adopt a European lifestyle? Walk? Ride a bike? Mass transit? Who (what city) has the money for that?

Looks like global warming will be correcting itself, as well as pollution and all those health-environment related diseases like asthma. This can only be a good thing.

This is an incomplete and speculative analusis that lacks necessary data,for instance, it says x number of households have cars and access to mass transit,ut doesn't acoount for how many people that means,how many per family use cars,or transit,and for what purposes,total avg miles traveled etc.
Also According to US OT,as of 2005 there were about 250 million cars in the US,so reducing the fleet by 10 million would be less that 5 percent,over the next 4 years. meanwhile the number of new vehicles being made in INdia and China will far surpass that figure.This doesn't necessarily represent a big shift ,as reported. Mass transit takes huge infrastructure spending. One of the big lies about modern market capitalism is the idea that free enterprise does it all,when the fact is that without federal state and county government spending on Roadbuilding,there would be no huge fleet of cars,or oil boom. In fact the efense Highways spending act which created the Interstate Highway system was a Military Appropriation. Perhaps if legislators float the defense Mass Transit act they can get support. Still the money comes from taxpayers,who have pretty consistently ,since the 70s voted against capital projects for mass transit infrastructure. In part because if you have to take mass transit it takes way more time Often more than twice as long, and you have to go where it goes,not whereever you want you can't carry much,and have to be subjected direct, exposure unmediated by the armor of a vehicle to hundreds or thousands of scary strangers.. Americans have deep programing about freedom of choice,which usually means freedom to choose what to buy. High gass prices aren't necessarily less attractive than high taxes.

This is an incomplete and speculative analusis that lacks necessary data,for instance, it says x number of households have cars and access to mass transit,ut doesn't acoount for how many people that means,how many per family use cars,or transit,and for what purposes,total avg miles traveled etc.
Also According to US OT,as of 2005 there were about 250 million cars in the US,so reducing the fleet by 10 million would be less that 5 percent,over the next 4 years. meanwhile the number of new vehicles being made in INdia and China will far surpass that figure.This doesn't necessarily represent a big shift ,as reported. Mass transit takes huge infrastructure spending. One of the big lies about modern market capitalism is the idea that free enterprise does it all,when the fact is that without federal state and county government spending on Roadbuilding,there would be no huge fleet of cars,or oil boom. In fact the efense Highways spending act which created the Interstate Highway system was a Military Appropriation. Perhaps if legislators float the defense Mass Transit act they can get support. Still the money comes from taxpayers,who have pretty consistently ,since the 70s voted against capital projects for mass transit infrastructure. In part because if you have to take mass transit it takes way more time Often more than twice as long, and you have to go where it goes,not whereever you want you can't carry much,and have to be subjected direct, exposure unmediated by the armor of a vehicle to hundreds or thousands of scary strangers.. Americans have deep programing about freedom of choice,which usually means freedom to choose what to buy. High gass prices aren't necessarily less attractive than high taxes.

My statements are about markets, and it bothers me that the "experts" get goofy about the markets!
I totally agree that the future is NOT oil, just don't write silly articles like the one above.

Everyone agrees that we should keep our world as clean as possible. But a completely sanitary world that can not support the economy to support its people is useless. We live in a world that is made possible by transportation. And that transportation runs on fossil fuels.

Everyone is completely agreeable to start using electrical or hydrogen vehicles, but in the mean time we have to keep this present world in tact or we will be taken over by the Muslim Movement that is intent on destroying our society and is doing that very thing with the funds we are spending on foreign oil.

So we buy most of our foreign oil from Canada and Mexico, but those are still foreign Countries and they only increase the cost of the fuels we must have. Every time the price rises on oil it is world-wide and the Global Market is what we are paying for.

So, if we have to pay the outrageous price of $7 to $10 a gallon for gasoline until we can make the change to electrical or hydrogen, wouldn’t it be more sensible to pay that money into our economy so that it stayed here and increased our Gross National Product and increase the value of our Dollar instead of devaluing it.

In turn keeping the ½ Trillion Dollars here that we presently spend on foreign oil would make 4 cycles in our economy every year and would increase our economy by over $2 Trillion. That would also reduce inflation and increase the tax revenues of the Government by over $400 Billion a year which would reduce our National Debt and balance our trade deficit.

The answer is: Drill and produce every resource we possess while planning for the future transition. Have the Government mandate this just as we did for The Manhattan Project and for NASA.

It will require a Leader.

well its not only going to change the way we drive

if you notice alot our materialistic crap is made out of that same petroleum that we shove in our gas tanks to drive our cars

what is going to happen to all the cheap plastic that was once at our finger tips as well

hmmm what else is made out of plastic and uses petroleum???

hmm maybe everything our society runs on

from gasing up a machine to extract uranium to create nuclear energy

to putting a pacifier in a babies mouth we use it for everything

THE USA IS IN FOR A REAL CHANGE BUT ALEAST WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO RISE FROM THE ASHES AND BECOME LESS DEPENDANT ON THIS "NECESSARY" STAPLE IN OUR SOCIETY THAT IS PETROLEUM

WATCH A CRUDE AWAKENING !!!!

SO MUCH GOOD INFORMATION !

Another trend that I hope follows the increase in gas prices is an increase of local buying to support local economies.

I find it difficult to comprehend that 50% of suburbia has viable public transportation available to it. I live in a small, suburban city which has a bus system, that they call public transportation, but what it really is is a subsidy for the poor who can't afford a car, and to the elderly who can't drive to the mall. It does not resemble anything that could adequately serve the transportation needs of most of the residents. I think fast,efficient, CONVENIENT, public transportation is the correct path for the future (the car will always have a place, too), but we are decades away from achieving this. I will wait 5-10 mins. for a quick, reliable metro train, I will not wait 20-30 mins. for a slow, unreliable bus.

The reality is, that once the cheapest energy resource runs out, society will turn to the next cheapest resource - coal, which we (the US) have plenty of, unless other sources - thermal solar, solar, wind - are funded or subsidized. Oil is subsidized, why not solar?

Courtney: Agreed that mass transit expansion will probably be privatized, but it will take many years, possibly decades, to get it designed, approved and constructed.

Varun: Who are these 'many scientists'? Suggest you go to www.theoildrum.com, then kindly STFU.

Jan Kees: I agree. Even at $4 US/gallon, that is cheap by global standards.

treebark: I don't disagree. Just like the tech bubble, the real estate bubble, and the gold bubble, I think the price of oil is reflecting a bubble, as least partially, that is. I think we will see a modest drop in price at some point, but we will never see oil below $100/bbl again, even if the dollar were to regain it's value.

Butch Armstrong: the 'Muslim Movement'? Because they ALL are evil and hate us? Get yourself into some therapy, maybe some anger management classes. It is naive to think that drilling at home will reduce the price of oil - the oil companies will sell their product to the highest bidder, US or otherwise. It will take ten years for production from new fields to reach the streets. Stop drinking the oil company kool-aid.

Boy,

If I didn't know any better, a poster above sure sounds like a shill for Big Oil. "It's the carbon ******!" (fill in blanks)

Work commutes comprise the majority of our mileage.

When possible, why not stop commuting altogether?

Telecommuting is an easy, cost-effective option for both commuters and employers.

With free audio and videoconferencing tools, high speed Internet widely available and even tools for monitoring productivity from a distance, this should be a great option.

Bruce Armstrong: "Muslim Movement"?

it doesn't take a Muslim movement to hate what western society is and has become. i was raised christian and i think the west 'has failed'. aside from the above comment just being wrong, dont assume all Christians are the same hate filled, one minded, horde of zealots.

Vote with purchases - act local by buying local

Nobody where I live has access to mass transit or public transportation such as buses, trains or even cabs. Yes, I live in rural America. Yes, I have to drive everywhere I want to go. Work is 22 miles away; doctor is 40 miles away as is the hospital in case of emergency. I would like access to an inexpensive electric vehicle. The only problem with it is I also live in the north midwest and we have pretty miserable winters with lots of snow and ice. How do EVs work in this climate?

Knowledge that we were destroying the planet for human life did not change behavior much, but something as simple as four buck gasoline did. With the American dollar falling fast, I am not certain that the prospect of eight dollar gasoline would surprise people much at this point. SUV's are now worth pennies on the dollar, fuel efficient vehicles from the 80's are being sold for top dollar, hybrid vehicles are the hottest thing on the road, and nearly everyone has their eye on plug-in electrics.

And all of this happened in less than two years.

I can't wait to see what the next two years brings.

Amazing.

I live in a small town that is basically a suburb of a city that a large number of residents commute to for work. The town I live in also has the local 4 year university, which most of the students commute to from the city. They are roughly 10 miles apart. Unfortunately, there is not public transportation in the smaller town, or a shuttle bus running between the two. I wish there was. How do you get service like this? I agree that between rising gas prices and green awareness increasing, car numbers are going to decrease in areas where there are alternatives. But making the local governments in areas where there are not options give us some is going to be key to changes.