Peak Oil you say? 

Over the past 10 years or so I have researched the theory at its origins and find that regardless of its evolution, the voting public should be concerned or at least interested in the alternative energy industries as a way to adapt to market pressures, or to combat rising oil costs when demand exceeds supply.  

I am not an expert on the subject, but it seems as more commodities are politicized the greater risk there is in finding alternative solutions.  The ability for the nation to adjust to dwindling reserves and rising costs will be a major focal point for investment in the future for alternative energies.  Then again maybe peak oil theory has been contrived and infiltrated by big oil to simply increase speculation and profit margins. I guess my advice for not scratching your head every step of the way ... stay objective. 

Not sure if any of that made sense but I am at work and will possibly answer your questions, concerns later with more detail.  For now, I would check out these two articles, one a report, the other an article. Thanks for reading.

https://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/filedisplay/publicfiledisplay.ashx?KID=5&CID=10720&PK=38356

http://www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/index.php/32

I hope this is not too far off of the subject but it has to do with actually figuring out what supply and demand is. Only with an honest accounting of actual supply and actual demand could we make an honest assessment of what and when the "peak" has been reached.  Not long ago oil was not listed as a commodity to be speculated on. I think we should go back to that model. Oil is too valuable to be speculated on. More importantly it makes it impossible to tell what the actual supply and demand is. It is well known that currently all of the oil holding facilities are full and tankers are anchored off the coast holding oil that has no where else to go. Yet gas just went over $3 today. The market is not being driven by supply and demand. It is being driven by speculation and that is never good. Oil needs to be removed from the commodities market.

No matter how you look at it, moving away from oil is a BIG issue. Look down at the clothes you're wearing. Or at the clothes you wear outside. I bet you can trace it back to oil. Your computer is probably made of plastic. So much of our food is packaged in plastic. 




Why would we build a new refinery? We've tapped most of the US stuff.

Oil peaked with frozen pizza package design. Think about it..

Hahaha. I was wondering if anyone would catch that.

Did you get a chance to see the documentary film Collapse?  It's almost entirely on the subject of peak oil and the world's oil dependency/blind oil usage.  I saw it at Zinema a few months ago and went home and hid under some blankets for 3 days.  It's made by WI filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men).  Recommended to anyone who has interest in this subject.

I go back to the initial post and the sentence:

"We need oil and natural gas to drive our cars, heat our homes, grow our food, transport our goods, etc." stands out to me in particular. Primarily because we don't need oil or natural gas for any of that.

Granted, it is far, far easier to do these things with oil, but the world seemed to manage pretty well in the early 1800s without it, at least from a commerce and transportation standpoint. Was it "fast"? No. Was it global, or even continental? No. Was it "easy? No. Was it sufficient? Yes.

The scary thing to me is that our food system and infrastructure are dependent on petroleum based fertilizers and fuels that are essential to support our current population. No oil = massive famine and population reduction back to levels that were sustainable at pre-oil levels. We could all walk to work, but we can't feed 300 million people without petroleum-based fertilizers.

Who will have the power when the oil well runs dry? The person who owns the well, or the person who knows how to grow food and store it all winter? Someday, maybe in my lifetime, maybe not, things are going to get ugly.

Right idn, which goes back to my point. Until he current cost rises substantially we are not going to do anything about it.

Elden,

I don't build a new house that uses 1/10th of the energy that a 50 year-old house uses because I don't have the financial wherewithal to be able to afford to buy the land and then build a new house utilizing ever-greener (and very expensive out-of-the-box) energy resources.

The problem is that the technologies haven't been developed enough to make them affordable to the common person. I'm not going to go into a huge diatribe here, because Edge made my point very succintly, but it's very easy to sit at your computer and chastize IDN for not building/buying a completely eco-friendly house and another thing entirely to put yourself in his shoes. 

And technically, the sun is not an ever-renewing resource... someday, it too, will be gone. Viva le Luddite!

I would love to have a house like that too, i.d.n, but mine would probably be against the city's zoning code

Jesus Tamara, relax. I was not chastising anybody specifically, or telling anybody to go build a new house. I was commenting on the status quo, as the original topic was. I said, clearly I thought, that there may come a day when it is cheaper to build a more efficient house than to heat an old one. 
I own a crappy old house too. I can't afford to build new either. But when I do, I will spend my money on insulation and good windows, not put granite countertops and a 50" TV in a leaky underinsulated crap-box. My issue is that we can easily do better now, but we don't because we don't have to...yet. And it doesn't have to look line an "earthship" either.
I agree with "edge's" point also. As a nation, we aren't going to do anything about it until we HAVE to. Some people are already working on it though, while some people are ignoring the elephant in the room.
I think the problem is at least on the minds of the general public now, which is good. 
As an aside, I did watch "Collapse" after reading this thread. It is a bit hard to swallow, but there are some good points in there. I have also watched "End of Suburbia" and "What as Way to Go". Depressing, but worthwhile.