Life after “End of Oil”

Life after “End of Oil”

Introduction

The increasing population, global warming, reduction in natural resources, decreasing ratio of water in comparison with the land ratio and most importantly, end of oil era are the major problems of 21st century faced by the entire world. Fossil fuels; oil and gas are the lifeline without which our daily lives cannot run. And the ways thing are going, it can be seem that another great depression is approaching. Reduction in oil reserves will impact the world in an essential and unpredictable way.

Discussion

Human civilization is primarily that if oil which is the basic sector of the global economy. It is present all around us and used in every aspect of life such as industry, transport, chemicals, it provides plastic, agricultural pesticides and raw materials. Increase in price and scarcity will essentially change the circumstances. Decrease in the oil reserves will affect the world in an unpredictable way (Sankey, et. al. 2010). Global oil production is on continuous decline every year with the rate of 3% every year. Consequently, price of oil is increasing and so are the costs of other necessities such as agriculture, travel, heating and trade etc.

If there is a war raging for decades and which governs the modern world, it is the energy and industrial production. This war has been going for over a century, from petroleum. Geopolitics is always influenced by black gold. But with some guidance sometimes original, with a country like Venezuela who made a social and economic transformation unprecedented thanks to oil revenues. A state like Saudi Arabia will disappear the day the oil will cease to be the center of world trade and a major technical challenge. The United States trying to get self-sufficient in oil equivalent derived from non-conventional resources. And we are now at a crossroads as the global economy is nearing collapse. Or maybe being a radical transformation if it does not collapse (Hughes, 2009). All indicators are in the red and the limits of speculative trading system are reached. With a horizon to reach for those who enable and profit from this war energetic-Industrial switch the economy to avoid collapse that could well reach too. The only logical way is that a change of energy paradigm: the quantum leap of the 21st century, two hundred years after that of oil. The new industrial revolution may prevail, without oil.

When we talk about oil, the first use that comes to mind is that of transportation. Regarding automobiles, none of the alternatives proposed so far are possible to obtain comparable results. Either for reasons of cost (fuel cell powered by hydrogen) or for ecological reasons: even devoting all agricultural land in the world, bio-fuels is not sufficient to meet current needs. So we have to reduce distances and opt for new modes like cycling for short distances to train for longer journeys. Two other areas are particularly oil greedy: industry and housing (Appenzeller, 2004). Fuels produced from black gold are indeed ...