End of Oil - Is the gov't preparing?

With the rising oil prices, increasing demand in China and India, and fall of of cheap oil supplies... what is the gov't doing to prepare us and the economy for life after fossil fuels?

With the largest, most advanced, and powerful military/gov't on the planet..

they must be making some type of plans.... right??

The only way to deal with the slimming supplies and rising demands of oil is by creating a large scale alternative energy source.

Lots of government money is flowing into fusion research right now but its still no where near enough to help out in the near future.

Basicly the current situation is that the oil supplies can not keep up with humanity and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Even countries that try to move to alternative energy still rely heavily on oil, by 90% or more.

The fact is that as oil becomes more and more expensive it is humanity that must change.

We have two options...
1) Create/discover a new energy source, and do it soon.
2) Accept that our population will drop via war and starvation until we live within our means again.

These things should have been addressed decades ago, but to date they are still mostly ignored by the media and a lot of government officials.

So the answer to the question what is the government doing? As far as I can tell they are praying that scientist come up with something revolutionary, while stock piling oil and supplies for possible war and mass die off of its population.

Peak Oil has been covered on other threads.

One thing I remeber is a quote from the Energy Head of the current American Administration. He said something like if we pray maybe we will have 5 years, but sooner or later the crisis is going to hit. Not running out of oil as you know, but running out of CHEAP oil.

There are already alternatives to oil, its not used cause oil is still around an $$$$$$ still flow for it, so till it drys up totally we wont see these alternatives appear. There is nothing to worry about as all an more than 1 alternative exists its just kept by goverment or big companies till the day comes for the new $$$$$$$ flow.

"so till it drys up totally we wont see these alternatives appear"

by then it will be much to late to impliment a new energy system to replace the one we have in place. If we are going to make a smooth transition from oil it would have to be done when it is still relativly cheap. its now or never and honestly i think its already too late.

The media keeps saying we'll have enough gas to last us at least 30 years with normal usage and that we still have untapped reserves. As usual, I'm skeptical about this information, considering the fact that it's from the media and all. In either way, hydrogen-powered engines should be able to the public at reasonable prices by then, and from what I've been hearing it's going to be even cheaper to convert an existing gasoline-powered engine to hydrogen. This may solve the transportation issue, but other problems are sure to arise(they always do).

The oil companies rule the world and all political endeavours in the current age are a result of these companies and their overwhelming force upon governments and the puppets that act on their stages.

Oil will run dry eventually but it may not be for another 50+ years. But then again, what do we know but what we are told? A good book to read is called 'The Party's Over'. I can't remember the author but it is a fairly good eye opener on the subject.

Quite honestly, the people controlling the world don't give a s$*& about tomorrow and what may or may not happen to our modern industrial society..... with or without our precious black gold. They can line their pockets and as an extra bonus, 1/4 - 1/3 of the planet's population will die off. After all, it is what 'THEY' want and the concept is called Eugenics. I am pretty sure that alternative sources will come out when they are needed and wouldn't be at all surprised if plenty are already developed but hidden from us gas guzzling SUV drivers!

if all else fails we back to horses ,sails
just build lots of wind farms for cities but getting places will be a big prob wont it

I have to agree that the media, oil companies and politicians who go around saying we have no worries are not helping issues at all. The last thing we need is everyone ignoring the problem.

This seems to be an interesting article on /. about algae producing fuel.

www.unh.edu...

The chances of this actually happening though, I reckon are about 0%.

Basically I'll believe it when I see it.