Comment by TheRoque
8 hours ago
We are on borrowed time, most of the world is running on oil and this resource is not unlimited at all. A lot of countries have gone past their production peak, meaning it's only downhill from here. Everything is gonna be more costly, more expensive, our lavish "democracies" lifestyles are only possible because we have (had) this amazing freely available resource, but without it it's gonna change. Even at a geopolitical scale you can see this pretty obviously, countries that talked about free market, free exchange are now starting to close the doors and play individually. Anyways, my point is, we are in for decades, if not a century of slow decline.
Doubt it. Renewables are expanding much faster than oil output is decreasing. Wind and solar will enable energy to remain cheap everywhere that builds it.
Energy production is only part of the bill, though. The oil shortage is having an effect on a mind-boggling variety of consumer goods where crude oil is used in manufacturing. For many products we don't have good alternatives. A lot of oil is needed to build an electric car.
Malthusians has been sounding the alarm for longer than Protestant revivalists have been claiming the end of world is next month at lunchtime. If there is a predication market for such things, betting on any Malthusian is patently foolish.
(Of course, I don't disagree with the notion that consumerism produces an extraordinary amount of worthless trash, but that's a different matter. The main problem with consumerism is consumerism itself as a spiritual disease; the material devastation is a consequence of that.)
People gloating about Malthusians being wrong keep forgetting that it only takes for them to be right ONCE in the entirety of human history and when they are - you'll be too busy trying to survive rather than posting on internet forums.
The planet has a certain resource-bound carrying capacity. It's a fact of physics. Just because we aren't there yet as of (checks time) 2026-03-27, doesn't mean Malthusians are wrong.
Although to be fair to the other side, I think with abundant renewable energy we'll be able to delay resource depletion for a very long time thanks to recycling (and lower standards of living of course).
There will be very dramatic growing pains with this switch, especially for A: nations manufacturing renewables but still running that manufacturing on oil and B: nations that face political and economic barriers for renewables.
Also C: nations that are both A and B, needlessly causing oil volatility with unplanned military dickheadedness.
Renewables provide electricity only, but planes, boats, trucks, basically all the supply chain, works with oil only for the moment. The ease of use of oil has not been replaced yet. Do you realize how easy it is to handle oil ? You can just put it in a barrel and ship it anywhere in that barrel. No need for wires or complex batteries like for electricity, nor complex pipelines like for gas.
And even if we figured out how to electrify everything (which we didn't as I just said), we would still run into resources shortages for batteries, wires (copper etc.), nuclear fuel (uranium)...
Expanding renewables to the easily replaceable items like power plants, generators, and most consumer vehicles would radically reduce oil usage to where it becomes a minor concern. Also things like biodiesel exist. A more sustainable, renewable-forward, electrified reality is easily possible.
There is not a risk of resource shortage of copper. The doomer and prepper talking points you're parroting are not based in reality.
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Keep your eye on butanol https://phys.org/news/2026-02-microbial-eco-friendly-butanol....
Hilarious how comments like this consistently get downvoted, theres a lot of special interest lurkers on this forum