Inelastic Demand - The big reason that prices for oil can spike even if there's a small disparity in supply and demand is that oil demand is rather inelastic. My car burns gasoline. I can try to use my car less to reduce the amount of gasoline I burn, but often there's a fundamental limit as to how little I can use it (work commute, etc).

Because of this, there's only so much that demand can fall before it starts to hit some serious infrastructure issues. I can buy a car that gets better mileage, but that's still only an incremental improvement. It quickly runs into my needing to have a car that is powered by something other than gasoline or finding a way to eliminate my need for a car altogether.

Compare this to supply and demand for food. If there's a spike in the price of wheat, I can eat corn. If corn prices spike, I can eat rice. There are a number of possible options and while I always have to eat something, there's a lot of choices. So therefore, the demand is far more flexible.-- sterno

The saddest aspect of peak oil and its eventual total depletion is not the loss of fuel. In fact, the depletion of natural gas is a far more serious issue in the long run than the loss of oil.

We will eventually find other, non-fossil fuels to power automobiles, trucks, buses, ships and trains (planes being the wild card), and we will simply move away from some forms of motorized transport (I'd start with long-haul trucking, but I digress). However, we need petroleum to manufacture so many material things for which a quick replacement doesn't exist. We are living in The Graduate future where plastics are the most important materials in our lives. It's kind of difficult to imagine PCs, laptops, cell phones, medical equipment, CDs, appliance parts of all kinds, etc., etc. being fashioned of wood or . . .

This is why moving toward 100% recyclable plastics is just as important as finding a substitute for petroleum derived fuel.

There are NO maglev trains in commercial service anywhere. All high speed rail uses steel rail roadbed.-- Robot-2

Yes there are. The train from Shanghai's airport into the city is a mag-lev. My brother-in-law rides it at least twice a month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation_train

And there is one in Nagoya, Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linimo

Southwest has remained profitable and continues to grow (albeit at a slower pace). -- Manimal

Southwest got lucky buying a forward contract on their fuel at a price about 1/2 of today's. They might still be okay compared to some airlines, but once this contract expires, they may face the same fate as some of the other carriers, particularly since they fly mostly 737s. In fact, it's airlines like SW (and Alaska) that face the greatest challenges since they serve a lot of "drivable" routes. The overly frequent short to medium routes are the real money loser.

If an affordable and plentiful substitute for oil is not found in the next five years, China's status as the leading mass manufacturer and exporter will shrivel and, eventually, die. Neither coal not nukular will work as bridge fuels. Autarky never looked so good!

Next question: Will the rise in transportation costs effectively kill globalization. That is, will the costs of trasporting the widgets made in China (with virtual slave labor) across oceans to our shores outwiegh the economic advantages of having outsourced widget manufactuing? -- bungo pony

. . . are no worse than works done by the apprentices of masters who have then privilege the of signing-off on the work as if it were there own. I don't know how prevalent this was with Old Masters, but it was pretty typical (even today) in Asian art. The real masters of Japanese wood block prints were the artisans who carved each of the blocks to produce the various sections and color overlays. The finished print was only as good as theirs skills.

The U.S. has been bringing nuclear weapons into Japan on U.S. vessels for decades with the Navy's maintaining the equivalent of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Japan generates at least 1/3 of its electricity with nuclear reactors. Therefore, a nuclear powered ship can hardly be much of a concern compared to the wink and nod attitude that existed all through the Cold War when every missile cruiser, destroyer and aircraft carrier was potentially armed with nuclear weapons as a matter of course.

. . . over 30. Grow the fuck up. You've already admitted to having alcohol problems in the past. Quit trying to re-live your misspent youth.

Shit. That's a given already. It's not just a matter of losing oil and gas as energy sources. Once oil hits $300/barrel are we ready for the majority of our manufactured goods to increase by 50-200%? Look around you and find five things not made of plastic. I sort of fancy a birds eye maple laptop. I'm kind of surprised Sharper Image or Neiman Marcus hasn't introduced this sort of thing already.

I'm more sanguine about the predicted fertilizer shortage - we should be using composted matter for this anyway. But oil has more important uses in our modern oil than being a fuel source.

Who knows? Who cares?

Like all popular music, most of hip hop is crap. However, it's crappy in a particularly misogynistic, violent and just plain stupid fashion that no one should lament if it ceased to exist tomorrow.

Oh, I'm sure you can. The Mustache of Understanding hasn't had an original idea in years if ever.