are you referring to plug in hybrids or plug in eletric cars? If hybrid you are still using gas.

I meant what I said, plug-in hybrids. Of course they still use gas, but not exclusively. After the hybrids we might get fully electric cars.

If you were to run all land transport off grid power for electric cars it would probably take a complete overhaul of the power transmission infrastructure. Lots of grids are maxed out already I think it won't be easy to add the capacity to power transport too.

Exactly! This is precisely my point. The scale of the changes involved in a transition from a fossil fuel based energy system to a renewable based energy system is staggering.

There is huge amounts of energy- there is orders of magnitude more in solar radiation hitting the earth every day than our current total consumption. There is kinetic energy everywhere in waves tides wind. Nuclear too. Fossils fuels are the only source that is drying up (unless you take the long look for when thet sun dies).

Sure. But just because energy sources exist does not mean we can or will harvest them. An energy crunch is still likely, and soon. Fact is, most of our energy comes from fossil fuels, and our massive transportation infrastructure runs virtually exclusively on liquid fuels, overwhelmingly derived from oil.

How do you propose to build all the nuclear power plants, wind turbines, etc. without oil? How do you propose to to replace our transportation infrastructure and all the new cars (running on whatever - electricity or hydrogen, you name it) without fossil fuel energy?

As I mentioned to Mike Sulzer, we probably can still do this, but it will mean a significant reduction in our current standard of living as we divert energy to these other activities. Unfortunately, I see no political will to do so, and time is running short.

I think your drawing the wrong conclusion. There are enough energy sources to ensure a long long time before people die off from lack of energy. They all have their own sustainability issues but there's not persuasive evidence an energy crash is imminent.

We'll have to agree to disagree here.

Finding enough arable land and efficient crop production for the growing population will be a problem long before an energy shortage is. Related to that, the climate effects of burning fossil fuels will pose a problem before the actual physical supply of them will is my feeling.

Possibly. But all these issues are closely linked. Interestingly, the North Korean famine of the '90's was caused at least in part to a lack of petroleum supplies. North Korea spent a great deal of energy industrializing, so much so that its agricultural sector became highly dependent on petroleum for fertilizer, running the farm machinery like tractors, and food distribution (via trucks). When the Soviet Union collapsed, and their fuel subsidies dried up, this contributed to the famine of the '90's.

Just to preempt those who jump on this, I realize there were other causes of the famine - you can't explain it through the loss of petroleum imports alone. But that was a significant factor.

Anyway, the world is likely to suffer a similar fate when oil production starts to decline. Current crop yields rely on petroleum based fertilizers - scarce oil will lead to reduced yields. Food distribution networks will be strained by rising fuel costs, farmers may not be able to till as much land with liquid fuel driven farm equipment, etc.

Peak oil is not just about high prices at the gas station.

We have virtually inexhaustible supplies of non-polluting energy - but at a price point equivalent to $5 a gallon for gasoline.

That's quite a claim. Prove it, please (you can use whatever price point you'd like).

The number $5 is picked off the top of my head - but the point remains. In 2007, the cost of solar-generated electricity was about two to four times that of coal-generated electricity.

Sure, but the AMOUNT of electricity generated by coal simply dwarfs the amount of energy generated from solar.

And, the price of solar based electricity is NOT independent of the price of fossil fuel based energy. Increase the cost of coal, or oil, or gas, and the cost of solar goes up, because energy is required to make, distribute and install solar energy collection devices And that energy is largely, you guessed it, fossil fuel based.

There's even a name for that. It's called the Law of Receeding Horizons. Check this out:

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-renewables-energy/410