I must take a small issue with your characterization that this oil crisis is open-ended, as opposed to the previous oil crises of 1973 and 1979...

(Admittedly, I was not even alive then so you can take everything I say with a grain of salt.)

But did people feel during those crises that the issues were open-ended? The Iranian Revolution must have been a complete shock, despite the warning signs emanating from the shah's corrupt rule for at least four or five years; war was a distinct possibility then, America's foreign policy was in complete shambles, and our government apparently had no idea how to get our citizen-hostages from the clutches of another government, let alone stabilize finicky energy markets. I cannot imagine living then and thinking: "OK, this will all be better in a few months once X is taken care of." At least looking back to it, I don't think anybody knew what X was until it passed and happened.

I'm just saying, perhaps we will think about the 2008 energy crisis in the same way... in a few years after much analysis, we will be able to point to some number of discreet issues that were resolved and stabilized the energy markets. Right now, living in the crisis, we can only guesstimate at the solutions... hopefully, we'll get it right sooner rather than later.

Did you mean train mecca of the west? We're not that far north of Chicago.

And for the record, when that commuter rail is finished I will have to drive farther to ride it than if I just drive to work. Even though one of the stops will be less than a block from where I work. On the other hand, it'll make getting to Saturday Market a breeze.

If fuel scarcity/price spells the end of JIT it will be the high point of my adult life. All that system has ever done is given cost accountants the illusion that they're good for something. It has cost far more in lost productivity that it has EVER saved in inventory reductions.

the difference between the chinese appetite for oil and ours, is that the chinese are going to use all that oil they're consuming, and all that coal they are burning now, to get them over the hump to a fossil-fuel free economy; and at the end of it, we'll still be complaining that that damned $100 a gallon gas is making us think that maybe we need to think about cutting back some, but dammit it it would take a lot of time and money and energy.

we never really recovered from the first oil shock of the early 70s. we've more or less staggered back to our feet periodically, but just keep getting knocked over again.

Here in the real train mecca (Chicago) there are trains all over the place. I take a train to work every day at a cost of less than $65 a month. I have a car (a van, actually, a 3/4 ton Dodge with a 5.2 liter V8) and I spend around $50 a month on gas because I don't have to drive very much (okay, so sometimes I wonder why the hell I have a vehicle anyway...).

Freight rail revenues are way up. Another thing that we're gonna have to visit is the whole just-in-time manufacturing/delivery model, which is predicated on making lots of small shipments, usually via truck. We might have to revert back to a bulk-shipment and storage model, which railroads are well suited to accommodate.

He might let you have it cheap. But you have to provide your own anti-zombie gear. Braaaaaiiiinnnnnnsssssss !

And along with it peak money and peak credit. Anything we can do to lower our trade deficit is a good thing. Trouble is, that now oil is going up faster than we are cutting back so the trade deficit grows anyway.

If we don't declare an energy emergency soon we will be swamped with enough debt to put us under. The United States is heading for the wall of insolvency and can't seem to find the brakes.

We're in the process of putting in commuter rail (in addition to the region's existing light rail system). This is a train line from suburb to suburb (Beaverton in the north-west metro area to Wilsonville in the south), along existing tracks which have to be upgraded. The point is to avoid putting extra lanes in an already overcrowded freeway system with nowhere left to expand.

Of course the naysayers think the whole plan is nuts. Who is going to ride it. People just want to drive. It's not convenient. Yadda yadda yadda... No one was planning on $4+ per gallon and rising gas numbers when they planned this a few years ago. If this really is the end of cheap oil, and the costs will continue to go up and up, this rail line is going to look smarter every day.

This oil shock will never end. This is the last one.

When the main oil-producing nations are hoarding their own oil (which they are increasingly doing), you know--as Richard Heinberg has it--the party's over.

Time to--as Kunstler has been saying for awhile now--make other arrangements, I'd say.

Invest in energy funds, metals funds, resources funds. That's where the action will be for the foreseeable future. Oh, those and railroad companies. Railroads are going to make a major come-back, whether we think that's nuts, or not.

We can no longer "go and get more." Increasingly, there is no more to get.

Let's drop that demand by 1-2% per quarter until we're off the stuff.

That doesn't seem like too difficult of a goal, does it?