34 and still no licence, and no intention of getting one! Has always been purely a financial decision for me, don’t want the cost of maintenance or petrol. Don’t miss it as I’ve never had it.

When no one can afford petrol, maybe everyone will ride bicycles

The hauliers won’t be able to afford fuel either, so won’t be able to deliver those bicycles to your LBS, and the courier companies won’t be able to afford the fuel to deliver it to your door 😉

Better start up a rickshaw courier company now 😉

its not the petrol in your car you have to worry about.
your food is made from petrol.
disregarding the petro-chemical fertilizers that are essential for food production these days, each calorie you consume requires 10 calories of oil to produce, and that is before transportation. now i know that there are a lot of calories in 1L of crude oil, but there are a lot of people and only so much oil.
food for thought

the minor detail that always seems to be overlooked, fertilizer,

More importantly, water… Many agricultural systems are currently running on big debts in terms of extraction from effectively non-renewable groundwater.

Peak phosphorus is also a biggy – we can’t just ‘make’ P, but we can re-use food waste and biosolids much more effectively to keep it in the farming system.

The thing everyone also forgets is that fertilisers require energy to produce, lots of it. Where’s that going to come from in a while?

nope, i’m serious

In that case, perhaps do a little reading about what constitutes a finite resource then?

Given its importance to our economy, oil is ludicrously cheap. It makes more sense to wean ourselves off it for non-essential things like transport, and save it for the important stuff where there is no substitute such as plastics. It’s far too valuable to burn.

But I know the world doesn’t work like that, so expect a nice big war in a couple of decades for what’s left of it.

Fuel, expensive?!

I pay 1.70 something a litre. Well, my company does. But it is about 6 Dirham to the pound so that’s about 28 pence. 😀

I just sold my van and aint getting another vehicle…
granted I own more bikes than i can even count (well over dozen frames at last inventory)
2 horses
2 donkeys
im painfully aware of the cost of these forms of transport as well,
price of hay these days is bonkers 😉

but my wider point is this:
there are a number of assumptions here…
1. the market for oil is governed by supply and demand (I think this is only partly true)
2. exchange rates will stay roughly the same
3. cars and the oil industry will continue to be subsidsed

these are all related issues, but fundamentally i think these are also our basic problems. the oil/auto economy is not just false economy it is a fake economy… (I fully expect flame for this comment)

that aside id like to offer a solution.
that we take the auto makers bail out packages
we buy everyone in the world a bike
and let the auto makers try and compete on a level playing field for a change
back of envelope calculations…. ive heard so many figures… in america ive heard a figure of $770 bil to the auto makers.
roughly 7bil people in the world
thats a thousand dollar bike for eveyone on the planet and then 70 bil for admin/repairs for a bit
Im not saying this would work but its a nice image 8)

@jimsmith – bugger that, CyB’s crowded enough as it is without 7bn others there at the weekend!

oil companies buy all new technologies so we never get to see or use them and so continue to buy their ever more Expensive polutant

Does anyone know if there’s any actual truth in this or is it urban myth? It’s one of those things people have claimed for donkeys years, but then patents run out after 20 odd years, so presumably no miracle alternatives have actually ever really existed, compressed air engines included.

myth or not this is quite an eye opener

oil companies buy all new technologies so we never get to see or use them and so continue to buy their ever more Expensive polutant

Complete pish.

OPEC can’t even maintain its cartel without a couple of swing producers, so the idea of every oil company in the world acting in perfect concert to suppress these magick technologies is laughable.

innovators have made cars that can run on compressed air for thousands of miles with NO polution,

energy is required to compress the air. you have shifted the pollution; not removed it.

we’ll run out of parking space before we run out of oil…..

mrmo – Member

” nope, i’m serious.

see alberta, dakota, etc.

it’s increasingly hard to get at / process, but there’s chuffing loads of the stuff.”

And what is the energy return on those resources? yes it is there but it is very expensive and environmentally very destructive to obtain. I guess it comes down to whether the natural environment matters or not?

exactly.

the price of oil now is enough to make oil sands profitable.

The website linky above suggests that we’ve only got 1.3trillion barrels of oil left – or about 40 years worth. That’s a low estimate, but it’s thereorthereabouts.

but it clearly doesn’t include tar/oil sand/shale.

which we’re already happy to pay for, and already happy to extract, process, and use.

the price of oil will rise – as it becomes increasingly tricky to get at, and more people want it.

so we’ll find alternatives, including using less.

this process is already happening, 5 years ago i started car-sharing to work.

now lots of people do it (here anyway).

by the time we run out of oil, we won’t even notice.

(does the natural environment matter? – of course it does. i expect you to lead by example, and never use your car again)

energy is required to compress the air. you have shifted the pollution; not removed it.

This is the kind of “scientific” rubbish that holds us back. Why don’t we think more imaginatively?

Why don’t we build housing on top of hills and workplaces at the bottom? That way, you wouldn’t need to use any energy to commute into work, you could just use gravity, which is an infinitely renewable resource.

Compressed air cars have been talked about for many years. You simply can’t store anything like enough energy in compressed air to make it workable even if you could compress it for free.

I really think the “evil oil companies” conspiracy theory is just nonsense.

The commercial potential of a genuine new power source or means of propulsion are just too huge to ever be suppressed.

Plus its not like the oil companies wouldn’t continue to make money out of oil if we all drove cars powered by fairy dust. As others have pointed out there are lots of alternative profitable uses of oil.

Well you don’t see many people walking around with good alternatives for oil fueled cars do you? Where are all these people?

Bottom of an oil well, that’s where.

As the prisons are filling up and expensive to run, why don’t we have community chariots pulled by criminals and poor people?

right this thing about oil companies
I have in the past worked for an NGO negotiating primarily with exxon
they are truely the biggest bastards ive ever had to speak to
closely followed by british american tobacco
have a look at what phillip morris do on exxons behalf (its pro oil PR)

@richmtb
“evil oil companies” conspiracy theory is not even conspiracy there are just too many examples to choose from. i can only assume you re either a retard, havent actually looked or trolling

in the UK the govt doesnt tell us about the subsidy it gives to the oil industry because of ‘national security’ (!) basically its enormous…

whats left is hard to get thus expensive and as a result more polluting

tar sands extraction and gas tech like fracking simply show we are past peak and cost will simply spiral from here until it all comes crashing down

shit they are talking about fracking under paris on french tv atm
saying it might cause 1cm of subsidence city wide but that is supposedly manageable!!! 🙄

I leave my car on the drive all week and ride to work then use the car to go out on my bike every Sunday sure there must be a contradication in there somewhere.

Reasons to ride a motor-bike –

Who would learn to drive if they were 20 right now?? Insurance is what 1-2k? Fuel heading towards 1.50gbp, parking 8 quid a day in most cities. Roads are still full up though! I used to love cars, though the best I could afford was an Impreza, but other than trips into the mountains, driving is 90% a miserable experience now. The “freedom” a car brings is quickly disappearing whilst the costs get higher and higher. I;d imagine if they dropped tax, the roads would just get more congested?

Got my middle son a scooter, on the road insured, taxed and with all his riding gear for less than one years’ insurance cost for my elder son. And no need for dozens of driving lessons, just a one day CBT.

And 100mpg.

When no one can afford petrol, maybe everyone will ride bicycles

I hope not.

I can’t imagine what a pain in the arse my commute would be if there were dozens and dozens of other bikes around, mostly nodders, getting in the way, going too slow, wobbling along …

“evil oil companies” conspiracy theory is not even conspiracy there are just too many examples to choose from.

Who buys this oil exactly?

Why don’t we build housing on top of hills and workplaces at the bottom? That way, you wouldn’t need to use any energy to commute into work, you could just use gravity, which is an infinitely renewable resource.

We could fit the cars and buildings with big magnets.
When you want to go to work, the poles of the magnets are set so they pull you there. When you want to go home, turn the magnet round so they repel.

Why bother with magnets Ian? Use all that stored energy…

Bungee cord is where its at… Twang the way home….

Good point! and it explains why the with oil companies have been secretly buying up all the rubber plantations.

I heard they were trying to buy leith hill…

I hope not.

I can’t imagine what a pain in the arse my commute would be if there were dozens and dozens of other bikes around, mostly nodders, getting in the way, going too slow, wobbling along …

+1 😆

I have reduced my miles by about 150/200 a week and plan to buy a more economical vehicle but I have limited choices and a limited budget. As i live in a caravan and work in rural areas and have to go off road daily. I can’t really come up with a practical solution 🙁

What kind of off road? What’s your job?

and have to go off road daily. I can’t really come up with a practical solution

very capable off-road

I really think the “evil oil companies” conspiracy theory is just nonsense.

The commercial potential of a genuine new power source or means of propulsion are just too huge to ever be suppressed.

Plus its not like the oil companies wouldn’t continue to make money out of oil if we all drove cars powered by fairy dust. As others have pointed out there are lots of alternative profitable uses of oil.

+1, just doesn’t add up. The internet makes it impossible to suppress information like that- Wikileaks anyone- and why wouldn’t some other massive non-oil company buy up this magic technology to sell it?

@richmtb
“evil oil companies” conspiracy theory is not even conspiracy there are just too many examples to choose from. i can only assume you re either a retard, havent actually looked or trolling

I’m not suggesting big oil is the most virtuous industry industry on the face of the planet. I know deep down I’m filling my car with the tears of Iraqi children. My point is just because some dickhead in a shed (well lots of dickhead’s in sheds – what’s the collective known for dickheads – a forum perhaps) claims they have produced an engine that can do 1000mpg or run on toffee apples but is being suppressed by the “evil oil companies” doesn’t make it true.

Serious companies like Honda are spending billions on alternative power sources for vehicles and every manufacturer is desperate to increase the fuel economy of the vehicles becuase they know it will help them sell them.

Of course it could be that I am actually a puppet of the shadow government, in the employ of Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Bilderbergs, the Iluminati and the Zionists

seosamh77 – Member
34 and still no licence, and no intention of getting one! Has always been purely a financial decision for me, don’t want the cost of maintenance or petrol. Don’t miss it as I’ve never had it.

This – Never had a car ever, never even started one and no intention of ever doing so.

The only reason I could see for getting one is for going to a trailcentre, but that’s not enough to warrant one, surely?

or getting to the alps (a really big trail centre).

or just having a good old explore around this beautiful island we live on.

cars are ace.

or getting to the alps (a really big trail centre).

or just having a good old explore around this beautiful island we live on.

cars are ace.

For those things, yeah. For clogging up our town centres, not so much.
Cars aren’t going anywhere soon, but hopefully the role they play in our lives will change and there’ll start to be a shift towards using them for the things they make sense for, rather than by default.

I’ve never owned a car either, and I’d like to see car share outfits becoming more prominent and changing the model away from ownership and all of the associated problems that come with that.

I’ve never owned a car either, and I’d like to see car share outfits becoming more prominent and changing the model away from ownership and all of the associated problems that come with that

I think we’re set for shit loads of deals for renting/leasing electric and hybrid cars
folks are just put off with things like battery replacement costs etc. so I expect renting leasing to become the norm

I don’t think fuel is expensive. This is coming from someone who until recently was commuting 90 miles a day. A decade ago my car did half the mpg my car does today and fuel is twice the price. No difference.

See zipcar 🙂

Personally if I had to commute by car I’d be looking for a mentally economical car right now, as it stands my fuel bill is pretty crazy for not commuting but I do live in the Cambridge area where fuel is notoriously expensive.

The website linky above suggests that we’ve only got 1.3trillion barrels of oil left – or about 40 years worth. That’s a low estimate, but it’s thereorthereabouts.

According to that website there are approximately 1283689350000 barrels left at 88000000 per day usage that is 14 587 days or ~ 40 years.

However this assumes we use the same amount of oil today as we will tomorrow. A very large proportion of the world is rapidly developing demanding more stuff, travelling more e.t.c. WE currently have a very low rate of increase of oil usage. Here we have 1.8%, with a rising world population the chance of oil use flat lining is very low.

At 1.8% growth rate is takes 38 years for the consumption to double. So by the 39th year we will need to find twice as much per year, but of course by this point we will have used far more oil than the current estimates, which even if they doubled would not be very significant. As others have said oil is far more important to use driving.

The biggest thing the government could do to peoples use of petrol use / miles driven would be to reform the planning laws that have encouraged car use.

Out of town shopping centres and business parks, free parking and frequently requiring a trip into a town centre and then out again for access via public transport if possible at all. Poorly designed sprawling housing estates that still feel crowded.