No you laid out some alternatives that seem rational and like any numbers cruncher, I like all numbers equally. I don't believe in "wedges" or whatever you call them, but pressure to obtain less fossil fuel energy as population activity grows 2-3 percent a year certainly will present some major roadblocks.

Nature doesn't have wedges or feed-back loops, it just is what it is. I care not what you call the "do-loop" in your computer program.

But the real crisis - and I wonder why people aren't seeing it this way - is that we have a dire energy crisis on our hands. Everyone made fun of Jimmy Carter as President because he recommended turning down the thermostat and wearing a sweater. My dad worked with Jimmy for a while and found him to be something of an engineering genius - a liability if you're a politician because Americans hate smart people, especially the doofy ones

So here we are again, and this time it is going to hurt three times worse ... maybe get better for a while ... and then go FUBAR. Call it what you want, it simply means that deliveries of fossil fuels like crude oil, natural gas, and coal will start declining based on price, supply, and demand that if graphed go off the map in three directions. Personally, I do not believe in "peak oil" because that is a political buzzword phrase. But we all know the intention and meaning ...

Onward through the fog

Joe, I'm with you on most of this stuff, certainly I agree with the broad theories you advance.  But I question peak oil and coal - we've been hearing about peak oil for decades.  What happens?  Oil technology gets better (horizontal drilling, shale oil, tar sands, etc.) and whammo, the peak is pushed off.  I suspect the same would be true for some crafty coal companies - if the price is right, they'll get the damn coal.  It's not a pretty thought, but it is the historical truth.  

Moreover, your scenario leaves out many alternatives, which I firmly believe will be in play in 2020 - fuel cells, solar thermal, geothermal, etc. etc. - all of which you know, since you post on this stuff regularly.  Both distributed gen and centralized gen technologies will improve.  So while your models are fine with the many assumptions you make, they ignore a lot of stuff.  I'm not sure you can draw a conclusion when so much is left out of the analysis.  Perhaps you have plans to address this in future posts.  

  We may not be at the original definition of peak oil, 50% of all recoverable oil gone, or possibly not even at the more recent definition, maximum production rate, but its looks like the future of fossil fuels is supply constrained. If we look around the world the past few months have seen power problems, often related to coal plants in South Africa, Pakistan, China, and much of SE Asia. It does look like at least for the better grades, that coal supply can't meet demand. Given the massive expansion of vehicle ownership in the developing world, which is likely to substantially accelerate with the  $2500 Tata Nano, even if oil production can be raised to say 95MBpd (we are currently at 87), the price is almost certainly going to be bid up even higher.

  I don't think the naysayers understand the fact that oil (and other resources) tend to be distributed in a manner such that the difficulty of extraction follows a log normal distribution. That means that the difficulty of extraction can vary by orders of magnitude from field to field. The easier deposits get developed first. With oil the problem is not that we've used up 50%, but rather that the easiest 40% was much much easier to extract than the rest. If the new stuff was only two or three times as tough as the easy stuff, technology could readily cope, but I think it is probably more like 50 times tougher. Given finite oil field development resources, especially of experienced personell, it may not be possible to maintain current production rates. Reserves may sound big on paper, but if we can't get at it quickly enough, scarcity pricing will prevail.

Biomass (combined plants, agricultural, human and other animal 'waste') of about 10 million tons per day.

And don't forget there are an estimated 2-3 trillion trees that haven't been cleared yet!

Joe, Any room for a 'Case 3' in your scenarios in which the world population could be 'decimated' within the next 5-7 years due to war, collapsing ecosystems, food, water and topsoil shortages, disease ...  

I doubt estimates that show energy consumption will double in the next 50 years. Higher prices will price people out of the market or otherwise force conservation.

Poor field hands in China aren't going to be able to afford $4/gallon gas nor will Americans be able to afford $10/gallon gas and drive as many miles as they currently do. $10 a therm natural gas will promote dramatically better insulation, and people keeping their heat much lower. $1/KwH electricity, likewise will cut down on demand, dramatically.

High prices are the future if too many people demand energy. Price is driven by demand. That's why coal used to be so cheap -- nobody really wanted to coal as it was difficult to burn cleanly, and difficult to transport. Oil and natural gas became the preferred fuel in the second half of the 20th future for that reason.

High prices are a natural check on consumption. The world money supply is not limitless, much less any individual. People will only consume as much energy as they can afford -- if they consume more, then they will rapidly run out of credit, and the lights will go dark.