Oil headed for 70 bucks s barrel. Here we go.

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
The "end of oil" people are the same ones who in the 80's expected their new 2010 commuter vehicle to fly them to work on a "Mr Fusion" powerplant.

Yes technology will eventually make advances and change how we do things.
And switching to electric vehicles MAY eventually make sense. BUT you still need a source of the electricity as well as a means of supplying it. Both of which have proved daunting because of enviro whacko's fighting against the sources and the maintenance and construction of the delivery systems.
A house requires a solar panel set nearly as large as the home. How do you fit that into a population dense area like LA? And businesses, factories, they require many times their footprint in solar coverage to function.
So after complaining that "It's the worlds air, and that we all breathe the same air" you move the production to somewhere that you don't see them. They are still there, pumping out as many pollutants as ever, but you get to pat yourself on the back because YOU cant see them.
And you compound the issue by then having to install delivery systems to bring that power from many miles away into your area. And with another group of greenies demanding you not disturb brush, you get the new joy of wildfires caused in large part by the very people that did all of this to save the environment.

Until you get that "Mr Fusion" or some other technology functional on a large AND economical scale, big oil will be here. Personally I hope for Hydrogen cells, but something will come.
They may be pumping natural gas in many regions, but some source that can be readily transported will still be needed.

The heck with population density being a factor in sunny Southern California, how about the population density in the Eastern Cities where high rise apartments are the dominate domicile and the sun isn't shining as brightly and as often as it does in Southern Cal. Covering the entire city of New York with a seamless array of solar panels would only provide a fraction of the power consumed, and where do you place the massive stockpile of batteries necessary to power the city at night and on days when the sun doesn't shine? And don't forget that those batteries will require SURPLUS solar generated power over and above the daytime usage to charge so the power generating needs during the daytime will need to be multiple times the actual daytime consumption. Solar may very well be a component of the power grids of the future, but it will likely be only part of the solution for at least this century.