re: #106 Interesting Times

One of my old soapboxes was the word “oil”.

It is so abused.

What people really mean is liquid fuels.

The Peak Oil folk had their day in the sun - they were just too early and a bit too enthusiastic. The more serious ones had concluded that we’ll probably ride a long and bumpy plateau of petroleum production, and to supplement that liquid fuels will be made out of other items.

And that is where we are today - on a bumpy plateau.

By making automobiles more efficient, more people can use cars without significantly increasing liquid fuels. Many of the personal automobiles in the world use 1.6L or even 1.4L 4-cylinder engines. Here in America we are still addicted to overly-large vehicles, but we are atypical in that consumer item.