For Shell, Oil Is Past Its Peak

[Torie]

If it is true that even when the payoff would be massive, technological innovation this time will be a "fail" as it never has been before, despite huge expenditures to try to effect it, the doctrine of substitution  of demand kicks in. We will work remotely even more than the huge changes we have seen in the past few years, we will live in densely populated settings, we will use public transportation, and housing will be airtight and insulted to minimize the energy consumption of climate control. Energy hogging activities and preferences will become much more expensive, and people will adjust accordingly. Heck I remember when fresh fish was as cheap as chicken, and you could find abalone on the menu. And shrimp was expensive, before pond technology was developed to grow them. The thing is, is that one's sense of well being is not that all that degraded by changing one's diet to make it more cost effective.

So even if I had another 40 years ahead of me (I don't obviously), I don't foresee a catastrophe here. What is important is that the price changes be gradual enough, so the transition is not catastrophic, and extremely expensive. We cannot all decamp from exurbs or rural areas far from public transportation overnight. So if gas went up to $50 per gallon in a year, then yes, "Houston we have a problem - a black hole has captured us, and this will be out last communication."