Eventually, oil will get so expensive that flying will no longer be affordable for the masses, unless technology fixes that.
What people seem to be blind to, is that the rising cost of Oil, if the price goes up massively as the Oil runs out as some predict, will not just affect the cost of petrol for road vehicles, or aviation fuel. It will have a catastrophic effect on the World's economic base and will have very serious implications for life as we know it.
The effect will be on and will jeopardise...
Food production, both cultivation and food processing/manufacturing.
Transportation of Food to the market place.
Increased costs to manufacturing and Industry.
Increased costs of raw materials, including Oil based products themselves.
Increased cost of clothing manufacturing, which is heavily dependant on Oil based materials.
Effect on the electronics industries who are heavily dependant on Oil base materials as well as in the manufacturing processes.
Increased transport costs for all goods, by all means, road, rail, air and by sea.
Increased costs for power generation.
Construction is also heavily dependant on petrol/diesel.
All these activities will be impacted and the increased costs will not affect economic activity in a linear way, but is likely to be uneven and likely to skew the viability of much business activity.
This will inevitably lead to a change in the patterns of global economic activity.
It will affect many areas including the end of, shut down or collapse of certain sectors of business activity.
The resulting prospects for employment and the potential knock on effect looks quite scary. It has all the hallmarks of a Domino Effect if not managed effectively.
In a worst case scenario, with the scale of disruption, it will totally bankrupt governments as their income streams will largely dry up. No prospect of dole money or benefits, or the ability to support the same level of health care provision.
So rather than the cost of Oil rising to very high levels, making flying unaffordable to most and forcing us all out of cars and onto trains, the prospect is of a different scenario, where there won't be as much need for trains.
I type this on a keyboard, made mostly out of Oil.
The PC contains lots of Oil based components. Oil was used in its manufacture, the manufacture of its packaging, transportation from the other side of the world, the design, marketing and sales etc, etc.
The chair I'm sitting on contains Oil based foam and is clad in Oil based man made fibre material.
The clothes I'm wearing include items that have Oil based man made fibres in them. Again, Oil was involved in the manufacture, transportation, sales etc, etc,
I'm shortly going to get in my car and drive to the shops to buy some groceries.
The manufacture of the car involved oil. It contains lots of Oil based plastics, components, plastic insulated wiring blah blah; and of course needs Oil to power it. I could walk.
The food and other groceries were all dependant on Oil for there cultivation, farming, manufacturing, processing, packaging, transportation (several stages), marketing and sales.
Our homes, our places of work, towns, cities and the general environment are awash with products derived from Oil and Oil made it all possible.
The whole modern world is based on and revolves around Oil and our lives, employment and the world's economy are totally dependant on it.
Sorry to rant on folks, but if you haven't already done so, do give it some thought.
