Without oil would the world gradually revert back to feudal times?

Question

Without oil would the world gradually revert back to feudal times?

Answer 1

Why would it go that far back? Oil only started to be used around 100 years ago for the things we use it for now, and only around 50 years ago with the ferocity that we use it today. If anything, things will revert to more or less the turn of the last century, except we will have 100 years of technological, scientific, medical, and social innovations to make it much less dreary.

Answer 2

no...it's like pandora'ss box has been opened!

Answer 3

no.. there would be nothing gradual about it.. it would be almost overnight...

no oil means no plastics.. no flights no fuel not trains planes or automobiles...

almost no city in the world is self sustaining... food/water riots would occur in a matter of weeks...

Answer 4

No. Remember that there are other alternative energy sources such as solar energy, windmills, ethanol, hydrogen, nuclear energy and....monkeys! Yes, we can let monkey do all the work instead of using fossil fuels to power machinery :>)

Answer 5

If we ran out of oil you would probably see the return of steam engines that run on coal.

http://cache.virtualtourist.com/3107687-...

Answer 6

No, The danger is not a gradual reversion to older times but the damage that can be done to the worlds economy and its ability to provide things like the energy necessary to provide important services and transportation of the required things for public health, safety and industry.  

No government will voluntarily allow these things to just fade away because they don't have the needed fossil fuel to support them but there is a time period required for the transition to alternative fuel sources both for the research needed to refine the options and make them more efficient (and cheaper) and also in the building of infrastructure ie, converting gas stations to hydrogen stations and setting up delivery mechanisms, converting existing fleets of mass transit (busses etc) and police and medical vehicals over to it.  

Im not saying hydrogen is the solution just using it as an example here.

We will hopefully be able to convert to a combination of solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, hydrogen based and other alternative fuels before we actually run out of oil.  

The problem I forsee is that before the government is motivated enough to really ignore big oil's lobbiests and seriously invest in the alternatives we will see the already exorbitant price of oil wreak even more damage on our currently screwed up economy.  Even if we made the decision   to totally switch off of oil today it will take years to successfully make the transition.  As fast as gas is going up imagine how bad its going to be even just three years from now.  

I now ride my motorcycle to work as much as possible (weather permitting) because it gets twice the MPG as my car but dude, Im gonna have to trade in my mountain bike for a fast, light road bicycle because if it gets much higher I'm not even going to want to fill up my MC's little gas tank.  I'm gonna be pedaling the 17 miles to work each day (or moving closer).  At least it will make us all get into better shape!  It will either kill suburbia or force virtual commutes where we all work from home on our own computers...  There will be big changes coming, just not the ones you were worrying about...

As to Greshnab's comments,  They are right in that if we ran out tomorrow we would be in a serious problem where we would lack a lot of the modern materials we need to manufacture goods that we all take for granted today, but as an industrial designer I am intimatly aquainted with new trends in the materials and the processes used to make goods.  Most industries are already looking for alternative materials and slowly shifting off of over reliance on petrolium based manufacturing.  You don't see it on shelves so much because they are still expensive but we already know or are doing the needed research into where we can go for those things.  We could farm natural latex and mix it with either recycled petrol based rubbers or other plant based fillers to make tires for example.  We have a lot of alternatives.  Again it needs to be gradual so we have time for the transition but it will be ok and corporate money will finance the transition or their bottom line will evaporate.  They WILL NOT let that happen.  Our biggest problem right now is the rapidity of the escalation in oil pricing both as a result of the competition for consumption we see from China and to a lesser degree India and even more due to the fact that global trading of oil futures based on say a threat to Nigerian oil facilities by some terrorist group creating a volatile market price and driving the price up artificially (faster than actual supply and demand would).

I hope that answers your question and isnt too confusing...

Answer 7

No, we would prblay switch to nulcuer energy and find some way of implementing that into oil as a handful of oil can provide the same ammount of energy as oil can for a 100 years.

Answer 8

NO.We would just find alternative energy faster.

Answer 9

It is highly unlikely that we would revert to feudal times.  At most, we would revert to the pre-industrial age just before oil became available in large quantities.

It is more likely that we will find different fuels to satisfy our needs.  Our lifestyle would definitely change though.  Everything we consider to be commonplace would be altered considerably:  transportation, food products, clothing, chemicals, etc.  How our lives will change will depend primarily on the economics of the alternatives to oil.

Answer 10

No, just the opposite, we could advance again rather than being held in limbo by those who control the energy markets of the world.

In 1950's they developed a nuclear powered car.  Get your tank filled every ten years.  With oil you have to fill every week so they went with that cause it makes you more money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleo...