Life without oil

 Oil is one of the most essential things of modern life, so important that wars have been fought to control oil. It is said that it was not about Saddam’s nukes but the oil. Every aspect of our life is affected by oil. The most obvious use which we use for is transportation. Petroleum by-products are used in hundreds of chemicals, tar, asphalt, lubes, wax, fertilizers, cosmetics, soaps, perfumes, plastic products, PVC products, carbon fiber, some medicines etc. Even the dresses we wear have some amount of oil by product. Some aspects of use of oil are obvious to us but most of its use is not known to use but we use it in our daily lives. But what would happen if it is exhausted which it will some day.

Profit from oil depends on its demand and supply. In 2013 while the world was coming out of the financial crisis, the 5 big oil companies of the world were generating a profit of near about 200,000 dollars of profit every minute. In Sudan, the militias launched genocide on the villagers who were sitting on the newly discovered oil fields and the govt ignored it, because the oil lobby were paying them in oil. No other thing even gold has created so much prosperity and misery at the same time.

The most obvious effect would be on our transportation. Still only a small percentage of people have shifted to electric cars. While we commute so much distance to work, but without oil people will have to give up those jobs and look for alternatives nearby. Non oil options like cycles will consume too much time to commute to jobs. Most of the specialized industries would have to build housing nearby to accommodate the highly specialized staff needed to run those industries. Even in the current situation only those businesses could function which had the ability to work online. Luckily the lights will be on as electricity is produced by coal, natural gas and nuclear energy. But even these consume some amount of oil and the transport of coal and gas will get affected.

Countries which would have shifted to nuclear and other renewable source of power will be in the best position to adjust to the change. Transportation would have to shift to electricity. Consuming natural gas instead of oil will take time as the technology not fully developed. Without oil there would be food scarcity and famine. The agriculture production would drastically reduce and transportation of food to the nearby supermarket would not be possible. This would also create riots to horde the limited supply food. There will be a mass migration from the cities to the villages to be near to the food production. This reverse migration would be met with anger by the original residents as it would stretch the limited food supply of those people.

Life would shift to the pre industrial age lifestyle. But with the increased population and fewer yields due to non availability of agricultural machinery and fertilizers, the quantity, quality and the variety of food grains would be seriously affected. All those fashionable and exotic food will be replaced by cereals like wheat, barley and rice. Countries completely dependent on oil production economy will face a social and economic collapse. There will be mass migration from these oil dependent countries and will lead to both civil and external war. Even war will be affected without oil. ll the high-tech weapons will be useless and fighting would again be in the old world style. Cities like Dubai are an example of the preparation for the future oil less economy.

For individuals the living conditions and salary will get down and most of the oil based things which we use today will be a thing of the past. The world economy will be completely shaken. Its effect will be more devastating in the developing economies like China and India as their industries will suffer and coupled with it, it has the highest population in the world. The developed economies will also suffer but they will be in a better position to adjust and shift to a non oil based economy.

But it will not be a complete catastrophe for mankind and man will start the long and painful transition from an oil based life to a non oil based life utilising renewable resources. Natural gas will slowly replace oil. Though natural gas is as efficient as oil but it has the capability to power our progress. Though it is cleaner than oil but it releases methane which will hasten the green house effect. Once when even the natural gas gets exhausted and the climate disaster due to it, which will take a few lifetimes, things, will start to settle down in the new reality.

Oil has fueled the development in the last few centuries. Without oil we would not have seen the speed of development we see today. But oil that led to such progress for mankind will in itself be the cause of the next catastrophe. With new reserves being discovered that time may be a century away. But unless we make a shift starting from now, we will be making the greatest mistake for the development of our future. But we with our short sighted views and selfish agendas are not really good at making good decisions which would affect things beyond our life time. Forget the outer space exploration, going to meet our relatives living 10 miles down the road would be decision we would think 10 times before embarking on that journey.