You're very right Grizzly1 "it's as nothing compared to the effect of peak oil on transportation". Certainly Peak Oil will affect individual transportation more dramatically than mains Electricity production, but as you acknowledged - the dynamics involved in mining coal & transporting it - the price pressures will still flow on. As Post Peak Oil gets really severe (like 10 years past Peak) it becomes both Logistically difficult & financially expensive to maintain a Mains Electricity Grid like the one we currently have. Inter-dependent Distribution is more intelligent & more sustainable. And I believe Peak Oil will force us to Embrace this change to an intelligent Inter-dependent Grid which can accomodate Fuel Cells, Solar PV systems, Solar-thermal Systems & large scale Wind farms. Remember that our economy also runs largely on Electricity (as well as Oil & Gas). So Embracing Renewables & high efficiency low-carbon technologies like Ceramic Fuel Cells is in our best interests if we wish to mitigate the problems Peak Oil will cause.
Personally I think Peak Oil is only 2 or 3 years away. Even the IEA is warning people about it. Only Iraq has the capacity to ramp up production enormously & unfortunately Iraq has alot of known problems which make 6 million barrels per day very difficult to achieve (although they certainly have the oil in the ground to achieve this. Just ask any Oil Geologist).
CFU Price at posting:
16.3¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
