Oil depletion and the world of tomorrow

(Part of something I've been working on...)

6 score earlier, the United States was told by a scientist that Oil depletion was inevitable. At the time, some people invested in alternative forms of energy, such as solar. But the craze died out and by the 1980’s the issue was largely forgotten. In 1998, the issue was brought back to the attention of few. The year 2020 seemed so science fiction to people in the 1970’s.

By 2020 the largely ignored initial effects had firmly taken hold. Agriculture, “the act of turning petro-chemicals into food,” was incapable of playing catch-up, as the environment moves at natures pace.

To say society broke down is inaccurate. At the time, however, that’s exactly how people viewed it. Most people tend to view first time events of their life time as first time events in history. What happened to the people of the mid-21^st century was a return to the mid-19^th century. Oil was the only difference between the two periods of time.

Gaining the advantages of oil certainly was easier than losing them. The internal combustion engine…the thing that makes a car move, requires oil. Gasoline, the motive fuel, is refined from oil. Without oil, the engine will seize. Transmission fluid and Radiator fluid cannot be made without oil, and therefore is, oil. It takes 7 gallons of oil to manufacture one automobile tire.

Airplanes use jet fuel. Jet fuel cannot be made without oil. Farms are fertilized by Ammonium Sulfate, which is derived from oil. Plastic cannot be made without oil and therefore is oil. Look around you in the year 2011. Do you see anything made of plastic nearby?

By 2053, the periods known as “early worst” many of the suburban cities were financially insolvent. Oil had made it possible for people to move from true cities and farms into suburbs. Suburbs were heavily dependent on oil. The asphalt of highways to get there is made from oil. The waster water treatment plants that processed the sewage relied on oil. The police officers and firefighters used vehicles that required oil. When oil ran out, it ran out for everyone, including emergency services and hospitals.

People reacquired long lost skills. They learned how to make soap and toothpaste.

And, they continued to make other people. In 1880 the US Population was 92 million. In 2010 it was 308 million. The population grew by 216 million in the 100 year period between 1910 and 2010. The World as a whole had a population of around 375 million at the time of the Black Death and reached one billion around 1804. Although it took more than one hundred years to reach two billion, the population went from 3 billion to 7 billion in only 50 years.

9 Billion people were on earth in 2046.