In my last post, I took a first look at a “big ticket” item that will clearly suffer from the effects of Peak Oil: sports.

I touched on just a few aspects among many (travel, revenue) that will be adversely affected by the onset of Peak Oil and the challenges that will have to be confronted once relatively inexpensive fossil fuel is no longer available to support the myriad organizational components of athletic competition. Of course, not every adverse affect on products or industries will be irreconcilable or as potentially dramatic in its scope as I suggested in that essay.

The history of our industrial success has in no small part been a result of our capacity to improve upon that which came before. There’s no question that perfectly acceptable substitutes may already exist for many products, or can be fashioned with a relatively small amount of effort. (Per my last post, I’m not inclined to believe that once the manufacturing of basketballs and footballs declines, we’ll never find appropriate and suitable replacements—but it will surely be much more difficult to maintain supply and meet demand with the same efficiencies.)

The challenge will be not just to find those replacements, with the time and effort and testing and marketing required of any new product, but more importantly, doing so with less fossil fuel energy to support that entire process. That’s where the real challenge comes: having systems/infrastructure already in place (and we’re not even close) that will allow for product alternatives and the processes by which they are designed, created, tested, marketed, transported, and successfully utilized—and accomplishing all of this with much less fossil fuel available from start to finish.

As I have alluded to previously, when worldwide demand exceeds the oil industry’s capacity to effectively and feasibly produce enough oil at acceptable prices—as Peak Oil assures us it will, if it isn’t doing so already—sacrifices at all levels, in all nations, for all citizens, and in all industries will be the end result. The way we’re heading right now, most of those sacrifices will fall on the involuntary side of the ledger. No one will be pleased with that.

You and I may insist that we be allowed to run all the errands we want each and every day, or travel to this place or another, or buy this or that product as and when desired, but when demand is regularly exceeding supply, changes and sacrifices are going to happen no matter how strenuous you or I insist to the contrary. (If it’s a choice between my local fire department having ready and immediate access to fuel for their vehicles and putting gas in one of my family’s four vehicles, it’s pretty clear to me who “loses”.) That means more changes in how we live our daily lives.

Shouldn’t we start thinking about this now, while it’s only a bit too late to be doing so?

And at the micro level, our day-to-day lives are going to change measurably. In many instances the changes will just be changes. Different certainly, but not necessarily better, and not necessarily worse. It won’t all happen overnight, of course, but change is assured.

Let’s take a much more mundane example than major sporting events and the relevant organizations: let’s consider toothpaste and toothpaste tubes. These items are among the thousands of products utilizing fossil fuels/crude oil in the course of their manufacturing processes. (When you get right down to it, if it’s a product being transported in the marketplace, it uses fossil fuels, so that doesn’t leave out too many items!)

Is it likely that we’ll still be able to brush our teeth every day even if crude oil is no longer part of the manufacturing mix? I’d hazard a safe guess and suggest that yes, we probably will. The packaging may have to be different, there may be some aspects of the texture or quality of toothpaste that changes, but for you and me, as long as we can go to the local store and get the tube (or vat or container or bottle or whatever will “house” the new toothpaste), we may not notice much difference if it tastes pretty much the same and does the job about as well as does our current brand.

But how many steps in the process leading to the placement of that product on the local store shelf are going to change because toothpaste producers and toothpaste tube manufacturers have to re-design or re-formulate or re-process those products—or the means by which they are transported in the marketplace? For a “simple” product such as toothpaste, it may not be such a big deal, and perhaps we won’t even notice the cost difference—or indeed any difference at all.

Can we expect that to be the case in all instances, for all products? Even fools twice over would have trouble believing that.

This is where Peak Oil’s impact becomes formidable. I can’t say that I’ll care a whole lot if ingredient XYZ becomes necessary in the manufacturing of my favorite toothpaste in place of whatever element of crude oil is now used. But I will care more if transporting my favorite tube becomes prohibitively expensive because Crest or Tom’s of Maine or Colgate can no longer afford necessary components in the processing and (especially) the delivery of that product, leaving me with the choice of chewing gum or relying on the one or two local merchants manufacturing their best attempt at a suitable substitute (and who do so with far less resources than the major manufacturers).

This likely manufacturing and delivery conversion is not going to just affect toothpaste….A small day-to-day inconvenience on that front, perhaps, but it isn’t going to begin and end there.

What happens then?