The World Economy is living on borrowed time. As long as cheap oil (and $50 per barrel is cheap) continues to dominate the energy picture, few alternatives are being developed or deployed. When the cheap oil runs out, the World Economy will strangle suddenly and collapse because of the lack of alternatives. The lead time to deploy sufficient alternative sources will not be available. Our present situation is similar to falling out of an airplane without a parachute. It is fun for a while, but the stop will be unpleasant.

What would help would be a reasonable depletion tax on native fossil fuels: Oil, Coal and Natural Gas. What I mean by "reasonable" is that such a level that alternative resources become at least marginally competitive. What is this level? It is approximately the price of unrefined vegetable oil, today about $2.50 to $3.00 per gallon (wholesale). Such vegetable oil can serve as a replacement for crude oil in present refining and cracking processes.

This translates as approximately $100 per barrel. (See What is a barrel of oil?) Currently, gasoline taxes in many countries ALREADY have brought the pump price up into the reasonable range, but this tax is in the WRONG PLACE. It is on the REFINED PRODUCT, instead of on the FEEDSTOCK.

Therefore, I propose that there be placed a general tax on crude oil of $50 per barrel, with equivalent taxes on other fossil fuels. These taxes will act as a parachute to slow our plunge toward disaster.