"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

At $50-60 a barrel nuclear electric heating with heatpumps is cost
competitive.At over $150 a barrel even windmills can be argued for..

Electric trains start to be really cost competitive over diesel and short
haul flights. Rail freight starts to be cheap, although rail pricing is
such a complete muddle due to the way its subsidised (or not) that it
makes it very hard to say.

Rail freight is cheap when shifted in bulk. It is increasing and if the
rail infrastructure is there it would be used more. The port of Liverpool
now only has one rail line in to the port, when it had countless lines only
a few decades ago. The old Canada Dock tunnel and from it to the docks is
not being built on to give scope for re-use. The rail line into the
container terminal may require electrification to use the west coast main
line when the post-Panamax terminal is operational - ships too large for the
Panama canal. Only about 4 or 5 miles of electrification can put the trains
on the west coast main line, which means very fast overnight usage, and
using surplus power from power stations running at night - more eco and
economical in many ways.

Higher commuter costs for many people will switch the housing market away
from suburbia, back to short to medium inner city rental properties.

Rapid transit rail systems contributed to the decline of the inner-cities.
People could buy new homes on green-field sites on the outskirts get to and
from the centre super fast by rail and by-passing the inner-cities. For
e.g., the creation of Merseyrail (Liverpool's underground/overground metro
system) accelerated greatly in the inner-city decline around it's centre.
They never put stations in the inner-city districts, despite having
countless tunnels under the city and some under inner-city districts - the
tunnels were left unused while stations could have been cut into them.
London was not immune as Tower Hamlets and Hackney suffered the same fate.

This was predicted and councils/governments did not do enough for the
inner-cities when it was obvious they would become bottomless pits for money
in social handouts.

Those are the reasons I consider that oil has already passed its peak in
production. Not because its not still there, but because its getting too
expensive to be worth using.

So, get people living back in the city centres to avoid travelling.
Manchester and Liverpool are doing this, but both ignoring the immediate
inner-cities, which will come on-line eventually as energy gets expensive.