We are already too late for a general and orderly transition to renewable energy. Peak oil has happened already. It happened in 2005. The production of conventional oil has declined ever since. The recovery of liquids from natural gas and the mining of tar sands is stretching out the peek and made it look like a broad plateau but primary oil production is falling. Mining oil sands is the next best alternative. Creating oil from tar and bitumen requires a huge investment in physical plant and the application of huge amounts of energy. It is also a very slow labor intensive process.

The most likely outcome is a long slow painful decline in population and living standards until the remnant can live on whatever is left. The four horsemen of the apocalypse will be loose and everyone will suffer. We can still transition to a fairly affluent post oil economy but it will cost lives. However life in many areas will be short mean and medieval. Modern weapons systems will fail due to general lack of resources to support them. Working Gothic weapons are better than broken modern weapons.

Civilization will be lost in many areas and modern weapons may become useless due to a shortage of mundane items such as bullets. Your fallback weapons should be those that do not require smokeless powder to operate. You may or may not need a fallback but the security of having one is priceless if you need it. Medieval or Gothic weapons may not have the reach of Modern weapons but if ammunition is in short supply...

Nobody will outlaw guns but only the rich will be able to afford the expense of using them except in self defense. There will still plenty of guns but things like smokeless powder and explosives which are made with petroleum or the energy in petroleum will be in short supply. A knife, sword or other Gothic weapon would be a welcome addition to an arsenal that is likely to be short of bullets.

If we are lucky things will come back some. Farms will be more self sufficient and production will become more local. Algae ponds will be big. You can press algae for vegetable oil and feed what’s left to your pigs. Vegetable oil when used with a little chemical magic is diesel. Diesel is the ability to haul loads to the railroad or use the mechanized equipment that were bought before civilization fell.

I should mention that more than two billion people are likely to die as the world adjusts to solar power and renewable energy. It will not go easy because the political idiots are more interested in buying votes than solving problems. Peak oil happened in 2005 yet the party is likely to continue until 2009 or 2010 when things really start to fall apart.

Solar, wind and water power will be the tickets that made a new generation of very rich lords and ladies. They have the resources to hire guards and the guards can easily become private armies. The rest is repetition of recent medieval history. Weapons will be a mixed lot depending on what may survive in each area. Some will have modern weapons but others will have more medieval or Gothic weapons.

New gangs will displace the old ones. That’s right governments are simply the biggest baddest gang in an area. The ones with smart leaders farm the peasants taking less than they could and allow the industrious to become wealthy.

Expect the change to renewable energy to accelerated global warming at least in the short run. The haze from incomplete combustion is partially offsetting the effect of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. We are so screwed. The cure will subject us to a perhaps fatal heat stroke.