Computers vs. peak oil

Computers have become entwined in our daily lives.  Imagine, if you can, a day in which you didn't interact with a computer in some form or another.  Media, communication, personal finance, and commerce have become reliant on these technologies for success.  Will personal computers remain so readily available to everyone indefinitely?  It is easy to extrapolate form past experiences.  Computers have become steadily cheaper and more powerful for decades, but there is no real guarantee that this trend will continue.  This has also been confined mostly to Western Europe and the Anglophone nations, with computers remaining widely unavailable in developing nations.

Petroleum is very important in the manufacturing of electronics.  Over 40% of the chemicals used for creating semi-conducting devices rely on petroleum in some aspect of their manufacturing.  It is true that in most of these cases substitutes exist, but we don't rely heavily on these substitutes for a reason—either they are more expensive or cannot meet current demands.  Without cheap petroleum, manufacturing of semi-conductors will also rise in price, which will adversely effect the supply of these machines.

The energy requirements for producing electronics is enormous.  For example, one study found that manufacturing a laptop requires between 3000 and 4000 megajoules of energy—the equivalent of 24 and 32 gallons of gasoline, respectively.  Furthermore, these products often contain plastic components, in an effort to reduce costs.  Plastic can be replaced with metals, such as aluminium—many high-end models already use these materials.  But, this increases the price of products, as metals are harder to shape than plastics and are more expensive, in general.

Personal computers will remain available, even as petroleum supply dwindles; however, it is reasonable to expect that the price of these machines will likely increase.  Businesses will continue to rely on computing to run efficient operations, and the wealthy may have access to personal computers.  However, the poor may have to rely on publicly available machines—such as those at libraries.  This may have the effect of widening the gap between these groups of people, contributing to greater levels of wealth inequality.