PEAK OIL

[Xeroshoes]

Originally posted by Lonesome Cowboy Bill@Mar 23 2006, 10:25 PM

"...And I don't think geothermal energy could really power the world for a long period of time."

 

 

 

explain? heat from the earth's core won't supply for a long time, but rocks created by the core will?

 

 

have you ever studied physics or geology?

Quoted post

 

 

Actually I'm a physics major and my dad, a nuclear chemist, has told me some things about energy...In any case I was partly admitting my ignorance of this specific subject...it's just that in all of the scientific reading I've done I've never seen geothermal energy well argued as anything more than a supplemental power source. I won't claim I know everything about it, and I'm sure geothermal energy can be harnassed well... what I meant to say is that it can't supply our major energy needs in the same way that oil does now. Nuclear power, as things currently stand, according to my dad, is really one of our best and safest options; it's really not as bad as people think it is. I'm sure geothermal energy will be important in the future, but from what I understand hydrogen is more promising, if only because hydrogen fuel cells can power automobiles while, as far as I'm aware, geothermal energy can't.

[Xeroshoes]

Originally posted by im not witty@Mar 23 2006, 11:50 PM

oh and for the person who said this wouldnt be a big issue. it is concievable that we can handle it. but the problem is for a problem that looms so large we arent starting on it NOW>

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Ok...scientists have been developing hydrogen fuel cells, as well as other energy sources, for a long time. Once oil reserves drop, and prices go up, the ecomonic incentive to begin manufacturing hydrogen cars and implement hydrogen "filling station" sort of infrastructure will increase...hydrogen can also be used to provide other power needs...also, we have the technology and the ability to build more solar cells, geothermal plants (I guess,) wind farms, and nuclear plants. I don't believe that human society has the capability to act with enough self-counscious foresight to simply switch the energy infrastructure like you're saying we need to. What I'm saying is economic pressures will guide the development of our energy infrastructure, it's not like one day the oil will suddenly all be gone and we won't be prepared at all. As peak oil begins to effect us economically, necessary adjustments will be made. Mankind has been around for a long time, and, looking at it with some historical perspective, I don't see peak oil as an impending catastrophe so much as a herald of technological and societal adjustment or, possibly, revolution. There is no secret society of oil tycoons sitting in a secret mansion somewhere laughing about how they're going to squeeze as much money as possible out of the oil industry so they can die fat and happy while everyone else descends into anarchy and destroys themselves...there just doesn't seem to be any historical precedent.

[KaBar2]

Want to beat the oil-igarchy at their own game? Don't buy any. Who gives a shit if it's $50 a gallon, if you don't buy any? Ride a bicycle. It's cheap to buy, free to operate and better for your health.

 

Gotta go coast-to-coast? No problem. Greyhound. Or hop trains.

 

Gotta haul all your crap from one apartment to the other? Rent a truck for the weekend. Haul it. Turn the truck back in. Laugh all the way home on your bicycle.

 

I'm stupid. I have a job eighteen miles from my home. I get to sit in traffic for an hour each way during rush hour, moving ten miles an hour (or usually a lot less) while I drink tea from a travel cup and listen to National Public Radio both ways. On days when "All Things Considered" is lousy, I switch to KPFT 90.1 FM and listen to the communists complain, or 91.7 FM and listen to country and western oldies. Very few of the rest of the radio stations in Houston are worth bothering to turn the radio on for.

 

I'm spending about $200 a month on gasoline. It's idiocy. I could ride the bus. (I wouldn't mind, but the weather in Houston is SHITTY, it's always too fucking humid, raining, hot as the Hubs of Hell, etc. The only respite we get is in the early spring and late fall. The rest of the year, the weather here sucks ass.)

There is no place to shower or change clothes where I work (well, there is, but not for staff, only for patients) so riding a bike is pretty much out of the question. Besides, eighteen miles each way is a hell of a bike ride to make rain or shine.

 

I could get a job closer to home, but I have a great job now, and I don't want to fuck it up. I own my house, so I'm not moving.

 

Bottom line, like everybody else, I like he idea of "living green," but it's pretty much "too much trouble" right now. Now, if gas was ten bucks a gallon . . . I guess I'd ride the bus, and put up with the heat and the humidity and the shit weather. So since I would do that if the pump ran dry, why can't I just do it anyway?

[Lonesome Cowboy Bill]

yeah I hear ya kabar, I work doing envirnmental shit, and yet I commute 45 miles each way everyday...so ironic

[ODS-1]

I love how whenever someone mentions alternative fuels environmentalists point out some problem with them too. We have to use energy. I'm definitely saying that we should keep using the insane amount we are now, but honestly, I'm not going to ride a bike every single place I go. Trains are nice, but I don't think people want to go back to the time where it took 2 days to get from New York to LA.

[Guest im not witty]

Originally posted by ODS-1@Mar 26 2006, 12:49 AM

I love how whenever someone mentions alternative fuels environmentalists point out some problem with them too. We have to use energy. I'm definitely saying that we should keep using the insane amount we are now, but honestly, I'm not going to ride a bike every single place I go. Trains are nice, but I don't think people want to go back to the time where it took 2 days to get from New York to LA.

Quoted post

 

[Lonesome Cowboy Bill]

Originally posted by ODS-1@Mar 25 2006, 07:49 PM

I love how whenever someone mentions alternative fuels environmentalists point out some problem with them too. We have to use energy. I'm definitely saying that we should keep using the insane amount we are now, but honestly, I'm not going to ride a bike every single place I go. Trains are nice, but I don't think people want to go back to the time where it took 2 days to get from New York to LA.

Quoted post

 

 

what are talking about? it used to take a year to get to la from nyc...

[ODS-1]

Originally posted by im not witty+Mar 26 2006, 10:55 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (im not witty - Mar 26 2006, 10:55 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-ODS-1@Mar 26 2006, 12:49 AM

I love how whenever someone mentions alternative fuels environmentalists point out some problem with them too. We have to use energy. I'm definitely saying that we should keep using the insane amount we are now, but honestly, I'm not going to ride a bike every single place I go. Trains are nice, but I don't think people want to go back to the time where it took 2 days to get from New York to LA.

Quoted post

 

Quoted post

[/b]

Did I deny that climate change exists? Fuck no. What I am saying is that whenever some new cleaner energy source comes out there's always someone who has to point out a problem with it, while they don't bother to list any other alternatives to the energy sources we use now.

[KaBar2]

Not on a train Bill, unless you're thinking of a WAGON train, LOL.

 

Sure, people are all focused on what's convenient, but what they want comes at a price. The U.S. uses way too much of the world's available energy, mainly for convenience. To go to the store three blocks away, we drive. This is dumb.

 

Most Americans are spoiled rotten, but not for long. We are about to be inundated by the rest of the world, and by 2050, it will be like living in the Third World. You guys will be about to retire. I'll be gone, but my daughter and her family will be living in a world of shit.

 

Either YOUR GENERATION wakes up and makes some realistic, pragmatic changes, or you will be living in a world very much like exists today in Mexico City. Pollution and smog out the ass. No clean water, and big problems with municipal infrastructure like water, sewer and power. Land line telephones will be virtually non-existant. Traffic will be jam-packed, choking and anarchic. Public transport will be PACKED like sardines. Privately owned vehicles will be extremely expensive to purchase and to operate. Medical care will be extremely expensive and difficult to obtain for the average person, but there will be cosmetic surgeons and specialists falling all over the super-rich.

 

All airborne transmissible diseases will be out of control because of the close living conditions. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, various flues, viral diseases, etc. HIV, Hep-B, Hep-C, etc. will be epidemic.

 

We will be living in a genuine police state because people refuse to obey laws. Drug use and drug addiction will be a major problem, as will street crime and things like truck and rail hijacking.

 

In short, we will be living here much the way people in the Third World are forced to live. They don't like it any more than we will. So they sneak into the United States for a "better life." Unfortunately, THEY BRING THE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR WITH THEM THAT CREATED THE THIRD WORLD IN THE FIRST PLACE.

 

And you and your children are going to be stuck living with it, boys and girls. Either DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT now, or face the consequences later in life.

 

http://www.prcdc.org/summaries/uspopperspe...popperspec.html

[ODS-1]

Kabar, how did you become such an expert ont he future? :rolleyes:

[KaBar2]

'Cause I'm so darn smart, that's how. How is it that people cannot look at how FUCKED UP everything is and not be able to see the goddamned facts of life? Either we make some major changes, or we are FUCKED. Your choice. It's not my problem, because I'll be dead as a canned mackeral by then.

[Guest im not witty]

what kabar said is the point i was trying to make with the head in the sand picture. originally i was just looking for a picture of an ostrige but that one came up and i couldnt resist.

 

so no you didnt say climate change doesnt exist, but you did say, im not going to ride a bike, people dont want to be inconvienced by this and have to make some sacrifice. ie. longer slower means of travel... head in the sand, there you have it.

[!@#$%]

we constructed our whole fucking society around highways and vehicles, and our almighty god, convenience.. and now we have to change, or pay the price.

 

and change is painful.

 

in a country that has never experienced famine, who has never had a war on her soil in modern times, whose worst disaster was Katrina, few people understand the true nature of sacrifice

[KaBar2]

Right. Except all the adults who came before you, who have been working their asses off trying to build a decent, normal country in which their children may grow up. I think we could all profit by the experience of a little sacrifice. Oh, but wait--will the Great Crash and Super Depression and World War Three have Starbucks? If not, I'm already booked that decade.

[rattleytins]

Well 12ozers should be concerned about life in this new era for sure. With the mass of people unable to afford personal transportation the trains, muni, and subways surely will increase meaning more paint will be required to keep up meaning gas money will become the other half of paint money...

 

wait what?

 

gas money would go down if public transport was used more

 

but i dont understand what ur sayin

 

and i dont know what peak oil is

 

reminds me of teak oil tho

 

but i bet its different

[!@#$%]

guess what idiot

we're not talking about all the adults who came before me.

not too many people who actually experienced the great depression still have a major impact on our society, and that barely comes close to the kind of 'sacrifice' i'm talking about.

maybe, just maaaybe slavery gives a perspective on what i'm getting at.

a destructive force in society so powerful it reverberates throughout generations.

 

we're talking about the situation we are in NOW

 

oil running out, or at least controlled by our enemies

society going down tubes

wars over resources

and just wait till the WATER runs out.

[KT08]

I just wrote a paper about global warming and positive feedback loops, and in my research i read something an atmospheric scientist said when asked about slowing climate change. He said it would be more efficient to build giant robots that would suck CO2 out of the atmosphere than it would be to to get people to change thier lifestyles.

Social change takes a damn long time. I mean come on, look how long it's been since there was slavery in America. Notice how people are still racist. The thing is now though, do we really have the time for a good portion of the world's population to change their lifestyles before disaster ensues? Wer'e already seeing it happen and most people aren't doing shit! Who knows if the damage we've already done is even reversable!

 

Look at all of us, we ride our bikes, eat our veggies, and go out in the dark and release CFC's into the atmosphere. I'm afraid and frustrated, and it seems like the only thing I can do is educate people and use my Jedi mind tricks to get them to trash thier social norms that cause them to live such wasteful lives...

 

but sometimes i wonder if it's even worth it at this point.

[!@#$%]

CFCs haven't been in aerosol cans in years. maybe a decade.

 

but of course many other things won't change.

 

i have read that if we ceased all burning of fossil fuels today, we would still see temperatures rise to the point of all sea ice melting. so sure, we could be fucked anyway.

i'm not going to become totally complacent though, like many others, just because everyone is doing it and it may be hopeless.

anything can happen.

[rattleytins]

yeah a lot of well informed people (sceintists, weather specialists, whatever i forget) don't believe that global warming is our fault, the world just goes through hot and cold stages naturally, like you'll have an ice age, then it will eventually get hotter and hotter, then it will eventually reach a peak and then gradually go back and head towards an ice age over a veery long time.

 

or something...

 

basicaly people who know don't believe in glabal warming, but still it can't be a bad thing to lower co2 emissions

[KT08]

Well, actually the scientists have pretty much come to a universal consensus that global warming is occuring, and it is due to climatic positive feedback loops that are triggered and enhanced by human activity. There will always be skeptics, and you are right, for there have been drastic fluctuations in temperature over the past 20,000 years. And we may experience one in the near future.

Much Scientific information has been suppressed by fossil fuel corporations in cahoots with conservative politicians, and these two forces have been waging a huge misinformation campaign. For example, a NASA scientist recently admitted he had been coersed into making false statments.

 

Shits going down, for 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century, according to NASA scientists. Shrubs are growing on the Arctic tundra for the first time. A 10,000 year old C02 and methane filled frozen peat bog in melting in Western Siberia. The list goes on and on!

[shaolinmasta]

Public transport has to get a hell of a lot more efficient, plus more of it.

 

Get rid of your 4WD, the fuck are you driving them around suburbia in the 1st place there meant for outback driving.

[vaybur]

basicaly people who know don't believe in glabal warming, but still it can't be a bad thing to lower co2 emissions

 

 

I can't seem to find one that does, out of the last 900+ peer reviewed studies on global warming, not one debates the fact that it is happening. The only people that you see that debate whether or not it is actually taking place are on TV or the internet...and both are always right

[!@#$%]

scientists know global warming is real.

 

the only people who disagree are scientists whose work is funded by ExxonMobil

get real.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html

The Cold Earth Society

Some key “skeptics” show up again and again in the echo chamber funded by ExxonMobil.

 

SALLIE BALIUNAS, a Harvard-Smithsonian Institute astrophysicist, has, along with colleague WILLIE SOON, been giving deniers scientific cover since the mid-1990s. They began by claiming solar effects could account for the rise of the global thermostat. After that theory was debunked, Baliunas and Soon wrote a paper—partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute—for Climate Research that claimed that the 20th century hasn’t been all that warm. Their conclusions have been praised as the epitome of “sound science” by deniers, including Sen. James Inhofe. The journal’s editor, meanwhile, said the paper should never have been published. Baliunas and Soon are each connected to at least four ExxonMobil-funded groups.

 

PAUL DRIESSEN: See “Black Gold?” page 45. Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.

 

PATRICK MICHAELS: University of Virginia climatologist and Cato Institute fellow. One of the most widely cited skeptics, Michaels has received substantial funding from energy companies. Author of The Satanic Gases and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.

 

STEVEN MILLOY: A columnist for FoxNews.com and publisher of JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. Milloy also runs the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. Those two groups—apparently run out of Milloy’s home—received $90,000 from ExxonMobil. Key quote: The date of Kyoto’s implementation will “live in scientific and economic infamy.” Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.

 

S. FRED SINGER: A godfather of global warming denial, author of The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty and Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate. Key quote: “There is no convincing evidence that the global climate is actually warming.” Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.

[Soup BDC]

And so, Porsche has turbocharged the new 911, Ferrari has introduced an 800bhp Enzo, Aston is beavering away with its new DBS and, imminently, Mercedes is expected to announce plans for a new collaboration with McLaren.

 

The message is clear. As fast as politicians wrap the motor industry up with noise, emission and safety red tape, car designers are unravelling the constraints with more and more power.

 

No really. We already have a 240bhp Golf. That's twice as much as we were given 20 years ago and if that rate of change keeps going, people learning to drive today will finish their career in a family hatchback with 1,000bhp under the bonnet. Nice.

 

We've already got family saloons with 500bhp to play with. That's 100 more than Jackie Stewart had when he won the F1 Championship in 1973. What's more, Mitsubishi can sell you a car that develops 200bhp per litre. And it's only 20 years since Daihatsu became the first car maker to sell a car with half that. We're on a roll, boys. And I'm loving it.

 

However, some say this is nothing more than a last hurrah before the oil runs out, that the engineers are having one last party with their outdated 19th-century toy box before they're forced by circumstance to put down their petrol and pick up some potato peelings instead.

 

The most recent scare story suggests that the world's supply of oil, gas and coal will be exhausted in about 30 years' time. And if that's true, there's no doubt the big car makers are being irresponsible, gorging on the fat of the land now when they know full well a famine is just around the corner. Only an imbecile would do that.

 

There's plenty of evidence to suggest it's true. At present, people in the Third World use half a gigajoule of energy a year, compared to the average American, who gets through 300 gigajoules. And 40 burgers. But as we keep being told, it's not the 'Third World' any more. It's the 'developing world', and that's where the problems lie.

 

 

 

If China and India increase their consumption to just a tenth of the US average, they could suck Arabia dry in about 15 minutes. This would plunge the world into the Dark Ages. Or worse. Sociologists tell us that when the oil starts to go, nation will fight nation for the last few drops, and the social order will disintegrate.

 

They may have a point. When we had that trivial fuel shortage 18 months ago, people formed disorderly queues outside garages, waiting with fists clenched and blood vessels fit to burst as the chap in front filled his tank, and then his washer bottle and then his trousers pockets with petrol.

 

Imagine that on a global scale. Imagine if there were no trucks to deliver food to the supermarket and you knew that your neighbour had 300 tins of baked beans stashed away in his basement. Would you watch your children starve or would you pop round and shoot him in the face?

 

Same goes with power. You'll have your nose pressed to the gates at Sellafield begging for a cup of electricity to run your kid's iron lung. But they won't be able to help because, back in 2005, all the eco-mentalists told them that nuclear energy wasn't green.

 

 

Eventually, when every candle had been burned, and every tin of beans consumed, we'd be back in 1550, using beads to buy chickens. And dying three times a day from diphtheria and rabies. Death, famine and disease all topped off with a light sprinkling of nuclear holocaust. And it's all Porsche's fault for turbocharging the 911.

 

Unfortunately, the people who tell us these things tend to be card-carrying lunatics with an agenda. They're the ones who were chained to the fence outside Greenham Common, saying atomic war with Russia was inevitable, and that if the Earth's climate changes - something it has done since the dawn of time - we'll all drown.

 

They're the ones who see only bad in the world. The ones who lie in fields of gold on glorious summer days, complaining about the distant hum of traffic. The ones who see a corporate conspiracy at the bottom of every packet of crisps.

 

Life has usually dealt them a handful of low clubs and diamonds. How many good-looking women did you see at Greenham? And because everything turned out so badly, they want to change the system. That's why they want us to cycle to work and adopt a fox - because it brings us down to their level, not because the oil's running out. Because it isn't.

 

 

 

In the 20s, Germany developed a system for extracting oil from coal. In the war, (which we won, by the way) it was used to propel tanks and trucks. In Brazil, they run cars on oil from chrysanthemums. And I used to power my old Land Cruiser on chip fat.

 

But all this is by the by because, with a barrel of conventional oil costing $35, it is now economically viable to go after unconventional oil. The black gold that's held in sand, for instance, under Canada. How long will this last? Well, according to scientists, centuries.

 

Even if half of China decides that it wants to go to work every day in a Jet Ranger, and India becomes the biggest market in the world for Lamborghini Diablos, Neil Young and Donald Sutherland will provide the juice to keep them going.

 

Oh, and don't worry about the carbon dioxide either because, apparently, this can now be extracted from coal gasification plants and then pumped deep into the earth, where it increases pressure forcing more oil and gas to the surface. Brilliant. The eco-mentalists will have to go and worry about something else. Horses, perhaps.

 

In fact, don't worry about anything because, when the chips are down, man always finds a way. With no power tools at all, we survived the last Ice Age. Without the benefit of aspirin, we came through the great plague. And since then we've conquered space and developed the Rice Krispie.

 

You think bird flu's going to wipe us out? Well, I wouldn't count on it because somewhere, right now, a nerd with a white coat and pipette is figuring out how it can be beaten. And it'll be another nerd, a few centuries from now, who finds a way to power cars using the sun's ultraviolet light.

 

And when the sun runs out, we'll get on a space ship and go somewhere else. Or build another one.

 

The message, then, really is clear. If you want a 911 turbo, and I must say it does look rather good, buy one. In fact, you can buy whatever car you want. Not an Audi Q7, though. I drove one in Norway recently and it seemed to be rubbish. And a rubbish car, I'm afraid, is a waste of petrol.

[MOE-LESTER]

WE ARE FUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MOE-LESTER]

^yo soup i liked that post...where did u get it

[Soup BDC]

Oh my bad, forgot to post the source.

Jeremy Clarkson wrote it on TopGear.com.