Peak Oil

[woodchip]

One and all may want to read this:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

[Lothar]

Man, at first I thought Mobi posted that... it's just the sort of bad science he tends to link us to.

All oil production follows a bell curve, whether in an individual field or on the planet as a whole.

Actually more like a logistic map, but who's counting? And uh, it's not nearly as steep as they seem to imply.

Ultimately, the question is not "When will we run out of oil?" but rather, "When will we run out of cheap oil?"

Actually the question is, what will we do when we run out of cheap oil? We know we will. What will happen with alternative energy sources? Will people be able to cut their power usage accordingly? The doomsday scenario on your website seems to assume people will burn enough coal to make up for all the oil we won't have -- but if oil is that rare, I'm pretty sure I'll learn to do thinks like shut off the lights ;)

More recently, Michael Moore dedicated an entire chapter "Oils Well That Ends Well" in his book Dude, Where's My Country? to the end of the oil age and subsequent die off.

Using Michael Moore as a source?














HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! *catches breath* HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

That website is essentially paranoia-mongering. I bet you could find the same argument from the 1960's referring to the extinction of humans in the 1970's.

[Will Robinson]

"It is estimated that the world's population will contract to 500 million during the Oil Crash. (current world population: 6 billion)...That estimate comes from biologists who have studied what happens to every species when it exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment in one life giving aspect or another."

cough*bullshiz*cough
The first page is a classic case of comparing apples and oranges! He even acknowledges it then contradicts himself trying to brush it off.

Depleting all the oil is not the same as exceeding the carrying capacity of our enviroment. We are much more adept and resourceful than bacteria in a petry dish. Also, he claims us running out of oil is the equivalent of the Irish losing their potato crop...

"Unlike the Irish, we have nowhere else to go. But we do have lots of WMD's to toss at each other"

Well I'd say developing an alternative sources of energy is the equivalent of having somewhere else to go!

I don't dispute there is a problem but he locks our reaction to it into a static model based on decades old technology while his projections of the problem contain the dynamic acceleration that the future always holds.

His dismisal of nuclear capability is weak, absolutely weak!

The last paragraph on page 4...hillariously weak, even Palm Beach County voters will smell something fishy there.

He's taken a real problem and spun it as an unavoidable catastrophy.

But come to think of it, maybe that's exactly what's needed to get our lazy butts working on a solution... so nevermind anything I said...I'm full of shiz anyway....go back to panic mode and keep my guitar and motorcycle powered, ok?.
Hmm, a hybrid hydrogen-helium3 powered Marshall Stack...Yea

[roid]

a shortage of oil would probabaly effect the military's effectiveness more than anything else.
coz hydrocarbons are the best way of conviniently portable storage of power we currently have, it's real easy to drill/mine em outof the ground.

i'm not certain if the motivation to grow biofuels is up the military's alley

a while ago i was trying to crunch some figures of how much land it would take to replace our ground-oil fuels with similar biofuels (biodiesel, ethanol, methanol etc). and it was somewhat sobering.

with the amount of driving i do, i could probabaly power my car with biodiesel or ethanol produced solely by growing crops in my own suburban backyard (well, and some lye or whatever). just gotta build a still. this guy's quickly throws the idea of biofuels out, because he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. i mean, he thinks you need fossil fuels to make ethanol. wtf, that is wrong.
he thinks you need fossil fuels for everything. for everything we use fossil fuels for today, there generally IS a sustainable green alternative for it. simple plant celulose for example can be turned into plastic pretty easy.

what this article is saying is stupid. with all this "a species running outof resourses" stuff he's saying, he's almost suggesting that we are currently EATING oil to survive.

[Darkside Heartless]

We are going to run out of oil, but when gas prices start to skyrocket someone will invent something, it always happened that way in history. Like when the Irish potato crop died, they found something else to eat.(poor analogy, but all I could think of on short notice)
The guy that wrote that obviously never heard of the solid hydrogen technique.(it has something to do with powdered metals exposed to the air, I can't find the artical in Popular Science) All you'd have to do is expose it to the open air, and when you wanted the hydrogen released for fuel, warm it up with a small electric heaer, and presto, lots of free hydrogen.

[roid]

from teh article: However, ethanol is an energy negative â?? it takes more energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol.

well duh (hydrocarbons are basically batterys).
to make ethanol: heating a Still with burning wood (or something else) is all the ENERGY that is needed. the guy seems to think that energy == fossil fuels.

therefore he is in need of some basic physics "what is energy" schooling.

even trees growing in the woods is ENERGY NEGATIVE, it's not a term to be scared of. most energy (i can't really say all, coz of geothermal and nuclear) on earth comes from the sun. it runs our planet.
our entire planet is ENERGY NEGATIVE. but it can afford to be because we get our power from the sun.

bah i don't feel like ranting anymore about this dumbass.

[index_html]

Just fer reference:
phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=120

[Kyouryuu]

I think the question is what Lothar said - when cheap oil supplies have been used up, then what? As it stands right now, the OPEC cartel can use its clout to jack up oil prices, but only to a certain degree. There is a limit to what we will ultimately pay before we push for alternative energy solutions. OPEC, not being stupid, surely realizes that oil is perhaps the most important Middle East export and they mustn't jeopardize it by becoming <i>too</i> greedy.

I think ultimately, we should probably aim to become less dependent on fossil fuels to the extent we can, or at least lessen our reliance on the unstable Middle East for them. Just supporting high-mileage/gallon cars, not necessarily hybrids but efficient cars, would make a huge impact.

[woodchip]

Good replies. I thought you might like this response from my motorcycle bb on this topic:

"I think it's definately being "spun", but the point is well taken.....I just don't get the people who plan to pay off everything and save money if the economy is going to collapse anyway.....why not fill up the tank, load up on ammo, ride around town and rape and pillage.......couldn't hurt. "

[Palzon]

hey i posted this about 3 weeks ago and it received an equal amount of scorn then too

i'm not saying this guys predictions are 100 percent accurate. howevever...

We are going to run out of oil, but when gas prices start to skyrocket someone will invent something, it always happened that way in history. Like when the Irish potato crop died, they found something else to eat.(poor analogy, but all I could think of on short notice)
The guy that wrote that obviously never heard of the solid hydrogen technique.(it has something to do with powdered metals exposed to the air, I can't find the artical in Popular Science) All you'd have to do is expose it to the open air, and when you wanted the hydrogen released for fuel, warm it up with a small electric heaer, and presto, lots of free hydrogen.

...this is just the kind of faulty logic that will get most of us killed. someone will invent something? the irish didn't invent anything. they died. and they emmigrated. which is what this guy is predicting is going to happen to us.

for those calling this faulty science, why don't you step up to the plate and answer his main criticism of alternate fuel sources? if you really read the article then you don't need me to point it out to you. i'm at work so it's not an option at this time.

this guy is not coming from a novel alarmist perspective. these concerns have been around a long time. only now, the time that we have to fix the problem is growing shorter.

i'll say it again. the world (read planet) is not running out of fossil fuels. but humanity is. and any alternate fuel source that does not support our rate of consumption is going to lead to major overhaul of the society in which we live. i'm not sold on the fact that this is doomsday. i don't see us dying off by the billions.

but nukes don't power cars. nukes don't power trucks to take your food to the grocery store. nukes don't go into growing your crops. and it's unlikely that our "nucular capability" will extend to those necessities. we're looking at major social change if we hit that entropy watershed.

and don't be fooled into thinking that the 3rd world will pay the cost and we in America won't be affected as much. that is wrong. we will be more affected because we consume more resources.

if you feel that this guy is waaay off the mark then how about posting more than rhetoric? the rediculous part about this thread is anyone who would brush off such dire concerns with flippant rhetorical commentary.

[Kyouryuu]

Like when the Irish potato crop died, they found something else to eat.

The Irish died by the tens of thousands. The average Irishman consumed about 5 pounds of potatos a day back during the Industrial Revolution times. When that crop ran out, they were so dependent on it that they couldn't shift to anything else quickly. Consequently, many died and, in general, Ireland failed to reach the technological levels of Britain and France and Germany.

I think we have a greater propensity for inventing an alternative source. Given a year and enough people working on it, we could have a reasonable solution. The problem is challenging society on this one. Sort of like how a lot pf people aren't throwing away their old televisions and buying expensive new HDTVs, you'll be hard-pressed to convince people to "throw away" their old cars to buy new ones instead. That transition could take decades.

[Lothar]

His section on alternative fuels is interesting, but inherently flawed. He explains why each alternative, in isolation, can't solve the whole problem -- but never considers what happens when you use multiple alternatives.

For example, his complaints about nuclear, solar, natural gas, hydro, wind, etc. all include statements about how they're "not practical for transportation needs" -- and then his complaint about hydrogen is that it's an "energy carrier" not a true energy source. So, uh, use hydrogen to carry energy from those other sources, brainiac.

Yes, yes, there are a ton more complaints on his page -- and no, I'm not interested in trying to answer them. Simply showing that his logic is inherently flawed is enough.

Notice this phrase from the bottom of his "alternatives" page:

even in the best case, the transition will require the massive shifting of investment from other sectors of the economy (such as the military) toward energy research and conservation. And the available alternatives will likely be unable to support the kinds of transportation, food, and dwelling infrastructure we now have; thus the transition will entail an almost complete redesign of industrial societies.

Two questions:
1) why does this require "massive" shifting of investment? Is he seriously suggesting we should put like 20% of the current military budget into research and conservation? Heh.

2) What's wrong with a complete redesign of industrial societies? Hasn't he ever heard of the Internet, or the PC for that matter? Society goes through transitions all the time. He's given me no reason to think this one will be any different -- and if he has one, he's managed to obscure it behind all the fearmongering and flawed arguments.

Here is what we know:
1) fossil fuels will eventually become extremely expensive to produce. But, that's not "right after" peak oil -- prices don't sharply increase until you're well beyond the peak, for any commodity.
2) it will take time to completely transition from fossil fuels to other sources of energy. It also took time to transition from 8-track to cassette. As long as the oil supply holds out enough to sustain the transition, there isn't a problem.
3) current alternative energy sources are not yet ready for the mainstream, but they're moving that direction.
4) As with any social transition, there will be some changes. Maybe we'll move toward lighter-weight vehicles, or maybe it'll become harder to get certain goods if you live in a little backwoods town. But "the complete collapse of society"? Heh.
5) every time gas prices rise, these predictions become widespread. I recall reading a variation of this argument in a pamphlet someone saved from the 70's that referred to the complete crash of oil by 1990 or 1991. If the sky was falling as fast as these guys claim, the people who face the biggest losses (the oil companies) would be pumping a lot of money into research to be on the cutting edge of the next wave of technology. Now, if they are, they're hiding it -- which means the guy's fearmongering is unjustified because there's more tech out there than we know about. And if they're not, the guy's fearmongering is unjustified because they would be if it was justified.

'nuff said.

[Top Gun]

I'm definitely with Lothar on this one. It may be difficult to make a transfer to alternative energy, but I think that it will happen without an abundance of chaos. We've already started making the first steps: see hybrid cars, experimental fuel cells, wind farms, geothermal energy, biofuels, improved solar panels, pellet fission reactors, etc. Alternative energy sources have become more and more prevalent, and the day will come soon when they make up a substantial percentage of energy usage.

Sort of like how a lot pf people aren't throwing away their old televisions and buying expensive new HDTVs, you'll be hard-pressed to convince people to "throw away" their old cars to buy new ones instead.

Kyouryuu, the reason most people haven't bought expensive HDTVs is, as you said, because they're so freakin' expensive. I, for one, am unwilling to pay several thousand dollars for an HDTV when I can buy a decent-sized, good ol' CRT set for a few hundred dollars. Sure, the quality isn't as good, and the screen is smaller, but you can still watch the same channels. When HDTVs drop below $800-1000, then I may consider buying one. As for newer cars, people will have a greater impetus to buy them when they realize that paying for gas is taking up the majority of their income. By buying a hybrid or (eventually) a hydrogen-powered car, you'll wind up saving money. Don't worry, though; you can still keep that '69 Mustang for the occasional cruise.

[bash]

About the claim that nuclear can't run transportation, of course it will. With hybrids, electric cars, smart highways, fuel cells, etc., power produced by nuclear will be just part of the electrical grid these alternate methods of powering vehicles will tap into to charge up.

[Kyouryuu]

Okay maybe HDTV wasn't the greatest analogy, but you get my point. It will take quite a shift before hybrid technology (by which I mean fuel-electric cars, fuel cells, solar, etc) becomes less expensive than traditional fossil fuels.

[Duper]

....how many still believe that decomposed dinosaurs created oil???

[Will Robinson]

....how many still believe that decomposed dinosaurs created oil???

No, No, No, Haliburton created oil to get us hooked. Dick Cheney is 278 years old and he gave us the first hit for free and we've been his junkie biotch ever since

Seriously though, this guy took a worse case scenario and posed it as unavoidable.

It's all possible, sure, but not likely because we want to prosper and we'll pay for prosperity with hard work and sacrifice, just not of the scale of sacrifice he says is unavoidable!
We're at the peak of oil consumption yes, but not at the peak of science, society or industry. We shall adapt...and yea, the third world will pay for our sins to some degree because we're not adapting fast enough to spare them from becoming cannon fodder.
But hey, I never told them to starve to death while beef steak walks among them like great bovine gods....I never told them they could grow corn in the desert...

Like Sam Kinison said " IT'S A FREAKIN' DESERT...MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS!!!!

PS: I often think the real opposition to slowing the development of nuclear technology has been the oil industry, see Bash's post above to understand my conpiracy theory. It seems we would have started to make the switch sooner if not for some kind of dirty backroom dealings.
There was an old Popular Science issue that described the modern electric highways like the scenario Bash describes and that was decades ago!

[roid]

His section on alternative fuels is interesting, but inherently flawed. He explains why each alternative, in isolation, can't solve the whole problem -- but never considers what happens when you use multiple alternatives.

For example, his complaints about nuclear, solar, natural gas, hydro, wind, etc. all include statements about how they're "not practical for transportation needs" -- and then his complaint about hydrogen is that it's an "energy carrier" not a true energy source. So, uh, use hydrogen to carry energy from those other sources, brainiac.

exactly.
oh no, the human body is energy negative, we will all surely die in 2 seconds!!! oh wait, we get our body's energy from multiple energy negative sourses, basically all filtering down from the sun.

crisis over, time to pump cortisol for the NEXT stupid cause eh.

[bash]

I think it's just human nature not to get off our asses until it's panic time. So, in a way, maybe the Chicken Littles of the world really do perform a service. At least they get us thinking about it before it's panic time, even if they are often premature in pulling the alarm. My guess is with gas prices heading upwards again and the Saudis slowly moving from the friend list to the enemy list we'll have to adapt sooner rather than later. We really didn't learn our lesson in the '70s and it will probably take another summer (or worse, a winter) of long gas lines to get that adaptation rolling again. I have no doubt there's plans on paper to sieze what we need but I'd prefer it not come to that.

[Flabby Chick]

We can all relax now. especially our sphincter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3499006.stm

[Ferno]

heheh.. gives new meaning to 'pit stop'

[index_html]

Just think ... being full of crap could become desirable ... even profitable.

Headline: U.S. mines Michael Moore, solves energy woes.

[Will Robinson]

Headline: U.S. mines Michael Moore, solves energy woes.

ROFLOL!

[Lothar]

index, that's the funniest thing I've read in months.

[Birdseye]

I'm not worried at all.

[woodchip]

I'm not worried at all.

Now that worries me!