[NevadaGhosts]

I was thinking about this the other day. I look around and see all these cool looking new cars and SUV's driving around. So streamlined. Many have GPS and satellite radios. Zero to sixty in 6.5 seconds. Computer controlled engines. Built to dead reliable.

But then I thought of something else. All of these techno wonder vehicles of today use 150 year old technology to run on. The combustion gasoline engine! Is it really possible that in 150 years we have not found anything more practical, realisatic, or advanced to replace the basic combustion engine in today's cars? The answer is no. We have refined and redesigned over the years. But it's still 150 year-old technology. It seems to me that modern societies will soon realize that there is no other cost-effective or realistic replacement for oil. None. I think the only tried and true energy wonder of modern man is oil. And without cheap oil, we cannot maintain modern industrialized societies. It is impossible.

This is the techno-age of high speed internet, nano microchips, 3.5 GHZ computers, cell phones, gps, satellites, and world video conferencing. But today I found an article that made me start to wonder:

http://www.energybulletin.net/3838.html

All of this so-called modern technology is based on simple and cheap energy, which is vanishing quickly. And there's no cheap replacements. If this is what it is coming down to, then I would have to say that we have hit a technological ceiling due to resource depletion. Advanced society cannot continue down this path without a collapse. I wonder what life was like in the 1300's...

[Jack]

Thought provoking indeed. Without cheap, ubiquitous transportation, modern society cannot continue.

[BabyPeanut]

Don't knock firewood, it's renewable.

[NevadaGhosts]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', 'D')on't knock firewood, it's renewable.