$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')Be aware of peak oil
Beware of how your neighbors will react to it.
PeakOil is You
The Board Optimists
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
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TheTurtle - Heavy Crude
- Posts: 1905
- Joined: Sat 14 May 2005, 03:00:00
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by Jaymax » Thu 21 Jul 2005, 16:59:49
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jaymax', ' ')I think it is more probable that humanity will continue to discover and harness different forms of cheap energy, 'cos we've got a proven track record at being pretty good at it. --J
The sequel to overshoot is always a crash unless there is a new food/energy supply that can readily accessed.
Animals can't do this as no species has yet survived a bloom due to an heretofore unaccessible energy source that they exploited that allowed them to dominate their environment. None.
There may be an argument that humanity has done this previously, pre fossil-fuels. Certainly, if you include food as energy, we have certainly intervened to persist a bloom that should have run out a long long time ago.
Could humanity have persisted in the niche it occupied 30,000 years ago in the numbers it had achieved 1000 years ago (when coal started being mined) - or had it been applying consciousness to continuously expand it's niche?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e will just find a way to expand our carrying capacity once again?
Probably
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t what cost?
Quite probably catastrophic, and not just for humanity - this is where my optimism fades. I am not a believer in man's ability to sort out its unbridled greed. There is a small chance of a positive outcome - I don't bet on it.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the last 100 years, nuclear power is the only new primary energy science we have developed. So, you are betting that we will beat the odds where all others have failed?
We disagree on the odds, I think they're clearly on 'our side' - the extent of the damage directly from PO being dependant on the time required.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat we will develop and implement a new primary energy science shortly? ... Because in planning terms, it is tomorrow.
PO economic effects will be rapid indeed, but that need not negatively impact the speed of research and discovery. A combination of global-depression-scale demand destruction, deployment of alternative energy sources at various scales as practical, should ensure sufficient energy is available for research to continue for some time - Hubbert is a symmetrical curve after all (I assume you subscribe to the Hubbert's peak oil theory
In twenty years from peak, Hubbert predicts we should have the same amount of oil energy flowing and available as twenty years before the peak - certainly not enough to support the modern world, but an awful lot more than none.
--J
