[PenultimateManStanding]

I'm wondering if it will even be physically possible to start a crash program, Apollo Style, to build the coal-to-liquids plants neccessary to stave off collapse. So much of our manufacturing is outsourced. Do we have enough steel available in the US to do a massive building program? Do we make enough valves and parts to just start putting up the needed plants to utilize all this domestic coal? Do we have enough engineering talent? Would we have enough money? Seems like we backed ourselves into a corner in our fatuous conceits about the "information economy' that we don't have the capability or flexibility to adapt in time to shortages of liquid fuel. I was reading a poster who is involved in a power plant project in Utah who said that it takes a very long time to import the steel to build just one plant. So if we needed to build dozens of plants in a short time frame, it would seem to be physically impossible. The famous nimbyism and regulatory bottlenecks are the least of our problems if this is right. If there are similar crash building programs enacted in Europe and Asia, where are we going to get all the steel we need?

[Daryl]

Good point. I have to say, most of the stuff I read about Peak Oil sounds very positive and optimisitc. More manufacturing returning to the US, more local farming, better urban planning, fewer cars, less global warming, more mass transit................uh, oh yeah, that's after we all eat each other, sorry.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I was reading in a thread about coal that there is suspicion and a wary view of the peak oil issue among folks in the global warming camp. Some even say that peak oil is "too depressing". Talk about fatuous! These folks then represent a political obstacle to any action to prepare for the coming energy crisis. Such opposition, then, may not be overcome until after the problems become so evident that when the will to do what is neccessary to utilize the coal is finally achieved and the political obstacles eliminated, it will then prove to be physically impossible to do what is required. We'll be high and dry, a fish out of water, stuck between a rock and a hard place, between Scylla and Charybdis, on the horns of a dilemma, shit out of luck.

[Novus]

It would cost Trillions not Billions when you factor in all the new mines, transport systems that would be need to be built in addition to all coal refineries and retooling of the all the machines that would burn the stuff. And then after all that trouble all it would do is buy us another 15 or 20 years of growth until we hit the wall of peak coal.

[capslock]

I agree fully with your point. Also, with the impossibility of ramping up the amount of coal extraction through mining.

In addition, building nuke plants and ramping up extraction of fissile-quality uranium. Ditto the production of biofuels.

Once we're on the downward trend in oil production, estimates range from 2% to 5% drops. Nothing is going to mitigate that huge loss of petroleum energy.

[Gorm]

whats the cost of not doing it?

What effort will not people put in it when they have had no electricity for 2 months?

The NImBY:s will not be tolerated at that time, and no costs will be to great. It is just money, there will not be a lack of people willing to work, cant get any metal to the plants? Well, scrap a few of those tanks the army cant figth with anymore due to the lack of fuel. Or whatever. Metal dont disspear inte thin air, like oil.

These problems will easly be overcome if there is a will.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gorm', ' ')
These problems will easly be overcome if there is a will.

[SinisterBlueCat]

this is interesting. I would like to know, does anyone have any contact with a person that was a young adult in the late 1930's?

How did they do it then? Meaning, where did they get the will and the expertise to build massive ordnance plants, like the one that is nearby where I live in such a short time frame?

the ordnance plant near where I live is credited with pulling locals together and out of the depression in 1941.

[PenultimateManStanding]

In those days, there were huge high-grade deposits of iron ore and massive pools of oil and all sorts of un-used manufacturing capacity idled because of lack of buyers. This time, everything would be the opposite: massive needs for industrial projects, but little steel, expertise, money or oil. Plus a huge unfunded liability on the government that results from a hundred year experiment in social programs about to go down the drain, IMO.

[SinisterBlueCat]

edit. too bad, this could be a good site, but it is overwhelmed by whacks.

[oowolf]

How about a crash program to get rid of 99% of humanity ASAP. Humanity has been weighed in the BALANCE and found wanting...PMS, you really don't want this ugly civilization to continue, do you?
Your pal.
the wolf
("while the world around me rages, I'll return to the middle ages.")

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'y')ou really don't want this ugly civilization to continue, do you?

[oowolf]

Things are already just about more painful that I can tolerate. Dieoff would be a relief.
Help! I'm surrounded by zombies!!

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', 'H')ow about a crash program to get rid of 99% of humanity ASAP. Humanity has been weighed in the BALANCE and found wanting...PMS, you really don't want this ugly civilization to continue, do you?
Your pal.
the wolf
("while the world around me rages, I'll return to the middle ages.")

[SinisterBlueCat]

oh no you don't Pen, if you are referring to me, I am hardly a gentle soul. But I am not a fool either, and I am not about to put myself up for some weird critique by someone who is all snarly because they had their PO box taken away because they failed to show an ID...the same person who cannot figure out who is responsible for this terrible infringement of their rights.

As for The End...nope, a better choice would be Crazy Train by Ozzy.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SinisterBlueCat', 'o')h no you don't Pen, if you are referring to me, I am hardly a gentle soul. But I am not a fool either, and I am not about to put myself up for some weird critique by someone who is all snarly because they had their PO box taken away because they failed to show an ID...the same person who cannot figure out who is responsible for this terrible infringement of their rights.

As for The End...nope, a better choice would be Crazy Train by Ozzy.