[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')What? ya think we were just collectively retarded and squishy headed before the 19th and 20th centuries?
Of course not - few had time to really think.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '
')Dude - we/they can make a small piece of junk spin indefinately on a table top = fusion.

I blame hollywood, the sci fi genre in general and more specifically spiderman2 the movie

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')Correct me if I misread the original post... the topic as I understand it was invention requiring excess energy.

My argument is that the inventions we need are likely at least decades away, but are within the realm of possibility.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '
')My argument is that the inventions we need are likely at least decades away, but are within the realm of possibility.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')Yes, it does make new demands on energy, which is why it is important for the price of oil to steadily climb in order to surpress stupid-uses demands. Only those demands which provide a rather massive energy payoff, such as building a nuclear power station, should be economically viable.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')Yes, it does make new demands on energy, which is why it is important for the price of oil to steadily climb in order to surpress stupid-uses demands. Only those demands which provide a rather massive energy payoff, such as building a nuclear power station, should be economically viable.

[ubercrap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')Yes, it does make new demands on energy, which is why it is important for the price of oil to steadily climb in order to surpress stupid-uses demands. Only those demands which provide a rather massive energy payoff, such as building a nuclear power station, should be economically viable.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')
Nah, they can go find something productive to do with their time. Something that doesn't simply leach off of cheap oil.

Yes, but you get that energy by taking it from people who aren't truly productive, and you take it from them with massive hikes in the price of oil. Those jobs which can't be sustained at the $100/bbl and $200/bbl price points need to be terminated, badly. If they can't find a job, they can go do something like manicure lawns with reel mowers, hoes and rakes; drug around by hand in a big red wagon. Nothing but sweat input, all dollars out are income.

[DefiledEngine]

Isn't the problem that if you start taking away energy from people, they might take energy from others to satisfy themselves?

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Do you even try to think these things through?

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ubercrap', '
')They? How do you know you shouldn't be saying I?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Do you even try to think these things through?

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Do you even try to think these things through?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')I think we do see mostly the same thing ahead, but I think you are missing a piece of the big picture. Not so much in regard to what will happen, but rather in what the heavy-user countries have already decided they are going to attempt.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', ' ')I think we do see mostly the same thing ahead, but I think you are missing a piece of the big picture. Not so much in regard to what will happen, but rather in what the heavy-user countries have already decided they are going to attempt.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

Well they are building one per week, so he's more than a fool.

[matt21811]

rwwff,
This thread represents some of the most astute dispasionate annalysis of the economics of peak oil , and the human nature of energy consumption as I have seen. Keep up the good work.

Montes replys to effect of "you just dont get it" instead of an actual counter arguement show how spot on you are. He will normally put up some kind of arguement. I guess economics isnt his strong suite.

Thanks Mate.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', 'T')he populations of these nations on the other hand have considered the question (organically, as a 200 gigaton organism), and have decided they'd rather take a one in twenty shot at continued, unlimited growth, instead of accepting a rationally constructed period of contraction.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', 'T')he populations of these nations on the other hand have considered the question (organically, as a 200 gigaton organism), and have decided they'd rather take a one in twenty shot at continued, unlimited growth, instead of accepting a rationally constructed period of contraction.

[galacticsurfer]

If a real crisis hit and an emergency regime were declared enabling a war time economy with emphasis on renewables there would be enough oil or coal or whatever to achieve the replacement of nonrenewable energy infrastructure with renewable worldwide. the political will is not there supposedly(at least at the national level in the USA), or is it? In California or Germany or China wind mills and solar cells are popping up like weeds and gasoline taxes and fuel efficiency standards are being expanded.

Calculation:

1000 000 000 000 barrels left.
How many windmills/solar cells does the world need to replace the terrawatt capacity of the current system? How much energy will it take to build this system(BTU per construction per solar cell or per wind mill)?

Plan:

divert 3 billion barrels per year of current oil use(or some % of current electricity use) to production of renewables by either a price mechanism or rationiing of car use or whatever or a profit mechanism for building the renewables which are now very popular. In ten or twenty years we have enough electricity/energy to at least survive at the level of some middle income countries with war time gardening and no cars and no big die off(except where population overshoot has gone way too far (chindia)or the message about conservatiuon was not taken seriously soon enough(USA)). Gradually we build up this renewable infrastructure using ocal or whatever energy is left until we can use renewable energy itself to construct renewables.


Basic question. Is it all that good that we survive? All other animals did not endanger the earth itself. Perm and Jurassic were finished off by meteors. Apparently supervolcanoes almost finsihed us off 70,000 years ago and accelerated our evolution.

Inventing our way out of trouble(in the modern technical sense of invention) just means making a more efficient way of using energy in order to expand population and use (misuse) limited resources, whatever these might be . Even if we get to this perfect world with windmills and stuff people have not changed and will want more stuff and power.

However a best case scenario is from Jared Diamond's collapse book Papua New Guinea or the small island of 120 people like a garden where excess people committed suicide when there were over 120 people. These two islands are in theory perpetually capable of living over millions of years without change, like Gardens of Eden. What you need then is a stable technology, and not scientific industrialism, but something which allows self control over natural processes to stay in balance with nature, from which we originate anyway.

Unfortunately people have banned "God" as superstition and believe they can do what they want as scientific rationalism and capitalism(socialistic/communistic or western form included) eliminates the need for a conscience outside of personal greedy needs and for any sensible long term planning where it interferes with profit and quarterly reports (or at max 5 year central planning)so probably they do not get the big picture and will burn up all the oil and coal in their hummers until there isn't any left to build windmills and also will have too many babies until we come to overshoot like bacteria in a petri dish with 12 billion people and like on Easter island, with no trees and living from cannibalism
in caves until 99% of population is gone.

No atheists in foxholes. We gotta ask basic questions about who we are and where we are going on "our road to nowhere" while we are"waiting for Godot" in our surreal irreality. Unfortunately God won't interfere with us anymore than the supposed aliens will come on the roof of the Whitehouse to give us some gee whiz technology to save our butts. Basically however oil is a sort of perpetual motion machine which we have exploited to the max, inventing a lot of new ideas and enjoying unparalleled and unlimited success(for a 150 year time period) as species but like in a fairy tale it has come time to pay the piper. No party without a hangover. No such thing as a free lunch. Every reaction has an equal and oppositie reaction. Karma-payback time dudes.