PeakOil is You
Peak oil and the Talosians on theoildrum
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Peak oil and the Talosians on theoildrum
by kermodie » Fri 03 Nov 2006, 13:00:58
Theres a real interesting story from perspective of a Star Trek race on www.theoildrum.com today. cool perspective
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kermodie - Wood
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Re: Peak oil and the Talosians on theoildrum
by Revi » Fri 03 Nov 2006, 13:31:05
This is the best part:
Given that all of the highest quality fossil fuels will be gone in one human generation (2 at most), there only exists one sustainable supply side strategy. And that is to transmute remaining stocks of fossil energy into renewable forms. You have fossil stocks of fuel (S) and renewable flows of energy from the sun (R). From the perspective of a long lived species, promoting infrastructure and systems requiring high EROI fuel sources that will deplete within a generation shows the inferior intelligence of your species (sorry, rather, it highlights your evolved response to heavily overweight the present).
I agree completely with the Taolisians. We could all do this. Here's how we are using our fossil fuel resources to turn our energy situation into one that uses renewables. We're not all that inferior!
http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm
Given that all of the highest quality fossil fuels will be gone in one human generation (2 at most), there only exists one sustainable supply side strategy. And that is to transmute remaining stocks of fossil energy into renewable forms. You have fossil stocks of fuel (S) and renewable flows of energy from the sun (R). From the perspective of a long lived species, promoting infrastructure and systems requiring high EROI fuel sources that will deplete within a generation shows the inferior intelligence of your species (sorry, rather, it highlights your evolved response to heavily overweight the present).
I agree completely with the Taolisians. We could all do this. Here's how we are using our fossil fuel resources to turn our energy situation into one that uses renewables. We're not all that inferior!
http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm
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Revi - Light Sweet Crude
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by BrazilianPO » Fri 03 Nov 2006, 22:06:42
The problem of switching our energy generation from coal, gas and at the same time increase the number of nukes, wind and solar powerplants, is that this has to be done on-the-fly.
That is, we can not cut consumption of oil and use the slack to increase industrial production to supply the new energy endeavour of making humankind energy-sustainable.
If we start build nukes and green powerplants like crazy, we will have to increase mining, siderurgy, composite materials production, infrastructure, manpower, etc. That by itself would make global growth explode and oil consumption go through the roof.
We are between a rock and a hard place. We can not use the remaining oil to produce new green alternatives now. That should have started a long ago.
That is, we can not cut consumption of oil and use the slack to increase industrial production to supply the new energy endeavour of making humankind energy-sustainable.
If we start build nukes and green powerplants like crazy, we will have to increase mining, siderurgy, composite materials production, infrastructure, manpower, etc. That by itself would make global growth explode and oil consumption go through the roof.
We are between a rock and a hard place. We can not use the remaining oil to produce new green alternatives now. That should have started a long ago.
<i>Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis</i>
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BrazilianPO - Lignite
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by AirlinePilot » Fri 03 Nov 2006, 23:58:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BrazilianPO', 'W')e are between a rock and a hard place. We can not use the remaining oil to produce new green alternatives now. That should have started a long ago.
BINGO!! Kind of sucks looking at it at this point doesn't it?
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AirlinePilot - Moderator
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by thor » Sun 05 Nov 2006, 07:18:50
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BrazilianPO', 'I')f we start build nukes and green powerplants like crazy, we will have to increase mining, siderurgy, composite materials production, infrastructure, manpower, etc. That by itself would make global growth explode and oil consumption go through the roof.
I'm not sure about this since by the time we do this plane loads of Jerry Spinger rejects aren't taking off and non-productive office jobs have simply dissapeared. Oil consumption shifts to an economy where an increasing number of people work in the energy sector. Having a light bulb at home and central heating will then be seen as luxury and associated with wealth. Shopping malls with useless crap blow away in the wind by then.
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thor - Coal
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by bobcousins » Sun 05 Nov 2006, 07:31:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BrazilianPO', 'W')e are between a rock and a hard place. We can not use the remaining oil to produce new green alternatives now. That should have started a long ago.
Dude, we haven't run out yet, we are only halfway through! And we (ok, you) still have loads of coal.
But I love the absurd way you write off human civilisation on the flimsiest of reasoning.
It's all downhill from here
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bobcousins - Heavy Crude
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by BrazilianPO » Sun 05 Nov 2006, 09:51:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BrazilianPO', 'W')e are between a rock and a hard place. We can not use the remaining oil to produce new green alternatives now. That should have started a long ago.
Dude, we haven't run out yet, we are only halfway through! And we (ok, you) still have loads of coal.
But I love the absurd way you write off human civilisation on the flimsiest of reasoning.
Bobcousins, my reasoning is very simple. New powerplants aren't built out of thin air. You know how much effort (manpower and knowledge) and resources (both energy and raw materials) are necessary to build one large nuclear powerplant, right? Now multiply that for 100, 1000, needed during the next 50 years. Then you will see that we do not extract enough iron, we do not produce enough steel and cement; and we do not have enough engineers and scaffolders to complete such an endeavour in the timeline that is necessary. Especially when all slack production is promptly sucked by explosively-growing countries.
I will take the example of Itaipu (link), the Brazilian hydro powerplant, largest in the world now, and until Three Gorges Dam begins operating at full-capacity. The volume of cement used was 12,57 million cubic meters, i.e. about 0.5% of the world production now. Three Gorges will require 2.5 times that or 28 million cubic meters. Do you think we can make 10 Itaipus per year? And 20? And worst than raw materials, there is not enough people to put all this together and keep the human resources necessary for the growing world industry.
When oil production actually starts to decrease, it will be like hell, no escape. As I saw someone saying the other day is this forum, we are acting like "Brick wall ahead, accelerate!!!"
Well, there is always the chance of finding some miracle biofuel, subproduct of some genetically altered bacteria, grown in pools the size of small countries, using a minimum infra-structure and that can be harvested and transported just as oil
. However, that is still not here, and so I can only play with the cards that I know exist (i.e. hydro, nuclear, coal, gas, oil, wind, solar).<i>Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis</i>
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BrazilianPO - Lignite
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