[inculcated]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 's')olar? wind? tidal? biofuels? nuclear? hydro dams?

[Denny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('inculcated', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 's')olar? wind? tidal? biofuels? nuclear? hydro dams?

[inculcated]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'I') suspect that one car has more than enough metals, steel especially, to make one hell of a windmill.

[worrier]

I'm basing my guesses on the future not on what could be done, but on what is currently being done. E.g. we've already got an oil war, a lot of the much promoted carbon reduction schemes look like little more than smoke and mirrors, and not much in the way of conservation efforts. I haven't seen any significant efforts for societies to really change fuel use/carbon release. I don't think Kyoto is producing any meaningful changes.

[Opies]

nobody gets it.
peak oil isn't the problem. peak oil is just a symptom of a much much bigger problem.... take a step back once in a while.... a REAL step back, and you might see.

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Opies', 'n')obody gets it.
peak oil isn't the problem. peak oil is just a symptom of a much much bigger problem.

[kadoomsoon]

accidental double post, sorry.

[kadoomsoon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gwmss15', 'w')hy does everyone thing peak oil = end of the world?

[timbo]

No government or major corporation has proposed giving up the perpetual growth model and so as the Albert Bartlett quote goes "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

Question: Given a jar of bacteria that replicate evey second and the statement the jar will be full at midday. When was the jar half full.
Answer: 11:59:59

In terms of oil, arable land and fresh water we are well into the final second.

Or as I said in another thread.

The fecal matter has impacted the air movement device.

Poo has occured.

Some of the cornucopian dreams may even have been feasible if we'd done something serious about Peak Oil 10 years ago. We didn't and so now on to the consequences. Which will vary from unpleasant to utterly catastrophic depending on how many resource wars we fight and which weapons we elect to use in them.

[timbo]

And given humanity en masse's avarice and stupidity I'm assuming the entire arsenal. Nukes, bio, chemical, bombs, bullets, arrows, spears, clubs and finally bare fists.

The evolution of the intelligent cockroach has begun.

[Opies]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Drifter', '
')Let me guess. Too many people on planet earth? I would agree with that assessment.

[Revi]

Kadoomsoon, I loved your dark rant. I was chuckling at it. I am afraid that I agree completely. The bozos who are driving this bus aren't going to stop doing stupid things because we don't like them. They are going to run it until the fuel runs out or we go off a cliff.

The only answer is to try to get yourself into a place that might do okay after things really go awry. I agree that all those in major cities are toast. I used to live in NYC. Not a great place to be when TSHTF. Neither is any place else, but at least you might have a chance.

[inculcated]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KillTheHumans', 'T')hen perhaps you should tell us what the real problem is, so we can go hang out at that website instead of this one?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('inculcated', 'O')verblown sense of entitlement, proclivity for rapaciousness and a healthy disrespect for reflection are the real problems. PO is but the most recent symptom of the malady that is humankind.

[aliendroid]

Ladies and gentlemen I do agree that we are about at peak oil right now. Oil prices will keep going up over the next 20 years etc, but I think we as humans will find a way around it. First off, oil will not run out for another few hundred years, we just won’t have enough of it to drive hummers to our mailboxes down the street.
First off, wind energy is a fantastic solution to oil dependence. Not because you can turn wind into oil, but because as we build electric vehicles and increase demand on electricity, wind will be able to cover that increase in demand and some of our current power use.
Wind power is no joke, and while the progressive states are considering wind power projects, Texas is showing them how it is done. Texas became the nation’s leader in wind power in 2006 and in one short year texas put a 1000MW lead on California and Texas plans to bring that up to 25,000 MW as soon as possible. Texas consumes about 20,000MW to 65,000 MW of electricity depending on time of day and season. So at 25,000 MW we are talking about something rather significant. But Coal isn’t going to run out or peak anytime soon. Coal will most likely stop being used due to lack of popularity in the future. Texas also has the capacity to generate more than three times its current use of electricity in wind power.
As we max out wind power, I fully believe that large scale solar will become easier to achieve.
Peak oil is going to destroy our society and we are all going to die? That’s stupid.
I’m sure we will see large taxes on personal gas consumption and subsidies on freight and farm equipment before we will see famine. We are dumb but we aren’t that dumb.
Peak oil puts our freedom to use oil products as private citizens at much more of a risk then having empty bellies. SUV drivers will be riding their bike 15 miles to work long before we all go hungry. We will have a few disasters and the media will probably cause some panic making people rush to grocery stores and buy everything. So preparing is a very good idea.
We don’t have enough metals to build renewable energy???????? Well let’s just deconstruct the 1000s of wind mills in the USA and Europe because we didn’t have enough metals to build them, but wait, we have hundreds of thousands of generators around the world already burning coal and using steam (from nuc power) so I guess we didn’t have enough metals to have built those either. The truth is we have a large amount of certain metals, such as Al and iron, but we don’t really need a billion tons of metals to build enough wind mills to produce enough electricity for our electric farm equipment, electric cars, trains and electric heating systems that we will absolutely have to switch to in the future. What we need to worry about are the batteries. GM thinks they’ll have batteries with 120,000 mile life expectancy for their Plug In Hybrid called the volt coming out in 2010 and tesla motors startup in california has already developed an all electric car that is faster than a Ferrari and can go 250 miles on much less energy than a hybrid Honda civic would require to go 250 miles.
When a wind mill has aged a while and stops functioning after 25 years, IT IS REPAIRED!!!
Yes, we have been living like idiots. If America had intelligent civil development without sprawl and efficient cars, we could even be exporting oil right now and we’d be rich as hell, but we didn’t plan right.
So the technology exists, but I agree that the will does not. As soon as we get a good crunch like $90+ per barrel of oil, no wait we already got that, so we should see some exponential growth in electric vehicles and green energy development. LEED certified buildings projects are all over the place. The most conservative, red and oily state is leading the nation in renewable energy and leading the nation in legislature for renewable energy. An oil tycoon named Boone is planning the world’s largest wind farm in Texas at 4000 MW, but Texas already has the largest wind plant in the world at about 750 MW. What else do we need to see before we realize that that guy on waterboy was right. You can do it!