[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Yamaha_R6', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', 'W')hat is really upsetting me about this thread is:

1. Yamaha has apparently done some reading and still thinks this is all viable.

2. 99.5 percent of the people "out there" think exactly the way he does.

Yamaha: take this as either constructive criticism or as a flame: you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

You may think I'm super pessimistic. Fine. But I reckon that even the more "optimistic" people on this board would agree: your posts show a complete lack of understanding of the situation.

Really, you don't even grasp the super basic fundamental concepts and issues right now.

Do yourself and all of us a favor and go borrow or buy a copy of "The Party's Over."

Do I understand everything? Far from it. But right now, your posts are so ridiculously uninformed it shocks the conscious.

Really, unless you want to look totally uninformed, go get a copy of "The Party's Over."

I may be the town crier, but right now you are the village idiot.

Matt

[MattSavinar]

Yamaha:

Conservation of energy will prevent alternatives from coming online. You cannot have both.

Massive conservation (voluntary recession/depression) will bring oil prices down. But people won't be motivated to use alternatives until oil prices are high.

It's one or the other, but not both.

Matt

[k_semler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', '
')In 1999, oil was $10/Barrel. Now it is $40/Barrel.

In 2000, gas was $1/Gallon. Now it is $2/Gallon.

Matt

[Mower]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Yamaha_R6', 'W')here do we get the money you ask... well if we stopped buying all this fancy stuff for the millitary... which costs us what.. 50 billion... 500 billion a year?

Lets say each solar powered solar panel plant cost 500 million dollars. If we invested 500 billion dollars, that would make 1000 factories.

[Leanan]

It's true the U.S. has a lot of room to cut back. But will we? I don't think so. Not until the panic hits.

Even poor Americans have a higher standard of living than people in, say, the U.K. or Sweden. We expect it. Our lifestyles are built around it.

As an example...the appliance that uses the most energy in the average home is the refrigerator. When I visited a friend in London, I was amazed at how tiny the average Brit's fridge is. Most of them have little dorm-sized fridges, not the full-sized one that even poor people in the U.S. have. Heck, many of us have more than one fridge - extras in the garage or basement, so we have room for party food or whatever.

We could no doubt save tons of energy if we all had little dorm-sized fridges, instead of full-sized ones. But only if our neighborhoods were set up for it. My British friend went to the market almost every day, since she couldn't store much food in her little fridge. Her neighborhood was set up for it, with stores in easy walking distance of her house. Here, we often drive miles to Wal-Mart for food, so we probably wouldn't actually save any energy by having smaller fridges. We'd have to redesign our society from top to bottom.

Similarly, gas prices are high in Europe because of taxes. Often, those taxes are meant to discourage consumption, with the revenue used to develop alternate energy sources. Politically, that's a no-go here in the U.S. Anyone who suggests raising taxes or trying to discourage consumption would never be elected. A lot of people's livelihoods depend on their neighbors' high consumption. Our economy is consumer-driven. (Remember President Bush encouraging Americans to go out and spend money? Be patriotic! Go shopping! This despite the fact that the average American is thousands of dollars in debt, mortgages excluded.)

Is it possible that we could conserve our way to a soft landing? Yes, I think so. But I seriously doubt that we'll do it. It would require centralized control - "Big Government" when those have become dirty words. By the time we realize that's the only solution, I fear it will be too late.

[Falconoffury]

"You put the other panels in europe, then run a big cable under the ocean from England to iceland, and then to Greenland and then to Canada."

That's the funniest thing I've heard on these forums in a while. How are we going to repair this cable if it's damaged by earth's plate movements, creatures in the sea, or just plain erosion? I miss arguing with Licho. At least then I didn't feel like I was talking to an 8 year old kid.

Yamaha, you wanted proof that gas prices are likely to shoot up quickly. Matt just gave you some pretty good proof. Your last few threads have been taking slowly rising gas prices as fact. So where's your proof that they will rise slowly?

You ignored Matt's point on people might starve. Most major cities get most of their food from over 1000 miles away in the US. Even if the prices go up slow, one day those trucking companies will decide that transporting food is no longer worth the money. Food becomes more scarce and more expensive in major cities. The grocery stores have to start closing down because it's no longer worth the money to sell food. What happens then, Yamaha?

[OilBurner]

Less of the personal insults to each other please or there will be sections moved to the HOF.

Putting cables across the Atlantic appears a silly idea to many of us, however there's no need for insults to accompany the contradicting view point.

As I understand it, there are already cables under the ocean used for communications purposes.
I doubt you could use one for power as I think you'd need repeater stations at regular intervals? Anybody with an actual scientific background to confirm this?

[OilBurner]

In fact, look what I found here:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/26/1085461833048.html?from=storylhs&oneclick=true

Quote:

"The 290-kilometre cable, which will be the world's longest undersea power link, will be set in a trench up to 75 metres below sea level."

Not quite the Atlantic ocean - but it shows the concept has a certain degree of practicality.
Maybe Yam actually has a good idea? I'm not convinced that the economics or practicalities would stretch up to 3000 miles though...

[Falconoffury]

I wouldn't call anything I said a direct insult. It's just an opinion of how I felt. I felt like I was talking to a young person.

Communication lines are easier to setup to run thousands of miles. Electrical lines are radically expensive for such a feat. I don't have an electrical degree, but I know you need to protect the wire from water contact, and it needs additional equipment every number of miles in order to keep the electricity going. I don't think it can be done in a world of expensive energy.

[MrPC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilBurner', '"')The 290-kilometre cable, which will be the world's longest undersea power link, will be set in a trench up to 75 metres below sea level."

Not quite the Atlantic ocean - but it shows the concept has a certain degree of practicality.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')efore all of you say.. this is fantasy, its not possible we cant do this, think how far we as a country went from the years 1880 to 1920. It will be the same for the years 2008-2025.

[Mower]

None of this will help the situation in the long run as I understand this. And I hope you're all enjoying the internet, kiss that good-bye soon enough.

[azreal60]

What yam said about a undersea power cable Could be done. But it would be so hard and energy intensive to do there would be no point. Although i can t review back that far while posting, I believe the reason yam sugested it was because europe would be better positioned for peak oil, and hence could sell us power. I would argue there is no government on earth that is currently that well positioned for peak oil, although europe is taking more steps and probably has more slack than the US.

As for electrical enginering background, I can not provide that, but I can say that a cable directly across the atlantic would be impossible just because the currents are so strong it would rip out days after being built. Even if one jumped from england to iceland to greenland to canada, it still would be probably the largest engineering project ever and be very very easy to rip out. In short, not worth the time.

Leann i think hit the middle of this argument. Americans DO have a great deal of slack, enough to make the changes that yam suggested to avoid what matt and others have been warning us about. But the reason and matt and those others are so doubtful of it happening is the question is WILL we make those changes.

We can not wait until market forces warn the general public about peak oil. At that point we are already 2 years past the peak (someone into economics and history please make a post seeing how long it took to notice we where past the US peak in 1970) and peoples minds in a crisis start to look more and more short term, not long. The point is, everything we want done to change for the better has to be done now, or it s effects will be hugely blunted.

But the point remains that we do have that huge overconsumption slack. It would break our economy to use it, but frankly, the US economy is something that looks to need breaking. The question is, do we have the will to rebuild afterwards?

Really, what is an economy? I mean, we won t lose anything we have in the US if the economy crashes. All the infrastructure and resources and information will still be here. What we will lose is the ability to control the rest of the world. If the US dollar falls, we will no longer be able to influence what happens on the other side of the world short of military force. For everytime we went in and bombed an iraq, there was a time we said do this or we will cut off US trade to your country in the shadows.

Peak oil means everything HAS to become local. It will be too energy intensive to move goods around the world and eventually even around the country. This means that every area that wants to support its population needs to start right now looking at what it has in the area. Does every state have the nessesary food production, manufacturing, basic natural resources to support above food production and manufacturing? If they don t, they are in for a world of hurt. I mean, hell, we have two states that are mostly desert. Arizona was never made to have as many people in it as it does.

I guess my point is yes yam is shooting out idea s that alot of us know will not work or simply have no point, but don t blame him for it. Just realize yam that while they may not directly insult you, they have every right to call your idea s stupid as long as you refuse to do what they suggest and do some background reading and research. Because your ideas are very uninformed. And that makes them very ill advised. So please, if you want people like matt and falcon to not take strips off your hide, you make the effort too and go learn enough so that when you float an idea, it will stand up to more than the most gentle examination. There have been other posters on this site who started out with idea s along your lines, and produced info to back them up. We applauded them and asked for more, as people on this site don t want peak oil to kill off people, don t want it to stop us from advancing as a species. We just want it to stop us from acting like idiots. And it seems like it is going to do that with a vengence. So lets all voluntarily stop being idiots instead is my idea. Sounds less painful.

[Yamaha_R6]

The point I am getting at is that solar panels can power homes at night and can be very reliable. People are very shortsighted looking into solar power. Its only cloudy or raining something around 5-10 days a year in Death valley, thus if we put lots of solar pants there they would make A LOT of power every day. Besides we have nothing else to do with all that land.

Second, if you want solar power at night you make the plants on opposite time zones of the U.S. And then connect that power to the U.S grid.

People here keep saying I am ignorent of the facts and havent come to accept peak oil.... What facts are you talking about, because I have yet to recieve any examples of these facts I dont get??? I have fully accepted peak oil, I just dont think the outcome of it is as dire as you all seem to think.

Also.. Matt said I cant have it both ways, that if people conserve and prices of energy go down then industy wont invest in alternatives because the price is to low.
Sorry if this isnt "PC".. but that there is B.S.
Remember the power shortages in California when we had black-outs? People did conserve, even though we didnt beleive it was a real problem, and even with conservation, 11 new power plants were built in response so we could go back to our ways of not conserving.

If people conserve, prices go down, but people dont like conserving, so while conserving they secure more power so they can have their cake and eat it too. This means more cheap power.

Some of the cheapest power around is nuclear power, costs something like 4.5 cents a kilowatt. Why cant you use the electricity from nuclear power plants to make hydrogen??? And then use that hydrogen to power the machines to make more nuclear power plants???

Why even deal with making machines run off hydrogen, cant electricity take easy to come by elements and turn them into oil via heat and chemical reaction? And then use oil to make more nuke plants???

I just dont see the lack of energy here, your taking a few pounds of Plutonium, and getting TONS of energy out of it. The energy you get out of it far exceeds the cost of the plant, harvesting of materials, and storage of waste. So whats the problem?

Oh wait... darn.. how do we power cars? Cant we just make hydrogen from the electricity? We dont even really have to do that, as even after peak there will still be oil at an affordable price.

You people still have no proof that shortages of oil will result in that high of an oil price, this is all assumption.

[Yamaha_R6]

Also, You always ask me what proof I have that certain things WONT happen!

It makes a lot more sense to find proof on why something would happen then to why it wouldnt happen.

You try to proove that O.J. killed his wife, not "proove O.J. didnt kill his wife".

Matt knows what I am talking about, innocent until proven otherwise. You have failed to prove to me that gas prices will increase fast enough to destroy society.

I am the jury, If you cant convince me, someone who is open minded and impartial to the issue... I just want the truth, and has read most everything on these internet sites, then you will have no luck convincing anyone else.

To many things are based on assumptions.

YOU HAVE convinced me that peak oil is real and will happen, problebly soon.

YOU HAVE also convinced me that very high oil prices... (20 dollars a gallon), would cause society to fall back into the stone ages.

Here is where you have failed, I am not convinced peak oil will cause the oil prices you claim. So ultimatly you have failed, we have to very distinct issues that you prove, but you fail to connect the issues with real evidence... just assumption.

HEY.. you guys should be THANKING ME, because I am telling you the biggest hole and error in your argument. With feedbacl like this you can revise your site and what not.

[Chichis]

Actually your argument is somewhat flawed. It is better to prepare in advance for Peak Oil, whether you know it will happen or not. If it doesn't happen, you'll still probably be better off than if you had done nothing. Living a more efficient, economical life isn't a bad thing. If it does happen, you will be much better off.

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Yamaha_R6', 'A')lso, You always ask me what proof I have that certain things WONT happen!

It makes a lot more sense to find proof on why something would happen then to why it wouldnt happen.

You try to proove that O.J. killed his wife, not "proove O.J. didnt kill his wife".

Matt knows what I am talking about, innocent until proven otherwise. You have failed to prove to me that gas prices will increase fast enough to destroy society.

I am the jury, If you cant convince me, someone who is open minded and impartial to the issue... I just want the truth, and has read most everything on these internet sites, then you will have no luck convincing anyone else.

To many things are based on assumptions.

YOU HAVE convinced me that peak oil is real and will happen, problebly soon.

YOU HAVE also convinced me that very high oil prices... (20 dollars a gallon), would cause society to fall back into the stone ages.

Here is where you have failed, I am not convinced peak oil will cause the oil prices you claim. So ultimatly you have failed, we have to very distinct issues that you prove, but you fail to connect the issues with real evidence... just assumption.

HEY.. you guys should be THANKING ME, because I am telling you the biggest hole and error in your argument. With feedbacl like this you can revise your site and what not.

[Skeletor]

Yamaha,

You say that too many points in the arguments of others are based on assumptions? Your entire argument is based on the ASSUMPTION that oil prices will rise slowly rather than quickly. Stop being a hypocrite. As to your argument: you have provided exactly ZERO facts to back up what you're saying (in other words, your entire argument is one big assumption). Others have already made the argument and have had the twin blades of Truth and Fact cut their argument to pieces. Go back in the forums and read for yourself.

Regarding solar panels: where and how are they going to produce and transport the materials necessary to create them?

Also, could you please run your posts through a spell checker (try a word processor and not this online one) before posting? I am saying this because you don't seem to know the difference between 'then' 'than' 'your' 'you're' 'loose' and 'lose'.

[Dvanharn]

Yamaha, you are an interesting character, but you remind me of a tragic character in the sense of Greek drama - you just won't do what it takes to acquire the knowledge to make sense. You do stimulate lively discussion, but your most of your points seem to me to be like those of an enthusiastic 7th grade elementary school student with no history, facts, calculations, references, or well-grounded scientific logic to back it up. But this is not 7th grade - most of the people here are educated, intelligent adults, most of whom probably have college degrees - and did a lot of homework to get through school. I sometimes wonder if the magnitude and seriousness of peak oil has truly reached your inner being yet, because your superficial, cavalier toying with ideas seems more like the babbling at an internet hobbyist forum rather than a serious interaction with the monumental and sudden change in human civilization that we are facing.

You absolutely refuse to do your homework - i.e. reading books and articles by very rigorous researchers - several of which have been recommended in this thread. The authors of these books are people who argue eloquently using lots of carefully gathered facts and studies of current and historic issues related to resource. technology and scientific limitations, human psychology and sociology factors. Many of them are Ph.D.'s with decades of experience studying, teaching, and working in scientific and engineering fields, including petroleum engineering and geology. You seem to discount their writings as useless crap not worth reading. You come here and proudly say "Aha - you [fellow peak oil forum posters]cannot refute my statements, therefore I am right and you are wrong," when you have not read and studied the works and writings of some extremely intelligent and concerned scientists, engineers and other concerned authors from around the world. You seem to think that a three paragraph post by a one of us should be able to counter your off-the-cuff statements, when many of our beliefs about peak oil situations were derived from, in some cases years of reading, studying, and more recently, searching the internet.

You do not even show a glimpse of understanding of the economics of modern capitalism, and the absolute necessity for growth to perpetuate it. Are you aware of the fact that most modern recessions have been triggered by petroleum-related problems - some of those problems relatively minor with respect to your logic? The only thing that reversed those recessions - some many years long - was the return of cheap oil followed by years of healing. What will happen if cheap oil never returns to "power" the recovery and a possible transition to alternative sources cannot occur on the scale necessary? The authors of books with chapters on alternative energy sources, and transport media such as hydrogen for combustion and fuel cells, do the numbers, look at the technical and practical issues, and study such matters in a very rigorous manner. You don't.

You appear to have a limited education in science, engineering and economics, and only a cursory layman's understanding of these and other relevant peak oil fields. However, it's not too late to learn what you need to know. If I were to grade you as a student, I would give you an "A" for enthusiasm in class, and an "D" for failing to do your homework and understand the subject. Have you ever done a high school or college-level term paper or project where you had to document and back up everything you concluded? That's what you to need to do to earn respect here. In spite of the minor flames here, I am amazed at the patience of the more knowledgeable peakers here.

I encourage you to stop posting for a week, and read a couple of books on peak oil and it's possible effects on our society and economy. You've got a long way to go to earn that Nobel Prize. I'll never stop encouraging you to study and think creatively, and I look forward to seeing a post from you some day soon with some substantive knowledge behind it. Creative speculation like yours is interesting, but it won't convince those who have read about and discussed peak oil after first studying it a bit, and developing an understanding of the economic effort and time scale it would take for some of your ideas to work.

Like others have said in other threads, I value what I have in this life even more - now that I expect life to be a lot harder, and less comfortable and pleasant in the near future. Those who can make the best of the situation will fare the best, and those with unrealistic goals or fatalistic and depressive attitudes will fare much less well. And many will simply get lost in the chaos.

Now, more than ever, I cherish every day and every contact with friends and loved ones - and encourage you to do the same - regardless of how you feel about post-peak oil society.

Dave van Harn

[Pops]

"I encourage you to stop posting for a week, and read a couple of books on peak oil and it's possible effects on our society and economy."

Thanks Dave.