Peak Oil and Green Energy: Both Fossils?

15 Comments on "Peak Oil and Green Energy: Both Fossils?"

steve on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:00 pm 



I like how the woman says electricity demand has not grown in the last 5 years even though GDP has grown….Fail GDP HAS NOT grown it it has been FED MANIPULATION of the numbers..at 15 minutes in you can see where the cornies get there ideas from…the lady in yellow does not like the idea that batteries will never work…and why does she keep touching her nose…

Speculawyer on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:19 pm 



Well, we are certainly able to grow the economy a bit without severely growing electricity usage. Specifically, technologies such as LED lighting instead of incandescents, flat-panel LCD TVs instead of old CRTs, tablets & cellphones instead of desktop computers, heat pumps instead of radiant heat, and solar PV allowing people to generate their own electricity (which doesn’t get metered but shows up as reduced usage) all allow for MORE actual utility/work with less actual electricity usage.

Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:25 pm 



Spec big deal and too little too late. It was fun while it lasted but the momentum of the end game is in motion and no amount of BAUtopian hopium inertia is going to change the outcome.

Dredd on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:48 pm 



We all know that the 1% are the old fossils (The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise First).

apneaman on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:58 pm 



More white people in suits pretending they have answers.

steve on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:23 pm 



a perfect example of how the “system” works! Woman in yellow all butterflies and roses as she talks pie in the sky bullshit…. man in corner who speaks in reality of how electric cars will never make it…is…marginalized literally…To get into places of power you have to have the talk of the lady in yellow…built in extreme collapse

Outcast_Searcher on Sun, 17th May 2015 5:31 pm 



So Steve, is this the best the doomer crowd has? The “believe me because I am insistent” even if over time the data speaks against me” crowd?

I watched the video through the segment you’re complaining about. There are a grand total of FOUR panelists sitting in chairs in a row. Two (one being the moderator) are in the center. Two are on the edges. The (put upon sounding) “man in corner” you speak of is given just as much time and respect as anyone else, an allowed to make his point.

If this is the best you have (irrelevant whining), good luck building your following in the majority “I just want to buy stuff that works for a reasonable cost” middle class consumer.

I thought he made a decent argument, and was given time to make it clearly. The woman with the yellow collar pointed out that his boss (Musk) disagrees based on his plans via the Gigafactory to sell $35,000 electric cars. No one “won” or was put down, much less kicked off-stage, so what’s the real problem? That the non-doomer is allowed to speak at all?

Disclosure: I’m a moderate energy and technology investor. I “vote” on what works, and proves to improve well over time. Whining doesn’t sway me.

Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 5:55 pm 



Outcast do you vote on what works longer term or the usual corn porn short term. If we start talking longer term your best looks pretty lame. Let’s look out 5 years and compare notes.

Apneaman on Sun, 17th May 2015 5:59 pm 



Outcast_Searcher “Whining doesn’t sway me.” Then why are you doing it?

This is how come you can still make a profit.

The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

What doomers are saying is this can’t last and neither will you.

Apneaman on Sun, 17th May 2015 6:26 pm 



Outcast_Searcher look a scientist and engineer who has worked in the corporate world and done plenty of scientific research. I guess you can just include him in the doomer crowd and thus ignore his findings. You corns and deniers ask for evidence and when it is presented you ignore it or ask for more. Far beyond what is normally considered reasonable. That’s what cognitive dissonance causes people to do.

Techno Fix – Why Technology Won’t Save Us Or the Environment

You might not want to pin your hopes on nanotechnology, genetic engineering, or miracle drugs, says Michael Huesemann, author of Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us Or the Environment. As much as we’d like to believe that technological innovation will let us magically continue our lifestyle and prevent social, economic, and environmental collapse, Huesemann shows that most technological solutions are ineffective—and, in the presence of continued economic growth, modern technology does not promote sustainability, but hastens collapse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MsUypIHZhc

Outcast_Searcher on Mon, 18th May 2015 6:44 pm 



Well Davy, how about the last 10 years, while the doomers have been claiming doom will come “any time now”, and consistently been wrong?

Why is the doomer crowd waiting for their thing to happen “any time now”, use 5 years if you want (just like the solar to be cost effective crowd and sustained hot fusion crowd), yet when always wrong, they just say — “everyone else is wrong, and we’ll be right NEXT time!”?

When we have some actual serious doom for a year or three instead of the BAU blundering along, with hits and misses in technology and energy, like throughout history, which I as a MODERATE (I am a moderate no matter how many times you call me a corny” call “normal” since that’s almost always the way things are throughout written history.

Outcast_Searcher on Mon, 18th May 2015 6:54 pm 



Apeman, yes of course — if a moderate points out the pathetic doomer prognostication track record and disagrees with the short term doom scenario — why they MUST by whinging. How dare anyone disagree with a doomer when the doomers disagree with everyone else earning the “most often wrong” trophy.

Moderation (not corniness — I never said nanotech etc. would save us) says we’ll continue to blunder along in fits and starts as we have throughout written history.

And maybe some day, we won’t.

But hard core doomers claim they are imminently right every year or so, and are wrong every time, as we continue to blunder along.

Not being able to stop growing population and consumption exponentially (which is epically stupid) is the base problem — not that technologies like green tech, better foods and materials, etc. only advance things slowly.

But hey, if claiming “everything is about to collapse” makes you happy, and you can live with the predictions being wrong all the time – enjoy it.

I am NOT saying that BAU growth is sustainable forever or that eventually, population will be radically lowered by force at some point. However, if it happens in 100 years and the hard doomer ilk claims they got it right because they predicted it 100 times or 20 times — call me unimpressed. For one thing, we might blunder stupidly along for 200 or 500 years.

Davy on Mon, 18th May 2015 7:20 pm 



Outcast, this is not about getting it right or wrong. This is about risk management of predicaments that have the potential to cascade out of control. Sorry, you got your panties in a wad. Cornies are so uptight and righteous.

apneaman on Mon, 18th May 2015 7:37 pm 



Outcast_Searcher, Collapse is a process – not an event. There are no shortage of people making a similar claim that it can happen, but not any time soon. IOW-after I’m dead. How convient for you. This is simply a psychological defense mechanism (understandable but dangerous)provided by evolution so you don’t give up on daily life. Our technological evolution has outpaced our psychological evolution by orders of magnitude. This will be our undoing.

Your brain won’t allow you to believe the apocalypse could actually happen

http://io9.com/5848857/your-brain-wont-allow-you-to-believe-the-apocalypse-could-actually-happen

apneaman on Mon, 18th May 2015 7:40 pm 



Their brains won’t allow them to believe the apocalypse could actually happen.
…………………………………………..

Scientists, policy wonks and politicians keep hedging on the grim truths of climate change

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/18/1385651/-Scientists-policy-wonks-and-politicians-keep-hedging-on-the-grim-truths-of-climate-change