[Cashmere]

I love Toecutter.

I love Toecutter's sig line.


DSE, read TC, and learn a little something while you are here.

[TreeFarmer]

Never heard any complaining on the oil companies when oil was going for $15 dollars a barrel and they were barely making it.

You mean like all thru the 90's when they could not even afford to do maintenance much less exploration and drill new wells? You mean they let the Alaska Pipelile deteriorate because it was too expensive to fix it?

Even if we were not a peak oil, 10 years of climbing demand combined wth 10 years of underinvestment would have caused an oil shock.

TF

[trinitro]

The oil companies have us over a barrel.

The oil companies have us over a barrel like a crack dealer has a junkie over a barrel. No they're not helping the situation, but we've got an addiction problem of our own that is not going to be solved by blaming them.

Are there alternatives? Yes. All of them involve making do with less, and therein lies the rub. We don't want less. We want more. But less is what we're going to get. So we flail, and blame, and search for a messiah to save us.

other countries use a much higher combination of ethanol and gasoline Why can't the U.S.? It doesn't make any sense to continue to flog a dead horse, bottom line we need to eliminate our dependancy on oil now not later. It is time for the nay sayers to stop talking about how we need oil so badly and figure out how to get away from it and that will take our government because the oil companies have no intention of cutting their profits. And remember we made a nuclear bomb in 2 years took a lot of research and alot money but at the same time how many billions have we spent trying to secure oil in Iraq? Seems like if we had spent some of that money on research rather than killing off our soldiers there might be an answer by now.

Yes lets use our food to make our fuel! Not even going to get into the EROEI of it. Price of corn is going up,up,up but better to drive it rather than eat.
You might want to read the Hirsch report on peak oil and the time frames it takes to transition from oil.
Never heard any complaining on the oil companies when oil was going for $15 dollars a barrel and they were barely making it.

hold up bub I said we should use non food organics. there were millions of metric tons of debres after hurricane charley that was incinerated. The people of this country need to remove their heads from their asses. Oh and remember Katrina. How about the over growht in the westen states that is always a pain in the ass during fire season. Duh drink another beer Homer Simpson

[HEADER_RACK]

Never heard any complaining on the oil companies when oil was going for $15 dollars a barrel and they were barely making it.

You mean like all thru the 90's when they could not even afford to do maintenance much less exploration and drill new wells? You mean they let the Alaska Pipelile deteriorate because it was too expensive to fix it?

Even if we were not a peak oil, 10 years of climbing demand combined wth 10 years of underinvestment would have caused an oil shock.

TF

Yep, This is my line of work. It would scare you if you knew how bad some of the offshore production platforms look.

[HEADER_RACK]

hold up bub I said we should use non food organics. there were millions of metric tons of debres after hurricane charley that was incinerated. The people of this country need to remove their heads from their asses. Oh and remember Katrina. How about the over growht in the westen states that is always a pain in the ass during fire season. Duh drink another beer Homer Simpson

My automoblie runs on gas not on debris left over from a hurricane. How do you plan on making cars run on trash?
Steam engine perhaps?

[trinitro]

hold up bub I said we should use non food organics. there were millions of metric tons of debres after hurricane charley that was incinerated. The people of this country need to remove their heads from their asses. Oh and remember Katrina. How about the over growht in the westen states that is always a pain in the ass during fire season. Duh drink another beer Homer Simpson

My automoblie runs on gas not on debris left over from a hurricane. How do you plan on making cars run on trash?
Steam engine perhaps?

As I said drink another beer Homer alcohol can be made from all organics.

[trinitro]

hold up bub I said we should use non food organics. there were millions of metric tons of debres after hurricane charley that was incinerated. The people of this country need to remove their heads from their asses. Oh and remember Katrina. How about the over growht in the westen states that is always a pain in the ass during fire season. Duh drink another beer Homer Simpson

My automoblie runs on gas not on debris left over from a hurricane. How do you plan on making cars run on trash?
Steam engine perhaps?

As I said drink another beer Homer alcohol can be made from all organics.

[HEADER_RACK]

hold up bub I said we should use non food organics. there were millions of metric tons of debres after hurricane charley that was incinerated. The people of this country need to remove their heads from their asses. Oh and remember Katrina. How about the over growht in the westen states that is always a pain in the ass during fire season. Duh drink another beer Homer Simpson

My automoblie runs on gas not on debris left over from a hurricane. How do you plan on making cars run on trash?
Steam engine perhaps?

As I said drink another beer Homer alcohol can be made from all organics.

Like I said do some reading and some research and you just might comprehend the scope of the problem and might understand your ideas of solving it are like pissing on a forest fire.

[vandal49588]

oil speculation = economic depression

[3aidlillahi]

Look kid. You clearly have a reason to be upset but you're wasting your time insulting others while your time can be spent on worthwhile tasks. We've spent countless hours discussing and researching and crunching every single possible number you could imagine on this site for the past 4-5 years. You have not done an ounce of homework.

You haven't crunch the simple numbers of organic waste to fuel. If you actually did the math, it's likely we only have a very small amount of fuel that's possible. True, every bit helps. But your attitude towards the members on this board who have done the work, who have researched every single possible crazy idea and the numbers just DON'T work. Even with 100% efficiency for the conversion from waste to fuel, solar, wind, etc., it's just not possible. We're way beyond our capacity and we must reduce our consumption.

You really need to lose the attitude such as when you call people Homer Simpson and to drink another beer. All we're trying to do is help you understand but when you hear something you don't want, then you act out by insulting members here which shows your true character.

So why don't you run along your little uneducated ways and complain about the big bad oil companies. You talk a lot about what others are doing to cause this, but let me ask you a question: what have you done to prevent it? What have you done to get us off oil besides writing a couple of completely ignorant posts on a forum? Don't blame others when blame still lies with you. Reduce your consumption and diversify your sources, then bitch about what others do. If you think 135/barrel is unnecessary, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Don't just bitch. This site has a Planning section which is great to get off of oil which many of us use so I suggest you use it or you can reap the consequences of your inactions and complaining.

[smallpoxgirl]

oil speculation = economic depression

Oil shortage=economic depression

oil speculation=obfuscatory denial mechanism to avoid having to admit oil shortage.

[Bas]

Oh and by the way if we stop buying oil from the mideast will they still have money to wage war? Probably not and most of the terrorist operations of the middle east are funded by oil.

As far as I can tell the only countries waging wars in the middle east are Israel and America, but then again I don't have quality news channels like fox news over here...

[heroineworshipper]

If it wasn't $135 your boss would be underwater on his mortgage. We can't have that, can we.

[Cashmere]

oil speculation = economic depression

This kind of sentiment is scary crap.

I'm sure the morons running the country won't take much convincing to try to continue the status quo for another year or two based on this kind of desperation rationalization.

I can see the DSE's out there now, shovelling in the DS they so desperately need, "it's not our lifestyle and total lack of any planning whatsoever that has led us to this - it's "speculation"". Flash forward 2 years, with about 400 new federal laws on speculation, and VERY LITTLE done in the way of addressing the real issue, and we've made sure that any small, remaining hope we had left is gahn.

[threadbear]

A Manhattan project to replace oil. Why not? And why wouldn't govt be the obvious institution to fund such efforts? What are taxes for?

Times are going to get very tough, people may even go hungry for a time. Who in their right mind, thinks that govts. battling civil insurrections and food riots, and gasoline wars wouldn't fund alternative energy research and development?

I think, it's probably wise to maintain a sense of uncertainty, because there's a chance that viable alternatives won't be found. But there is just as good a chance, something will be developed. So plan for the worst and hope for the best.

[threadbear]

shoot the bastards.

Quite a long post, but bloody good. Couldn't agree more, especially the above bit.

Gasmon

Same. Thanks Toecutter, and as you explain quite clearly, the problem may be geological, but solutions could have been implemented 2 decades ago, if there hadn't been tremendous political problems and lack of real leadership within the U.S.

The ones poised to solve the problems are the Japanese and Chinese. If US is in trouble, imagine the shape they're going to be in.

[FoolYap]

Dig into the memory banks inside of your heads, and just for a second recall that in 2 years this country created a very detailed complex expolsive(the a-bomb) but now 65 years later we can't find a realistically priced alternative to gasoline. And another thought that comes to mind if in the 1990's we had gotten away from oil how much money would the middle east have to wage war? If the U.S. finds an viable alternative to oil do you think that the rest of the world will not follow suit? How come Our Federal government that every electric company in the U.S. to put up at least some windmills and utilise winpower to decrease the dependancy on oil and carbon based fuels for the production of electricity? Why is it not mandatory for all homeowners to have windmills to produce electricity? GET MAD it is time

So, if there's already a viable (read: net-energy positive) method of making ethanol in industrial-scale quantities from "yard trash", to what do you attribute the fact that no one's doing it yet? After all, at $130/barrel for oil, wouldn't you think that some enterprising companies would be making this cheap alternative to gasoline already? Are you suggesting they aren't because of government (or Big Oil) interference?

Or are you suggesting that we just need to spend a few years studying the problem to invent this process? If so, you must be prepared to acknowledge that there may not be such a process. I could post a prize of one trillion dollars for the first viable way to subvert the second law of thermodynamics, or for the first viable anti-gravity device, and sleep well, knowing I'll never have to pay up. Ain't ever going to happen.

As for windmills, I suggest that you do a little research. Most residential areas are not well-suited for windmills. It's better to erect "wind farms", with very tall towers and very large mills, in the areas which are suited for it. But keep in mind that the wind doesn't blow all the time. What wind power really needs to become more viable is either 1) a good, cheap, high-capacity way to store excess power for times when the wind isn't blowing, and/or 2) a (more) lossless way to send excess wind-power from places where the wind is blowing to far away places where it isn't.

You're reacting emotionally, sounds like mostly with fear and some anger. Which is good; at least you're becoming aware that there is a problem. Spend some time learning about the size and complexity of the problem, though. And stop waiting for "someone" to fix it.

If you do both, I think you may actually becomes less fearful about the whole thing. There are some changes you can do that may position you better to survive what's coming. And you may come to believe that the very worst doomer scenarios are not likely. In any case, living with constant fear and anger are not helpful.

--Steve

[trinitro]

A Manhattan project to replace oil. Why not? And why wouldn't govt be the obvious institution to fund such efforts? What are taxes for?

Times are going to get very tough, people may even go hungry for a time. Who in their right mind, thinks that govts. battling civil insurrections and food riots, and gasoline wars wouldn't fund alternative energy research and development?

I think, it's probably wise to maintain a sense of uncertainty, because there's a chance that viable alternatives won't be found. But there is just as good a chance, something will be developed. So plan for the worst and hope for the best.

yes yes this I can agree with

[catbox]

Woooohoooo! A plethora of new people show up in shock.
Can you imagine this place this time next year, we'll have to have a suicide hotline (thread) going!

Anyway...living with 135 a barrel is a bit easier (but not fun) than 200. Have you done anything to prepare for 150- 200???? Even if the magic cure, the elves are working round the clock, somehow comes online.... you may be waiting for a good long time to see a relief of any Pain at the Pump...pain at the pump...love that one!

For all those folks in shock...it will get better...and worse at the same time:

The seven stages of grief are:

Shock or Disbelief
Denial
Bargaining
Guilt
Anger
Depression
Acceptance

P.S. And while those elves are churning away...I wonder if they will figure out that darn over-population problem that keeps biting us in the rump!

catbox