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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Have Even A Partial Solution?

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby joewp » Thu 13 Jul 2006, 15:18:48

greenworm wrote:just imagine a car that gets a 100 miles per charge coupled with a biofuel engine.


I always ask this question of biofuel proponents:

Do you want to eat or drive?
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby greenworm » Thu 13 Jul 2006, 22:47:56

I always ask this question of biofuel proponents:

Do you want to eat or drive?


Since you didn't add the </sarcasm>, I will assume you are being serious. You can inteplant shade loving crops with hemp, all the carrots and lettuce you can stomach. Do you know the US government actually pays farmers not to grow, you are aware of this, right? Think about all that unused land. Plus, you don't need land, you can grow the plant on a roof in a bucket for christ sakes.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 13 Jul 2006, 23:04:37

greenworm wrote: BTW, it is well known that the entire US car fleet can be replaced by electric/biodiesel cars.


So? How is this a solution to anything?

It doesn't address population growth which will eclipse any savings in just a few years.

It doesn't address the lack of grid capacity.

It doesn't address the lack of transmission capacity.

It doesn't address scale.

It doesn't address who will fund it, both the purchase of vehicles and the massive capital investment for infrastructure.

It doesn't address the limits of any biofuel production which is inherently unsustainable by nature.

It doesn' t address C02 sequestration which must accompany any increase use of fossil fuels like coal.

It doesn't address the economic displacement of millions of workers dependant upon the current auto/fuel scheme.

Another Solution in Isolation.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 13 Jul 2006, 23:07:21

greenworm wrote: Plus, you don't need land, you can grow the plant on a roof in a bucket for christ sakes.


And this can compete with oil gushing out of the ground under pressure?

Wow! In just a bucket? Technology sure has come a long way.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby greenworm » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 01:10:36

So? How is this a solution to anything?

It doesn't address population growth which will eclipse any savings in just a few years.

It doesn't address the lack of grid capacity.

It doesn't address the lack of transmission capacity.

It doesn't address scale.

It doesn't address who will fund it, both the purchase of vehicles and the massive capital investment for infrastructure.

It doesn't address the limits of any biofuel production which is inherently unsustainable by nature.

It doesn' t address C02 sequestration which must accompany any increase use of fossil fuels like coal.

It doesn't address the economic displacement of millions of workers dependant upon the current auto/fuel scheme.

Another Solution in Isolation.




I'll go through these point by point if you wish, the not so clever comment about growing plants in a bucket will be left alone and I'll just assume you're an idiot. :lol:

1)If you wipe out the entire US oil car fleet (other countries can play along too) then peak oil moves from 2010 to much much later.

2)Population growth, the silly monkeys will just have to learn not to act like silly monkeys. Christianity will have accept contraception. :lol: I chose not to have kids because I knew that tough times were ahead, other people could make this choice. This is choice!

3)grid capacity- Umm, I did mention there is technology which exists already to capture all unused ac. This will give you time to upgrade, hurry, hurry. :lol:

4) transmission capacity/scale- no clue what you are getting at. If you are referring to electric/diesel engines, there are already plenty.

5)capital investment - Has all the money dried up? Money is created through debt and the US has created a large sum of debt recently, haven't you heard. It is the will to invest that is lacking, I heard the google boys are funding an electrical car experiment.

6)biofuel unsustainable by nature- Use hemp, with the right harvesting techniques, you will need to add little in terms of NPK and prevent runoff.

7)C02 sequestration which must accompany any increase use of fossil fuels like coal. - I just eliminated the entire US car fleet with a process that takes as much CO2 from the air as it puts into the air and you are worried about CO2 from coal?

8)economic displacement of millions of workers dependant- They can't learn to make biofuel/electric hybrids? Also, who really cares, over a million US workers lost their jobs due to outsourcing, what happened, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, so what, this happens every day my friend.

9)Another Solution in Isolation- this is my preferred choice, 150 acres, no grid, satellite hook-up (God, I will indeed miss the internet when it goes down), and wood heat! BTW, if you look at the lifestyle which I have chosen, you will easily discern that I believe the right choices will not be made and TSWHTF in a big way. :lol: Good luck!
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 02:19:56

greenworm wrote: Population growth, the silly monkeys will just have to learn not to act like silly monkeys. Christianity will have accept contraception.


I'm only going to address the first one. Got better things to do.

Birth control takes 50 to 70 years to have an effect due to demographics.

47% of the developing world is under 16. Real good example: 70% of Pakistan is under 16.

Do the math.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 02:26:38

I see the problem.

You just dont realize how much oil we burn

22 million barrrels a day.

thats 1 billion gallons a day for the usa
4 billion gallons a day for the world.

that is 200,000 20,000 gallon swimming pools a DAY

1 gallon puts out 35 kwhours of electricity.

If everyone shut of all their lights it could run 5 % of our cars.

Hemp has a production rate of up to 10 tons per acre, every 4 months.

so for 6 months lets say 10 tons per acre per year.

from a popular hemp sight
quote
Currently seeking an easy method of making methanol. If you have one, please contact us.

They have to work on that part.


and when you click on hemp4fuel it talks of the home made biodiesel recipe to turn hemps seed oil to diesel.
then it talks of two women traveling around the country on french fry oil, the recipe includes lots of clean water to wash the diesel (wich then turns putrid) and lots of lye which is a very destructive chemical.

ok lets assume we have the kinks out and hemp can make 3 gallons of ethanol per 50 pounds instead of the corn 1.5. ( I dont believe it, but hey so give hemp a break)
how many potted hemp plants will you need maturing per day?

first off we will need 6 billion gallons of ethanol per day.
that is two billion 50 pound boxes of raw hemp before you process it, and it also will take the entire continous folow of HORSESHOE FALLS CONTIINUOUSLY 6 hours a day to make the mash for the GMO (EU) bacteria to eat.

so one hundred billion pounds of hemp per day.
lets say a BIG hemp plant is 5 pounds

that is twenty billion hemp plants per day. that is four plants per person per day maturing daily around the world. that would be around 1000 hemp plants gowing for each person in the world.

growing continuously throughtout the year

all harvested 4 a day for everyone and then you have to distill it! omy! that uses all your ethanol up but lets say the distillaion is free.

1000 plants for everyone all harvested over the year and all that ethanol saved in barrels. after the whole year is done

then you will have

enough

ethanol
to run the world

FOR ONE DAY


so to run the world for one year you need 365000 hemp plants for every man woman and child in the world

me thinks it is not happening soon.

P.S. "If you were to fill up the tank of your car with Hewlett-Packard or Lexmark ink, it would cost $100,000," said Gerald Chamales, chairman of Rhinotek Computer Products, a Carson (Los Angeles County) manufacturer of ink and toner cartridges that are compatible with name-brand printers. "If you filled an Olympic-size swimming pool with ink from HP or Lexmark inkjet cartridges, it would cost $5.9 billion with a B."
Last edited by grabby on Fri 14 Jul 2006, 04:41:17, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 02:45:48

me thinks the calculqations are close since every man uses 4 gallons gas per day and it would take about 200 pounds of hemp a day to supply your personal needs so we are in the ball park.

so you see, biofuels work but they can't work except in about two orders of magnitude less amounts, which means you will be driving you car two orders of magnitude less than with oil wich will be 4 days out of the year.

the average person uses about 2 kilowatt hours of electricity a day that is what our grid is set up for.

that is 1/15th the amount of energy we each use in oil every day

2 kilowatts is 1 pint of gas in the form of energy every day but we use 4 gallons of gasoline every day.

for electricity to supply all our GASOLINE needs we need 15 grids the size of USA grid today to do it.

15 times as many dams 15 times as many oil burning power plants and 15 times as many nuke plants and 15 times as many windmills and waterwheels, whatever, if wanted to power all our cars by hydrogen or whatever.

it aint happnin.

We MIGHT replace 10 % of our needs with alternates, and if we do that we wont even make up for the INCREASE expected in gasoline use next year

THERE IS NO WAY OUT OF THIS MESS.
we are are like four legged animals that oink a lot.
Last edited by grabby on Fri 14 Jul 2006, 04:45:36, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 03:21:58

Hey, lets learn a little bit about what the difference is in millions versus billions when dealing with weights and measures. This was an eye opener when I first did it.

ok we would need, for our DAILY dose of liquid fuel 100 billion pounds of hemp in one day.
right?
right! cause we need to make 84 million barrels of oil or the equivalent inn ethanol 120 million barrels ethanol./day.

how much is that?
Will it fit in my refrigerator?

Well, apple box is 50 pounds but hemp is lighter than apples so we would need mabe a box 3 foot by 3 foot to hold 50 pounds of hemp.

Hokay. how many boxes we need?

well that is easy, 2 billion boxes a day.

if we stack them up how high will they go?

6 billion feet is about... 1,136,363 miles
that means 5 boxes wide stacked up to the moon!

EVERY DAY! OF HEMP! hey its cheaper to just pump the oil out of the ground.

now you think we can do that daily? You do? Day in day out? winter and summer? even on new years? Ok lets do it then!

well, if we have really green thumbs, it could happen. but you have to remember we have to do it daily day in and day out winter and summer ok?

A coal train has 30 cars and each hauls 100 tons. that is 3000 tons.

that is 1,000 full coal trains of hemp a day.
since each train takes 4 hours to unload youll need 100 sets of tracks to a single plant by the horsshoe falls ethanol plant.

another way to loook at it is if you have 2 billion 3x3 boxes of hemp stacked side by side they will stretch around the world how many times? 50

that is how much hemp you need in a day. 3x3 boxes full of hemp stacked next to each other and going around the earth 50 times.

there is one more way to look at it.

when you mash the hemp up with water and heat it up you have to let the bacteria work on it.

How much mash do you need every day?

enough to keep this waterfall flowing continuoussly for 6 hours every day.
If it were corn it would have to run continuously...






Image

but the real problem with hemp is this:
even if you cant smoke it to get high, people can go and plant strong smoking type in the same field and you couldnt tell, and it would be easy to grow lots and lots and lots of it and never get caught.

Hmmm, methinks that is the real reason every one wants to grow hemp, cant be that it makes good ethanol. :)
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 03:43:53

Now the final point is, HEY it is nice to be able to make alternate fuels!
But it wont do any good unless you make it in above quantities. might as well not make it at all if you cant even decrease our oil use with it.

if we can only make 10% or 20% or even 30% of our needs.
Then we will have the peak oil crash.
if we dont make any alternates we will have the peak oil crash
so what difference does it make if we make any biofuels at all
We are still going to have the peak oil crash if we keep burning oil like pigs.

The only answer is immediate conservation by an order of magnitude THEN alternates could work. Without conservation forget it.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby greenworm » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 10:35:19

even if you cant smoke it to get high, people can go and plant strong smoking type in the same field and you couldnt tell, and it would be easy to grow lots and lots and lots of it and never get caught.



That is funny. You do know that hemp is the dominant gene in this little family. So, this idea wouldn't work, over generations the field would provide just hemp. Plus, hemp is way taller than it's recessive sister, it wouldn't grow that well. Carrots, peas, and lettuce would thrive. You seem to be able to do math, maybe wrap your head around genetics.

You just dont realize how much oil we burn

I spent the greater part of the last 10 years studying this, ha! Methinks you use the wrong equation. Methinks you want to replace oil with ethanol, I don't, I would like to replace a quarter of it. Methinks you use 'methinks' too much. :lol: You forgot to add in your little equation the eventual mpg increase as well.

Concerning the grid, I am in agreement, I think I have stated it twice now, well, actually this is the third time, who knows maybe it will sink in this time.

Concerning population, this is the variable that cannot be controlled and I agree with Montequest that this is indeed the achilles heel. Provided we upgrade the grid and roll out this biofuel/electric car fleet, some serious consideration into how population growth can be halted needs to be considered. Some countries show decline in their population, but this appears to be an abnormality, I think the US culture would not be able to propose viable solutions around this. Either way, I think the US will have an untimely demise in the not so distant future, it is almost pointless to debate this.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 12:17:27

If you dont replace ALL of it as it occurs we crash, you HAVE to replace all of it or you are going to crash. Every bit has to be replaces. We cannot even replace next years shortfall even if we went gung ho.

we are behind the 8 ball.
next year even more we should have started in the 70's and 80's

now, even though it is a good exercise for some it will not prevent a peak oil collapse.

when you fall into a cliff ravine, it does not matter if you jump in running or if you slide in bit at a time grabbing ethanol weeds and biodiesel trees and using your fingernails of conservation as you slip over the edge, in the end it is still a correction brought about by gravity. You can call it a settling to the bottom, or a floating, or a sailing, or a brash hurtling, or whatever you want to call it, it is in fact an acceleration until impact.

Going gung ho with alternates makes for a good movie but will not change the final outcome by even a few weeks.

There is going to be a large downsizing no matter what you do, and an acceleration to the bottom which is self sustenance. if you are small like a mouse, you will hit, bounce and be stunned but you will survive. If you are big oil user like an elephant you will explode on impact.

(I love allegories)

Sure, help the farmers, I like farmers I hug farmers. I kiss farmers. I woo farmers! But they can't make be prettier or they cant save us.

Farming alternates in the end will ALWAYS use more oil than we sould have used for constructing is massive. And we will start accelerating before these projects even get on line.

it will not solve our problem or even prevent a peak crash.

Want to see how impossible it is to biofuel your way out of this?

from now on every project developed for biofuels must be totally run built, developed, and finished using only ethanol.
Use ethanol trucks cars, ethanol generated electricity and ethanol transport, from harvesting, swathing, transporting, seeding, going to the store to by a rope etc. and coooking and refining. you can try and start in Boise they have a huge ethanol plant there.

Bet you cant do it. because to make ethanol you have to have a vunctioning POWERFUL electric grid and diesel and gasoline, without these you cannot make ethanol. and you dont realize how much you use, when you could have just conserved all that and also conserved the oil and gasoling you were trying to replace MUCH EASIER AND CHEAPER>

but the hop, skip,and jumpers want their toys.


It will not.
so mesays. 8)

P.S. The very weirdest thing is this: If someone doesn't take part in the grand technology delusion or hypnotic wishful thinking, or play the hypnosis game (everything will be all right) they are looked on as being a danger, a trouble maker, and even THE CAUSE of the problem! The CAUSE!
Naysayers are looked on as TROUBLERS, Anchors, holder-backers, and yes, even the CAUSE of the problem.
and if it werent for them, we could have tried and won!

This is mob denial they always have to blame someone as long as it is not their own piggy lifestyle.

Some people accept truth and don't like to play games.
We shouldn't force them to play hypnotize the chicken.

They want to know what they can DO to help.
and a negative person that does not want a solution!

Life is interesting. Truth is truth, and what is going to happen is unchangeable.

FINAL EXAMPLE:

Conversation of a man falling from a plane with his wife on the cell phone when his parachiute doesnt open

Hypnotized Man: HELLO! HELP!
Straight Wife:Hello?
Hypnotized Man: HELP!
Straight Wife: You sound like your in trouble, how can I help?
Hypnotized Man:I'm Falling and my parachute doesnt open! But I have high hopes that technology will save me and someone in the future will invent a time machine and come back and save me from my distress! I have HIGH HOPES!
Straight Wife: Your dead! Should I sell halliburton today then?
Hypnotized Man: You just dont like me!

People don't like the truth and they want to pin it on someone else, but they have only themselves to blame.

(new concept)


You can downsize NOW and you can become a mouse and bounce. So don't blame me.
Last edited by grabby on Fri 14 Jul 2006, 13:03:57, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Fri 14 Jul 2006, 12:33:33

This is a really good point!
Thank you for your thoughtful responses.

What is the debate all about?
Basically from an outsiders view it is all about wether we run and jump into the gotrge screaming WE ARE NOT OUT OF OIL! or wethere we slip and slide in grabbing ethanol weeds along the way.

The politicians want to be populare so they want cheap oil as long as possi8ble, so naturally they get along with big oil who denies there is a gorge.

the greenies waant to slowly ever so carefullt slip in grabbing trees, branchs and clawing their way up shouting "IF ONLY you would have listened to us!" (Not bothering to think their policies, if elected, would have gotten them thrown out of office long ago. And that they drive their car every day also. (most of them).

and the average person just wants to kind of hop, skip, and jump into it.

they want toys but they will just cut down their use a bit

I think in the end we wiill do all of it r\

RUN till you see the cliff, then sit and slide, then start grabbing ethanol weeds and finally scr3aeaming

ITS ALL YOUR FAAAAAAUAUUUUUULLLT!

and the end is the same. The nations will then proceed to fully knock each others teeth out cause their really ticked off.

Well it isn't their fault

IT IS OUR FAULT.

WE drive our cars 4 gallons wortha day, this is unsustainable.

You want biofuels FINE but you will be criving 1/100th as much as your driving now.
same with power, you will have only 1/5th the power.
If we drive our car daily, it is us who caused this problem.

If we want to go SUSTAINABLE, yo will have to move and change your job.

It wont happen.

But don't blame them, blame "ourselves", we're the ones burning the oil. That hurts, doesn't it?


You can go sustainable if you just give up everything, basicaly, but I think most will wait till they have to, like myself, no sense starting early, I'll just get used to it like putting a toe in the cold water a little at a time, cut as much as I can. Thats how its going to happen.

and the mice will bounce and the elephants will explods.
Be a mouse.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby greenworm » Mon 17 Jul 2006, 21:22:50

You can go sustainable if you just give up everything, basicaly, but I think most will wait till they have to, like myself, no sense starting early, I'll just get used to it like putting a toe in the cold water a little at a time, cut as much as I can. Thats how its going to happen.


I have to admit, when I transitioned myself to a sustainable lifestyle, I thought about all the tv I would miss and the movies and the bars. Guess what, life hasn't been better. My previous existence was akin to a car driving zombie, I never noticed the amount of time wasted driving here and there, what a truly sad existence. Honestly, I would at least research a sustainable lifestyle as it is truly independent and rewarding. Hard work, yes, but rewarding!
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby garyp » Tue 18 Jul 2006, 02:38:56

MonteQuest wrote:
greenworm wrote: Plus, you don't need land, you can grow the plant on a roof in a bucket for christ sakes.


And this can compete with oil gushing out of the ground under pressure?

Wow! In just a bucket? Technology sure has come a long way.

When I did the calculations on algae>biodiesel production an efficient bioreactor of 15 cubic metres in size (20ft x 5ft x 5ft) could fuel a car for over 6,000 miles. For most people those numbers are within the right order of magnitude to be attainable in the their garden/yard, particularly if you bury it in the ground.

Even if you only have a roof, I'd guess you could manage it - particularly if you rode to and from work on a bike.

To me peak oil isn't a problem of impossibilities - its a problem of time, scale and will. People have to want to prepare, feel its worth preparing and be supported in doing so. At the moment we are still at the 'change the lightbulbs stage', and unfortunately without an acceptable future to aim at, that's where we will stay.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Tue 18 Jul 2006, 09:44:20

garyp wrote:To me peak oil isn't a problem of impossibilities - its a problem of time, scale and will.


And since we don't have any of the three, and finding the "will" does nothing to address time and scale, then making the transition without a major socio-economic upheaval depends upon a very slow decline rate of oil production once the peak arrives, coupled with a massive downscaling of everything we do.

We don't know what the decline rate will be, and we don't know how to distribute the self-imposed recession equitably.

And we don't know how the monkeys will react to all of this.

The latter is the biggest unknown.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby GreyZone » Tue 18 Jul 2006, 12:16:10

There is no "acceptable" solution to peak oil and 6.5+ billion human beings. None. Thus there will be an unacceptable solution to peak oil and 6.5+ billion human beings. There is nothing that any of you here reading this can do to alter that so you're far better off preparing yourself for a powered down world to come than worrying about how to continue the petroleum highs when your pusher is out of dope.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Graeme » Wed 19 Jul 2006, 01:16:33

Monte

We don't know what the decline rate will be


This is a very interesting revelation from you because it means that, in principle, it is possible for us to get through this energy transition relatively unscathed. Would you go as far as to say that if there is no major catastrophe during the next 10-15 years, then we'll make it? I think that we have the necessary technical and business expertise but that there is a great danger for political inertia or conflict to stifle this. Our future could be either with or without major economic, social and environmental interruption.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 19 Jul 2006, 22:52:27

Graeme wrote:Monte

We don't know what the decline rate will be


This is a very interesting revelation from you because it means that, in principle, it is possible for us to get through this energy transition relatively unscathed. Would you go as far as to say that if there is no major catastrophe during the next 10-15 years, then we'll make it? I think that we have the necessary technical and business expertise but that there is a great danger for political inertia or conflict to stifle this. Our future could be either with or without major economic, social and environmental interruption.


No, there will be a socio-economic upheaval no matter what the decline rate will be, as laid out in the Hirsch Report. We might avoid a "major" event that leads to a depression.

Relatively unscathed?

No, even in the best scenario.

Make it?

Make it to what? A continuation of"happy motoring", NASCAR, low unemployment, unbridled technology and the freedom to breed without restraint?

No.

Will it be more like what the TV shows us every day in the Middle East?

Very likely.

As Matthew Simmons has said, "when Ghawar peaks, economic growth is over."

If the decline rate is very modest, and we gear up renewables, nuclear, massive conservation and efficiency efforts world-wide, we might muddle along in a massive recession as we are forced to powerdown and re-look at our perceptions about growth and an obsolete standard of living.

That is, If, peakoil is 10 to 20 years away.

It's not about producing energy, it's about being able to afford access to it.

Unscathed depends upon the "monkeys."

We will also face the inability to continue to use fossil fuels, due to Global Warming, without a world-wide massive carbon (C02) sequestering program that will cost trillions of dollars.

For example, China is building a new coal-fired power plant every week for the next 7 years. What would it cost to sequester all that C02?

Where will the energy come from for the 3 billion newcomers?

From your share of the declining pie?

I didn't think so...

Connect the dots.

Review Dr. Albert Bartlett's video for the exponential growth math.

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 19 Jul 2006, 23:00:01

Would you go as far as to say that if there is no major catastrophe during the next 10-15 years, then we'll make it?


If oil doesn't peak in the next 10 to 15 years, and China and India stop growing, and we start today to transition to an economy based upon sustainable energy for a powered-down civilization, then....

Sorry, the answer is no.

Too much asset inertia and cultural direction.

The Titanic does not turn on a dime.

We will have to cope and adapt....and learn some hard lessons about sustainabilty and the earth's carrying capacity.
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