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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 Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Thu 27 Jul 2006, 10:10:32

It only takes one group to want more than their fair share to cause conflict. I believe that fact alone will reduce the population far lower than current levels.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby kokoda » Thu 19 Oct 2006, 11:34:03

There is evidence that nations can support huge populations and at least keep them adequately fed, clothed, housed and educated with virtually an agrarian economy (India and China for example).

In other words it is possible to survive in a low tech, fossil fuel reduced state and still survive.

The remaining sources of fuel will have to be heavilly rationed with preference given to food production and distribution. People will need to adapt to growing, making and distributing food and other products locally.

People are going to have to get used to working harder and longer as they start growing, harvesting and transporting food manually.

If they do this then they may survive ... provided that we have left enough time to adapt.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby RdSnt » Thu 19 Oct 2006, 21:46:37

kokoda wrote:There is evidence that nations can support huge populations and at least keep them adequately fed, clothed, housed and educated with virtually an agrarian economy (India and China for example).

In other words it is possible to survive in a low tech, fossil fuel reduced state and still survive.

The remaining sources of fuel will have to be heavilly rationed with preference given to food production and distribution. People will need to adapt to growing, making and distributing food and other products locally.

People are going to have to get used to working harder and longer as they start growing, harvesting and transporting food manually.

If they do this then they may survive ... provided that we have left enough time to adapt.


You actually want to live like the majority of Chinese?
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Revi » Thu 19 Oct 2006, 22:03:27

My solution to peak oil is that we all have to use less of everything. We have to substitute solar derived energy for as much as possible. We have halved our fossil fuel use at our household in the past 5 years. If everyone did that we could get well into the declining energy years without much pain. Unfortunately not everyone is going to reduce their use happily. They are going to feel cheated. That's why we must start now to reduce our useage. Practice for when there isn't any choice, and save money in the process. Check out what we've done under www button below. Click on the first pic for an explanation.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby kokoda » Fri 20 Oct 2006, 05:06:53

RdSnt wrote:
kokoda wrote:There is evidence that nations can support huge populations and at least keep them adequately fed, clothed, housed and educated with virtually an agrarian economy (India and China for example).

In other words it is possible to survive in a low tech, fossil fuel reduced state and still survive.

The remaining sources of fuel will have to be heavilly rationed with preference given to food production and distribution. People will need to adapt to growing, making and distributing food and other products locally.

People are going to have to get used to working harder and longer as they start growing, harvesting and transporting food manually.

If they do this then they may survive ... provided that we have left enough time to adapt.


You actually want to live like the majority of Chinese?

I didn't say that I wanted that ... but you might only have two choices. Either you can live like the Chinese, or die like over pampered first worlders that haven't got a clue how to survive in a post-peak oil world.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Revi » Fri 20 Oct 2006, 11:41:59

We'll all get to the level of the average Chinese person eventually. That's what is amazing to me. If we went from 75 mbpd to 85mbpd in 5 years. If we are at peak now we'll be down to 75 mbpd in 5 years again. That means we're going to have a reduced lifestyle. The question is how is it going to work? Are we going to reduce somebody else's lifestyle so that we can go on squandering the last of a non-renewable resource? Or are we all going to play nice and make the best of a bad situation? Will we all powerdown together or will we tussle over the scraps?
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Ludi » Fri 20 Oct 2006, 12:43:43

kokoda wrote:There is evidence that nations can support huge populations and at least keep them adequately fed, clothed, housed and educated with virtually an agrarian economy (India and China for example)..


"Despite substantial improvement in health and well-being since the country's independence in 1947, malnutrition remains a silent emergency in India, where more than half of all children under the age of four are malnourished, 30 percent of newborns are significantly underweight, and 60 percent of women are anemic. According to the report, malnutrition costs India at least $10 billion annually in terms of lost productivity, illness, and death and is seriously retarding improvements in human development and further reduction of childhood mortality."

-Worldbank


Clearly, India does not have "adequate" nutrition.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby kokoda » Fri 20 Oct 2006, 14:08:29

Ludi wrote:
kokoda wrote:There is evidence that nations can support huge populations and at least keep them adequately fed, clothed, housed and educated with virtually an agrarian economy (India and China for example)..


"Despite substantial improvement in health and well-being since the country's independence in 1947, malnutrition remains a silent emergency in India, where more than half of all children under the age of four are malnourished, 30 percent of newborns are significantly underweight, and 60 percent of women are anemic. According to the report, malnutrition costs India at least $10 billion annually in terms of lost productivity, illness, and death and is seriously retarding improvements in human development and further reduction of childhood mortality."

-Worldbank


Clearly, India does not have "adequate" nutrition.


By adequately fed I was implying that they recieved enough food to survive ... nothing more.

The fact that they can cram over a billion people into a country only 1/3 the size of the US, without the aid of hi-tech food production methods, and not suffer starvation on a massive scale, is impressive enough.

It would suggest that comparitively lightly populated countries should be able to at least survive peak oil ... provided that they haven't gotten too soft.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby grabby » Thu 02 Nov 2006, 02:25:33

Revi wrote:We'll all get to the level of the average Chinese person eventually. That's what is amazing to me. If we went from 75 mbpd to 85mbpd in 5 years. If we are at peak now we'll be down to 75 mbpd in 5 years again. That means we're going to have a reduced lifestyle.


Fuel per population person has been decreasing since 1970-80.
Our lifestyle is reducing as we speak (Don't we drive hondas? In the 70's we drove cadillacs.

but the increasing numbers demands even more NET totel whatever fuel.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Revi » Thu 02 Nov 2006, 21:19:41

We could live on far less than we are using now, but it would take a serious national effort to do it. We need to figure out ways of halving our fossil fuel use, and do it soon. It takes investment in our households to use less oil. Solar hot water, smaller, more efficient cars, more insulation, etc. It takes money to make money. Where is that coming from? We're broke!
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby kokoda » Sat 25 Nov 2006, 23:32:59

A lot of people have predicted that even a slight drop in our fossil fuel supplies would lead to economic ruin ... but I wonder if that would be really the case.

At the moment we waste a lot of energy. We use it unproductively.

If we were to focus on using energy productively I wonder just how much we could reduce demand before it started to bite economically.

Is there any real economic advantage in driving an SUV instead of a hybrid? Or transporting food from across the country rather than using a local producer. Or driving instead of using public transport?

The truth is we use ... and waste ... a lot of energy because we want to ... not because of any economic imperitive.

If Hybrids were the only new cars being offered on the market then people would buy Hybrids. If you could only by low wattage light bulbs or goods produced locally then you would still buy them ... the economy would adjust.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby TonyPrep » Sun 26 Nov 2006, 03:04:13

kokoda wrote:If we were to focus on using energy productively I wonder just how much we could reduce demand before it started to bite economically.

If Hybrids were the only new cars being offered on the market then people would buy Hybrids. If you could only by low wattage light bulbs or goods produced locally then you would still buy them ... the economy would adjust.
There are some big "if"s there. But what is likely? The things that could help ease the path down are unlikely to happen voluntarily.

Look at the surge in SUV sales, in the USA, since fuel prices got to year lows. People don't do sensible.

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

Unread postby kokoda » Sun 26 Nov 2006, 11:09:40

But that is partly my point. If the government were to regulate on things like engine size or fuel economy then the car industry would be forced to comply.

As things stand at the moment everything is governed by market forces. Unfortunately market forces only repond to events that have already passed ... though don't always respond to anticipated problems.

For example SUV sales surge after fuel prices drop and then fall away after fuel prices rise. The government needs to anticipate that fossil fuels will start to decline sooner then later and put policies in place to reduce our dependence on oil. Market forces cannot deal with this sort of problems.

Western style governments seem loath to do this ... even though the entire future of humanity is at stake.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby TonyPrep » Sun 26 Nov 2006, 16:15:47

There's another big "if".

However, tinkering with the problem, without heading for a sustainable solution (e.g. setting higher car efficiency standards without moving to zero use of fossil fuels, in the longer term) is only delaying the problem. Of course, if we can delay it long enough, it MAY become someone else's problem. But that's more a belief than a certainty and, in my opinion, a bad choice to make.

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

Unread postby LateGreatPlanetEarth » Sat 20 Jan 2007, 18:40:57

a two slot toaster that one can select one slot to use.
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby Revi » Sun 21 Jan 2007, 23:24:32

My solution to peak oil is efficiency. We've cut our fossil fuel use by half in the past five years, and we live better than we did before. Here's what we've done. Click on the pics:

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm
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Re: Do you have an "acceptable" solution to peak o

Unread postby LateGreatPlanetEarth » Sat 27 Jan 2007, 02:09:08

helium-3.
nothing really compares to this.
http://www.energybulletin.net/192.html
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Re: Do you have an

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 07 Mar 2018, 23:46:59

garyp wrote:Much capital is made here of the inability/unwillingness of politicians to accept and prepare for peak oil. Some even go so far as to say that they are intentionally lying about it whilst preparing to save their own skins. However stepping back and looking at things dispassionately, the oil doomers, die-off fans and greenies have to take a share of the blame for the situation we face.

If you look at the range of global threats we face today with a significant probability of occurrence:
    - Climate change
    - Peak oil
    - Bird Flu + Other pandemics
    - Demographic Timebomb
    - Water depletion
    - West > East superpower transition
    - Global Recession
    - CFC/Ozone Hole
    - Nuclear/biological war
    - MegaTsunami
you can see that many are not addressed seriously by the political establishment. Of those that have been, three common factors can be seen:
    1) the threat is accepted by experts as very certain
    2) achievable solutions routes have been outlined
    3) those routes are acceptable to the general population
Taking CFCs as an example, the threat was understood, the phasing out of CFCs for replacements was painful, but achievable, and since there was no significant impact on the stand of living of the population, it was acceptable to them. Contrast that with climate change - the experts agree, but 'solutions' proposed either fail to be significant enough to have much effect (Kyoto), or are impossible to implement in today's society. Needless to say, significant change is also unacceptable to the broad swathe of the general public, particularly in car dependent cultures.

To the politician viewing such a list of 'disasters', each threat needs to get in line behind the many smaller threats that cause concern every day. In general a terrorist bomb has a greater mindshare in the general publics' views than climate change. Someone who comes up to the politician saying that this is a significant threat will get heard; but when they start to state that massive change of society is required all they are in fact saying to the politician is that the threat exists, and they don't know how to deal with it. Threats stated without credible routes to solution actually decrease the notice and action that will be taken. Why worry about something you can do nothing about?

Peak oil is falling into the same trap.

Many quite rightly say that the threat is real, and that given human nature (eg lying) it's probably much closer than thought. However by not presenting it in a way that has a credible solution that fulfils all of the above three points, those same people make it less likely that action can and will be taken.

To remove doubt:
    - die off
    - artificial population reduction
    - sustainable living = arable existance
    - contraction & convergence
    - significant carbon taxing of individuals (probably)
are all non solutions that basically just state 'we don't have a clue' - certainly to a politician's ears.

The question I pose to people here is: how can you present both the problem, and a solution that meets the three points - even if it's not a total solution? What is needed is an encapsulated combination that makes a viable whole and that then can be taken up and implemented by the politicians.

    - Alternative fuels get a bad press here, but they do meet the above requirements.
    - "Reducing our dependency on those nasty arabs" may not be a pretty message, but it is acceptable and allows movement in the right direction.
    - More nuclear power to produce a better environment is similarly acceptable, if after a moment of confusing paradox.
Can anyone come up here with similar problem<>solution sets in peak oil that could create positive movement?
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Re: Do you have an

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 08 Mar 2018, 08:25:49

I can’t

Good thought process, approaches the human element in a pragmatic way.

I’ve often heard people say “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution.” I understand the motive, to get people engaged in the solution. But what if the solution truly is truly systematic and intractable?
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Re: Do you have an

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 08 Mar 2018, 09:39:49

I can't either. Which does not mean some sort of pragmatic limited "solutions" are not available for some of these intractable problems. It just means our administrative structure ie. political system in combination with the general populace has continuously shown either a meager understanding of the issues involved or a clear reluctance to engage them wholeheartedly. And the reluctance seems to stem from either a downplaying of the seriousness of the threats and/or a recognition of the disturbance of current ways of living and perceived sacrifices involved
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