pstarr wrote:You need to understand that much of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels including coal, petroleum, and natural gas, which is also peaking. Petroleum comes first, then electricity.
Of course, I completely understand. That has nothing to do with my point however.
pstarr wrote:All of the alternative energy souces you mentioned...
I didn't mention any alternative energy sources. Are you sure you are looking at peoples names when you read posts? I did mention many forms of energy that electricity could be converted to, some fairly efficiently, some at significant losses.
pstarr wrote:...depend on cheap petroleum for their creation. Virtually all the crops we plant, harvest, process, and ship owe their existance to petroleum fertilizer, biocides, and production. This includes bio-fuels like methanol and bio-diesel and agricultural waste products in TDP
They only depend on those things in order to maintain the current volume. If they depended on those things to be produced at ALL, then we would have had to be pumping petroleum and running refineries back in the hunting and gathering days, millenia ago.
What does this have to do with our modern societies dependance on electricity?
pstarr wrote:You also stated that "movement of goods and services COULD be accomplished without petroleum." That is a very big COULD. Right now most of the transport infrastructure is depends on petroleum. To convert to electric cars, trucks, cranes, forklifts, loaders, long-distance trains, etc. would take a project larger than any attempted. Do you see anyone starting this? How long would such a project take? Peak oil is not waiting for your good intentions.
Yes, it is a VERY big could. Most such attempts to convert would come at or after the affects of the peak. Once again, what does this have to do with my point?
You still seem not to see at all how much we are dependant on electricity. You claim that I need to "
understand that much of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels including coal, petroleum, and natural gas", yet you yourself don't understand the significance! Don't you see, electricity is so central and necessary to our society that we expend massive amounts, most in fact, of our valuble and irreplacable fossil fuels to supply it!
I STILL disagree with your assurtion that peak oil, or peak [insert energy source here] will result in a doomsday scenario. The only thing that will do that is failure to generate sufficient reliable electricity. Will peak oil cause this? Perhaps, but you stated that "
we already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power". If that is the case, and we CAN keep the electricity flowing despite peak oil, then you are simply wrong in my opinion, and neo was correct. Its not a doomsday scenario, its a lifestyle change. A terribly painful one with lots of starvation maybe, but our modern society, business, government and all, will continue to function.
Ask yourself, if all the petrolium using vehicals disappeared tomorrow, would society colapse? No, I don't think so. What if all the electricity generators and batterys disappered, leaving us with no computers, phones, lights, refridgeration, traffic lights, and really no communications or appiances of any kind? Even if our cars were still there, gased up and ready to go, could you possibly imagine our society continuing to function at all? How?
Face it, our society is totaly and uniquly dependant on electricity. The fact that fossil fuels are our primary source of electricity is why peak oil is such a big deal, not because we need it for our cars. Loosing our petrolium based transportaion system would be devistating, but the problem of electricity generation is the REAL matter of life and death.
[EDIT] Corrected last paragraph to say what I originaly intended, that fossil fuels are our primary source of electricity, not petrolium which I accidently put instead.