Peak Oil: PLEASE READ ITS A MUST READ

[FoB_Ed]

Yeah, but once this happpens nuclear war will probably break out http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm, sounds like fun, eh?

Yeah, nuclear weapons are bad.

 

[Vorac1ous]

I couldn't stop laughing when i read this... where do you think electricity comes from??? The Great Electricity Tree in the sky? Did you even read the article?

I hope you're kidding too, because oil & electricity do not associate with eachother.

 

[SimonomiS]

I hope you're kidding too, because oil & electricity do not associate with eachother.

How Electricity is Made
"It Only Seems Like Magic."

 

[SAJ]

"I couldn't stop laughing when i read this... where do you think electricity comes from??? The Great Electricity Tree in the sky? Did you even read the article?"

I would guess he is refering to the fact that 64% of the worlds electricity is generated from either gas coal , or oil (plus 16% nuclear). All of which are subject to depletion this century.

 

[subz-]

Does the coal magic itself out of the ground and fly itself to the power plant? No, its oil powered machinery that mines the coal and then its oil powered trucks that transport it to the power plant. If you want to get really technical its oil that provides food for the coal miners and power plant workers as well. We currently use 10 calories of oil energy for every 1 calorie of food we produce.

So we may have the coal but no means of getting it from the ground or to the plant or workers to carry it all out. So that means no electricity.

 

[SAJ]

Sorry , wasnt being clear.
All I was saying , was that 64% of all electricity comes from non-renewable sources(80% if you want to go into how much raw uranium is left, which I dont).
So switching from oil to electricity is in fact fairytale logic, nothing more.

 

[SimonomiS]

Sorry , wasnt being clear.
All I was saying , was that 64% of all electricity comes from non-renewable sources(80% if you want to go into how much raw uranium is left, which I dont).
So switching from oil to electricity is in fact fairytale logic, nothing more.

The alternative being...?

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

The alternative being...?

Nothing, that's the thing. Horses and campfires...

 

[Pogrom]

Nothing, that's the thing. Horses and campfires...

Or steam engines

 

[SAJ]

Not exactly true, as a collection of civilizations we now have enormous resources to tap into, major advances have been made in science and engineering to start with.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is the free ride that oil has given us as a race may soon be over. When it happens it isnt going to be pretty, but advance preparation (collectively) will do alot to make it managable .

 

[Pogrom]

Not exactly true, as a collection of civilizations we now have enormous resources to tap into, major advances have been made in science and engineering to start with.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is the free ride that oil has given us as a race may soon be over. When it happens it isnt going to be pretty, but advance preparation (collectively) will do alot to make it managable .

Why is it not true?

What do we need for a steam engine to work?

Fire (wood or coal) and water. Coal used to be mined by hand, it'd be hard but it could be done again. And wood is an energy source that it readily available and semi-renewable.

 

[SAJ]

Why is it not true?

What do we need for a steam engine to work?

Fire (wood or coal) and water. Coal used to be mined by hand, it'd be hard but it could be done again. And wood is an energy source that it readily available and semi-renewable.

Im not saying that it cant happen that way, just it doesnt need to.
Theres no need for us to lose two hundred years of progress , but there will have to be massive adjustments made to all our ways of living.
Electricity will still be generated, there will still be cars and trucks(after a fashion) just fewer of them.

If you wanted to become self sufficiant in energy , you could (assuming a comfortable earning base) become so in a matter of a few months, DIY solar or wind power has never been cheaper or more efficiant than at present and given the right stimulous many countries could easily maintain power generation for base needs without the use of fossil fuels. At the moment Germany generates close to twenty percent of its energy from renewable sources and is increasing its capacity all the time.

The other thing that needs pointing out is that wood(while being "renewable" to some degree) wont be able to sustain more than a few percent of the massive energy needs of even the smallest populations. Theres just too many people and not enough trees.
Coal is being used as an energy source and will continue to until it too, goes into inevitable decline through to depletion. Besides , you might run a tractor on coal , but how about a plane ,or a tank?

 

[Pesmerga]

I think the entire race should start canning their farts and shipping it to conversion plants. I heard you could power like, a buncha nuclear bombs with enough fart gas. (and we all know, the more nuclear bombs we have, the better humanity is)

But yeah, close my eyes and let someone else deal with it.

Viruses have adapted to radical environmental changes, we're no different. Find a cell, reproduce, find another cell, exist. I'm entirely happy with this, as long as women are still attractive when the apocolypse settles down.

 

[Lawnmower233]

It's a pity we stumbled on oil in the first place. The guy who first analysed it's makeup with the mass spectrometer must have almost have a a stroke from the ecstacy he experienced. Packed with Hydro-carbon compounds this oil sludge is locked in a tight dense belt below the surface, compressed thoughfully by mother natures perpetual forces on planet earth. It is possibly the greatest fantasty any industrialized human collective like the U.S.A. could dream of.
It has high energy density and intermittency left over as a by-product of long dead sea creatures and vegetation. Thats right its a by-product. Therefore all this biochemical energy was PURPOSELY collected into such a dense low-volume sludge perfect for us.
I am not saying all those ancient organisms in foresight made sure they didnt decay and kept their hydro-carbon energy locked away from the biosphere. I am saying that this is the greatest fluke ever recorded. An anormously abundant source of biochemical energy locked away from the earths surface environment for aeons and we actually STUMBLE upon it.
But i digress to make my point. Which simply is:

We are so ****ed. More ****ed than I or any human on the planet can fathom at this time.

We will never stumble upon such a find EVER AGAIN. Renewable sources of energy at the moment are no substitute for oil to feed this giant organism we call humanity. Wind, thermalenergy, solar power are all pathetic substitutes simply because they were not created to be ripe with energy. The organisms that once oil was composed of were purposely constructed to hold all that energy because they are organisms. Thats what organisms do. They try and lock up as much energy from the surrounding environment and keep it inside them. We meerly exploited the residue of their endeavours.

Humanity trying to feed off renewable energy is like the little boy in his room scenario.
One day the boy looks in his barrel of apples and notices it is now half full. The apples are becoming less and less each day as his appetite grows more and more. Not only that but the apples at the bothom have quickly withered, shrivelled up, grown mould, decayed, you name it it's happened to those once delicious apples. The apple is like oil. Purposely created by the tree to hold as much biochemical energy in it similar to the fish.
So the boy blinds himself from stark reality and consumes more and more of the apples each day as more and more rot and the barrel grows more empty.
Eventually one day he awakes and claws the bottom of the barrel only to find there are none left that arent black with worms snaking through.
In desperation he turns to the wall and attempts to survive by licking the varnish off the woodenpanels covering the wall.
That is us. We are the boy that in desperation turns to the wall for nourishment as our supply of apples we exploited for so long runs dry. Wind, solar power, etc. are all intergral parts of our ecosystem, similar to the wall being an intergral part of the room. The walls arent there to nourish us. Neither are the wind, sun, heat of the earth there to power our industries. So when our apples grow sparse why do we delude our selves by saying we can feast for eternity upon the tasty varnish of the wooden walls?

We are like the frog that over time was selected by nature to loose its legs, evolve fins and gills and sleek hydrodynamic scales. And then guess what happens.
The lake dries up.
We can't de-evolve. We have grown accustomed to this abundance of energy. So what should we do? I have no idea. Like the sacrophite that is feeding off the dead rabbit. The rabbits corpse is being gobbled up more and more each year as the numbers of us are growing more and more.
We are feeding off the black rotted remains of a once great eco-web of fish, but now the black sludge we cling to has almost run out.
Oil...

 

[subz-]

What humanity does to compensate is lose the excess unsustainable parts of the population.

I dont really want to use another analogy after Lawnmower233's But humanity will shed its excess population like a human body does its fat when the food runs out.

Even before the oil disappears it will be unaffordable to all but the mega rich. The divide between the megarich and the poor will grow even more after peak oil and all that will be left for the poor to do is to die off.

Thats right, the only humans that will survive when the "fat of humanity" burns off is the megarich who can afford to get at the oil and food still.

Which brings me back, yet again to the reasons for me posting this link here. I do no want the only survivors of this calamity to be the megarich and a few tin-foil hatted conspiracy theorists. I want people to get some means of surviving before the crash so we can collectively punish those who did this to us and start afresh some day.

 

[SAJ]

Humanity trying to feed off renewable energy is like the little boy in his room scenario.

That analogy only starts to make any sense if we call him "the little obese boy" who is desperate to not lose any fat. The fact is that we squander massive amounts of energy on the most trivial and unimportant tasks, because at the moment it is cheap to do so.
I think your little fat boy(like the rest of us) needs to lose some weight before he resorts to licking the wallpaper(liked the post over-all though).

What humanity does to compensate is lose the excess unsustainable parts of the population.

Subz, I think you are taking the worst case scenario here.
Yes I agree , people will die but I doubt its going to be great swathes of the planets population.
Having said that of course, there are a number of dangers to food security. At the moment we could feed more people than at present by decreasing our reliance on animal proteins, as they use more resouces per pound (in terms of land,water and fertilizer)than vegetable proteins.
If bio-fuel were to become more widespread as an oil substitute then of course, more land would be taken away from food production.That itself could lead to mass starvation.

I do no want the only survivors of this calamity to be the megarich and a few tin-foil hatted conspiracy theorists. I want people to get some means of surviving before the crash so we can collectively punish those who did this to us and start afresh some day.

There is no "conspiracy" , and no-one is doing this to us.
We are simply doing it to ourselves, that is the sad part of all of this.

 

[CyberPitz]

Personally, in 3 years time, my RX-7 will be fully fixed up, I will have had my fun, I'm not a virgin, so I can die a happy man...../me gets gun ready for suicide.....

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

How can we have a nuclear war without fuel to launch the rockets? :O

 

[SimonomiS]

It's a pity we stumbled on oil in the first place. The guy who first analysed it's makeup with the mass spectrometer must have almost have a a stroke from the ecstacy he experienced. Packed with Hydro-carbon compounds this oil sludge is locked in a tight dense belt below the surface, compressed thoughfully by mother natures perpetual forces on planet earth. It is possibly the greatest fantasty any industrialized human collective like the U.S.A. could dream of.
It has high energy density and intermittency left over as a by-product of long dead sea creatures and vegetation. Thats right its a by-product. Therefore all this biochemical energy was PURPOSELY collected into such a dense low-volume sludge perfect for us.
I am not saying all those ancient organisms in foresight made sure they didnt decay and kept their hydro-carbon energy locked away from the biosphere. I am saying that this is the greatest fluke ever recorded. An anormously abundant source of biochemical energy locked away from the earths surface environment for aeons and we actually STUMBLE upon it.
But i digress to make my point. Which simply is:

We are so ****ed. More ****ed than I or any human on the planet can fathom at this time.

We will never stumble upon such a find EVER AGAIN. Renewable sources of energy at the moment are no substitute for oil to feed this giant organism we call humanity. Wind, thermalenergy, solar power are all pathetic substitutes simply because they were not created to be ripe with energy. The organisms that once oil was composed of were purposely constructed to hold all that energy because they are organisms. Thats what organisms do. They try and lock up as much energy from the surrounding environment and keep it inside them. We meerly exploited the residue of their endeavours.

Humanity trying to feed off renewable energy is like the little boy in his room scenario.
One day the boy looks in his barrel of apples and notices it is now half full. The apples are becoming less and less each day as his appetite grows more and more. Not only that but the apples at the bothom have quickly withered, shrivelled up, grown mould, decayed, you name it it's happened to those once delicious apples. The apple is like oil. Purposely created by the tree to hold as much biochemical energy in it similar to the fish.
So the boy blinds himself from stark reality and consumes more and more of the apples each day as more and more rot and the barrel grows more empty.
Eventually one day he awakes and claws the bottom of the barrel only to find there are none left that arent black with worms snaking through.
In desperation he turns to the wall and attempts to survive by licking the varnish off the woodenpanels covering the wall.
That is us. We are the boy that in desperation turns to the wall for nourishment as our supply of apples we exploited for so long runs dry. Wind, solar power, etc. are all intergral parts of our ecosystem, similar to the wall being an intergral part of the room. The walls arent there to nourish us. Neither are the wind, sun, heat of the earth there to power our industries. So when our apples grow sparse why do we delude our selves by saying we can feast for eternity upon the tasty varnish of the wooden walls?

We are like the frog that over time was selected by nature to loose its legs, evolve fins and gills and sleek hydrodynamic scales. And then guess what happens.
The lake dries up.
We can't de-evolve. We have grown accustomed to this abundance of energy. So what should we do? I have no idea. Like the sacrophite that is feeding off the dead rabbit. The rabbits corpse is being gobbled up more and more each year as the numbers of us are growing more and more.
We are feeding off the black rotted remains of a once great eco-web of fish, but now the black sludge we cling to has almost run out.
Oil...

You like analogies eh?
"We are like the frog that over time was selected by nature to loose its legs, evolve fins and gills and sleek hydrodynamic scales. And then guess what happens.
The lake dries up."
That one summed it up best imo. Bit of comedy too except we werent selected by nature to evolve into a fish, but decided our selves. And now I guess the lake is drying up too quick to evolve enough.
Knowing humanity, there will be a number of people who read this and hoard away oil, before selling it when it becomes scarce, so that the rich can survive longer.
EDIT: Farrow, you get a bunch of strong people and throw em.

 

[Zeus]

How can we have a nuclear war without fuel to launch the rockets? :O

Surely the governments will have their own private stash of oil

by the way I probably won't be here the next few days...see you guys in like 2-3 days

 

[ishootfools]

We want to drill in Alaska to help the oil prices go down so the librals will stop complaining----then they say that it could hurt the wildlife so we can't drill!!!

How the democrats think boggles the mind!



oh yea----Subz you gay little Satanist I'm a Christian & right now I wanna knock your teeth out like chiclets :angry:

 

[Alec_85]

As stated before, The oil in Alaska is NOT worth it to even bother really. It would sustain the US for about a year & then that too is drained. And the US is NOT the only country in the world that needs oil I can tell you.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

oh yea----Subz you gay little Satanist I'm a Christian & right now I wanna knock your teeth out like chiclets :angry:

That's not very Christian. You want to love him and welcome him into your home you mean!

 

[jverne]

Oh, you must have missed my point. In ten years, we'll have technology that you can't even comprehend or fathom. In 50 years, we'll have set up a colony in space or on the moon that sustains life millions.

I don't exactly know what you're trying to motivate us to do, as this problem you so enthusiastically present to us is most notably unavoidable. Either you're an attention whore trying to look even slightly intelligent, you're trying to feel better about yourself when the time comes that this "economic crash" actually occurs or if you have a solution on mind and want us to spread the "word". Humanity survived an ice age, that's about 50x worse than an "economic downfall".

How does nobody realize...we won't die out, ok maby a few (like always), but our modern way of life will case to exist! Well end up something like in the middle ages or aincent times, it happened lots of times in history! Aincent grece and Rome were much more developed than the medieval Europe, and why did they decay? It was because economic factors-->no more slaves no more labour force in other words "no more oil-->no more computers, cars,..."

My suggestion on surviving is...get all the knowledge possible in all areas (farming, science, social behaviour, these things often stay the same)! Only with lots of knowledge, resoursfoulnes and luck you'll survie! Use the internet in a wise way, study as much as possible!

Those people who knew how to outwit the medieval inquisition survived, those who were uneducated died!!!

Studying its the only way man could survie and will survive!!

Once on discovery i watched a documentary on "natural weapons", most animals have much more deadly weapons than humans, but we are equiped with a brain that can adapt in a very short time, that's why we are dominating the earth!!!

 

[Razor]

How does nobody realize...we won't die out, ok maby a few (like always), but our modern way of life will case to exist! Well end up something like in the middle ages or aincent times, it happened lots of times in history! Aincent grece and Rome were much more developed than the medieval Europe, and why did they decay? It was because economic factors-->no more slaves no more labour force in other words "no more oil-->no more computers, cars,..."

My suggestion on surviving is...get all the knowledge possible in all areas (farming, science, social behaviour, these things often stay the same)! Only with lots of knowledge, resoursfoulnes and luck you'll survie! Use the internet in a wise way, study as much as possible!

Those people who knew how to outwit the medieval inquisition survived, those who were uneducated died!!!

Studying its the only way man could survie and will survive!!

Once on discovery i watched a documentary on "natural weapons", most animals have much more deadly weapons than humans, but we are equiped with a brain that can adapt in a very short time, that's why we are dominating the earth!!!

Bull Shit

The Roman Empire collapsed due to corruption and the overwhelming size of it, they couldn't defend such a huge empire. It had nothing to do with running out of slaves and it will take a lot more then running out of oil to destroy the modern civilisation...there are alternatives to oil, gax and coal.

What a bunch of pessimistic idiots and scare mongerers.

 

[jverne]

Does the coal magic itself out of the ground and fly itself to the power plant? No, its oil powered machinery that mines the coal and then its oil powered trucks that transport it to the power plant. If you want to get really technical its oil that provides food for the coal miners and power plant workers as well. We currently use 10 calories of oil energy for every 1 calorie of food we produce.

So we may have the coal but no means of getting it from the ground or to the plant or workers to carry it all out. So that means no electricity.

Well we'll switch to man labour like in the early industrial age! Steam power, anyone?

 

[jverne]

Bull Shit

The Roman Empire collapsed due to corruption and the overwhelming size of it, they couldn't defend such a huge empire. It had nothing to do with running out of slaves and it will take a lot more then running out of oil to destroy the modern civilisation...there are alternatives to oil, gax and coal.

What a bunch of pessimistic idiots and scare mongerers.

It was to big to defend!! With the lack of slaves free men (soldiers) were needed to sustain themselves, meaning less troops to defend the border! Corruption had a great impact but not as great as lack of slaves. To get their slaves they needed to conquer more lands but without slaves to sustain the soldiers they couldn't conquer anymore! Only the free labour force could sustain such a great empire-->only lots amount of oli is needet to run your 4.0 cars!
America's economy is ****ed up from the base up! My 1.1l car maybe doesn't go from 0-100 kmph in 6s but at least it gets me where i want! European cars are much more sophisticated than yours, that's why we won't fell the crash as you folk! We have CERN in development, our energy use is much more rational! Maybe we will never be the best in the world but at least we'll survive and that's what counts!

 

[SimonomiS]

It was to big to defend!! With the lack of slaves free men (soldiers) were needed to sustain themselves, meaning less troops to defend the border! Corruption had a great impact but not as great as lack of slaves. To get their slaves they needed to conquer more lands but without slaves to sustain the soldiers they couldn't conquer anymore! Only the free labour force could sustain such a great empire-->only lots amount of oli is needet to run your 4.0 cars!
America's economy is ****ed up from the base up! My 1.1l car maybe doesn't go from 0-100 kmph in 6s but at least it gets me where i want! European cars are much more sophisticated than yours, that's why we won't fell the crash as you folk! We have CERN in development, our energy use is much more rational! Maybe we will never be the best in the world but at least we'll survive and that's what counts!

Germany in particular has a leg-up I think, 20% of their energy is provided by renewable sources.

 

[Razor]

It was to big to defend!! With the lack of slaves free men (soldiers) were needed to sustain themselves, meaning less troops to defend the border! Corruption had a great impact but not as great as lack of slaves. To get their slaves they needed to conquer more lands but without slaves to sustain the soldiers they couldn't conquer anymore! Only the free labour force could sustain such a great empire-->only lots amount of oli is needet to run your 4.0 cars!
America's economy is ****ed up from the base up! My 1.1l car maybe doesn't go from 0-100 kmph in 6s but at least it gets me where i want! European cars are much more sophisticated than yours, that's why we won't fell the crash as you folk! We have CERN in development, our energy use is much more rational! Maybe we will never be the best in the world but at least we'll survive and that's what counts!

America's economy is messed up, the fuel prices in America should go up to level out with the rest of the world. But there are replacements for oil, such as vegetable oils, etc.

 

[jverne]

America's economy is messed up, the fuel prices in America should go up to level out with the rest of the world. But there are replacements for oil, such as vegetable oils, etc.

read the article christ!

here our prices are around

1l=1EU that's 1EU for 0.2642 gallons, that's around 1.30265 dollars per 0.2642 gallons AND finaly 1 gallon=4.405 dollars!

what's yours rate 1 gallon=1 dollar?

 

[kirovman]

read the article christ!

here our prices are around

1l=1EU that's 1EU for 0.2642 gallons, that's around 1.30265 dollars per 0.2642 gallons AND finaly 1 gallon=4.405 dollars!

what's yours rate 1 gallon=1 dollar?

You're talking to Razor as if you thought he was American?

 

[Teta_Bonita]

Better get them hydrogen fuel cells runnin!

 

[jverne]

You're talking to Razor as if you thought he was American?

well i presume he is...

 

[SimonomiS]

Better get them hydrogen fuel cells runnin!

Unfortunately, as a recent article in EV World points out, the average fuel cell lasts only 200 hours. Two hundred hours translates into just 12,000 miles, or about one year’s worth of driving at 60 miles per hour. This means all 700 million fuel cells (with 10 grams of platinum in each one) would have to be replaced every single year.

Read the article, huge section on Hydrogen Fuel Cells, cant be bothered pasting it all.

 

[Vorac1ous]

This thread dies NOW.

 

[jverne]

This thread dies NOW.

if you don't like it then don't read it!


personaly i really belive something of a kind is going to happen in our non distant future! But i wouldn't mind living in the middleages again->more freedom!

 

[Razor]

If you look at my location, it clearly says UK.

But there are so many alternatives to oil, lubricants can be made from organic produce, cars can be powered by fuel cells, renewable energy sources are on the increase, Nuclear Fussion is 30 years away, Britain is planning on the possibility of building more Fission plants as well. Oil is being depleted but there are still untapped reserves, one underneath Antartica, that can be used when it gets to a point that oil in the Middle East and the North Sea starts running low.

The problem area will be America, China and countries like India and the African nations that are just industrialising. But i don't understand why you think we are going to start living in the middle ages again, just because mankind won't have any oil left doesn't mean that computers, the internet, etc will suddenly grind to a halt, doesn't mean that other modes of transportation that don't rely on fossil fuels to get by will disappear and it doesn't mean we'll be without electricity. Yes, there will be blackouts, etc, until the renewable power infrastructure can catch up and Nuclear can catch up, but it won't suddenly turn mankind back 500 years.

 

[jverne]

If you look at my location, it clearly says UK.

But there are so many alternatives to oil, lubricants can be made from organic produce, cars can be powered by fuel cells, renewable energy sources are on the increase, Nuclear Fussion is 30 years away, Britain is planning on the possibility of building more Fission plants as well. Oil is being depleted but there are still untapped reserves, one underneath Antartica, that can be used when it gets to a point that oil in the Middle East and the North Sea starts running low.

The problem area will be America, China and countries like India and the African nations that are just industrialising. But i don't understand why you think we are going to start living in the middle ages again, just because mankind won't have any oil left doesn't mean that computers, the internet, etc will suddenly grind to a halt, doesn't mean that other modes of transportation that don't rely on fossil fuels to get by will disappear and it doesn't mean we'll be without electricity. Yes, there will be blackouts, etc, until the renewable power infrastructure can catch up and Nuclear can catch up, but it won't suddenly turn mankind back 500 years.

i'm also puting hope in fussion, if we can make it efficent in time then there would be no problems due to lack of oil. i agree with you at that part! however fussion is aprox. 30 years away, enough time for the economy to fall, thus meaning no funding for fussion research! If all world's oil reservel are projected to end 40-50 years from now and fussion 30 years, that would mean that oil prices in only 10-15 years would be horribly high whigh which will halt research!

well maybe not the middle ages but the first industrial revolution!

 

[Direwolf]

Something I've come to notice in looking at transitions like this in history: humans are pretty much self-organizing. We might got through the occasional period of turmoil, but society always finds a way to smooth out the bumps and keep the world from going over the edge.
Even if all the oil disappeared tomorrow I'd expect that we'd suck it up and deal while things changed to compensate for the problem. This could involve anything from war to transitions to electricty-based transportation. People are far too clever when it comes to adapting for "doomsday collapses" to happen overnight.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

ROFL @ kap's perpetual motion diagram!!