Interesting Reading...

[vonnagy]

I found this to be a delightly chipper view of the state of the world today:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

 

[Osmer_Toby]

ok, now i'm really depressed. thanks for making my monday even more monday!

this really is sobering stuff. i need to read it through again a few times.
i think maybe i'll move to nz or australia in the next year or two- lower population densities ought to make for higher survival chances...

 

[mrsid99]

Just more doom and gloom, they were saying the same thing back in the 70's when the Arabs turned off the oil.
I agree that energy is going to be a big deal (that and water and food) but it's not panic time for quite a while.

 

[terri34 6]

Good old MrSid.... :hug:

 

[vonnagy]

Yeah, i've read some counter arguments for this, Peak Oil does not nessessarily mean 'no more oil' but its still an important issue.

Btw, anyone who wants to pitch in to help me by a farm in the Northland is more than welcome too when the energy crisis comes I'll make sure the basement is a dedicated photography darkroom/studio

Lol, it does make me think about those crazy mad max movies though!

 

[Harpper]

This definitely was an interesting read and it does point out an important issue I think most of the world's population doesn't like to think about. Humans are very good at procrastinating and denying things.

Even though I have not read this article until now, it doesn't surprise me. I've come to a similar conclusion some time ago when gas prices and rolling blackouts happen in America. I got to thinking how much we depend on oil. Basically we have "put all of our eggs into one" basket with our huge dependence of oil.

The crazy thing is that just about everyone knows that oil is not a renewable resource so even if this Peak Oil situation isn't as devastating as the writer makes out...when we run out of oil it will be. How is it a good idea to have everything from our food production, transportation, to something as simple as luxury convenience depend on something that we will eventually run out of?? It's gotten to a point where only a massive change will get us of our dependence on oil. Of course, we are humans so even though we know this information we procrastinate about doing something about it and some people flat out deny it.

Even though the article started with a pessimistic outlook, he does end with a relatively more possive note because he does believe this is preventable if we act now in a major way.

This quote from the article makes logical sense to me:

Furthermore, market indicators will likely come too late for us to implement whatever alternatives we have available. Once the price of oil gets high enough that people begin to seriously consider alternatives, those alternatives will become too expensive to implement on a wide scale. Reason: Oil is required to develop, manufacture, transport and implement oil alternatives such as solar panels, biomass, windmills, and particularly nuclear power plants, which require massive amounts of oil to construct and maintain.

The reason it makes sense is that currently we are super dependant on oil for just about every thing. This also includes energy for researching new alternative energy sources. I mean how are all the scientists going to keep all their research equipment running if there's no oil to produce enough electricity or enough oil to manufacture the materials needed to make new alternative fueled products?

If we started now and further develope and improve current alternative energy then we can slowly wean ourselves from oil rather than the huge sudden destructive change. Sure we bounced back from the 1970's oil problem, but do we really want to go through that again? I sure don't.

I would rather "panic" now and shock people into changing rather then waiting for the time when we really do have to panic. I'm not as pessimistic as the article but I do agree that more dedicated measures should be done now because I don't believe people realize how long it takes for a new infrastructure to be developed.

Basically I believe we have two options...1) To slowly wean ourselves off of oil...or 2) wait for oil supplies to run out and then have a huge choatic change which could lead to other destructive problems. Simple life choices like choosing to buy a solar powered calculator as opposed to a battery one is just one way to help wean us off of oil.

That's just my opinion on the subject. Thanks for the article, vonnagy. It was pretty heavy reading for a Monday but interesting nonetheless.

 

[pnkbabu]

wow i know i havent posted but a few times but that really freaks me out....really makes you think dosent it......makes you wonder who we put to power over our land is really the people that need to be there....like if we had thought of this a whole bunch of years ago could we have done anything to prolong it...ya know what i am saying??? :?:

 

[vonnagy]

yeah, it think its really endemic to western society that we are so dependent on oil. Kiwi's I think would fare a bit better than other western nations because it is a very self reliant culture, though not as much as it used to be. Not too long ago Auckland suffered blackouts and brownouts for an entire week because the power company infrastructure was buggereed up :?

One thing we are trying to do here is stick a bunch of windmills in around wellington area because the amount wind blowing through the Tasman straight is incredible. Anyway, should work well because Welly-town really blows

Solar energy would not work so well here, but should work nicely in aussie-land, in fact when i was in QLD 5 years ago several house already had that implemented solar systems and resold their excess to power stations.

In this part of the world, yanks are referred derogatorily called 'sepos' for the belief that they waste so much. Having lived there, i would tend to agree with the waste part, but it something that can be changed easily through changes in attitude. A loss of luxury does not equal a loss of lifestyle and community.

Here's to making the world a better place for us all, no matter where we live :love: :cheers:

 

[mrsid99]

I see several things in these comments that illustrate a little knowledge is a dangerous thing such as: "the oil is going to runout overnight and then we won't be able to build alternate systems".
Just think about it, speaking from hands-on experience I know that wind energy is only economically feasible at present with government subsidies (it is getting close though) when compared with electricity generation by natural gas and that's mainly because of the support structure and maintenance apart from the turbine that's needed. Remember also that wind does not blow all the time.
Tide generators give reliable energy but then again they're much more costly to produce and maintain.
Perhaps when oil and gas become more expensive as supplies are depleted then they will become feasible and I'm certain that then they'll be built. Economics rules all.
Nuclear power (fission) makes a lot of sense for now apart from widespread ignorance as to disposal of waste and other scare tactics by the uninformed who'd prefer we reverted to cave dwelling.
Nuclear fusion would be perfect, assuming it can be made to work effectively which it hasn't yet and if it does it's way in the future barring some accidental breakthrough and there's been several decades of work that hasn't found the secret yet.
Same thing with solar cells, takes more oil equivalent to make them than they produce in their lifetime with current technology.
Without getting into who's estimates are correct, there's at least 20 years and possibly over 100 years supply of oil left.
However, if you really want to do something to reduce oil usage, global warming, water shortages, pollution and all other ills then simply STOP BREEDING!

 

[MDowdey]

STOP BREEDING!

ill second that!! 75% of the people having kids right now dont have the means to support them, or they are too stupid to properly care for them and the child is there in the first place because daddy didnt want to protect himself. We need to stop overpopulating before we are rushed into a situation where we are limited by law as to the number of children we can have.

my .02 cents worth anyways


md

 

[Osmer_Toby]

STOP BREEDING!

uh,..... can we at least practice?

 

[MDowdey]

STOP BREEDING!

uh,..... can we at least practice?

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:


leave it to toby....

md

 

[mrsid99]

STOP BREEDING!

uh,..... can we at least practice?

Of course!
I said stop breeding not stop mating.

 

[photogoddess]

Excellent!

 

[Harpper]

Without getting into who's estimates are correct, there's at least 20 years and possibly over 100 years supply of oil left.

Well, that's part of the problem right there. Depending who's study you read you can't get a confirmation of how much is exactly left. Oil is definitely not going to run out over night, but I believe it's better to get a jump start on the issue before we get closer to the deadline. We are just delaying the inevitable otherwise.

When I said that there would be no lights to do research that was a drastic example. What I really meant was that it would be more financially feasible to do more research and advancement now when oil is still relatively cheap.

Economically it would be less stressful to wean us slowly from oil consumption since we have some time. When oil prices get to a point where it's not cost effective, we would still have an oil based infrastructure meaning that it would cost us a lot to do anything including research in alternative energy. That would cause a terrible ripple effect in our economy. The current gas price increases have already cause a ripple effect in my county. Higher gas prices for most deliveries are being past onto consumers. I don't even what to see what prices will be for products when oil production really slow down.

I'm not exactly looking forward to the seeing the day when oil prices get so high due to overconsumption or lack of remaining oil that we are finally forced to change. Of course, oil is not going to dry up overnight but do we really want to wait for prices to get so high causing a ripple effect in our economy before we change to alternative energy? I'm already paying double for gasoline alone but since oil is needed for most everyday items I'm sure their prices will only go up if prices continue to climb. Current alternative energy isn't as efficienct as it should be and since we have some time why not get us started on this track sooner than later instead of wasting valuable years of research?

I do agree that over breeding has been a cause of a lot of problems and not just oil consumption.