Peak Oil. If youre poor, your kids will die.

there are plenty of places where the surrounding farmland is not going to be able to grow enough crops to feed the people who live within walking distance.

when we run out of oil, food boats and trucks are not going to bring food anywhere. billions will die. cities will smell like dead people.

there are two questions, when will this happen and can we build new technology in that time. the current estimate for whats known as peak oil is 2006-2020. peak oil is when we harvest half of all possible oil and the price slowly but exponentially goes up forever until its not economically feasible to use oil for anything. i think i read that the date for 'road warrior, no oil at all is 2060 or 2080.

what kind of technology is going to have an entire infrastructure complete between now and then? when considering the success of the railroad, consider the horrific economic collapse and military showdowns that will strangle the next decades.

not hydrogen. that other thing i posted about, a self-renewing perpetual motion machine that sails on the zero point field, that sounds like a pretty huge miracle. and therefore doubtful. but i dont really know. sounds bleak to me.

how easy is it to put a hand crank on an mp3 player so i can listen to music on my farm? i think an investment in hand crank electronics would be an extremely good idea right about now. if i wanted dollars.

then again, when i convert all my wealth to oil based fertilizer and pesticides and rule the entire tristate area with an iron fist, the more the better.

someday, our great grand kids will discover that they can use large farms to grow plants for use as biomass fuel in the mysterious machines left behind by the ancient ones. and it will be a pollution and capitalism-free utopia forever.

seriously, what else would happen? exactly this. and it could just happen today, totally. could have happened many years ago. how mind blowingly ironic that will be.

what is the message provided by the republicans that calms me down? we can use hydrogen? we can turn coal into gasoline and pollute the world so much that all the people in heaven will laugh at us? cross your fingers for the perpetual motion machines that your country’s owners (big oil) have apparently been supressing.

http://www.peakoil.org

What annoys me is the fact that america seems to be decades behind the rest of the planet on this issue. Other countries are implementing schemes involving vehicle sharing and policies to get people out of their cars and yet in the states everyone carries on blind.

Please, carry on, drive your pointlessly huge car ten minutes down the road. God forbid you get some exercise. A bit warm in the office? Why bother opening a window when you can just turn on the air conditioning.

Recyc-what-ing?

The pure ignorance of the vast majority of people over the pond apalls me. I’m about to go and put some paper in the recycling bin and then cycle to a lecture rather than drive, why bother? It’s not like anybody else cares.

I think that a ‘Mad Max’ scenario is worryingly probable.

For christs sake people we only get the one planet.

As for your farm, why not fill a field with solar cells when the oil runs out. You can power a small village and a fleet of electric vehicles. Sell the surplus energy to other people and you’re laughing mate.

look at me guys, I have a hand cranked computer hu hu hu hu. It only takes 20000 revototions for 5 mins of power, just enough to start it up…

Yes future man the world will soon see the enlightenment that you posess and will all follow you into the hand powered future of electronics.

On a more serious note, mankind always finds a better more effecient means of power, first it was trees, the it was wind water and coal, then we found oil improved it refined it then we learn about solar nuclear and hydrogen power, nuclear will so become the main energy source and it doest run out of energy because you cant destroy the components in the atom (if you add a positron you get the element next up on the list and this can be easily done in reactors so that we would escensailly never run out of energy.

also part of the reason that oil prices have doubles is because of infation, it used to be 25 cent for a drink popcorn and aa movie now it will run around 16 dollars for the matinee.

take a look at my comp…baron…

man me and you sure do like to talk about nuclear power, don’t we…every single post…

and ol’ future man is tryin’ to support nonproliferation…

this is a sad thread. we all believe that the free market will save us?

nuclear does seem to be the wave of the future. but how do you power a car with that? how do you power the mining equipment and humongous factories required to produce u-235 and plutonium? if we doubled the amount of nuke plants we have today, and somehow got dump trucks and mining equipment to work like some kind of amazingly powerful electric car, could we really not run out of energy?

are we going to help third world countries build nuke plants? are we going to pay to secure them too? you want a draft?

but they never had an economy that was totally based on one of those resources and then, all of a sudden, they totally ran out on a world wide scale.

when steam power was invented, sails still existed. imagine what would have happened to the economy if sails started doubling their prices every year. how would that effect the development of steam power? oh right, its the free market, which means it is the invincible hand of god that will solve all problems instantly.

to anwser the first part of your question: ratios, A small amount of uranium or plutonium is need to power the car not a city really get in the perpective of things you dont need a 30 ton reactor to power a half ton car…

ok then next part is ( i think) will we really never run out of energy, right? well yea our cell prove that we wont, atp all that stuff have it takes less enrgy to put the molecules together and then get a large release of energy from breaking it, well the same can be applied to nuclear tecnology in car

and for the last time stop bieng politcally incorrect and say nuclear or isotomic or something along those lines nuke is so barbaric and negative.

ok nex is yes the wood was and still is a freagin huge part of economies!!! What would happen if all the trees suddenly died and burned or rotted where would we live or sit or eat man sound like we need a new food source that wont die on use because imean aliens might just kill all the trees and then we would be screwed wouldnt we??? Yea backthen trees were so freaken expensive it was rediculus why do you think the had to get over 300 people to pool there money together to pay for the ship to get across the ocean… wait this is simaliar to a post i wrote in communism verses capitalism… yes you said people wouldnt beable to pool their money togeter because the elites wouldn let them well the people in europe were really really opperses and they still pooled their money together to get away to a new job/ new life in america , so now that ive refuted two of your arguements “kablam” i gotto go.

if you dont think the free market will save us what will then o mighty jenius of the galaxy. of yea i forgot to put in my last post that yes they were running out of trees go to england walk around if you see any tree that were alive when king henry the eight was around then tell me o the black forest was also decimated and the other countries that had trees jacked the price up really highso that it cost an arma and a leg to buy any, startingly similar to today… oh and steam power and sails never really got along, one used steam in times of no wind and sail when there was never both because they would be too slow as the force forward from the steam would push air into the sails from the frount and thus slowing it down.and once again HOW WILL WE SAVE OURSELVES

I SAY HELL(O) TO YOU, F(R)IEND(S).

The electricity produced will power the cars… don’t ask me about the specifics, just get it done! :unamused:
[I’m trying to be funny but serious]

See, we will have to build many, many more plants. Enough to lead the world market… that helps the economy. We can export the energy to these countries through power lines.

Gotta go, have more ideas thanks to Capitalism.

alright crazy p, heres a challenge.

i want to know how much electricity it takes to mine uranium 238. and i want to know how much electricity it takes to turn that into u-235. or i want to know how much it takes to turn that into plutonium. and i want to know how much electricity it takes to build enough nuke pplants to fuel ALL of america. regardless of vehicular needs.

do we have enough electricity, from fossil fuels, to do this within the next TWENTY YEARS.

can we also put it into vehicles? if not, who delivers your groceries? who delivers them to the poor?

are you truly that optimistic and why?

dont say hydrogen. its way off. we are talking about things that are feasible NOW. because we need to start building the infrastructure NOW./

Well, it’s a good thing we never dismantled the rail system. That covers the USA at least. Get a sail boat cross the pond and we can probably handle western Europe. I don’t think easter asia made it to oil dependace yet, not sure one that.

Looks like the solution will be old tech for most areas. Perhapse no bananas in January anymore, but most people will live. We have a lot of excess capability to tap into, in the luckier places on the earth.

yeah we can turn coal into oil. and im 90% sure that that is exactly what will happen once petroleum becomes unfeasible.

then we will really see some shit. who cares if glaciers the size of vermont are breaking off of antarctica? that doesnt cause global warming!! it causes global cooling! dumbass!!!

youre right, most people will live. because they are not stuck in cities completely reliant on oil. they actually grow food that they eat, like normal humans. the poor people in cities, they are screwed. either that or they will be snowed in forever. and screwed.

Hey, the intelligence of my bottom is not at issue here. And of course you largely agreed with me.

I’m not so worried about the impending ice age. It kinda gives me comfort to know we played are part in this one. I also give the poor in cities a bit more credit. Resorsefull bunch they are. Sure many will die, but they do that everyday.

yeah i do agree. but i dont understand what you think these city dwellers are going to do. where will they go? the suburbs? what will happen there?

im under the assumption that the rich people in the suburbs will move out to somewhere where they can be by a farm that can sell them food in exchange for the fertilizer and pesticides that they have recently converted their wealth into. thats what im going to do. hopefully i can buy my own farm.

i mean, seriously, if the oil runs out, and the new tokyo accords say we have to stop using coal, what are the urban poor, with no savings at all, going to do? what resources do they have? im very curious.

im very curious as to what prior resourcefulness you are referring to. they die every day, as you say, because they dont have shit. and they will have much less shit very soon. im not even talking about america, think about the cities that are not quite as amazingly, stupifyingly wealthy as american urbanites are.

i predict that no less than 1 billion people will die in the 21st century. and i am dead, freaking serious. im not exagerating. 1 billion people. at least. because YOUR STUPID FASCIST GOVERNMENT LOVES OIL. DAMMIT.

henry ford designed a car 70 years ago that could run on biomass fuel. why hasnt dub-fucking-fuck-ya mentioned ANYTHING AT ALL ANYTHING AT ALL about biomass fuels?

because nobody will profit if you can grow your own fuel on a farm.

are biomass fuels completely out of the question?

THEN WHY THE MOTHERFUCK HAVENT I HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THEM IN THE PAST 70 YEARS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~!!!

the deaths of one billion people and more will be on the heads of any government organization that fails to recognize that biomass fuels are the future.

hitler will be a tiny footnote. dubya bush (it will probably be the next repub elected, a decade or two away) will the pinnacle of evil, oil loving stupidity. for the next thousand years, everybody will hate him like the anti-christ that he is. anybody who overlooks the amazing self-sufficiency of biomass fuels and instead relies on dwindling oil WILL ABSOLUTELY be scorned BY FAR MUCH MORE than hitler ever could possibly be.

biomass fuels are here. they have been here for almost a century. and dub-motherfucking-ya is talking about using coal.

violent revolution. soon. i mean, we could just peacefully build our own biomass fuel factories, but fuck it. i want revenge.

but hopefully, ill find myself some kind of entrepeneurial opportunity to invest in a biomass production facility. it seems as though, at 20, im at the exact age where i will be able to do this. so pay attention 20 year olds, invest in that.

but i want to repeat myself. HITLER WILL BE A FOOTNOTE.

any world leader who does not embrace biomass fuels will be seen as the harbinger of the greatest holocaust the world has ever known. biomass fuels have been here for almost a century. i mean, today, we could fuel our cars with biomass fuels.

if one single person dies as a result of our governments failure to implement biomass fuel, then that is a MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH greater injustice than hitlers exploitation of an existing hatred.

(dubya) will be exploiting ignorance, not existing hatred. he will be murdering people who he doesnt necessarily hate. he will be murdering people in the name of profits, not nationalization, not power. fucking money.

i want everyone to remember this more than anything. im sorry that i didnt include it in the original post:

Whatever leader fails to implement biomass fuels beyond the point that this recognition will save one life, he is MUCH MUCH worse than hitler/ghengis khan/suharto/ivan the terrible/vlad the impaler/future man/saddam.

any leader who does not implement biomass fuels, or whatever similar, non-profitable oil-substitute, will go down in history as the ultimate worst person that history has ever known. hitler is nothing. i think it is very likely that dubya has been presented with a biomass alternative and “his advisors” have told him to turn it down.

i dont blame him. i blame the axis of evil: penis/scumsfeld/the knights templar

as funny as i may be, im dead motherfucking serious. oil isnt infinite. what is this discussion about if it isnt this exact one right here? PLEASE TELL ME PLEASE

Wow Future man take a chill pill your worst than me when I ranted at you. But to aswer you post, the first one, I say. Talk to the Clark man or An A-bomb is a bomb. because me an statistics dont get along… but i can estimate that it requires less energy than coal because

  1. The equipment used is the same except in the power plants because reactors produce most of the needed elements for use hence the reason there are “breeder” reactors as the name implies they use old used fuel and create more usable fuel ecencially never running out of fuel for electricty.
  2. Do you know how many deaths there are related to nuclear power plants??? Not many verses the death from black lung disease and cavins and equipment “malfuntions” a year of deaths from the coal industry would eclipse the nuclear powers related lifespan deaths…
    3.Fuel in powerplants need not be replace for 50 years or more that there reduces your cost of resupply greatly unlike coal and oil that needs resupply every hour of every day. proof well there is a small nuclear reactor going in around alaska to provide power to a remote town. it was estmated that the plant would only require a few staff for regulation and matienace and it would now have to be refueled for 50 to 70 years depending on power needs of town.
  3. Im pretty sure that when i create the nuclear car power plants will be even less needed as the car would provide power to the home not alot but enough to lower energy costs by 1/3 i dare say.
    but thats niether here nor there.
    ok now I asked some question in my posts yet you havent aswaered them why, or can you only ask question in a hope to destroy or double catch me in my tongue, also i think that this post is somewhere else so you just made me retype something… anger…

Great grand kids? I don’t know FM…that’s a little too soon. I would think you’d need to organize an immense army of genetically enhanced Ubermenschs that would cleanse to world of all disgusting impurities - such as stupid people. Maybe then…after you’ve wiped out every last dissident agaisnt your cause, will you begin to construct the glorious utopia…

So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started today! Go over to the gene-splicing center and using millions of dollars worth of investment and research, create the next evolution of humanity - the Ubermensch! This man will look at the fast food industry and spit on it! He will laugh at the silly dogmas of religious idealism and reveal the truth of a unified humanity through telekenetics…

Need I go further??

Its been quite some time mister future and yet you still havent posted a reply could the cat have gotton your tongue and hidden off the ends of the world??? well no matter i was just interested in weather you had a tragic accident because you always have a reply to my educated guesses.

A couple of observations and comments:

  • The free market may solve the problem but if it does, it will be well after the problems arrive. Almost all of the necessary research costs billions of dollars, the kind of money only a few countries can afford (and Microsoft…) Historically, all major inventions have been either an individual scratching an itch or government sponsored. Only since the invention of patents and big business have we seen a shift, but most of the inventions have little impact on life and if they do, you pay for it. Look at the cost of medication. Life will be dramatically different when we have a real oil crisis. I vaguely remember the gas problems of the 70s and early 80s, and that was Bad ™. And just wait until the drinking water problem rears its ugly head. The combination of the two, both projected w/in 50 years, will fight each other because large scale desalination is not cheap (money, energy).

  • Regarding the US, most Europeans (and Americans…) don’t quite understand the history surrounding our culture. The US was born near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism, and we had huge tracks of undeveloped land (of which we merilly deprived those living there). The rate of technological change starting in the mid-1800s was on the order of years instead of decades. There was no gradual growth, cities sprang up quickly with little thought to planning.

Countries and cities in Europe have histories dating back 1000 or more years, and the associated grandeur and baggage. Some negative examples are plumbing and telephone service. On the other hand, since the countries are smaller, they tend to be more community oriented (and have nicer architecture). Look at the rail systems, Americans cannot fathom how useful they are. In America, we grew up with so much space that we spread out. Some numbers:

Area of USA: 9,158,960 km^2
Area of UK: 241,590
Area of France: 545,630
Area of Germany: 349,223

Distance between NYC and SF: 4800 km
Distance between Miami and Seattle: 5280
Distance between London and Madrid: 1704
Distance between London and Rome: 1800
Distance between London and Athens: 3099

And to think we only made the move to the suburbs about 60 years ago! Amtrak, the major (and heavily gov’t subsidized) passanger rail service, runs huge deficits every year. Building local subway systems is so time consuming and expensive, that the free market can’t hope to address them because no one could afford to use it afterwards. The Washington DC metro expansion to one small corner of the suburbs is expect to cost over 1.5 billion dollars and won’t be finished until at least 2011. There are additional problems when you take into account that all these suburbians do not want the rail any where near their homes…

Americans (especially politicians) are too short sighted and stubborn to address, or even see, the problems of the coming decades. They tend to wait until the problem is upon us before they start investigating whose fault it was for not forseeing and solving the problem. So unless someone discovers a workable fusion generator in the near future, we’re gonna have some problems. The free market can’t address these problems, and the general nature of Americans is to trust that all will just be OK. We’re the only country with the money and technology to address this concern, yet we are more consumed with invading a non-threat like Iraq under false pretenses than to address the real problems.

nebulous, nice first post, you are very correct

crazy person,

how long until we get a nuclear reactor to fit into a car. or how about a truck that delivers groceries to inner city children in somalia?

what if we start right this very second?

what if we start a year or two after our stupid country realizes that the only way to get food to poor people is by putting a nuke reactor in a truck?

where does the waste go? imagine an american economy that is actually able to recover without 20% of the population dying. imagine the nuke reactors placed in cars that are required to power this amazing society.

were you counting on cold fusion, or waste shuttles to the sun?

im counting on corn farmers converting Away from the high-profit high-fructose-corn-syrup Candy market and Towards the lower profit ethanol market. but obviously thats economically impossible.

the corn-interest-lobby, a very, very, very important group of people, they wont like the switch to lower profit. they like money. they hate humanity when it gets in their way. they lobbied our government to lower trade tariffs with mexico so that they could sell corn at an extremely lower price, Knowing that it would put thousands of happy mexicans immediately out of business.

you think the government will legislate them and force them to produce the cheap fuel we need?

you think the government will both defy the corn lobby AND the oil lobby before the oil catastrophically runs out? you think the government will defy any lobby ever?

oh… you think we will invent some magic technology that will solve all our problems. i try to believe that too. because it hurts too much to believe otherwise. it doesnt make the belief valid.

but, i do think that we will make the move to biomass fuels before we see mad max driving a car with spikes. but many millions WILL DIE. THEY WILL. THERE IS NO QUESTION.

well fm, we could all use hand-cranked electronics to power nuclear power plants…huh huh errrrrr…

thanks baron for backin’ me up…