Civilizations fail
not as conventional wisdom thinks
from drought
or disease
or social degeneracy
cities can survive those plagues
the real killer
IMHO
is from the failure to secure renewable energy resources
without fuel
no civilization
All of the old ones relied on the surrounding forests
to fuel their industry
without a governing policy of reforestation
a process of logging attrition set in
the further afield the fuel retreated
the more expensive to haul it back
eventually
the citizens had to leave centuries of comfortts
and go back to the distant forest
Thus Mayan mystery is no mystery
the jungles that currently surround the abandoned ruins
are simply re-growths
History repeats
we are two decades late
investing in renewables
I was laughed at in the 1980’s
for putting forward basic engineering plans in the L.A. Business Times
for ocean wave energy power stations in California
and a venturi tidal accelerant system in the Sea of Cortez.
oil was then only $19 a barrel
my estimates on both these systems then
were a few cents KWH above oil at that time
with a 30 year building period on the tidal system
so no interest
what a sad joke it is now
nearly 30 years later
it could have all been on-line
current brownouts will become blackouts
London or New York
would be uninhabitable in less than two weeks
when the fuel runs out
coal will smother us
Paris is good for a while
France was wise going all-out for Nuclear
but it too will fail
when uranium imports fail
Ralph Nader should be keel-hauled
for scaring the US with a false bogeyman
Mayan civilization is only one example. And it is not a very good one at that. And what’s this -“Check the ages of the hardwoods covering the Mayan ruins.”??? How does that proof the Mayans ran out of energy as you state???
Give us some more examples to backup your theory. I bet you can’t.
The fluctuating political ideologues
of monarchies
theocracies
and democracies
of past and present
may stall industrial development
and create economic recessions and hardship
and even a blood revolution
but any social argument in itself
cannot completely collapse an entire civilization
and send it into oblivion
common sense always prevails in the end
and industry always finds a way to continue
running out of fuel
is like running out of life blood
the hemorrhaging is immediate and without a transfusion
the machines and transportation grinds to a halt
everybody is out of work
and soon out of food and water
Wood was the fuel of the past’
when the forests were cut down
industry failed immediately
oil is the fuel of the present
coal and nuclear plants rely on transportation
transportation runs on oil
when oil fails
every industrial city on the planet will be uninhabitable within weeks
permanent black-outs will occur
water pressure fails
sewers back-up
garbage piles high
no hospitals
not police
no firemen
no place to run to
black nights
looting everywhere
disease runs rampant
the the end is always fatal
That stark reality faces us right now
as it did civilizations in the past
You can believe what you like
every theory requires a prediction
to prove mine true
shall we wait and see
before i take your bet?
While on the surface your theory sounds good, it doesn’t explain the collapse of
civilizations such as the Roman, Egyptian, Chinese,
, and more recently the Spanish or the British empire.
For a theory to be valid, it must explain how MOST empires collapse and your theory
fails to do so. Now energy may, MAY, be the reason for the upcoming demise of our civilization,
but as of right now the cause I would give the reason as to be the ossification of thinking as
to the reason for our beginning of our demise.
The evidence is lack of evidence, except old crumbled buildings.
Don’t you get it?
If “none of [the Roman, Egyptian, Chinese and more recently the Spanish or the British empire(s)] collapsed, we are all extensions of them” then by the same token, all man to this day has been an extension of previous societies before him, implying that none have ever collapsed.
Perhaps he proposes our society will collapse, but with more finality than before, except he contradicts that “common sense always prevails in the end and industry always finds a way to continue”.
I’m going with the joker suggestion
Does “in it for your own gains” resonate with this thread at all or is it just me?
From all the things said so far in this thread, it is this that especially captures my attention… and gives me an interesting idea concerning this issue.
So, some time this week, I’m going to start a thread explaining how Rome never fell.
And…
How every existing society (so-called “1st world” countries) today is just a cheap copy of Rome.
It’s not so much that civilizations collapse but that they give way to new ones that are essentially extensions of the older ones. For instance, the body of work left by so-called collapsed civilization doesn’t disappear but continues to nurture and facilitate humankind.
On every continent
there are entire cities
crumbled and buried under mountainous mounds of dirt and rubble
and others buried layer upon layer under the foundations of present cities
who what and why lost to memory
One of us is going to edit the “retarded monkey” comment. Take your pick.
Let’s disregard all the projects that have failed in the past 5 years alone due to the difficult conditions of such environments, the large capital costs and maintenance required, in addition to the absence of adequate sensor equipment in the 80s. There was, for example, the snake wave energy harnessing device in Portugal that was dismantled after only a few months recently even though there had been so much initial promise and investment. There’s also the fact that ocean energy is still very much in its infancy and governments don’t want to pick winners. There’s also the environmental impact of things like turbines in marine environments, with Europe for example suggesting legislation to avoid the potential damage to seals as a result of marine turbines in the English channel. The system would require expensive sensors and their maintenance coupled with human monitoring just to keep seals away. And when you have that in place, do you turn off the entire system every time some animal comes close to it? Or let the system run and violate environmental legislation when they die? There’s also the potential damage of noise in marine environments. I also see that you’ve left out heat pumps that use ocean thermal energy. Which presents many other problems; but nonetheless, imminent disaster has been suggested for decades, we have yet to see it. Alternatives are available and there’s growing research into increasing the yields of existing oil wells through things like introducing bacteria with potential increases of +5%. Biodiesel and ethanol are also taking off. There’s the potential for solar power exploding, with research solar cells hitting a record high of some 41% efficiency recently. Anyways, it’s all just oversimplification and everything is pure speculation at this point.
The way you write alone is enough to make you look like a retarded monkey but anyways, why not just turn a turbine instead of incurring the losses that you would as a result of air compression? Air compression is being suggested as an energy storage system in engineering magazines, not this proxy you have. And 20k lbs means jack shit if it ends up exerting 1psi doesn’t it?
Is it really just coincidence that all the cranks never take their bullshit to serious engineering institutions and journals? Writing to a business newspaper…? And you know, the Netherlands for example which already has extensive established wind energy systems running, generates at some 30c/kwh. America is running at 9-10c/kwh NOW at 70$/barrel. If you said that an experimental 30 year project requiring high levels of capital investment, engineering knowhow, and legal preparations, was “only a few cents above prices [at 19$ per barrel]”, you’re just deranged. Which I’m not disputing. Or maybe ‘orthodox’ engineering really is what’s been holding people like yourself back. Hmmmm…
Its nice to hear a positive voice
assuring us that we will come through
as the director of a research foundation
I am pretty much up to date
on all forms of renewable energy potentials
and if our new entrepreneurs do indeed come online en mass
and help stop burning prescious fossil oil reserves
and save them instead for petro-chemical manufacturing
and beat the ticking time bomb
I say hurray
for you and me and all our kids
we have at most ten years left to make the mass shift
so I will keep my finger on the alarm buzzer
for a while longer
if you do not mind
As it is I find your patronizing tone rather harsh
If it was not for warnings and alternate proposals put forward by
by concerned people
which I joined
back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s
and continue onwards to this day
none of the advances you brag about now
would be on the drawing boards
This isn’t cynical, it’s realistic. I love the fact that I’ve posted it today of all dates.
Face it, governments are gonna sap non-renewable resources dry to keep at the head of their game before they seriously consider renewable alternatives.
They never had to worry much about it themselves because they could generate low levels of underground panic that would seep through to those most in love with themselves and eager to put their mark on history as ‘saviours of the world’. Government can then use these peoples’ insufficient solutions to imply ‘they care’ and ‘are making an effort’ but mostly to show that the suggestions are inferior to what they have already, justifying their sapping resources dry and their waging of power-wars. They’re not stupid enough to actually leave it just up to amateurs who don’t matter, their teams have no doubt generated countless transition strategies already. Their wanting to look stupid is just cleverness.
When the transition time comes it’ll generate some great distraction-panic and fear-unity. Some US president will probably get famous for it, probably republican, and some other country will probably get blamed for something or other to do with it and we’ll get yet another war for the purposes of staying at the head of the game again in some other way, but in the name of some false ‘noble’ cause.
The cycle continues and this issue really just doesn’t matter one minuscule iota at all…
and gives me an interesting idea concerning this issue. 
