Potentially 60BB of oil in Falklands waters.......

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Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Seriously?

World uses 85MM bbl/day. You are right, it is 240 days worth of consumption... Which is nothing a the end of the day, IMO. Delaying the inevitable by less than a year will just ensure that instability and obscene profits will exist longer.

Really? Ban oil tomorrow and you don't think that whatever replaces it won't cause conflict and "obscene profits"?

What would you like to see replace oil?


Where did I say to ban oil? I said that 240 days of extra oil is really nothing, so big deal.

WHATEVER happens, there will be somebody making out and a lot of folks loosing out. That is the way it is. But why go on another 240 days in "comfort" versus dealing with the issue at hand. Again, the whole natural oil concept is garbage until we can prove that the kinetics are sufficiently fast to meet our recurring needs. Until/unless we prove that, other things MUST be done to maintain current consumption, period. Some folks not having power, not being able to afford to live, and even dying as a result of it is one of the things that may occur. That may just be what it is.

However, there will be significant disfunctionality, and severe wealth redistribution away from the "haves" if the bulk of the population do not have some level of energy. Im pretty sure of that, looking at how things come to pass during natural disasters.

Coming up and implementing some solutions is due diligence as well as smart backup... and critical until we can prove something as functional as liquid fuels truly are renewable at a scale that is useful to us.
 
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

Quote:
What would you like to see replace oil?


What in your imagination CAN replace oil?? Give me one or two technologies that will produce IDENTICAL utility ..at ANY COST and are 100% perpetually sustainable.

For that matter, name one.

Ethanol (non-corn), biodiesel...Who knows? But there ARE alternatives out there now...they are just more expensive. RLI and G-oil already have alternatives to conventional oil for lubricants. Green Styrofoam.

Will a global economy that is wealthy with fewer people having to grow food and have more time and money to do other things (like engineering) be more or less likely to find alternatives than one that has been devastated by artificial "conservation" and requires more people to generate food?

A wealthy world will handle a transition much better than a poorer one. Using oil makes people richer. We have the country that we do now because oil has allowed all but ~2% of the population to do other things...like invent new things.

Of course if you don't understand how markets work...
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
A world that adopts a 5:1 oil:calory agricultural practice will get there MUCH sooner too...

Still looking to hear an alternative...

Quote:
From a team of horses in the early 1900s to tractors with the power of 40 to 300 horses today, American farmers provide consumers with more and better quality food than ever before. In fact, one farmer now supplies food for about 129 people in the United States and abroad compared with just 25.8 people in 1960.

The efficiency of American farmers pays off in the price American consumers pay for food as well. U.S. consumers spend roughly 9 percent of their income on food compared with 11 percent in the United Kingdom, 17 percent in Japan, 27 percent in South Africa and 53 percent in India. This great value is due in large part to improved equipment efficiency, enhanced crop and livestock genetics through biotechnology and conventional breeding, and advances in information management.

http://www.foodreference.com/html/a-agriculture-technology-1208.html

I read in another article (can't find it) that it was about 1:6 in 1900.
 
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You keep talking about efficiency in terms of unemployment...well not unemployment per se, but lack of employing people to do stuff.

An efficient electricity system burns more coal to use less employees, an efficient food industry uses more fossil fuel genies to keep more useless eaters on the dole...in your world.

Agriculture worked because we used less energy (human and animal) than the solar energy that hit the land...positive energy balance.
 
Quote:
Using oil makes people richer.


lol.gif


..and I'll lend you any amount you want on secured property at 40% interest. You'll be rich ..until you run out. (yes, you're surely smart enough to see the point ...I hope).
 
"Using oil makes us rich"

I do not see how this changes the basic premise here.

If I took the insulation back out of my house, traded my nice efficient comfortable car back for my old poor handling guzzlermobile, would I be richer??

I have not had to change a lightbulb in a year, if I go back to the incandescent bulbs, quadruple my electric bill and change all of them every 750 hours, my wallet will fatten?

Maybe if I sold my Trek and always drove everyplace then paid a gym membership for exercise..........

Growing up on a farm, I thought we limited our tillage and saved a lot of soil, fuel, etc.... that was wrong?

Thanks for the lesson in economics, I got an A's in it in college but apparently I missed something??

Using excessive oil has made the Arab countries rich, at our expense!

Shannow, watching the mountains of coal disappear into those generators each day must be a sobering experience.... reminding us that we cannot replace all this power with just a couple of solar panels here and there. Any interest in co-generation in your area, using the waste heat for other industrial processes?
 
His point is that using oil enables consumption. Consumption ..for the senseless sake of itself, employs. Someone gets rich in that consumption.

It has no concept of sustainability or durability in the motion.


There is no such thing as the "creation of wealth" without an expansion in utility. This is not to be confused with just getting wealthy. All you have to do for that is to figure how to turn someone's money into yours.

Fossil fuels give the false impression of creation of wealth since the true cost of the energy in them is not apparent until they are no longer there in ample supply. The wealth "created" collapses and takes its toll in a reciprocal "decreation" of wealth ..aka poverty and more of it since you made a bigger pie that now has no filling.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

Quote:
What would you like to see replace oil?


What in your imagination CAN replace oil?? Give me one or two technologies that will produce IDENTICAL utility ..at ANY COST and are 100% perpetually sustainable.

For that matter, name one.

Ethanol (non-corn), biodiesel...Who knows? But there ARE alternatives out there now...they are just more expensive. RLI and G-oil already have alternatives to conventional oil for lubricants. Green Styrofoam.

Will a global economy that is wealthy with fewer people having to grow food and have more time and money to do other things (like engineering) be more or less likely to find alternatives than one that has been devastated by artificial "conservation" and requires more people to generate food?

A wealthy world will handle a transition much better than a poorer one. Using oil makes people richer. We have the country that we do now because oil has allowed all but ~2% of the population to do other things...like invent new things.

Of course if you don't understand how markets work...



In some way I agree with Tempest (shocking, isn't it).

If you ignore the environmental part of the equation (i.e. pollution rather than how much oil is left), then you will probably see that there are other energy source around and eventually people will find ways to power their stuff or change their living habit (live close to work, etc) to use less.

Energy makes things more efficient (per human output, not per energy output), and that's how industrial evolution started. Is it 100% better? No, there will be waste like people going off roading with an SUV 10 days a year and going to the mall 355 days of the year, but without a doubt this is what makes it possible to free up people to advance our society.

I am not against using oil, or alternative energy subsidizes, because I think the increase in living standard in the 3rd world will increase consumption even more in the future no matter what we do right now. Most people are too ignorant to understand that if it is not because of all the conservation and R&D for alternative energy, they wouldn't be enjoying their $75 / barrel oil right now, it would have been easily $120 / barrel. The mere existence of alternative makes OPEC think twice about raising price even more.

When (not if) all the oils are gone, solar panel will probably cover all the deserts in the world, and sugarcane field and eventually algae farm will litter the rest of the world.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow

Agriculture worked because we used less energy (human and animal) than the solar energy that hit the land...positive energy balance.


So then I assume you want to eliminate the use of oil for growing food and want to push people back into the fields in order to maintain a "balance"?
 
Quote:

Using excessive oil has made the Arab countries rich, at our expense!

Please define "excessive oil".
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I do not see how this changes the basic premise here.

Would you have anywhere near the lifestyle you have now if we didn't have oil? Not even close.
Please tell me how much less oil people should be using.
Quote:
Thanks for the lesson in economics, I got an A's in it in college but apparently I missed something??

Apparently. If you artificially raise oil prices will the global economy be better or worse off? Worse. The depressed economy will REDUCE the amount of resources that can be directed at finding alternatives. So such thinking actually makes things worse NOW, AND in the future.
History has proven this.
 
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Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: Shannow

Agriculture worked because we used less energy (human and animal) than the solar energy that hit the land...positive energy balance.


So then I assume you want to eliminate the use of oil for growing food and want to push people back into the fields in order to maintain a "balance"?


You know what you look like when you assume.

Never said that, but it's silly that family farms go broke so that agribusiness can turn oil into food at a nett energy loss.

It's silly that cattle are lockedup, and fed grain, instead of the healthier (for them AND us) grazing them on grass
 
Tempest, reread my post. You are the worlds best at misquoting others. The money I save by efficient use of oil and energy is spent on other goods and services and largely remains in the USA.

Money spent on foreign oil does not serve our country well.

I made no comments on domestic drilling at any time.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest

Apparently. If you artificially raise oil prices will the global economy be better or worse off? Worse. The depressed economy will REDUCE the amount of resources that can be directed at finding alternatives. So such thinking actually makes things worse NOW, AND in the future.
History has proven this.


Disagree. artificially raising oil price to correct a bubble will be better for the global economy in the long run. There are of course random spikes here and there (i.e. 2004-2008 high oil price period due to speculation and uncertainty), and the crash of oil price into the 30s that get people to not develop other form of energy in case the oil price goes up. A healthy stability is good, too high or too low (relative to long term sustainable level) should be corrected, just like interest rate and tax rate.

High oil price resulted depressed economy will hinder the discovery of alternative energy source? I think you have your economics backward. Increase price will drive up interest in alternatives. See how people are all of a sudden interested in switchgrass ethanol, waste oil biodiesel, algae, solar, wind, hybrid, etc. all over again when oil was over $100 last time.
 
Quote:
Energy makes things more efficient (per human output, not per energy output), and that's how industrial evolution started. Is it 100% better? No, there will be waste like people going off roading with an SUV 10 days a year and going to the mall 355 days of the year, but without a doubt this is what makes it possible to free up people to advance our society.


Agreed to a point. "Free" energy allows us to do other tasks ..whether or not they're actually productive. For example, I can make cheap junk that costs little to produce, has no need to extract the non-renewable energy out of it with any sensible ROI (energy ROI) and the product itself can be energy hungry and provide on productive purpose other than providing a consumable to exchange currency.

I can have podiatrists instead of the town doctor who played family physician, surgeon, and maternity services. It allows nurses.

Once you take away the free lunch of free energy, that all changes. You can't have a pizzeria running NG ovens all day long like you can when energy was only 10% of the product cost since it was at radically lower demand due to so many other industries using oil or having another "free" source keeping it low.

Add dry cleaners ..shopping malls ...high rise steam generating plants.... taxi cabs ..mass transit ..construction ..foundries ... essentially 99% of the stuff that we CURRENTLY do that does little more than provide a purpose for people to exist in "watershed" employment and activity.

You cannot reduce the energy required to do many of the things we do. The physics won't support it. Since there is no "magic", it's a simple concept to grasp.

Sure you can survive. Obviously China and India didn't get 2/3 of the globe's population being energy rich ...but just how did those people live? Not in any sensible energy intensive way.

I think you're way too optimistic in the notion of deserts covered with photovoltaic panels and whatnot. All of those things require energy to make ..and resource materials to construct.

Again, just refit North America with housing that can manage any sensible comfort level that is compared to today where energy will be (not if, but when) 700% of its current cost. Our current affordability for this is that we "borrowed" our cheap (and free) energy. If we really paid for it we'd be poor (much poorer) than we are now.

You cannot infinitely expand an economic model when there are finite resources required to enable it. "Magic money" can't wish those resources into existence.

Nope, you've got to produce more than conceptual views for me to buy it. The math and the physics just don't add up when we actually have to "pay as we go" in terms of energy.

It's a simple matter of time and resources. I project that you will not have the time required to transition to a less energy intensive existence. Priorities will trump wants ..and needs... as we currently define them and redefining them has absolutely no prospects of being "good".

We don't even have a purpose for a good majority of our 300M population and consume a radically disproportionate amount of energy. Most of them are supporting each other and doing it poorly as far as maintaining standards. How are 8-9B going to alter that in advancement?

You have too much faith in technology. It's never ever provided solutions. It's only exchanged problems.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: Shannow

Agriculture worked because we used less energy (human and animal) than the solar energy that hit the land...positive energy balance.


So then I assume you want to eliminate the use of oil for growing food and want to push people back into the fields in order to maintain a "balance"?


You know what you look like when you assume.

Never said that, but it's silly that family farms go broke so that agribusiness can turn oil into food at a nett energy loss.

It's silly that cattle are locked up, and fed grain, instead of the healthier (for them AND us) grazing them on grass
Around here cattle are pastured till a certain size then taken to feed lots to fatten them up for market. Most people would not eat grass fed only beef.
 
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Quote:
Energy makes things more efficient (per human output, not per energy output), and that's how industrial evolution started. Is it 100% better? No, there will be waste like people going off roading with an SUV 10 days a year and going to the mall 355 days of the year, but without a doubt this is what makes it possible to free up people to advance our society.


Agreed to a point. "Free" energy allows us to do other tasks ..whether or not they're actually productive. For example, I can make cheap junk that costs little to produce, has no need to extract the non-renewable energy out of it with any sensible ROI (energy ROI) and the product itself can be energy hungry and provide on productive purpose other than providing a consumable to exchange currency.

I can have podiatrists instead of the town doctor who played family physician, surgeon, and maternity services. It allows nurses.

Once you take away the free lunch of free energy, that all changes. You can't have a pizzeria running NG ovens all day long like you can when energy was only 10% of the product cost since it was at radically lower demand due to so many other industries using oil or having another "free" source keeping it low.

Add dry cleaners ..shopping malls ...high rise steam generating plants.... taxi cabs ..mass transit ..construction ..foundries ... essentially 99% of the stuff that we CURRENTLY do that does little more than provide a purpose for people to exist in "watershed" employment and activity.

You cannot reduce the energy required to do many of the things we do. The physics won't support it. Since there is no "magic", it's a simple concept to grasp.

Sure you can survive. Obviously China and India didn't get 2/3 of the globe's population being energy rich ...but just how did those people live? Not in any sensible energy intensive way.

I think you're way too optimistic in the notion of deserts covered with photovoltaic panels and whatnot. All of those things require energy to make ..and resource materials to construct.

Again, just refit North America with housing that can manage any sensible comfort level that is compared to today where energy will be (not if, but when) 700% of its current cost. Our current affordability for this is that we "borrowed" our cheap (and free) energy. If we really paid for it we'd be poor (much poorer) than we are now.

You cannot infinitely expand an economic model when there are finite resources required to enable it. "Magic money" can't wish those resources into existence.

Nope, you've got to produce more than conceptual views for me to buy it. The math and the physics just don't add up when we actually have to "pay as we go" in terms of energy.

It's a simple matter of time and resources. I project that you will not have the time required to transition to a less energy intensive existence. Priorities will trump wants ..and needs... as we currently define them and redefining them has absolutely no prospects of being "good".

We don't even have a purpose for a good majority of our 300M population and consume a radically disproportionate amount of energy. Most of them are supporting each other and doing it poorly as far as maintaining standards. How are 8-9B going to alter that in advancement?

You have too much faith in technology. It's never ever provided solutions. It's only exchanged problems.


In many ways I agree with you, and in many ways you can say I'm too optimistic. I think most likely the norm will change to adapt to it. Life will sure be very different, and people won't be able to waste as much, but that's not the end of the world and I think people can and will adapt pretty fast.

That doesn't mean we will find ways to commute with a 5000lb SUV again, but rather take other forms of commute or office space distribution more clearly. More local production to eliminate transit waste, smaller and more decentralized offices, people buy from mom and pop again to save gas, or even clothes line for laundry.

Most people will survive, spoil brats won't. But then again they won't survive without an SUV, a plasma TV, and a McMansion anyways.
 
"I think you're way too optimistic in the notion of deserts covered with photovoltaic panels and whatnot. All of those things require energy to make ..and resource materials to construct."

This is an interesting proposition: Most, but not all of the material in a solar cell is made from sand, although other things are needed also.

At one energy seminar the speaker was attacked for proposing that we could generate most of the nations power - during the daytime- with 100 square miles of desert covered with solar panels. Certainly this vast space was too much to give up... although its only a square with 10 miles on each side.

Before we could consider this, the speaker pointed out that Lake Mead - built for Hydropower - takes up 240 square miles and provides way less power!!

I do not have a prejudice either way, but certainly an interesting fact..... I just looked up lake Mead, the official website says 247 sq miles, and can produce up to 2080 megawatts... about the same as 2-3 nuclear plants.

Now, 1 square mile of solar panels can make that same amount of power.... while the sun shines.

"You have too much faith in technology. It's never ever provided solutions. It's only exchanged problems."

Hah, I like that quote!! I don't agree, but I bet its often true! My new LED flashlights seem to be better than the old incandescent jobs every which way..... and dang, the batteries last forever!! I left one on in my garage on Friday, it was still going strong on Monday!!
 
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Originally Posted By: Steve S
Around here cattle are pastured till a certain size then taken to feed lots to fatten them up for market. Most people would not eat grass fed only beef.


Two weeks on grain, and the fatty acid profile is the same as if they were fed grain their whole life.

As to people not eating it, the only reason that they wanted it was because marketters told them how much better it was, and much more glamorous in the early days of the grain fed industry.

You can lot feed with silage.
 
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