41–50 of 63 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean trees? The fit your description perfectly, except for the wind-powered part.
almost, except trees take too long to grow and cars don't run very well on wood. i mean something that gets CO2 and H20 and yields gas, lpg, diesel or something else that can be put into your tank without making a trip to a refinery first. see e.g. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/12/bug.diesel/in... for the basic idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sasol, the world's largest coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (GTL) producer, has stated that GTL becomes financially viable at $10-$20 a barrel while CTL reaches the same level at $50-$60 a barrel. So with the current price of oil at over $70, it's reasonable to assume that CTL, supplemented by GTL, could maintain prices at close to current levels.
I must admit I don't understand what this means? So Sasol could provide a replacement for oil that only costs 10-20$ per barrel? Why isn't everybody using their stuff now, instead of the 70$ "real" oil? Also, in my mind "peak oil" was actually just "peak fossile fuels" - how much more coal and gas is there than oil?
With sufficient natural gas feed stocks, yes.
As to why it's not being used now, until the very recent fracking revolution the supply of gas had been pretty tight, at least at where it's needed for consumption. See e.g. Russia's regular fights with the Ukraine.
Probably the only places where it might make sense to build GTL plants are in relatively unstable oil producing nations that are currently flaring off their gas instead of doing anything else.
There's also the issue of your confidence in predicting the future. These are expensive plants, and if e.g. a world-wide recession eventually leads to a crash in demand then you may not be able to service your debt on what you're able to sell your product at (there are plenty of people who suspect oil might crash to $10 a barrel, e.g. what if the PRC's demand sharply drops?).
I let myself get scared a little, as I should with any good peak oil story, and then went looking for an Achilles' Heel. "Some might also wonder why a shortage of oil should automatically trigger a collapse. It turns out that, in an industrialized economy, a drop in oil consumption precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic activity. Oil is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuel…
I completly agree. I think there is a ton of low-hanging fruit in our economy, in terms of energy use. The fact is that energy has not been a resource worth conserving during the entire industrial expansion thus far. Energy's always been something that is cheap and getting cheaper. So there's never been any economic imperative for energy efficiency, so it's always been cheaper to burn more energy than to invest in ef…
Those gains are what allowed industrialisation to escape Britain in reach the rest of Europe, where coal was more expensive than in Britain and labour less so.
(See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_steam_engine as a starting point. I am sure there are better sources.)
Or look at the history of steel making. The 19th century alone saw huge decreases in the amount of coke used to make a single ton of steel---while improving quality all the time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I also prefer to be an optimist in such matters, I never quite get the "we are so resourceful" reaction. Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted. A lot of other times things didn't go so well. History is full of civilizations collapsing, wars, famines and so on. There is not always some genius at hand who invents a…
Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted. We avert stuff every day. It's just not "news" so you don't much hear about it. ("News" generally involves dirty laundry of some sort, not good outcomes.) When we had some huge earthquake in the East, it was News. When the world rose to the occasion and averted hundreds of thousan…
Also, a huge percentage of earth's population is living in squalor right now. How come nobody miraculously copes with that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted. We avert stuff every day. It's just not "news" so you don't much hear about it. ("News" generally involves dirty laundry of some sort, not good outcomes.) When we had some huge earthquake in the East, it was News. When the world rose to the occasion and averted hundreds of thousan…
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. Also, a huge percentage of earth's population is living in squalor right now. How come nobody miraculously copes with that?
It's easier to give examples of that which people can readily see. For a "slower" problem, how about the general trend that people are living longer? IIRC, when social security was invented in the US (which you qualify for after age 65), the average life expectancy here was 67. It was intended to make life easier for folks in extreme old age. Now this country is in crisis trying to figure out how to deal with the fallout from supporting people for decades when it was only designed to do so for a couple of years.
Also, the last statistics I heard on bankruptcy in the US is that more than half of all bankruptcies here are due to high medical bills. Bankruptcy in the US is generally chalked up to "irresponsible behavior". In reality, it is more often due to devotedly doing whatever it takes to try to save the life of a loved one.
Then there is cystic fibrosis. The life expectancy in recent decades has gone from age 18 to age 37-ish.
As for people living in squalor: The US definition of poverty routinely places 12-14% of the US population under the poverty line. But one study I read indicated that less than 1/2% of Americans qualified as "poor" by the standards of India when measured not by income but by things like "number of meals eaten per day" and whether or not they had a roof over their head. Plus I currently live with zero furniture and no car and generally few possessions. I'm happy this way and healthier than when I had the stereotypical American lifestyle of affluenza. So I am not sure what you mean by "a huge percentage ...living in squalor". Perhaps you would like to clarify what standard you think "everyone" should live by? Given that giving up my possessions has been a keystone to getting healthier, I have my skepticism about (and objections to) ideas that material wealth is a terribly important measure of quality of life.
Thanks.
Incredibly frustrating that all the figures were thumbnails that are illegible and don't link to a higher-resolution version---and then the text doesn't even fully explain them. Does anyone know which country he's talking about for Fig. 3?
1: http://www.transitionguelph.org/images/front5.jpg 2: http://orangejuiceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/oil-pr... 3: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-b-kpMH_7eM/SkPP2QB4d9I/AAAAAAAABI... The country is Russia.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. Also, a huge percentage of earth's population is living in squalor right now. How come nobody miraculously copes with that?
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. It's easier to give examples of that which people can readily see. For a "slower" problem, how about the general trend that people are living longer? IIRC, when social security was invented in the US (which you qualify for after age 65), the average life expectancy here was 67. It was intended to make life eas…
Actually, it's not. The bulk of the so-called "medical bankruptcies" were due to job loss due to being sick or addicted, aka "if you can't work, you're not going to be paid". (And gambling is considered medical....) Yes, those folks have medical bills, but free medical care wouldn't have kept them employed.
FWIW, there is universal free medical care in the US. It isn't as good as paid and you get to wait in the medical equivalent of the social security office, but it exists.
There are free clinics in every reasonably-sized city and all but the most uninhabited counties have a county hospital which treats people for free. And then there's medicaid and the state analogs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sasol, the world's largest coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (GTL) producer, has stated that GTL becomes financially viable at $10-$20 a barrel while CTL reaches the same level at $50-$60 a barrel. So with the current price of oil at over $70, it's reasonable to assume that CTL, supplemented by GTL, could maintain prices at close to current levels.
I must admit I don't understand what this means? So Sasol could provide a replacement for oil that only costs 10-20$ per barrel? Why isn't everybody using their stuff now, instead of the 70$ "real" oil? Also, in my mind "peak oil" was actually just "peak fossile fuels" - how much more coal and gas is there than oil?
And I'm not sure how much gas there is, but there's enough coal to last for 50-140 years, depending on demand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. It's easier to give examples of that which people can readily see. For a "slower" problem, how about the general trend that people are living longer? IIRC, when social security was invented in the US (which you qualify for after age 65), the average life expectancy here was 67. It was intended to make life eas…
> Also, the last statistics I heard on bankruptcy in the US is that more than half of all bankruptcies here are due to high medical bills. Actually, it's not. The bulk of the so-called "medical bankruptcies" were due to job loss due to being sick or addicted, aka "if you can't work, you're not going to be paid". (And gambling is considered medical....) Yes, those folks have medical bills, but free medical care wouldn…
Thanks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. Also, a huge percentage of earth's population is living in squalor right now. How come nobody miraculously copes with that?
You are talking about temporary natural catastrophes, though, not the kind of disasters that develop slowly. It's easier to give examples of that which people can readily see. For a "slower" problem, how about the general trend that people are living longer? IIRC, when social security was invented in the US (which you qualify for after age 65), the average life expectancy here was 67. It was intended to make life eas…
Also I said "squalor", not "poverty". By that I mean no clean water to drink, no sanitation, no access to physicians and stuff like that. Hint: the US is not the world (no offense).
Edit: I agree that we constantly solve problems, too (or the Scientists do). But we don't have an answer for everything.