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Doug50
Guest
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Doug50
Guest
Since it’s back on Youtube, here’s the documentry The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on oil
youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
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drpmjhess
Guest
youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
Doug50, the Al’s of this world have no more answer than do you and I. Or at least, no answer in terms of discovering magic new forms of energy. I used to have the usual knee-jerk liberal opposition to nuclear energy, until I started partnering with a conservative physicist and oil developer, who convinced me otherwise. He is Catholic as well, and it’s no accident that we both have precisely two children.
I think until Catholics and Muslims can come to grips with the absurdity of their respective positions on unlimited procreation, we are just pissing in the wind. We’ll have nine billion people in 2050 with the oil resources of 1930. Most will be dirt poor, poorly nourished, medically underserved, and without adequate supplies of water. But I suppose most on this CAF list would be happy, because we will have produced more souls for God!
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Doug50
Guest
I’m afraid you’re right. I have friends and family very much like Al. They believe technology will save us from this future. These friends simply say: “They’ll come up with something to replace oil. They have too.” Or “the market will solve the problem of oil depetion.” I don’t know who they are (these techno-messiahs) or what silver bullet the market will load into the energy gun to target the problem.
I see a lot of these arguments as a kind idolity - putting a blind faith in the miricles of science and a kind of unlimited ingenuity in the faith of man’s inventiveness. I’m afraid the human race will be eating humble pie.
There maybe a fix but we’re more interested in how to put a person on Mars then solving this energy problem. When it comes to cutting edge technologist Richard Smalley was looking to a fix to the looming energy crunch. He was clearly worried. It seems to me if he was a lot more people should be worried too.
Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge - Richard Smalley
Problem 2: Peaks in Oil Production
Another charge to keep that should be at
the top of the president’s list is the assurance
of abundant, low-cost energy for us
and our posterity. We are used to living in
a world where energy is cheap, and most
of that energy was produced right here in
the United States. The majority of our oil
came from Texas, which was once the premier
oil producer in the world and is still
the center of the world’s oil and gas businesses.
Yet, as far back as 1970, we peaked
in the amount of oil we could produce in
this country. Even though we still think of
Texas as the land of people getting crazyrich
discovering oil in their back yard, in
fact Texas has been a net importer of energy
for over a decade now, with billions of
energy dollars a year going out of the state.
Saudi Arabia and the Middle East are now
the dominant oil sources. Even their oil
production, however, will eventually
decline. At some point, almost certainly
within this decade, we will peak in the
amount of oil that is produced worldwide.
Even though there will be massive
amounts of oil produced for the rest of this
century, the volume produced each year
will never again reach the amount produced
at its peak. This year, 2005, might
very well end up being the historic date of
that global peak.
Oil, along with gas, is tremendously
important. The history of oil is basically
the history of modern civilization as we
have known it for the past 100 years. As
our principal transportation fuel, oil has
been the basis of our country’s power
and prosperity. What will we do when
there is no longer enough oil and gas?
We do not yet have an answer.
cont
I see a lot of these arguments as a kind idolity - putting a blind faith in the miricles of science and a kind of unlimited ingenuity in the faith of man’s inventiveness. I’m afraid the human race will be eating humble pie.
There maybe a fix but we’re more interested in how to put a person on Mars then solving this energy problem. When it comes to cutting edge technologist Richard Smalley was looking to a fix to the looming energy crunch. He was clearly worried. It seems to me if he was a lot more people should be worried too.
Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge - Richard Smalley
Problem 2: Peaks in Oil Production
Another charge to keep that should be at
the top of the president’s list is the assurance
of abundant, low-cost energy for us
and our posterity. We are used to living in
a world where energy is cheap, and most
of that energy was produced right here in
the United States. The majority of our oil
came from Texas, which was once the premier
oil producer in the world and is still
the center of the world’s oil and gas businesses.
Yet, as far back as 1970, we peaked
in the amount of oil we could produce in
this country. Even though we still think of
Texas as the land of people getting crazyrich
discovering oil in their back yard, in
fact Texas has been a net importer of energy
for over a decade now, with billions of
energy dollars a year going out of the state.
Saudi Arabia and the Middle East are now
the dominant oil sources. Even their oil
production, however, will eventually
decline. At some point, almost certainly
within this decade, we will peak in the
amount of oil that is produced worldwide.
Even though there will be massive
amounts of oil produced for the rest of this
century, the volume produced each year
will never again reach the amount produced
at its peak. This year, 2005, might
very well end up being the historic date of
that global peak.
Oil, along with gas, is tremendously
important. The history of oil is basically
the history of modern civilization as we
have known it for the past 100 years. As
our principal transportation fuel, oil has
been the basis of our country’s power
and prosperity. What will we do when
there is no longer enough oil and gas?
We do not yet have an answer.
cont
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Doug50
Guest
Energy Heads “Top Ten”
Global Concerns
Energy is not just “any old issue.” Most people, in fact, understand its importance very well. When I have given talks on
this subject before, I have often asked people in the audience to name the most critical problems we will have to confront as we go through this century. In every case, after a bit of discussion, the audiences have agreed that energy is the single
most important issue we face. Why is energy always preeminent?
When we look at a prioritized list of the top 10 problems, with energy at the top, we can see how energy is the key to solving
all of the rest of the problems—from water to population:
To provide the technology for accomplishing our energy goals, what we need to do is to find the “new oil”—a basis for energy prosperity in the 21st century that is as enabling as oil and gas have been for the past century. The sheer magnitude of the energy industry makes this an extremely difficult task. Studying the problem in depth, we come to appreciate the undamental nature of the scientific breakthroughs necessary to activate these new energy sources.
In 2004, we consumed on average the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day to run the world…
Global Concerns
Energy is not just “any old issue.” Most people, in fact, understand its importance very well. When I have given talks on
this subject before, I have often asked people in the audience to name the most critical problems we will have to confront as we go through this century. In every case, after a bit of discussion, the audiences have agreed that energy is the single
most important issue we face. Why is energy always preeminent?
When we look at a prioritized list of the top 10 problems, with energy at the top, we can see how energy is the key to solving
all of the rest of the problems—from water to population:
- Energy
- Water
- Food
- Environment
- Poverty
- Terrorism and war
- Disease
- Education
- Democracy
- Population
Take the second problem on the list, for example: water. Already billions of people around our planet live without reliable access to clean water for drinking and agriculture. As population continues to build and the depletion of existing aquifers worsens, we will need to find vast new sources of clean water. Luckily, our planet has huge resources of water, but most has salt in it, and it is often thousands of miles away from where we need it. We can solve this problem with energy: desalinate the water and pump it vast distances. But without cheap energy, there is no acceptable answer. Without abundant fresh water, how are we going to provide the food for our burgeoning worldwide population? Without cheap energy, how are we going to produce the fertilizer, till the soil, harvest the crops, process them, package them, and deliver them to markets? Energy likewise plays the dominant role in determining the quality of our environment, the prevention of disease, and so on, down the entire list of global concerns.
In short, energy is the single most important factor that impacts the prosperity of any society. In today’s world, with about six and a half billion people, only about one and a half billion of us enjoy modern energy at the level to which we in this audience are accustomed. It is impossible to imagine bringing the lower half of the economic ladder of human civilization— about three billion people—up to a modern lifestyle without abundant, lowcost, clean energy. Right now, we do not have the technology to enable that. If we do not solve the energy problem for these billions of people who are basically disenfranchised, how can we imagine that we are going to avoid a future that has ongoing war and terrorism at levels that exceed what we have already known in this past unprecedentedly violent 20th century, a century in which we had less than half the population we have now, a century that was blessed with ever-abundant cheap oil Continuing down the list of problems, we can make strong arguments that energy would be tremendously enabling in solving all of these issues, even population. The good news about population is that around the planet, the fertility rate is dropping. Whenever a nation begins to develop, the fertility rate generally drops. In fact, in many sections of the developed world, fertility rates are now so low that we need to increase them. During our lifetime, we will see worldwide population growth continue to slow down, then level out at somewhere around 10 billion people. It probably will not go higher than that. Our challenge then is to make it possible for 10 billion people to live a reasonable lifestyle on this planet.
That is certainly our charge to keep.
To provide the technology for accomplishing our energy goals, what we need to do is to find the “new oil”—a basis for energy prosperity in the 21st century that is as enabling as oil and gas have been for the past century. The sheer magnitude of the energy industry makes this an extremely difficult task. Studying the problem in depth, we come to appreciate the undamental nature of the scientific breakthroughs necessary to activate these new energy sources.
In 2004, we consumed on average the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day to run the world…
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Al_Masetti
Guest
I am going to ask Doug and drpmj to put some white space in their posts to make them easier to read. Go back after initially posting and fix the spacing and end of line thingees.
But to answer the question: where will future energy come from?
Human ingenuity guided by the Holy Spirit.
So-called experts have over and over said that the end was upon us. The collective wit and wisdom of the Malthusians.
And yet … and yet … here we are … billions of people later … doing just fine … being inhuman to one another … but for the most part … eating well … growing more food than ever before … manufacturing more cars than ever before …
I was in Paris on business a few years back and during the lunch breaks all the French fellows were complaining that the only thing their teenage kids wanted was a car.
And the Chinese … cars, cars, cars. Not only are the Chinese buying huge numbers of Boeing and Airbus airliners, but they have just produced their first home-grown jet airliner (which looks amazingly like a DC-9/MD-80/Boeing 717]
But I digress.
The market (if not handicapped and hamstrung) will provide the energy and the food and the fuel and etc. As it has done in the past.
The government has generally not come up with any new innovations or production of stuff.
There was some law that Congress passed a few years ago about vaccines; and what happened?: the production of vaccines in the United States just about stopped.
Just one example of how a command economy just doesn’t work.
Some fellow put up a small prize and the next thing you know, Lindbergh flew the Atlantic.
Some other fellow put up a prize and the next thing you know, a privately designed airplane flew into space.
How about some other fellow putting up a prize for a viable hydrogen engine (and fuel storage device) with a viable hydrogen generator?
Any takers?
But to answer the question: where will future energy come from?
Human ingenuity guided by the Holy Spirit.
So-called experts have over and over said that the end was upon us. The collective wit and wisdom of the Malthusians.
And yet … and yet … here we are … billions of people later … doing just fine … being inhuman to one another … but for the most part … eating well … growing more food than ever before … manufacturing more cars than ever before …
I was in Paris on business a few years back and during the lunch breaks all the French fellows were complaining that the only thing their teenage kids wanted was a car.
And the Chinese … cars, cars, cars. Not only are the Chinese buying huge numbers of Boeing and Airbus airliners, but they have just produced their first home-grown jet airliner (which looks amazingly like a DC-9/MD-80/Boeing 717]
But I digress.
The market (if not handicapped and hamstrung) will provide the energy and the food and the fuel and etc. As it has done in the past.
The government has generally not come up with any new innovations or production of stuff.
There was some law that Congress passed a few years ago about vaccines; and what happened?: the production of vaccines in the United States just about stopped.
Just one example of how a command economy just doesn’t work.
Some fellow put up a small prize and the next thing you know, Lindbergh flew the Atlantic.
Some other fellow put up a prize and the next thing you know, a privately designed airplane flew into space.
How about some other fellow putting up a prize for a viable hydrogen engine (and fuel storage device) with a viable hydrogen generator?
Any takers?
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Three minutes and twenty seconds:
An illustration of why the government as a bureaucratic command culture ] is slow, clumsy, non-responsive, and incompetent:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=15D3ElV1Jzw
Humorous.
Amusing.
It’s an illustration of how and why the government and committees of experts are not going to solve the so-called energy “problem” … petroleum and the future of civilization.
An illustration of why the government as a bureaucratic command culture ] is slow, clumsy, non-responsive, and incompetent:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=15D3ElV1Jzw
Humorous.
Amusing.
It’s an illustration of how and why the government and committees of experts are not going to solve the so-called energy “problem” … petroleum and the future of civilization.
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
With 9 billion people we’ll have a lot more doctors. And without oil we’ll stop driving. Humans did just fine without cars for a long long time. We’ll eat just as healthy because we won’t be able to afford junk food. We’ll be healthier because we’ll have to walk instead of drive. All the extra people will help take care of the elderly.
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drpmjhess
Guest
The fertility of the “Green Revolution” was achieved through abundant and cheap fertilizer derived from fossil fuels. And the Great Plains of the US are largely irrigated by fossil-fueled pumping from fossil aquifers. Before they were discovered, the population had risen to one billion by 1860. Now it stands at nearly seven billion. I am intrigued to learn what the postulated nine billion in 2050 will eat when the global fertility of the soil has dropped to pre-fossil fuel levels, and when the global aquifers have been sucked dry by deep-well pumping. Personally, I opt for following precautionary principles and scaling back now to avoid suffering later. But perhaps that doesn’t please Jesus.
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
We’ll eat less meat and more grain and vegetables. Meat is so inefficient to produce, you have to feed a cow so many calories over its lifetime to produce a small number of calories in meat. The land that’s used to food for livestock today, will be used to grow food for people in the future.
Also we can stop eating 2 or 3 times what we actually need. If countries like China and India can export food, I’m pretty sure we can make do here in North America even without fertilizers and emptying the aquifers.
We should be able to get the global population up to around 20billion or so, I’d say.
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Mr.Bee
Guest
The answers are so simple, the problem is nobody is going to like them.
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Doug50
Guest
Yeah it is funny and I agree with him…but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
American is the most technologically advanced society to ever have existed. Yet it hasn’t solved its future’s energy delima. At one time the US was a creditor nation. Then domestic oil peaked in 1970 and from that time forward we became a debtor nation. I was courious if you’d read my links. Apparently you do not. Read the Richard Smalley link where he gives an opinion as to how we’ll have to deal with the energy problem in the 21st century.
As far as the government goes there are some things that governments do better than private industry…like running a military or a space organization.
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Doug50
Guest
BTW what does Newt have to say on:
global warming
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=upphPTRr_PE
energy (legislation)
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3MQavSm2F8w
Newt needs to spend some time with republican congressman Roscoe Bartlett…ethanol isn’t going to work.
M
Mr.Bee
Guest
Solving the energy dillema is expensive, unpleasant and would seriously damage our economy. (it would mean no more NASCAR
) So real solutions are out of the question.
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drpmjhess
Guest
Mr. Bee, I fundamentally agree, but as a Christian theologian and professor I cannot let my personal pessimism dominate my teaching. Hopelessness would be wrong to the students and wrong to my own children (and I’m not implying you are hopeless).Solving the energy dillema is expensive, unpleasant and would seriously damage our economy. (it would mean no more NASCAR
I believe it important to witness as much as we can, even if that is very little. I use a bike/train combo to get to work most days; we grow a large family garden to supplement vegetables even during the winter; we try to take mainly local vacations, and we live in a 1200 square foot city house, even though we could cash out, move to the suburbs, buy a 5,000 square foot McMansion and embark on a 40 mile commute. Not everybody can live this way, but I daresay there is no one who cannot in some way lessen her or his carbon footprint.
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ribozyme
Guest
Gee, what do you think is going to solve it. God?
Why do you denial the ability of technology to save us? Haven’t you read the essay “The Law of Accelerating Returns” by Ray Kurzweil?
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Mr.Bee
Guest
Thank you.
I in no way want to convey a sense of hopelessness and doom, I try and read up on all these issues and it’s easy to take a fatalistic and negative approach toward the future. But like I’ve said before in this and other similar threads, the answers seem to be so obvious and simple… but require sacrifice from everybody. The real answers to our dilemmas aren’t what is being posted to the various medias, but something more fundamental that requires a shift in our values and lifestyles.
It become a choice between life, and the alternatives.
I’m afraid that putting too much faith and energy into technology, the economy and our civil liberties is only going to make things worse. But I don’t hear anybody willing to come to terms with this fact.
God is the answer… few listen, because his solutions are difficult.
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Mr.Bee
Guest
Excuse me, His solutions…
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Mr.Bee
Guest
Oh please…
You see, the solution it seems for many means maintaining our current way of life at all costs. The solution is fine as long as I can keep my Hummer, shop at WalMart and consume cheap **** from China.
Technology is merely a tool, not an answer.
Does the thought of losing your car, cel phone, internet connection, and NASCAR scare you?
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