Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Peak oil is coming

A few notes on this kind of thread. People loves doomsday scenarios. Every summer there is a blockbuster movie about this or that doomsday scenario. The book of Revelations in the Bible is probably more read than any other book in the Bible though it has less claim to be legitimately included in the Bible than any other book. Martin Luther and three or four other of the major leaders of the Protestant Reformation did not want Revelations included in the Protestant Bible. There are 7 other books in the Catholic Bible which are not in the Protestant Bible.

Let us look at a few doomsday scenarios. The Population Bomb. Population in Europe has been decreasing steadily for decades. In the US population would be dropping but is held basically steady by the rate of new immigrants. In Ancient Greece and Rome, population dropped after society reached a certain level of plenty.

Poor people have lots of children, people who are well off, prefer to play and enjoy themselves instead of having children. The cure for the population bomb is economic prosperity.

Pollution. The US and Europe are very clean nations these days. Burning yak dung to heat tents in Central Asia and similar primitive technologies are introducing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the US is.

I recommend reading "Hard Green" on the issue of agriculturally generated fuels as opposed to petrochemicals. Though, the use of waste organic matter to create fuels is a growing energy source and one which will probably continue to develop. Many industries are wasteful and not operating to produce max profit. The organic wastes from food production provide many exploitable materials for fertilizers, creation of natural gas and oil, etc. They are not currently being widely used, but good managers would see them as a potential source of profit and that processing them for sale would, in the long run be less costly than finding other ways of disposing of them.

Everything is becoming more energy efficient. Cars which recycle energy from braking, use flywheels to store energy, etc. are already in production. These technologies apply to energy from all sources. Flexible solar cells are being developed. This will allow manufacturers to create cars whose whole body is a solar cell taking advantage of free energy. Far more efficient materials for insulation are being created. This will reduce heating and cooling costs.

None of these 'green' developments will reduce total energy usage. People will expand their use of energy as the supply expands. No limit to this trend has yet been found. One is possible though. As more people spend more time in virtual reality entertainments, an energy use plateau for recreational purposes will probably be reached. Computers and the WWW, allow for entertainment, virtual travel, etc. at relatively low energy costs. Logging on and playing a video games takes considerably less energy than driving to the Grand Canyon.

Still long term population decline, increasing efficiencies in the use of energy, suggest that in the long run, there will be no energy crisis and that society will never fall because of a lack of fuel.

Far to many contentious issues in your above posting. Won't give readers the chance and time to reply in detail to any. Suggest you post an issue at a time like most of us?

I cant agree with your cure for the population bomb. There is no cure, or easy answer to the population explosion.....not in these 'modern times' anyway.
In Victorian times it was the poor that had huge familys.
Since the introduction of the Contraceptive pill, and Morning-After pill, its the rich who now have more children than the poor.
I agree with you that people today prefer to play travel and buy a home. But the rich plan and have their children later in life than the poor today,
Enabling them to travel, play, and get a roof over their heads. For the less well off, having one or two children proves be a financial burden.
The rich often have 2 or 3 children today.
I would suggest that its the rich COUNTRYS, with their improved medi-care, that have the most children on average. i.e. economic prosperity
tends to increase the population overall, not limit it.

Johan:

In my web travels on the topic, I found a page that predicted 1999 as the year for peak oil; it is my opinion that predictions putting peak oil at this year or next are very unlikely to be true. But I do think that there is an excellent chance that it could occur by 2020, and I also believe that 2009 is not an unreasonable possibility.

A side note on this issue:
I have seen plastics, very convincingly plastic, made from corn oil and corn starch. George Washington Carver pioneered making plastic from soybeans. Just because we ARE making plastics from petrochemicals doesn't mean we HAVE to do that. There are other pathways to the place called PolymerLand. We could harvest the cellulose from hemp plants to make plastics. That'd make some people happy, no doubt. Plastics made from corn starch are available from your local grocer; biodegradable plastic grocery sacks, I believe they're called. Sometimes they break down before you get them home, even!

Amaranth, I suggest you do a little research on current population trends. For the poor children are an economic asset for the prosperous they are an economic burden. At a certain point prosperous societies always reach negative population growth.

On the issue of plastics etc. from farmed organics, they are very common and are being increasingly used. Similarly it is easy to make oil and gas from organics. These industries are developing and make a useful means of utilizing organic wastes.

However, I suggest you read "Hard Green" for a discussion of whether or not such sources could substitute for petrochemicals.

Not being possessed of any "hard green" to spend on luxury items like books, I will have to be content with getting my information second-hand at best. When I can afford Literature, I assure you said tome will be on the "To purchase" list. When getting the next meal on the table is problematical, Fine features of life tend to disappear over the "need" event horizon. I'll keep it in mind. Unless you are of a mind to donate me a copy for the purposes of reviewing, in which case I can guarantee you a review on my time-line, a slippery slope at best but so far I'm managing to keep my feet down and my head up.

Try your local library, Amaranth, that is where I got a copy to read.