Life After The Oil Crash

[j2k4]

Here it is-

Charley Reese's column from 3/3/04:

Bad Times Coming

One of the things the Bush administration is ignoring is the coming catastrophe that is likely to impoverish the world and plunge it into global warfare.

It will be the end of civilization as we know it, and it will occur in this decade or the next. Not since the fall of the Roman Empire will human progress so forcefully and quickly reverse itself. I'm talking about the end of the oil age.

Several experts now agree that world oil production will peak soon and begin an unalterable decline. The price of oil will skyrocket, and as the supply dwindles, some of the nations that can't afford it will try to take it. Nation-states will be like starving hounds fighting over a few scraps.

Things we take for granted, like electricity, the family car and air transportation, will become unaffordable for the great mass of people. Petroleum permeates our economy, not only in the form of gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil, but also in the myriad of petrochemicals that are made from it. Many of these are essential to large-scale agricultural production.

The impact of the loss of oil would be better understood if someone had not mislabeled the Industrial Revolution. It was instead a fossil-fuel revolution. Prior to that, in the course of human history, poverty had been the norm. The only sources of energy were human and animal muscle, wind and water. Oil and coal existed, of course, but no one knew how to convert them into energy that could do work. That's why for most of human history, slavery was universal.

Whatever work was to be done — agricultural or construction — had to be done by human muscle, assisted, if they were available, by animals. Water could be used to grind grain, and wind was the principle source of propulsion on the seas. Since the human population was small, slaves were considered simply as the spoils of war, a valuable commodity.

The invention of the steam engine, followed by the internal combustion engine, the diesel engine and the electric motor, allowed mankind to use fossil-fuel energy to do the work of civilization. At first the main fossil fuel was coal, until cheaper oil put it into a secondary position. Now our civilization is dependent on oil, and so is development. The big net importers of oil today are the United States, China and Japan. As other countries try to develop, they will need cheap oil, and so even as supply peaks and then dwindles, demand is constantly increasing. That spells skyrocketing prices, conflict and poverty.

For a more academic discussion, you might read the new book "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil " by California physicist David Goodstein. Others in the petroleum industry are also forecasting the same thing.

President Bush, instead of trying to increase the profits of his corporate oil buddies by opening up new areas for exploitation (which won't amount to a drop in the bucket), should be mobilizing the nation to face the coming crisis. Uninformed talk about hydrogen won't do it. Goodstein points out that it takes the energy of seven gallons of gasoline to produce enough hydrogen to do the work of one gallon of gasoline.

What is needed is the equivalent of a new Manhattan Project, the extraordinary government effort to develop the atomic bomb. The best brains in America need to be mobilized to prepare the country for that soon-to-come day when the world demand for oil exceeds the world supply. Unless we can find alternatives — cheap, mass-produced alternatives — Americans face a catastrophic decline in their standard of living, not to mention a dangerous world in chaos and conflict.

If you think I paint too grim a picture, imagine what your household budget will be like when the price of oil has climbed to a $100 a barrel. It is an unfortunate truth of history that nations sometimes face extraordinary challenges just when their political leaders are poorly equipped by nature and nurture to deal with them.

[Neo 721]

Yep it looks bleak, the situation is more serious than that with no oil there will be no plastic, the world can potentionaly sustain whithout the need of oil as a fuel, but it cannot whithout oil for plastic, which will raise recycling demands, which should have already been done.

[sArA]

I worry for my kids...

[Alex H]

Originally posted by j2k4@11 March 2004 - 16:28
The price of oil will skyrocket, and as the supply dwindles, some of the nations that can't afford it will try to take it.

Like the US in Iraq? There is a lot to be said for pre-emptive action!

[j2k4]

Originally posted by Alex H+11 March 2004 - 22:56--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Alex H &#064; 11 March 2004 - 22:56)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-j2k4@11 March 2004 - 16:28
The price of oil will skyrocket, and as the supply dwindles, some of the nations that can&#39;t afford it will try to take it.

Like the US in Iraq? There is a lot to be said for pre-emptive action&#33;[/b][/quote]
How short-sighted of me to have failed to mention that.

Yes, our strategy has been caught out.

Be nice to us and we might share with you, Alex.

Our only hope is for the burgeoning scientific community in Haiti or some other third-world country to discover an alternative to oil.

[cpt_azad]

Originally posted by sara5564@11 March 2004 - 15:34
I worry for my kids...

worried for your kids ??? i&#39;m worried for myself . crap, with this kind of news, i&#39;ll never be able to become a pilot . damit to hell, piss, son of a bitch, damit damit damit, hell, fuck, shit, son of a..it&#39;s good to swear sometimes

[sArA]

Thats right...let it all out...you will feel better

[cpt_azad]

Originally posted by sara5564@21 March 2004 - 14:39
Thats right...let it all out...you will feel better

lol but i really am worried about the future

[lynx]

A worrying article, but I would cast doubt on some of it, particularly the page on alternatives.

For example:

Hydro-Electric power currently supplies 2.3% of global energy supply. It is not a sufficient replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:

1. It is unsuitable for aircrafts and the present 800 million existing vehicles.

But is can be used to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen powered engines are already being developed. Part of the problem is that they are being promoted as clean engines, and environmental groups point out that this just moves the point of production of emissions from the vehicle to the power station. This argument ignores the fact that current large power stations are far more efficient than the internal combustion engine, and that energy from renewable sources does not cause this polution.

Other forms of hydro-electric power such as tidal power can produce massive amounts of power. In the UK the Severn Barrage, if fully implemented could supply 12GW of power, 10% of the country&#39;s electricity needs, and that is just one scheme.

Solar power currently supplies .006% of global energy supply. As a replacement for fossil fuels, it suffers from several deficiencies:

1. Energy from solar power varies constantly with weather or day/night.

This is nonsense. On a commercial scale energy production from one solar generator may go down due to a little local cloud, but at the same time production at other sites would rise because of the dispersion of local cloud. Energy arriving from the sun is unremarkably constant. And the day/night argument is nonsense too. Again, if used to create hydrogen production could stop overnight. Just like plants stop photosynthesis at night.

2. Not practical for transportation needs. While a handful of small, experimental, solar powered vehicles have been built, solar power is unsuited for planes, boats, cars, tanks, etc. . .

See above re hydrogen.

Wind

Wind power accounts for .07% of global energy supply. As a replacement for fossil fuels, its problems are:...

See above re solar power.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen accounts for 0.01% of global energy. It is not a true replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:

1. Hydrogen is currently manufactured from methane gas. It takes more energy to create it than the hydrogen actually provides. It is therefore an energy “carrier” not a source.

Hydrogen could easily be produced by electrolysis. The writer seems to have forgotten that he&#39;s already said that natural gas will run out, so it could not be used as a source in any case. He probably does not realise that methane is the main constituent of natural gas.

In any case, the argument that it takes more energy to produce something than it provides is poor: if we only get half a watt of useful energy from hydrogen, but have used 1 watt of otherwise wasted energy to produce it we have gained half a watt. The key is to use energy which we cannot otherwise utilise.

2. Liquid hydrogen occupies four to eleven times the bulk of equivalent gasoline or diesel.

So what? And which one is it? Liquid hydrogen occupies a known volume just like gasoline or diesel, it doesn&#39;t vary by 275% of it&#39;s volume. Again, the writer doesn&#39;t know his facts.

3. Existing vehicles and aircraft and existing distribution systems are not suited to it.

As stated earlier, development of hydrogen engines is will under way. I&#39;ve seen (on tv) prototypes being driven around which were far more efficient than any vehicles we have at present (another blow for the inefficient production argument), performance was better too.

"Hydrogen Fuel Cells" should be called "Hydrogen Fool Cells." The "Hydrogen Economy" is a complete and utter hoax. Dr. Jorg Wing, a representative of the auto giant Daimler/Chrysler made this clear at the Paris Peak Oil Conference when he explained that his company did not view hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based engines.

Translation: we haven&#39;t done as much research as other companies and are going to be left behind.


I could go on, but I think I&#39;ve destroyed enough of that piece already to show just how worthless it really is.

The point is that if we follow his arguments we won&#39;t do anything about the problem. He seems to be saying that we can&#39;t use anything other than oil so we should stop looking. Fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide. If we took steps to reduce CO2 emmisions by, say, 20% by 2015 we would already be well on the way towards meeting some of the deficit in energy requirements predicted. Funny, I seem to hear a little voice saying "Kyoto, Kyoto". Can&#39;t for the life of me think what it means.

Certainly there are going to be problems. We need to be looking at alternative solutions now, not bleating about how poor they are. The sooner we get some of those solutions in place the longer the existing oil will last, and the better the chance we have of finding other solutions before it is too late.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by lynx@22 March 2004 - 09:50
We need to be looking at alternative solutions now, not bleating about how poor they are. The sooner we get some of those solutions in place the longer the existing oil will last, and the better the chance we have of finding other solutions before it is too late.

Exactly so-

As an aside, pure capitalist entrepeneurial spirit would dictate that a great deal of this R&D is/has been taking place already, but the situation must be allowed to ripen to the proper degree of desperation before the secrets are divulged, yes?

I wonder what the status of such goings-on might be?