Peak Oil
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
I'd cite, click/paste, etc. but I'd rather people either read the whole article for themselves or not at all. It's informative and frightening. |
This section of the article is a bit frightening.
"Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things." Hopefully, there is a solution to this problem by discovering an alternative to oil. The sooner this problem is rectified, the better. |
I've heard of electric cars where they are powered by electricity.
Possibility: Coal as an alternative for oil. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...rnatives_x.htm |
Ah, but what is the source of the electricity?
There are other alternative resources out there; I did a project on alternative fuel sources back in eighth grade. I got a good mark, so you'd think I knew what I was talking about. I forgot most of it, though. |
That's quite a read. And very interesting for someone like myself who consumes more than his fair share of oil. Pretty much suckhole news for my major hobby. If the industry does indeed go this route in the next few years it's going to be very hard for casual automotive enthusiasts to be able to afford to live and hang on to their toys. No more big blocks, blowers, turbos, race gas, track days, autoX, quarter mile... how depressing.
That's of course not even mentioning all of the daily life things affected. If a crisis such as this happens we will see an explosion - no pun - in hydrogen use but the damage will have been done. We could end up seeing the Cyberpunkish styled living after all - megacorps, resource control, population control and decline, unimaginable gap between the haves and have nots, you've all read the books and seen the movies. I'm not building my bombshelter yet but it is all very interesting. |
I think oil won't be a major problem regarding fueling of cars, as there are many alternatives for cars as opposed to petrol. However, in general, oil is a threat to the general worldwide population.
http://www.collingwood.sutton.sch.uk.../ESNoCars3.htm |
rose: how often does Australia have brown-outs?
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It varies from suburb to surburb.
Where I live, we hardly ever have any brownouts. Electricity is usually cut off due to construction work in the street etc. Why do you ask? |
The same doomsdayers that said what was in that link also pointed to brown-outs in Australia that are to be common now because of this shortage or whatever.
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Worldwide population? Who cares about that? I need the oil to keep my Hemi running! |
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"oil-dependant economies will crumble" (refer to Dis' link)
I think today's society is relying too much on oil in order for a substantial income and a high standard of living. In the 1900s, oil wasn't vital to a person's living or income. |
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http://www.collingwood.sutton.sch.uk.../ESNoCars3.htm |
The end of Suburbia
In reading through the article and other support documents it links to, it becomes clear to me that this is going to be much, much more than just having to drive my car less. If I read this correctly, there is a real, needs-to-be-considered possibility that we are approaching another Iron age ... with the added complications of riots, food shortages, and an information blackout.
Imagine the best case scenario featuring you moving to a moderate climate (so you can survive the temperature changes with no more that a wood-buring fireplace, using wood you chop yourself) and living in a commune-like enviroment far from any major population centers (to avoid the riots, looting, murder and resource drain these masses of humanity would represent) while living off of food you grow yourself. Imagine no running water or electricity unless you provide it for yourself (wells and hand operated pumps, solar panels and windmills), no phone lines or cellular phones, no DSL, Cable or dial-up internet. Imagine what shortages of plastic, microchips and other petrolium-based products would mean to goods we take for granted now. No more hollywood, no more CD's from our favorite bands, no more television ... a complete change to what we take for granted in our lives today. I think this is probably the dark end of the spectrum of possibilities, but I think it has to be considered ... especially in light of the estimation that we could start to feel these effects within 5 - 20 years. And I suspect that those of us in the United States will suffer the harshest blow, where nearly 100 years of extravigant, wastefull, self-indulgent living makes us the most vulnerable. |
Heres an even better one:
http://www.theaircar.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/988265.stm These are taking over the streets in South Africa and other african states. Invented by the same man who designed the first Indy car, they run on compressed air. They are not a concept, they are being used daily. Even better is the design has now written a book. He recently was able to come out in public again. Oil companies offered him billions, with a b, for the design patent. When he said no, well - multiple attempts on his life, he had to move from country to country, death squads raiding his homes, all kindsa fun stuff. Didn't stop him though and now they have air powered cars hitting the market. They have high speed re-fill stations that look like standard petrol pumps and can refill the car in 15 minutes, for the same price as it costs to pump air in the tyres. You can get 120 miles on a tank of air, which costs $0.30 to fill. The car itself runs $10,000. I'm wondering why they haven't debuted in the states? They are already talking about bringing them to Europe - just working on legal paperwork for the patents. But lets look at what ol' gw is offering. He cut all hybrid fuel car discounts and r&d into hybrid vehicles and then pumped twice as much into hydrogen powered cars claiming its an alterternative fuel source for gas and needs to be looked into. Problem is, hybrids have been researched for decades and only now are we seeing the fruits of those years. By cutting and moving to hydrogen, he effectively killed the growth of the hybrid and all research into hydrogen will be from scratch. Also, a wee tidbit he left out is there are only so many companies that sell hydrogen. Guess who owns them? Thats right, the oil companies also own the hydrogen companies. Hows that? Well, turns out making hydrogen is not an easy process. What most people don't know is that it takes lots of fossil fuel to create it, and the only ones with the resources and equiptment are...the oil companies. This means yes, your car will be burning less gas, but factories will be spewing ten times the amount of pollution, making the air quality worse especially after bush removed all the clean air act provisions, and that we would not be any less dependant on fossil fuel, just the people buying it will change, the companies will have a different face, and all the dirty work will happen in a factory behind the scenes so it appears to be global friendly, but in reality will be much, much worse. Thats my happy thought for the day ;) |
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Once again, someone talking from a US perspective. You are correct across the board on that post, but sounds like once again you haven't heard about the rest of the world and what we are doing. First, in Ireland, we don't burn wood. We burn peat. It's abundant, cheap, and replentishable making it our #1 heat source in the winter, for centuries. Second, we have many 'wind farms' in fact, much like in various states in america we can choose our electicity provider. I use a 100% wind farm provider. They however can only have so many customers because of their size, but each year they increase their farm size and output exponentially. At this rate we hope to have half the country on wind before 2020. Cheaper, more reliable, and global friendly. More impressive is Scotland. Like Iceland, they now are putting in 'ocean farms', that run off the waves. They put out even more power than wind farms with less maintanence. The ocean waves power the generators. Some of the smaller islands in the channel are powered 100% by ocean waves. Not one drop of fossil fuel used in the production of electricity there (well, im guessing they use some to start the system). We also have solar farms here. Not as big, but the new solar technology is supposed to dwarf what was considered good just 10 years ago. In fact, BBC just did a great show last week on these new doctors clinics in various parts of Africa. They use 100% solar power, are self contained, easily transported on trucks, and more importantly, they have a water purificaiton system so they can operate for months with no water hookup and never need any power hookups. They are putting them out in the middle of darkest Africa, allowing modern medical teams to work in ideal environments with no power or water and do so in clinical sanitary conditions. It's amazing. These are things that are currently used all over the world as well, just not in the states. Why? Once again, follow the money. |
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Stern and TStone, I enjoyed reading both of your posts, where I've been exposed to new interesting information. Thanks gentlemen. |
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A few examples. In Ireland and the UK all government envelopes are recycled paper. A little thing, but a big thing if you think about all the bills and letters sent out by the government. Most companies here do the same. Recycling is mandatory. We also pay for rubbish removal, based on weight. Most families have one wheely bin (a trashcan on wheels). They won't fill it in the 2 week collection time, where as in the states when I lived in suburbia I would see 2-4 bins in front of the houses prior to weekly pickup. The biggest waste of energy I saw though was hot water heaters (which I always wondered why they werent called water heaters as you have no reason to heat hot water). We have electric boxes on our sinks and washers that heat the water as it is used. We also have electric showers, or immersions in really old homes. Either way if I leave the house for a few months and come back, my ESP (water/power) is $0, where as in the states you pay upwards of $15-$45 a month for just having a water heater. Also refrigerators. You lads have HUGE refergerators, where as we have ones the size you might see in a hotel room in the states. Average size here is quite small. Most don't even have freezers. I remember while in University at the states every home I went to with college students the fridge had merely ketchup (red sauce), a few cans, and an empty freezer. No one ever would turn it off though, even though like the water heater it uses about the same amount of energy each month. Thats just wasted monies each household is burning daily. Calculate that times the number of households in the states and think about that as wasted energies. Just some of the big ones off the top of me head. Little things, added up across the population of the states equals alot real quick sure. |
there are plenty of alternatives to using oil, some much more costly than others. the problem comes with trying to protect it from the oil giants, as sterrnn pointed out. not too long ago there was some guy driving around in a volvo or something, that he'd modified himself so that it ran completely on used vegetable oil from fast food resturants. somebody else came up with an engine that ran on human urine. it'd be nice to have a choice in electric companies. around here there is just one electric company, so if you want power here, you use them or not at all. the idea of providing your own power is nice, especially with selling the excess back. I've heard that power companies are actually required to buy it back from you. but the average citizen is not going to have the means to come up with, or install their own generators.
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you have a point on the giant water heaters and refrigerators in the states. but don't a lot of europeans still do daily grocery shopping in the street markets? or at least, isn't that the idea? they also probably walk a lot more, compaired to us lazy americans, who'd roll around every day in our remote-controlled recliners if we could. heh. but what i was going to say is, i think the concept of much larger fridges is based on the idea that most americans do their grocery shopping once a week, or even once a month. so you need a much bigger cooling unit to keep all those extra groceries. the same with water heaters, usually kept in the garage or basement in american homes, the same homes that generally have 2 to 3 shower stalls, 2 to 3 bathroom sinks, and a kitchen sink. we don't generally use hot water outside so no need for it there. but american homes are designed for bigger families. if we didn't have to drive 5 to 15 miles to the nearest grocery store then we probably wouldn't need such a big refrigerator. and actually, refrigerators are designed to use less energy left on all the time than if you turned it off daily. if you leave town for a week or a month, then you should, logically, empty it and turn it off. but turning it back on requires a hell of a lot more energy to re-cool it and re-freeze the freezer. i actually have a problem with mine because of its thermostat. it cuts off a few times a day and has to cut back on and refreeze everything. i hate when my ice cubes melt in their trays. its added a good 100 bucks a month to my electric bill for the last year or so. i just haven't gotten it replaced. not really mine...
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