Peak Oil: 2035 doesn't seem too far off

[Rastafari]

honestly, why be worried about something like this until it springs up and hits you in the face. We are a resourceful enough race, we'll figure something out...or we'll starve and die off.

We should put a lot more faith into Protecting the Earth and human rights, so we can last to see any kind of a future.

(End of Ralph Nader PSA)

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Stapler@Feb 17 2004, 10:02 PM
Can we produce fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides with methane? does any technology exist to power cars with methane?

Methane -- CH4, colorless, odorless, gaseous saturated hydrocarbon.

http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia.../M/methane.html

Yes, I think anything you can make from oil you can make from methane...including oil itself.

As always in nature, the more complicated the thing you want to make, the more energy required to make it.

So some things you might not want to make from methane because there'd be easier ways to make it from something else.

But yes, you could run cars on it...and they'd be much cleaner than existing fuels.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[Rasta Sapian]

methane, has a bad odor, and is one of the causes for the greenhouse effect!
what we need is to focus on harvesting other earth energies: ie. solar power = more powerfull batteries and fuel cells to power electric motors, wind power, hydrological power, etc.
Fossil fuels and thier bi-products are polluting our air, oceans, forests, resovoirs (drinking water)
and yes, fossil feuls will eventually run out or become to expensive to obtain....ie. mad max

it is up to all of us to adapt, developing alternative sources of energy!

[CorporationsRule]

"fossil feuls will eventually run out or become to expensive to obtain....ie. mad max"

Running out isn't the important point. Peak production is. That's when supply won't be able to meet demand and the price of everything will sky rocket.

Estimates of the oil peak range from a few years ago to fifty years in the future.

Eventually?

[Nordic Rebel]

On cars running with methane it is a allready happening. Here in Finland some of the bussses run on methane so methane cars would probably not be so hard to build.

Methane is a greenhouse gas and at it 20 times worse than CO2 but this can be solved by burning the methane into water and CO2. In cars and other applications that in volve burning it. We can limit the amount methane coming out of the engine unburned by placing a turbocharger that takes the extra air from the exhaustsystem and runs it through the enfine again. This allso gives as morepower with the same amount of methane so its an win-win situation.

The greatest sources of greenhause methane are cattle mainly cows and the growing of rice.The the cattle produces the methane in their bowels and in the rice growing the methane forms underwater as a product of the decomposition of plantmatter in airless enviroment.

[Osman Ghazi]

Fuel cells only waste energy. All they can do is store energy like a battery.
However, it takes more energy to put it the energy in there than you could get out of it. So by making hydrogen cells, you would waste energy, which probably wouldn't be so great for the environment.
Also, by the time wind power pays for itself, they have to be replaced. Same with nuclear which also produces nuclear waste to boot. I don't know about solar, but I can't imagine the net energy output is much better than wind.

[redstar2000]

I suspect that, with the exception of an economy exclusively powered by solar, wind, hydro-electric, and geo-thermal power, we will have to adapt to global warming...it's inescapable.

Any carbon-based fuel is going to increase the "greenhouse" effect. Furthermore, even the use of fission or fusion power still dumps "waste heat" into the environment that would not otherwise be present.

You may as well go ahead and plant that palm tree...it will thrive sooner than you think.

I should mention that hydro-electric power has a problem that may become significant towards the end of this century -- dams silt up and eventually no water flows through to turn the generators. It's not something that's "unfixable"...but it can present tasks as daunting as the original construction of the dam itself.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[CorporationsRule]

Your radar is odd, redstar.

[CorporationsRule]

Good to see we've fixed this here problem. Starving was going to suck.

Now all I have to do is convince myself that I'm not a wage-slave and I can start skipping everywhere I go instead of walking.

[Iepilei]

While I don't believe that everything will be completely peaches and cream when it comes to the outcome of this situation, I don't believe it'll be a huge doomsday event. It'll drop our standards of living - it'll create a society which we have to cope with to work out. The greedy shall die off, and those who are compelled to create a society worthy of living in will forever remember their deaths.

I see this as beneficial to our cause. A complete collapse of society. Or call for a complete workers revolt - to take from the rich and save humanities ass. Their profits will be plenty to construct and develop energy sources around the remaining nuclear, water, and wind sources. Or perhaps, by this time, money really won't mean much of anything.

[CorporationsRule]

"While I don't believe that everything will be completely peaches and cream when it comes to the outcome of this situation, I don't believe it'll be a huge doomsday event."

Any reason for this? How is being physically incapable of feeding our enormous population not a doomsday event?

"The greedy shall die off, and those who are compelled to create a society worthy of living in will forever remember their deaths."

Any reason you believe this? Why would the greedy die off? The greedy have the biggest guns, the most political power, and the most control over resources.

"I see this as beneficial to our cause. A complete collapse of society. Or call for a complete workers revolt - to take from the rich and save humanities ass. Their profits will be plenty to construct and develop energy sources around the remaining nuclear, water, and wind sources. Or perhaps, by this time, money really won't mean much of anything."

What are you even talking about? How are millions of people starving to death, quite possibly including you, beneficial to our cause? Your cause is weird.

I don't understand most people's reaction to this topic. It's either, "eh, it won't be so bad and stuff. I'm positive. Yippee!"...or "shit, that'd be so bad. Why even think about it. If that's true we're fucked. What am I supposed to do about it?"

Well guess what, you can't do shit about anything else. Your vote doesn't count, Bush still blew the shit out of Iraq, and there isn't a single worker run factory this side of Argentina (where they, of course, legalized the radical fabricas recuperadas so as to legitimize and control them).

So if we're totally alienated from any decision making process and we only really have any effect on a local level, why talk about anything beyond that? Who cares about American Imperialism, institutionalized racism, Mad Cow disease, Global Warming, Palestinians, Israelis, Columbia, Worker's rights and all the other unmanagable behemoth problems we all find so important?

I'll tell you why. Because they're fucking problems and nobody else is going to do anything about them...that's why.

If people don't start becoming educated, creating dialogue and moving their ass locally with regards to Peak Oil, we're going to see a whole lot more insane leaders than George W. Bush.

Conan the Swatzenator isn't going to think twice about watching your ass die unless you're white, well off, and vote like a fascist.

FEMA for president, 2012!

[Urban Rubble]

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned hemp oil. Did you know they built a car that ran on hemp and it drove something like 15,000 miles in a trip (I think it was across Canada) ?

[Rastafari]

any links on this UR? it sounds interesting.
and now the inevitable:

[pandora]

The HEat is on great book on global warming in relation
Not only is this true, but the policies of the United States and other first world countries obviously have been set up to deal with this situation.
It's sad in the past Native American tribes looked at each situation to the 7th generation. Not only is the U.S. and other forces in Iraq for securing rights to the last oil, but Venezula and Columbia are also in focus, and of course Equador and Mexico. Texas hides exhausting the last of it's reserves by pumping Mexican oil into El Paso, which has become a giant refinery.

I pray that we get through this with the planet intact, my prayers were answered when their was not a nuclear response to 9/11, which I found a little suspicious, actually. If we get through the political ramifications of oil's demise, will it happen before the burning of fossil fuels destroys our planet. Also while we remove the blood [oil] from the plates of the Earth we witness more Earthquakes [Iran, etc . . .]

The end of oil is not a bad thing in terms of global warming. I really hope and pray that Earth and human beings make it through these things, somehow looking at children, and remembering our love for them I think we might despite the Mayan calender, but we're in for a bumpy ride. Knowledge is power.

The next day after I posted this NYT had a story from Saudi Arabia about how they are being pressured to increase production past sustainable levels. I feel we will continue to pressrue them to save the last of our own reserves to the end. Just for a domination game, but for what end? So we have the last bit it's still going to end.

All for hybrids and other ways of transport, bicycle[I] Perhaps more importantly we are overfishing, food comes before transport thank your local farmer

[Iepilei]

What good will money be when the entire system as we know it has collapsed? Who will be able to maintain political boundaries when people are starving and in mass exodus to americas heartland? The greedy will be looked upon as the cause of all of this - the industry's name will be a cursed word.

It's not hard to grow your own food and sustain yourself off the environment. Granted our insane population regions around the world will suffer tremendously, but those with the knowledge and ability won't completely die off if they maintain themselves. Society will sustain a massive shock, this is true, but the strive for survival will bring people together and hopefully pad the crash.

There will be death, there will be destruction, but perhaps such a unifying force will prove beneficial. That's the point I was getting at.

Granted though it's all a theory at this point, as noone knows the reserves and advancements we may see between now and then, it's still a cause for concern. I'm not saying pass it off, but you can't sit here and preach to the apocolapyse. Neither is a solution, as people don't listen to prophets much anymore.

[pedro san pedro]

in terms of what global warming may mean for us...


Pentagon acknowledges climate change.... and sees it as a national security issue and ..... prepares for war. What is wrong with these psychos????



Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war: report

Sun Feb 22, 5:17 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon (news - web sites)
warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of
lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism.


Related Links
. Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us (Observer)


The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered
up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained" by the
British weekly The Observer.

The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military
policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol (news - web
sites) on climate change and President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s
skepticism about global warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists
worldwide.

The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt
climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries
develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and
energy supplies," The Observer reported.

The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be
endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life."

Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA (news - web sites) consultant and
former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of
Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be
considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue.

It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security
concern", they were quoted as saying.

Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include:

-- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as
European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.

-- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands
uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California
that supplies all water to densely populated southern California

-- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying to keep
out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea
levels or made unfarmable by drought.

-- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to
widespread war by 2020.

Randall, one of the authors, called his findings "depressing stuff" and
warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters.

"We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow
and we would not know for another five years," he told the paper.

Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to
global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism".

Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in political
and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary challenge for
leaders, Randall said.

"It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy
to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat," he said.



Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics, the
report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US
presidential race.

Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-partisan
group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush administration of
having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy agenda and
having "misled the public".

Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and was not
time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington
"systematically" skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others,
stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused
to seek independent expertise on issues.

Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was
deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated.

The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot be
accused of the same partisan politicking.

Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and
was described by The Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military.


from either yahoo news or the observer (forget which, sorry)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon (news - web sites)
warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of
lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism.

It can't be very secret if it's all over the internet, can it?

It's getting colder. does that sound like global warming to you?

Also, the chemicals we're releasing into the atmosphere were part of the atmosphere millions of years ago. It's 'natural'. We're just not used to it.

It has also been a lot warmer and a lot colder in the Earth's history, way before mankind was here. Is that also 'unnatural'?

[Iepilei]

Also take into consideration that, since the greater part of the 1700s, we've been in a form of miniature ice age. During this time, the average temperature on the earth has actually been lower than that which was experienced by it's previous generations.

[CorporationsRule]

"It can't be very secret if it's all over the internet, can it?"

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Ever hear of a leak smart guy?

"It's getting colder. does that sound like global warming to you?"

Global climate change. Jesus.

"Also, the chemicals we're releasing into the atmosphere were part of the atmosphere millions of years ago. It's 'natural'. We're just not used to it."

Oh, wait...this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If we're not used to it enough, we're going to die. Who gives a shit if you can define it as natural with juvenile semantics.

"It has also been a lot warmer and a lot colder in the Earth's history, way before mankind was here. Is that also 'unnatural'?"

Again, who the fuck cares whether or not it's natural. Whether it's natual or not is not the issue. If that pentagon report is correct, there's going to be a lot of dying.

Then you say, "they're is always a lot of dying"...well...how often have you died? And people are always being exploited too. Why give a shit about that? It happens in the world so it must be natural.

SCARY DOES NOT EQUAL UNTRUE!