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DinosaursRock
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Just wondering if it's true when people say we will be out of oil in 50 years. If so are there plans to what's going to happen?
Any answers are appreciated, thanks.
Any answers are appreciated, thanks.
Simon Bridge said:Welcome to PF;
It is true that fossil fuels are running out.
50 years may be a bit soon.
So far there are no cohesive plans for what is going to happen - but there are a lot of ideas.
It's what all those "alternative fuel" things are about, but basically nobody can agree on what to do.
Probably the clearest articulation of the problem is here:
... see all eight.
The long historical perspective is useful:
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=e_v2rXL6rYwC&pg=PA308&lpg=PA308&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
... look through the timeline to see how far back governments started regulating resources due to pollution and scarcity concerns.
DinosaursRock said:Just wondering if it's true when people say we will be out of oil in 50 years. If so are there plans to what's going to happen?
Any answers are appreciated, thanks.
phinds said:My favorite story about projecting technology trends into the future is the prediction made sometime around the end of the 1800's which said that given the increasing population growth and the slow but inexorable growth of individual wealth, the rate of ownership of horses and horse-drawn carriages would inevitably result in all large cities being covered to a depth of a couple of feet in horse manure.
mheslep said:The so called Horseshit Parable. Times of London, 1894, '“In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”
mheslep said:See the alternatives, which seems to be the main lesson from history. Bronze replaced stone tools, coal replaced wood, fossil oil replaced whale oil, glass fiber supplanted copper. Neither wood nor whales nor copper are depleted.
mheslep said:See the alternatives, which seems to be the main lesson from history.
...
Neither wood nor whales nor copper are depleted.
The numbers of whales may be down, but they're still around.AlephZero said:That seems a strange comment to make in a history lesson.
Some species of whale have not recovered from pre-20th-century exploitation. http://iwc.int/status
Deforestation was an ssue in Europe, extending back to the Neolithic era.
Admittedly the global situation with copper is not quite so clear, but for example the current UK electrical wiring system was designed to deal with copper shortages at the end of WWII.
No worries - as you can see there are a lot of sub-issues surrounding the topic.DinosaursRock said:This is really cool, I'll be sure to give this a read and watch the video.
And thanks of the welcoming.
Simon Bridge said:Bear in mind that it is possible to argue with anything and part of the job of a scientist is to find fault with the statements of other scientists - hence the discussion above.
mheslep said:...
See the alternatives, which seems to be the main lesson from history. Bronze replaced stone tools, coal replaced wood, fossil oil replaced whale oil, glass fiber supplanted copper. Neither wood nor whales nor copper are depleted.
Why? The observation is that as a resource becomes scarce or expensive alternatives are often found. The fact that many forests were felled or whales were killed for oil in centuries past does not counter that observation. There are many other examples. I intended "depleted" in its "exhausted" definition, not simply "diminished".AlephZero said:That seems a strange comment to make in a history lesson.
Apparently so for three or four species or subspecies, and other species have thrived (eastern North Pacific Grey). But the failure to recover can't have much to do with hunting for fuel oil, and the causes must lie elsewhere (pollution?, marine construction projects? subsistence hunting?)Some species of whale have not recovered from pre-20th-century exploitation. http://iwc.int/status
Exactly so, making the point about the early use of wood for fuel (and construction). Logging was also an issue in colonial America, when wide swaths of the country were denuded of trees. Pre-colonial Maine had a forest cover estimate of 92%, by 1872 it had fallen to a low of https://www.umaine.edu/mafes/elec_pubs/miscpubs/mp736.pdf, and today is back over 90%. That is, carbon for the like of blast furnaces no longer comes from trees. In general, forest cover has been increasing in the US by about 1% a year for at least the last thirty years. Europe today sees a similar increase, reversing the trend of centuries past.Deforestation was an issue in Europe, extending back to the Neolithic era.
By glass fiber I'm referring to the telecommunications switch from copper to fiber optic cable in the last 20-30 years, with the rate of installation of FO now 19 million miles per year in the US alone.Admittedly the global situation with copper is not quite so clear, but for example the current UK electrical wiring system was designed to deal with copper shortages at the end of WWII.
SteamKing said:The numbers of whales may be down, but they're still around.
mheslep said:Apparently so for three or four species or subspecies, and other species have thrived (eastern North Pacific Grey). But the failure to recover can't have much to do with hunting for fuel oil, and the causes must lie elsewhere (pollution?, marine construction projects? subsistence hunting?)
Yes, though the new supply in the US comes in the main from oil rich shale deposits in the lower-48, one consequence of which is that as of April the US now produces more crude oil and other petroleum products than ever before, including the former peak of 1973. This is due primarily to production from hhttp://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPTX2&f=M, No 2 N. Dakota.. Alaska is now 3rd, California 4th.jim hardy said:Now we drill for it 6,000 feet under the ocean and way up in the tundra.
...
The point: humans tend to not exhaust global resources. Humans have a record of damaging localized ecology in the pursuit of resources (forests for instance).micromass said:Some species of whale are extinct, others are critically endangered. This hardly proves the point that humans don't deplete your resources.
If the concern is to maintain whale populations and the like in the natural world, then of course any large scale use as a fuel is relevant.We have been using whales as a resource, whether that is for fuel oil or for food is not really relevant.
I think you mean endangered.The issue is that whales are a resource and we have made many of them extinct by hunting them.
Intl Whaling Commission said:It is well known that overexploitation by the whaling industry led to serious declines in many of the world’s populations of whales, although thankfully no species was brought to extinction and many are now in the process of recovering, although not all.
mheslep said:The point: humans tend to not exhaust global resources. Humans have a record of damaging localized ecology in the pursuit of resources (forests for instance).
I think you mean endangered.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) notes that the Atlantic population of gray whales was made extinct around the turn of the eighteenth century. Examination of remains found in England and Sweden found evidence of a separate Atlantic population of gray whales existing up until 1675. Radiocarbon dating of subfossil remains has confirmed this, with whaling the possible cause.
DinosaursRock said:Just wondering if it's true when people say we will be out of oil in 50 years. If so are there plans to what's going to happen?
Algae production has the potential to outperform other potential biodiesel products such as palm or corn. For example, a 100-acre algae biodiesel plant could potentially produce 10 million gallons of biodiesel in a single year. Experts estimate it will take 140 billion gallons of algae biodiesel to replace petroleum-based products each year. To reach this goal, algae biodiesel companies will only need about 95 million acres of land to build biodiesel plants, compared to billions of acres for other biodiesel products. Since algae can be grown anywhere indoors, it's a promising element in the race to produce a new fuel.
... assuming zero growth of course.140 billion gallons of algae biodiesel to replace petroleum-based products each year.
Simon Bridge said:What will happen is that consumption will have decreased somehow.
... well I did ask.Biodiesel has about 9% less energy content than petrodiesel:
Economic growth yes, not growth in oil consumption. That is, iPhones and music concerts are economic activity too.Simon Bridge said:Politics and economic policy is still about positive growth, so it is reasonable to suspect some long term positive growth yet,
Per capita energy consumption in the U.S., total, has been falling for years and is now at 1968 levels.owever, that's just energy demand - as oil use declines, other sources will take up the slack. What the calculation above are telling us is that even with that, even with increased efficiency, it's not sustainable. Demand has to fall.
Hans Rosslings talks are good, useful. I don't have much time for the thinly veiled misanthropes like Bartley. Same patter as Shockley on eugenics.ave you seen the video I linked in post #2?
Interestingly, the current EIA data is consistent with being at the start of the downturn suggested in that lecture.
... either that or there'd be armed marshalls on trains...jim hardy said:Eisenhower should have built train tracks instead of interstates. Without the automobile's instant gratification we'd have become a more patient society.
Whose growth consumes energy... currently mostly oil.mheslep said:Economic growth yes, not growth in oil consumption. That is, iPhones and music concerts are economic activity too.
stipulated - is it your contention that there is no problem, nobody need do anything because Nature will force a solution on us?Per capita energy consumption in the U.S., total, has been falling for years and is now at 1968 levels.
... but what does this mean?Per capita energy consumption in the U.S., total, has been falling for years and is now at 1968 levels.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...n_US&ind=false
SteamKing said:The problem with per capita energy consumption is that there are almost twice as many capitas in the US now than there were in 1968. That was the year that the US population first exceeded 200 million, IIRC. Now, it is almost 320 million.