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BLOOD FOR NO OIL
Oil causes war, right? Yet lack of oil will apparently cause the same thing:
World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.
By contrast, a massive abundance of oil has always kept the Middle East real peaceful.
"Corn-based ethanol” is just another way of saying “whiskey”, Rebecca. Which means that history does indeed repeat itself.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 22 at 12:32 PM • permalinkConsidering how OPEC’s very existence is for the manipulation of oil prices and production, I find bold pronouncements of “oil production has peaked!!!” more than a little bit dubious.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 10 22 at 02:30 PM • permalinkRe #5, “Breasts not Cobs” does strike me as counterproductive. But we’d have to be on the guard for “whiskey goggles”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 22 at 02:55 PM • permalink#8 Nuclear energy is not a replacement for fossil fuel derived energy. Also Nuclear energy itself is derived from a fossil fuel and is far less abundant then crude.
Nuclear energy is however far more useful then a field full of wind turbines or expensive solar cell arrays and Nuclear options should be explored if you want to be able to keep the lights on in the medium term.
As for solar, I was looking on Ebay recently, you can buy a Mitsubishi solar array capable of putting out 600W of power for $5,300. That might power your fridge and a electric fan. If you wants lights, leave the fridge door open. In contrast, you can buy a 15KVA diesel generator for $5,000 that would power an entire house with some to spare. Which shows how stupid it is to think that wind turbine farms or hampster powered generators are realistic alternatives.
Oil isn’t going to run out anytime soon, it will simply become increasingly expensive to extract and refine. It also means that everything that is derived from or relies on oil will also become increasingly expensive, this how the average consumer will experience “peak oil”.
Uranium is not a fossil fuel but is a non-renewable resource.
Well, that’s sort of true, but it’s incredibly plentiful (if sparsely distributed except for a few places like Australia), there’s a MASSIVE amount of energy per weight, and it can be recycled. A nuclear reactor only burns a few % (maybe even less than that) before the fuel is “spent”. Even better, a breeder reactor can not only reclaim the fuel, it can even transmute depleted uranium into plutonium which can be mixed in with uranium and used as fuel!
So I don’t think we’re going to run out of nuclear material any time soon. Plus we have lots. So we might as well use it, and save the coal for making synthetic liquid fuels if oil becomes more expensive.
#15 I presume you mean the coal that hasn’t been sent to China yet. :)
As I understand it, natural gas is required for liquefying coal which represents a problem as gas starts to become scarce.
Another source of fuel for motor vehicles is wood gas. It’s an old technology that was popular in Europe during the war but engines will run on it.
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I suppose the next war will be over corn-based ethanol. No blood for corn! Hey, maybe we really will be fighting hordes of Presbyterians from the Midwest.