Earth: 10years after oil runs out.

[Dingo]

Grow em.

On your own face after the nuclear winter.....along with puss filled sores, that can be harvested along with your shedding skin, to produce a wheat like paste from which you can make bread and sell this to buy a half gallon of petrol.........see, it's not all doom and gloom!!

[kalniel]

Some do. You must have a particularly bad council

My Tory controlled council don't either

In the absence of recycling we should at least store plastics aside from other waste, so that if the technology comes along to make use of it later it's easier to do.

[Virtual Monkey]

What gets me with plastics is the refusal to recycle em, the council picks up paper / glass ect for recycling but the one thing thats not renewable that needs recycling they wont take?

It's stupid! I think it's generally too expensive, I vaguely remember my chemistry teacher explaining that the bonds in certain plastics mean that can't be reused without a great deal of energy. It's still no excuse. I reckon as Funkstar was saying, eventually it'll become more feasible to recycle plastics than to make more.

Nuclear power will become more significant, and with the USA trying to police the world and limit nuclear proliferation, politically, things are going to get tense.

Anyway, isn't the classic sci-fi prediction that after oil runs out, we venture into space and start ravaging the galaxy's resources like the Borg or something?

[Whiternoise]

If we suddenly ran out of oil completely, then we would have pretty much no transport for starters.

But time will tell if we've prepared well enough for it. People are reluctant to give up luxuries, hell i'm reluctant to give them up, but they're going to have to at some point. Unless cars can all switch to electrically powered jobs with hydrogen fuel cells or what have you then we simply won't be able to drive any more. Flights will also become practically impossible and very expensive - all the smaller companies are likely to go out of business with rising fuel costs. It's quite likely that we'll have to resort to ships as a main method of transport. Unless of course we can fuel aircraft using biofuels (completely possible, but it would need some serious preparation). Most city public transport can be run electrically, tube networks, buses and so on - so they shouldn't be affected. Trains will also have to switch to all electric power. This will inevitably increase the demand for power in the UK, and as Mr Blair decided for us, we'll have to build a couple of nuclear power stations to deal with it.

Food wise, obviously the lack of oil will mean that unless transportation can remain stable, we'll either have to produce everything domestically (possible now the climate is warming) or do without. Note that non-perishables will still be fine to send via sea. Food prices will continue to rise, this is inevitable, so we're likely to have some problems there. And of course what we're offered will be limited as well. One upshot is that it will encourage people to either grow their own, support local produce and/or stop relying on pre-processed foods. My typical diet is fairly stodgy, but veg as well, and most of it can be made from "raw materials". Most foreign food that we consider luxury and import like mad can be synthesised in home kitchens. The prime example being pasta, you can make.

Technology is going to be another interesting one. Oil will severly limit the amount of new plastics we can produce, but i would imagine again that you can make "bio plastics" or simply force consumers to recycle old. Most technology is also doing a pretty good job of lowering power requirements, so the amount of electricity we'll need should in theory go down. The other option is to use different materials. Lightweight metals for instance are viable. The problem with bioplastics is that they still rely on petroleum based fuels to produce, ie in harvesting machinery. As mentioned above, the main problem is that very few people will take plastics. This does depend on how lazy you are though, the majority of electricals can be recycled if you go to the right people. A lot of major computer manufacturers will take your old PC away for free to recycle and the same goes for phones. A fair few councils - swindon certainly does - will take plastic waste like milk bottles, but not hard plastics. Most councils are aiming towards it though, the magic 50% recycling is the current target i believe.

The politics are sure to be very interesting, another cold war (hot war, more likely, what with climate change) is entirely possible for the control of fuel resources and China is going to be a lot more influential by the time oil runs out. Nukes are fairly unlikely to play much of a part, thanks to MAD, but the possibility is there. The US will probably be forced to start using a lot more land for farming and biofuel production for a start. There may be wars, but i don't think it's going to be on our doorstep just yet. It's probable that our relations with the rest of the world will become a lot more tense - especially if we have to shrug off our happy relations with the US.

And yes, it's not all to do with oil, but the problems are also intrinsically linked with climate change (if you believe it's happening of course). I

My predictions are:
- Home owners will be encouraged or forced to make their own electricity - solar panels for instance are already subsidised by the government
- Recycling will be a lot more important that simply an excuse to say you're green, it will be necessary when resources start to dwindle
- People will either have to stop driving petrol devices completely, or will have to buy electric vehicles/use public transport or walk/cycle
- Home growing will become more prevalent as food prices skyrocket and food becomes scarce and we can't easily transport it in
- The government are likely to impose regulations concerning fuel consumption, with fines for people who overconsume

Note these are mostly about power, although we don't use much oil intrinsically for power generation, the lack of it will force new technology which will have to be powered by electricity or other methods - all of which increases the demand.

If we say it'll be another 30 years, well hey, fusion could be invented by then. 30 years is a LONG time in science, if you look at the period between 1950-1980, we made a lot of breakthroughs, and computing is likely to go through the same sort of changes - especially given the last 20 years.

It hurts to say it, but i completely agree that the rise in price of everything is a good thing. It forces new developments to lower it again, just like pretty much all modern technology comes through outwitting the enemy in wars, the only way we're going to get out of the rising price is make something to combat it. No pain, no gain, after all.

[Andy3536]

Hydrodgen fuel cell cars are only a few years away, lorrys and vans won't be long behind that. It's way over the top to think that when the oil runs out were all doomed.

[vrykyl]

when oil runs out il rip the engine out of my car, install a set of pedals and get all flintstones on your ass

[dangel]

Hydrodgen fuel cell cars are only a few years away, lorrys and vans won't be long behind that. It's way over the top to think that when the oil runs out were all doomed.

I'm not convinced by hydrogen - it's a bugger to extract (economically anyway - yes it's abundant) and storing it isn't easy too (you need much larger tanks for the same sort of fuel range).
In theory it sounds like a great idea - loads of it about, clean etc. but it's going to be a good while before a: the technology is refined enough and b: the infrastructure is there to support it on a large scale.

I'm saving my farts, in a bag.
Just in case.

[Whiternoise]

Prototypes are a few years away, full scale commercial rollout isn't - remember you've got to persuade a couple of billion people to change!

We won't be doomed as such, but we'll have to radically rethink how we live.

[TheAnimus]

Its strange how no ones tried to think of it from the oil producers side.

For one second, pretend that you own the whole of the oil supply.

Now, you want to maximize your profit, so you sell it off very slowly, supply n demand. But if you put your price too high (too little supply) then people will use alternatives, the more they use them, the cheaper they will become etc. So the oil barron has to ensure he has the highest price by letting out enough to stop people investigating alternatives because their too expensive, but not loose out on potential proffit by releasing too much.

So the people who will get screwed over, as always will be the poor people who live in the 3rd world. Those of us who aren't welsh will have plenty of oil because we will be able to afford it, un-like them. Its not going to quickly run out, it will be a gradual slow weaning as they try to maxamise their proffit. By the time the rich can't afford oil, their will of been many alternatives already developed.

[RoBe]

My predictions are:
- Home owners will be encouraged or forced to make their own electricity - solar panels for instance are already subsidised by the government

solar panels are pretty poor at generating electricity overall. I was looking at a building template at my work experience yesterday which has i think 2m^2 of solar pv panels on it. These cost about £40k to install and only accounted for ~3% of the building's electricity. More of a token gesture than anything else.
CHP looks like it will be the way forward at the moment, even though it still relies on fossil fuels, it is a lot more efficient as the heat which would otherwise be wasted in the production of electricity is put to use.
Another is geothermal which, although still really in its infant stage, could be a great source of energy in coming years. The only thing is that it costs £100k just to get a test bore hole, no equipment or anything else. It's still pretty unrefined too, and you could really do some damage drilling about and messing up aquafers.

[kalniel]

You can run existing cars on 100% non-fossil derived oil today so I don't see how transport would suddenly stop in the future.

[Andy3536]

I'm not convinced by hydrogen - it's a bugger to extract (economically anyway - yes it's abundant) and storing it isn't easy too (you need much larger tanks for the same sort of fuel range).
In theory it sounds like a great idea - loads of it about, clean etc. but it's going to be a good while before a: the technology is refined enough and b: the infrastructure is there to support it on a large scale.

I'm saving my farts, in a bag.
Just in case.

Prototypes have been around for years and the first production models ( acording to Top Gear ) are due out from renualt in 2010 for around £12,000.
Technology for it is much further on than you think, but storage still causes a few headaches.

[CaseyV9]

I find recycle bins for plastic bottles at the big Sainsbury's and Tesco stores.

I was looking on line and found this on cars in Brazil.
They use Ethanol as fuel in their cars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

I guess if we ain't polluting the atmosphere the way we do now, we'll find other ways.

[CaseyV9]

[kalniel]

Oh, Just realised your name is Bad Ass I find that funny. You would, wouldn't you.

What is funny about a naughty donkey?

Anyway I don't think his party comment was meant to be offensive - we don't do personal insults here at Hexus. We also *try* not to spam, so use of edit button rather than multiple posts is encouraged

[CaseyV9]

What is funny about a naughty donkey?

Anyway I don't think his party comment was meant to be offensive - we don't do personal insults here at Hexus. We also *try* not to spam, so use of edit button rather than multiple posts is encouraged

No, No. I just found it amusing how the sig said that about spam and he spammed.
Looked like he took a shot at himself.

Spamming would be considered someone who posts of topic stuff?
This is probably one of the first forum I have been on. Thanks for the tip.

And Badass, Only joking

So, ten years after oil runs out?
Thinking about again I reckon we will have already found an alternative to oil.
Before I thought that the end of oil would be great for the enviroment. But thinking about it again I think it comes down to one thing above all else.
It's all about what is cost effective above all else.
i think oil will just cost so much that it won't be worth the cost to extract it, let alone start a war over it.

And I think that matters more to most people than the enviroment. I think with every new resource we find, each will bring it's own downside to the enviroment.
I just hate to think what the enviroment will be like by the time that happens.