Peak Oil

[DaBeeeenster]

Life after the oil crash

Thoughts?

[Lowe]

Heard this on late night radio a few months back. Certainly made for an interesting listen. We're all dooooomed, dooooomed I tell thee!

[G4Z]

well, I read that whole article and some of the links, I found the whole thing to be rather shocking if rather overstated by the author. I found this http://www.after-oil.co.uk/ to be a little more realistic. (I could be wrong mind, may just be wishful thinking) the idea that we will run out of oil is not a new one, the thing that strikes me into utter disbelif is the fact that our governments have done so little about it even tho this has been known for some time. the authors idea that this may turn into world war 3 is a little pessamistic but plausible.

[Slick]

Why don't we just colonise mars and then use all of their oil? Trying to get people to use alternatives won't realistically work.

[G4Z]

takes oil to get to mars dude... and its about to run out.

also, this was published in the gaurdian

http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=625

[DaBeeeenster]

Why don't we just colonise mars and then use all of their oil? Trying to get people to use alternatives won't realistically work.

It will be at least 100 years before we have the technology to mine Mars. That's FAR too late.

It's amazing how little press and government attention this topic receives.

[TeePee]

People have been going on about our Oil shortages since the 1970's. They were predicting we would run out in the mid-1990's. Becuase of all the new reserves we have discovered around the world, we actually have more oil now than we did then! That's not the amount of oil we produce, but the amount of oil that exists in untapped resources.

People love doom-sayers!

[G4Z]

well, I did quite a lot of reading on this last night because It was all very very disturbing... tbh looks to me like its true, I think that the first link supplied by dabeeenster was quite exagerated and pessamistic but it all sounds plausible. so I think he is really talking about a worst case scenario, based on what I have seen from our governments I dont think I would be shocked to see them introduce conscription and start going overseas twatting people for oil, after all dosnt this all shed a different light on that oil in iraq? (witch by the way they may only be able to recover 15 - 25% of because saddam needed the gas more than the oil and the actually injected oil back into the resivors to force out natural gas, this means that with the gas gone there is no pressure device to recover the oil) so looks to me as though they may have used as much oil to go to war as they are likely to recover in future oil operations in iraq.

tee pee, I think your possibly being a bit naieve tbh, we all know oil is not renewable, we all know we depend on oil, what do you think is gonna happen WHEN (not if) production starts falling off?

[TeePee]

I guess we will make up for it with alternative sources, it doesn't really matter to me, because I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime, and in 50-100 years, who knows where technology will be? Fuel cells anyone?

[DaBeeeenster]

Fuel cells are NOT a limitlless source of energy. They require more energy to make than they produce.

Oil IS RUNNING OUT RIGHT NOW TeePee. Even the most conservative estimates put peak oil at 2015. Most people are now saying 2010.

Can you not see what is going on around you? Everywhere is becoming industrialised. China and India are about to bring 1.5 BILLION people into the industrial age. Just as things get tricky. Can you not see that?

[TeePee]

People who believe this peak oil thing. I don't think it will be as big a problem as people make out. Of course, I didn't store three months of food in case the Y2K bug destroyed civilization either.

[G4Z]

teepee, did you even read the link? why dont you do some looking? every single article i have found says it looks very bad, even the most wildly optomistic predictions are well within al of our lifetimes, it about time we as a civilisation started concentrating on other forms of energy and getting it sorted, although all of the experts seem to think its already too late and we are going to see starvation and war because if this. your living in a little bubble of ignorance that will pop sooner than you think.

spoke to some of the lads at work about this, they all seem to be of the same opinion that it wont be that bad... well it might not end up that bad but it could still hurl us right back to the stone age easily enough.

[TeePee]

The industrial revolution in this country was driven not by oil but by coal, a fuel which is now in abundance. China, an example quoted, is sitting on vast reserves (and has similar mining conditions to 19thC UK). Coal-fired powerstations are the principal source of electrical generation (and hence industrial power) in developing nations, not oil.

Who says the most conservative estimates are 2015? A website devoted to warning people about peak oil? Remember the internet is half pornography and half lies. I'll believe it when it happens!

You also seem to be under the very popular assumption that the Iraqi war was about oil, when in fact there was a far more sinister reason. Post-9/11 US was sliding into a recession, and the war was designed to scare us into spending. You should watch the IDFA-winning documentary 'Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers' for another point of view.

It would take far more than running out of oil to knock us back to the stoneage, and even if it did, the survivors would be better off. No more 12 hour shifts. The average stoneage adult had to spend a minimum of only two hours a day looking for food.

[Elmo]

Why don't we just colonise mars and then use all of their oil? Trying to get people to use alternatives won't realistically work.

i doubt there's oil on mars.... oil = 6 million year old mushed up organic waste like trees, ferns, fish etc. I seriously doubt there would be any of that on mars, i dont care how many people think there's water there, it's not fertile.

[Stewart]

Back in the 80s, various people were buying nuclear fall-out shelters, and stockpiling food, as the trendy 'we are all doomed because of...' thing at the time was a nuclear war. It never happened, the ants never took over, and the fad passed.

Mid 1999, and the same people have now jumped on the Y2K bandwagon, and are stockpiling tins of soup and buying torches, because the millennium bug is the reason we are all doomed.

2000 arrives, and one calculator in South Wales makes a small error whilst being used to price groceries, leading to Mrs Llanridnodwellspenwythslwythclanethly being short changed to the extent of 17p. Fad passes, the ants have to wait again.

Now, the reason we are all doomed is the world's oil reserves running dry, and everything going tits up. I'm sure it’s a very real threat, and will, eventually, force those in power to address the situation, and start to rely more and more on alternative supplies of power and fuel, as well as searching for more reserves.

So, like I say, its a very real problem, like the Cold War was, and Y2K, but that does not mean we are all 'doomed, doomed I tells thee!', and 90% of the worlds population dieing and the survivors being reduced to the level of savages, is perhaps, at this stage, a rather pessimistic and sensational prediction.

And anyway, by 2015, the computers will have destroyed us in a sudden and devastating strike, and humans will survive only as a desperate group of fighters, living in the underground tunnels that were once the subways and sewers. Lets hope the ants have something up their sleeve.

[TeePee]

The 'Big Death' is coming!