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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:47 PM
Original message
Folks, we have about 40 years or less
Then the oil is gone everywhere. What are the nations of the world doing about it? Nothing.

It gets cold in the winter without a heater.
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whistle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:49 PM
Response to Original message
1. Not if you're burning corpses
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anitar1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:51 PM
Response to Original message
2. 40 years and then start on the trees
at least the trees that are left. Then they can sell cow patties for a big price. Oh, yes--forgot, someone will have to invent a cow pattie heater.
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amazona Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. what trees?
With all the new tree diseases, drought, and fire, I wouldn't count on much in the way of trees a few decades from now. Enjoy them while they're here. New trees can't start, the out-of-control deer eat them all the saplings in the east and we've got wildfire in the west.

<head in hands>



The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72
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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #6
14. Without trees the oxygen is gone. Perhaps Jesus will provide
the oxygen by some other method than photosynthesis. The whole motherfucker is doomed if we travel further down the path we are on.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #2
21. maybe we have 10-20 yrs of cars.... we'll see
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TrustingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:52 PM
Response to Original message
3. in 40 years I'll be a goner, but
my kid... my kid. your kids....

what have we done? what have we allowed?
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donheld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:53 PM
Response to Original message
4. Well then, Jesus just has to come back by then
He will solve this whole thing. :crazy:
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. much less than 40 yrs...... wars..... costs and extreme pumping will drain
resources faster than getting to the top of the "bell curve"...

It will get alot more expensive...and more difficult

listen to this:

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/141
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:55 PM
Response to Original message
7. I find focusing on soc sec payments 50 yrs from now "silly" compared to
this oil issue coming faster than we think
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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:59 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. I am with you on this for sure. The SS deal isn't about 40 years from now
it's about loading up wall street within the next six months or whenever he gets the motherfucker passed, and make no mistake, they will find some god damn way to pass it, ANWR was just a rehearsal.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:01 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. they will pass a major valued added sales tax to "get money" from the
unemployed when they are unemeployed...double taxation on the way down.

bankrupcty bill passed...but people will tell the banks and others to go to hell.
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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. True, the bankruptcy bill depends/supposes a docile citizenry
that is willing to play the game and suffer out additional payments. What happens when guys simply say "stick it up your ass". You know, average people are going to be pissed when they figure out what the fuck they are doing to them in washington, I have to believe that they truly aren't aware of what's going on.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:10 PM
Response to Reply #16
19. google on "REX 84".... for all the "restless people"...the camps are there
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Trillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #19
27. Have you verified the existence of the REX 84 camps described?
I mean picked one whose location is described in at least one website result (for that REX 84 search), then gone there to physically check and verify the claims that are visually detectable?

The Internet, amongst its many great uses, also has a well-documented history of hoaxes.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:31 PM
Response to Reply #27
28. personally...no DU has had other discussions on this...can anyone help?
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JohnOneillsMemory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 10:36 AM
Response to Reply #28
44. 1987 speech by former CIA Angola Station Chief John Stockwell: "Camps"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. He spent 13 years in the agency. He gives a short history of CIA covert operations. He is a very compelling speaker and the highest level CIA officer to testify to the Congress about his actions. He estimates that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions, and this was in the late 1980's.

THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA:
by John Stockwell

A lecture given in October, 1987

>snip<

The special actions teams that will do the pre-emptive striking have already been created, and trained in the defense department.

They're building detention centers. There were 8 kept as mothballs under the McLaren act after World War II, to detain aliens and dissidents in the next war, as was done in the next war, as was done with the Japanese people during World War II. They're building 10 more, and army camps, and the... executive memos about these things say it's for aliens and dissidents in the next national emergency....

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by Loius Guiffrida, a friend of Ed Meese's.... He's going about the country lobbying and demanding that he be given authority, in the times of national emergency, to declare martial law, and establish a curfew, and gun down people who violate the curfew... in the United States.

And then there's Ed Meese, as I said. The highest law enforcement officer in the land, President Reagan's closest friend, going around telling us that the constitution never did guarantee freedom of speech and press, and due process of the law, and assembly.

What they are planning for this society, and this is why they're determined to take us into a war if we'll permit it... is the Reagan revolution.... So he's getting himself some laws so when he puts in
the troops in Nicaragua, he can take charge of the American people, and put people in jail, and kick in their doors, and kill them if they don't like what he's doing....
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CindyDale Donating Member (941 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:59 PM
Response to Reply #7
11. Yes, what an absurdity
Edited on Wed Mar-16-05 10:02 PM by CindyDale
Tell them either to fix the planet and deal with the energy issues or don't "fix" Social Security. No point in not doing one and doing the other, is there?

edit: made no sense :-)
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Lisa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:56 PM
Response to Original message
8. they ARE doing something! See, by then the temperature will be warmer!
And the extreme heatwaves and sea level rise in those pesky non-American countries will have killed off people who would otherwise be picketing US embassies and burning the flag in protest of the Bush Wars. The Dear Leader thinks of everything, doesn't he!
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 09:57 PM
Response to Original message
9. the "elite's goal" is to distract us as long as possible.... before it's
too obvious

Our entire economy is based on growth...period. The markets...our business models...everything needs to grow. It can't when you have less and less oil each year.
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meisje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:00 PM
Response to Original message
12. My SUV will be pulled by mules
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radwriter0555 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:04 PM
Response to Original message
15. LOL! Yes, the oil cos are telling the truth.
So go nuclear. what's the big deal?

40 years ago we didn't even have computers. There will be plenty of alternatives available.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. sure.....we'll be farmers and hunter-gather's with the SUV for show
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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:11 PM
Response to Reply #15
20. I have got to see that nuclear SUV of yours, it must be awesome!
Edited on Wed Mar-16-05 10:14 PM by The_Casual_Observer
Anyhow, the "oil cos" have been kind of quiet about the whole thing, what do they care?
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:22 PM
Response to Reply #20
23. check out this interview..this site has alot of great lectures and
interviews

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/81
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The_Casual_Observer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:27 PM
Response to Reply #23
26. Thank you for this and the REX 84 one.
There are all kinds of empty by well maintained detention camps up in in the mountains outside LA and OC, I never really though about them before. There is one way out on the Ortega Hwy in the middle of nowhere that we stumbled on one night. Nobody around, but fully operational.
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ruggerson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:09 PM
Response to Original message
18. And the republicans hate sex
so how the hell will they keep warm at night?
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stillcool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #18
22. Jeff Gannon will be a very busy boy. n/t
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Adenoid_Hynkel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:26 PM
Response to Original message
24. dubya and friens will be gone in 40 years-they don't care
as long as they're rich in their lifetimes, they're happy

40 years from now, people like me will have to deal with the fallot of dubya, limbaugh, delay, landrieau and the rest long after they've passed from this mortal coil
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:27 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. they were respponsible for changing laws, patriot act, bankruptcy...tort
reforms... draining as much out of the middle class for "wealth transfer"
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Mugsy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:39 PM
Response to Original message
29. Please don't flame me, but I don't agree.
Please don't flame me, but I don't agree.

One thing that has always stuck in my mind was when, I think it was the NASA satellite Galileo just a few years back, detected hydrocarbons and natural gas on one of Jupiter's Moons. This was barely even mentioned in the press, and if you weren't a tech-junkie like me, probably overlooked both the story and its significance.

Scientists have long believed that oil and gas (hydrocarbons) were created on Earth millions of years ago by compressed and decaying plant and animal matter. So oil/gas should not exist anyplace else in the universe that never supported life, and Jupiter and its moons clearly never did or could. So where did the hydrocarbon come from?

The explanation is that geo-thermal planet's create it on their own, naturally. And while the replenishing process is slow, it is not exhaustible. We could indeed "use up" our readily available supply of oil, but I don't believe we could ever permanently use it up.

I remember in the '70's everyone saying we were running out of oil... a rumor that ran into the early '80's. But the drilling continued and the supply stayed steady.

And now we're seeing it again. They want us to believe there is a shortage so they can run up prices and pass legislation that allows them to drill in once Federally Protected Wildlife Reserves.

There is no oil shortage. We are NOT running out. We can't and never will. It's a continual process. Just another scare tactic to manipulate the world market and line pockets.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:41 PM
Response to Reply #29
30. no flame necessary...please research it...from 20 diff. sources and then
share how you feel....
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Clarkie1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 12:57 AM
Response to Reply #29
38. No.
Edited on Thu Mar-17-05 12:59 AM by Clarkie1
You are simply wrong.

The oil that is available for us to use took hundreds of millions of years to form. When it runs out, we would need hundreds of millions of years to replenish it.
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nothingshocksmeanymore Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:31 PM
Response to Reply #29
56. In the 70's it was the US oil supply NOT the world oil supply
and US oil HAS peaked.
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mhr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:30 PM
Response to Reply #29
64. Abiotic Oil Debunked Here
No Free Lunch, Part 1 - A Critique of Thomas Gold's Claims for Abiotic Oil
by Jean Laherrere
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102104_no_free_pt1.shtml

No Free Lunch, Part 2 - If abiotic oil exists, where is it?
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml

No Free Lunch, Part 3 - Proof
by Ugo Bardi & Dale Allen Pfeiffer
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml
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NickB79 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-19-05 02:10 AM
Response to Reply #29
75. You miss the point: It doesn't matter how the oil is made
Whether it is from rotting dinosaurs or chemical reactions deep in the Earth's crust, the key issue is replenishment. IF oil really is produced abiotically (no rotting dinos needed), you have to ask the question of how fast is it being produced? Apparently not very fast at all, because nations across the world have peaked or are peaking in oil discoveries and recoveries. Other than one poorly-understood oil well that refilled for a couple of years before going into decline again, no other oil fields around the world have spontaneously refilled. It does us no good to say that oil is being produced continuously in the Earth's crust 20 miles down, when it still takes millions of years for enough of it to seep up to replenish the wells we've sucked dry already.
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super simian Donating Member (292 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:42 PM
Response to Original message
31. if there was one thing.......
......to turn it all around, what would that one thing be? and would you do it?
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:49 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. listen to everyone on this page (link attached):
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews


we need to conserve....now
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super simian Donating Member (292 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 11:11 PM
Response to Reply #31
37. I mean ONE thing....
...what would it be?
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mhr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:32 PM
Response to Reply #37
65. Massive Conservation - Starting NOW!
This will buy us time to find a long-term solution.
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shanti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #31
40. hemp
the healing of the nations.
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he lied us into war Donating Member (45 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:45 PM
Response to Original message
32. No problem - Just phase out the large private vehicles
and lower speed limits to 45 and enforce it with stiff penalties. Won't cost a thing - in fact it will save billions of $ and thousands of lives a year.
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Clarkie1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:02 AM
Response to Reply #32
39. That would only delay the inevitable
for a little while.
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LittleClarkie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 10:53 PM
Response to Original message
34. Will it run out about the time Social Security does?
Oh the irony.

They care about the future in one instance but not the other.

Actually, they don't care about the future at all, but what the hey. Hypocrisy abounds.
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NEOBuckeye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 11:01 PM
Response to Reply #34
35. Bush Sr is 80. Cheney is 60. Why the hell must these old men have to care?
They'll be long gone while the rest of the world collapses into bloodshed, violence and ultimately despair. We can't afford to let them keep up this madness.
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LittleClarkie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-16-05 11:05 PM
Response to Reply #35
36. That's the difference between old Democrats and old Republicans
Old Democrats care about their grandchildren.

That's why Bush's shouts of "You'll get your money already!" don't work re: SS.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 10:06 AM
Response to Reply #35
42. they have thier plans "firmed up" while the sheeple keep the $$$ flowing
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jokerman93 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #35
72. They want immortality
They are forging the history ofthe world (in their eyes). And in a sense they are, whether we like it or not.
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NEOBuckeye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #72
73. Perhaps. But those who plan their legacies are never remembered as planned
The Bushes regard themselves as gods, and by doing so, overlook the very simple fact that they are still quite capable of making the same mistakes that all humans can and do make. They are already overreaching in their grab for global domination, and are destined to, in the very end, fall flat upon their faces by some means or another. The rest of the world has already awakened to their vile schemes. It's only a short while before the rest of America gets it as well.

The Bushes, the Corporatists, the NeoCons and all other Imperialist Americans are destined to be remembered in the same vein as as Hitler and the Nazi Germans, Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Napoleon and Imperialist France, Imperialist Japan, The British Empire, The Spanish Empire, The Portugese Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Roman Empire, The Greek Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the great ancient empires of Africa, South America, Asia, and Babylon. All empires in history have at one time or another risen up... and they have all fallen down. ALL empires eventually crumble and fall into ruin, to be later dug up, scavenged, analyzed and put into perspective by descendant nations and cultures.

How will the Bushes and their Cronies be remembered? Probably as we see them here: As a network of utterly conventional, non-charismatic thugs and criminals who amassed great power through manipulation, deceit and wealth (most often also gained through manipulation and deceit), who ruled America and extended their influence over the world for a time based upon gratuitous overconsumption of the planet's natural resources (i.e. Oil, Coal, Natural Gas), but who were eventually overthrown and liquidated by the common masses infuriated to revolt, once those natural resources became scarce, and pacifying, prosperous economic conditions could no longer be maintained among a substantial majority of the aforementioned common masses.

Also, look at it this way: Countries burned and brought down once by extremist rulers are almost always wary of allowing it to happen again.
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jojo54 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:19 AM
Response to Original message
41. Anybody ever read this book?
It's called Portent by James Herbert. This book is actually sci-fi, but it's also very real. It's about Mother earth saying "O.K. enough is enough. I'm gonna show you what REAL hell is all about", to which she promptly starts unexplained weather phenomenon is all parts of the world, causing massive destruction and death.

Here is the definition of portent: That which portends, or foretoken; esp., that which portends evil; a sign of coming calamity; an omen; a sign.
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Silverhair Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 10:22 AM
Response to Original message
43. By that time Theral Depolymerization will be up and running.
Along with other alternative energy sources.

We have enough agricultureal WASTE in the US that it were processed by TDP we would not need to import any oil from anywhere. That is according to Discover Magazine, May 03 issue.

Article here: http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=829

Company here: http://www.changingworldtech.com./index.asp

As the cost of oil goes up, the profit incentive for alternate energy becomes greater, thereby attracting more talent and investment to it.

Also, as the price goes up for oil, people will start to conserve. SUVs will start being too expensive to operate, people will think twice before making an unneeded trip, etc.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 10:41 AM
Response to Reply #43
46. how many times do we have to debunk Depolymerization?
-
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Silverhair Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #46
47. So far it hasn't been debunked once.
A lot of false things have been said about it.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #47
48. false things like "it can't have 100% efficiency"?
As in, 85% of input converted to oil, the rest used to power the process.
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Silverhair Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:51 PM
Response to Reply #48
50. 85% is not 100%.
In any process you have energy loss. This process loses 15%.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 03:12 PM
Response to Reply #50
53. No. The claim was "the rest" was used to operate the machine
the rest = 100 - 85 = 15%, which according to the claim is "used", and thus not "lost".
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Silverhair Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #53
55. I don't think you understand what is meant by efficiency.
The term is used to mean "percent of energy that is usable by humans."

Consider an electric motor. 100 units of energy come in on the wires. 10% is lost in heat, 90% is available on the shaft to do work for humans. It has an efficiency of 90%

In the case of TDP, for every 100 barrels of oil in the output, the equal of 15 barrels of oil has been used to fuel the process.
100 - 15 = 85

The process has been written about in both Discover and Scientific American. Both are reputable scientific magazines. Each magazine is able to present the best scientific thinking of the day. Neither of them publishes junk science.
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John BigBootay Donating Member (574 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 02:09 PM
Response to Reply #43
52. I can't vouch for TDP, but--
you are probably right, Silverhair, about the nature of the "Peak Oil" scare-- it's almost certainly false.

It almost seems that we, as a people, need the idea of a boogeyman to keep ourselves perpetually on edge. I'll bet there is a gene in our bodies that actually enhances this feeling, because we've been fearing the end of the world ever since day one-- armageddon, the rapture, plague, war, floods, famines, global warming, global cooling, nuclear holocaust----

PEAK OIL.

I won't say that a "Peak Oil" scenario of worldwide devastation is absolutely not possible, but I will say it is probably the least likely scenario.

As Silverhair stated above-- as the price of oil rises, demand decreases and alternative fuels become more attractive. A natural transition takes place at a gradual pace which the market sets.

Furthermore, there is abundant oil to be found in oil fields thought to be tapped out, by using newer extraction techniques. There are new fields that will be exploited, hell, Prudoe Bay was SUPPOSED to be tapped out years ago but it's still pumping oil.

The environment will certainly take a hit from our search and recovery of oil-- but that is nothing new.

Until you have proof of an impending disaster ( and predictions are NOT PROOF-- paging Nostradamus...) then I think your best course of action is to lead an actively conservationist lifestyle and preach the benefits of that-- and leave the fearmongering and predictions to the Bible Belt sooth-sayers.
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mhr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:37 PM
Response to Reply #52
67. Prudoe Bay Is Already In Decline
On peak oil look at the work of M. King Hubbert.

He predicted peak for the lower 48. He was off by only one year.

Peak Oil is real and has been proven.

We are now applying Peak Oil methodology to the world's oil fields.

The result is that we are at or very close to Peak NOW!

Do your research before you castigate the good work of others.
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midnight armadillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #52
68. That's a nice fantasy
As Silverhair stated above-- as the price of oil rises, demand
decreases and alternative fuels become more attractive. A natural
transition takes place at a gradual pace which the market sets.


Your faith in market forces is touching. As it stands now, OPEC is tapped out and can no longer control the price of oil, and the Herold's company (that predicted Enron's collapse), is predicting maximum output of most of the world's oil companies to be reached within a few years.

The situation is becoming very delicate, with supplies stretched thin and the supply chain becoming very vulnerable to disruption. Example: terrorist attack on Saudi oil fields, a tsunami, civil unrest, etc. We have a choice - sit around and wait for the 'market' to decide on our next fuel supply, whatever that is, or make a deliberate choice as to the best course for our transportation needs. The longer we wait and the more disruptions in supply we experience the more difficult and expensive the transition away from oil will take. Don't forget our food supply depends on massive inputs of cheap fossil fuels to get food from far flung places to our tables.

The 'market' as a sort of optimizing force doesn't exist - energy is dominated by massive energy companies and users (car makers, etc) who will choose the best course for their own interests. Right now they are betting on hydrogen, made from natural gas and coal or electricity derived from nuclear power. This is almost certainly not the best course for the US economy. This is too important to leave up to private companies to decide.
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NickB79 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-19-05 02:21 AM
Response to Reply #43
76. This is a good way to slow the process
This is basically a form of oil recycling. However, the key issue is that you still used up more oil to raise the agricultural waste than you get out of the TDP machine. It will drastically slow the process of Peak Oil, but without investing in many other sources (wind, solar, biomass, nuclear), we will still face the peak eventually.

BTW, Peak Oil will likely be here within 5-7 yrs, not 40. If we had built a few thousand of these plants 20 yrs ago, it could have made a difference. Now that we are so close to Peak, though, it won't make nearly as much as it could have done. We won't be able to build more than a fraction of these plants within 5 yrs before Peak Oil hits, unfortunately. And once Peak Oil does hit, our economy will go into such a drastic depression that there won't be money to build a few thousand of these plants around the country. Too little, too late, it seems.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 10:40 AM
Response to Original message
45. 40 years IF consumption and production remain at current levels

but consumption grows at 3%/year average.

and production capacity will decline as oil fields get depleted - this is why production will "peak" (and then decline) - it's the essence of peak oil.
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gasperc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
49. as demand increases, it shows up in prices
as it has been, also there seems to be a fear surcharge but without a doubt our thirst for cheap goods out of China is spurring demand for energy in thier country and that demand spills over onto ours. Except we get a one two punch, cheap goods sending our trade deficit soaring, cheap goods that cost Americans jobs and energy demands that send gas prices soaring.

WOW, let's predict how this turns out.

The higher gas prices will curb demand but won't that affect the economy? and if the economy burns up from a crash won't all have been for not? will the slow down lead to deflation and send a recovery back into recession?

whether we have 40 years or whatever, they key thing is how much is getting to market on a day to day basis and is it keeping up with demand. Without a doubt, the world will reach a point when it needs X barrels a day but only X-shortage can be pumped out of the ground. When that hits, prices will really soar curbing demand until we are back to X needed and X pumped out. That price will surely be higher than today and worldwide rationing will need to be implemented to keep the value stable. This can be done cooperatively or violently, it appears we have chosen to do this violently.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 03:15 PM
Response to Reply #49
54. it topped $57/barrel today
though it's down to 56-something now.
www.bloomberg.com/energy
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ComerPerro Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 01:53 PM
Response to Original message
51. the Rapture will have happened by then, so no worries
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Massacure Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:40 PM
Response to Original message
57. Oil will never be gone - just too expensive to extract.
And it will spike between 2008 and 2010 with peak oil.
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gasperc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #57
62. exactly and simply, when demand strips supply
the price will shoot up to the point that solar cars will be affordable. I think one main point that alot of people can agree on is that we can invest more heavily now to ease the transition to another main source of energy. $3-$4/gallon are not inconceivable, but the damage to the economy will take a long time to recover. The hit on the truckers, airlines, average consumer etc. A shock could have been avoided but the markets will adjust for what governments refuse to do. People will change their driving habits like they temporarily did in the late 80's but the shock to the car companies because of the drop in SUV sales etc is going to be painful. And the notion that we will somehow be able to pump so much oil out of Iraq that it will crash prices and break Opec is ridiculous. Not only MAY it break OPEC, it'll send American oil companies reeling(and they may deserve it) but this would be diastourous none the less.
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ArkDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:45 PM
Response to Original message
58. No. We only have 12 years of oil left.
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HereSince1628 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:45 PM
Response to Original message
59. I'll be turning into methane by then...count me as part of the solution...
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:49 PM
Response to Original message
60. Bush Selects New Secretary of Energy!
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iconoclastNYC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-17-05 04:59 PM
Response to Original message
61. China is going to build about 150 walk-away safe pebble bed nuke reactors
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LiberallyInclined Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:27 PM
Response to Original message
63. it's going to be.....interesting....to watch it all unfold.
i can't wait
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Freddie Stubbs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:36 PM
Response to Original message
66. Cold in the winter?
Get a coal furnace. Or move to Florida.
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LaPera Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 02:57 PM
Response to Original message
69. God will take care of us. Jesus will come back long before then.
Edited on Fri Mar-18-05 03:02 PM by LaPera
So don't worry about the environment, grab all that you can as fast as you can, anyone gets in your way, you must destroy them, it's God's will!!!

You will then be saved, cuz, Jesus loves rich people.
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pen dragon Donating Member (287 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 03:09 PM
Response to Original message
70. This is what that 1% elite and ruling class are really up to
they know the world is sinking like the Titanic. So they're hoarding all the wealth and resources for themselves and are going to close up shop, find a secure spot to build richman's utopia and abandon the rest of us to kill each other off like the starving animals we will become
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mhr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-20-05 12:26 PM
Response to Reply #70
78. Kind Of Like Atlas Shrugged By Ayn Rand - The Neocons All Love This
Book. Seems they are following the plot very well.
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cyberpj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-20-05 12:36 PM
Response to Reply #70
79. I agree. Have thought this since BushCo started Iraq and gave tax breaks
to his buddies.

Their stealing every thing they can before the shit hits the fan.

Now that Americans are fat and stupid -- who's going to stop them?

There aren't enough real revolutionaries left and the militia people I know are more into protecting their own than getting back our government now.
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GreyRoofoo Donating Member (24 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 03:41 PM
Response to Original message
71. We had 40 years left in 1974
now we have 40 years left in 2004

something must be wrong with my math
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Massacure Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #71
74. We don't have 40 years left.
Peak oil hits somewhere in 2008-2010.
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mhr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-20-05 12:25 PM
Response to Reply #71
77. Oil Shock Of The 70s Delayed The Peak By Temporarily Reducing
Demand.
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-20-05 12:38 PM
Response to Original message
80. That's why this century will belong to others
We had ours, and the BFEE and their media minions brought to a premature end. The countries who don't depend on oil will rule this century.
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