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Gold/Mining/Energy : PEAK OIL - The New Y2K or The Beginning of the Real End? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (60)	2/13/2005 7:36:44 PM
From: kryptonic6	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1183

You are absolutely right - a catastrophic demand-destruction event could definitely prolong the peak for some time. Let's say that two billion homo sapiens perish in a deadly epidemic. According to Matt Savinar, if current demand is reduced by two-thirds (66%), that would only delay the peak for one generation, or roughly 25 years. I'm not holding my breath. The study you cite was commissioned by the U.S. Government Department of Agriculture. That program owes its existence to government subsidies, since every ethanol/biofuel program to date is a net energy loser once you factor in development costs. The only thing that matters is the EROEI ratio - energy returned on energy invested. The last I read, oil currently has an EROEI of 30 to 1 (at one point in Alabama and Texas the ratio was 100 to 1), meaning that 30 units of energy is returned for every 1 unit of energy invested extracting the stuff. Let's assume that switchgrass yields a 300% (3 to 1) EROEI ratio. That means that oil and energy companies will not have the financial incentive to even CONSIDER this technology until oil's EROEI falls to 3:1 --it simply doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint. If the Department of Agriculture is really serious about growing 80 million oil barrels/day worth of switchgrass, it's going to need to start planting the entire land mass of America, Africa, and Eurasia ASAP (and also figure out a way for 6.5 billion people to eat while we hijack all the farm land to fuel our SUVs). Thank goodness the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found a sucker (the American taxpayer) to fund these ultimately futile biofuel adventures. As with any alternative energy system, scalability is the crux issue. Even the murdering traitor Richard Cheney knows that we would need to build a new nuclear power plant every week for over 20 years to fuel our projected energy demands: archives.cnn.com "i am always on the lookout for things that could upset the theory" Impending "economic armageddon", as predicted by Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach, might do the trick: business.bostonherald.com To be brutally honest, I'm kind of looking forward to the next round of U.S. government orchestrated biological attacks: DNA analysis has shown that the anthrax found in the letters was derived from the anthrax supplies in U.S. military laboratories. cfrterrorism.org and usatoday.com and google.com You're absolutely right: overcoming massive political and social opposition is the greatest challenge to preparing for this crisis. With my understanding of human psychology, the majority of human beings will not voluntarily reduce their energy consumption or reduce their standard of living. Just look what happened to Jimmy Carter and his attempts to wean us off of fossil fuels - nobody wants to hear it. Changes will only be made when geologic reality forces them upon us. In this last century, and especially the last few decades, the American people have proven themselves to be ignorant, submissive sheep. We have allowed incalculable injustice to be perpetrated upon us time and time again, and each time we have failed to demand justice. We remained complicit even when our president was murdered before our own eyes. We remained complicit when our democracy was hijacked through systematic voter supression and fraud. We remained complicit when our own government facilitated the mass murders of 3,000 American citizens. When everything I've just stated can be proven by mountains of clear and overwhelming evidence, and people still don't know and don't care, you understand why this society's collapse is completely unavoidable. As Mike Ruppert says, the bill collector is calling and now we're going to pay. That's what I think, anyway. Thank you for your letter. Jesse