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To: elmatador who wrote (36531)	10/31/2010 4:31:56 PM
From: Maurice Winn	3 Recommendations Respond to of 46821

ElM, Peak Oil is so last century. Who cares? Oil is just one way to move things. What happens when something runs low is that the price goes up. When the price goes up, some other idea is developed to solve the problem. It's trivial. A casual glance around shows there is any number of ways of getting around the problem without even bothering to imagine magical new technology. A few years ago I predicted Peak Oil and Peak People to occur in the same year, 2037. So far, that's looking spot on [there was the caveat that H5N1 avian flu or similar didn't reduce the population by half before that - which with a mortality rate of 70%, it could well do]. Imagine oil at $200 a barrel. What would people do? Heck, let's make it $300 a barrel to really provide some incentives. People will cut down on heating houses and everything else. They would wear clothing which keeps heat in. They would not run air conditioners flat out, heating outdoor air [in Ottawa in winter they used to have buildings too hot and in summer too cold for comfort]. They would swap their two or three ton SUV for an electronically controlled City Car, which I have had designed for a couple of decades, waiting for the economics to add up. Google is now driving the control system version around public streets to test its street smarts - it passes with flying colours. It is never drunk, doesn't fall asleep at the wheel, doesn't ogle girls out the window while crashing into a power pole, doesn't miss a red light or stop sign, though it could be programmed to do so if the way is clear. Couriers deliver things around cities really cheaply and efficiently so instead of driving 5 km to buy something, get it on-line and the courier will deliver it saving a lot of fuel. By doing that, road congestion would go way down too because 100 people wouldn't need to make their individual trip, meaning 1 courier van could do the work of 100 dirty great SUVs. And the courier van would have the Google navigation system so the "driver" could be checking their lists and getting the next package ready to deliver, and arranging more pickups and communications. Average vehicle speeds could go up to ten times the current speeds, with no traffic lights, no stop signs and no congestion. A380 airliners are very fuel efficient compared with the old DC8. So yes, there will be Peak Oil. It doesn't matter at all. A quick look at the sun shows there is no shortage of energy. Already, photovoltaics are economic in many applications. Chlorophyll has economically been making cellulose for a billion years. Cellulose has traditionally been a popular fuel. Coal, Orinoco goop, Athabasca tar, shale, methane are other sources of carbon other than the Peak Oil reservoirs of Saudi Arabia. No worries. The Peak Oil Problem is trivial. Mqurice

To: elmatador who wrote (36531)	10/31/2010 5:24:30 PM
From: axial	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

"Can the political order face up to the challenge? There is no reason for optimism." --- True. "We may make light of it, but our children will be faced with the consequences of decisions being made now. I don't en[v]y them. It's about time we started electing people who have the foresight and guts to act on a clear vision of the future. We used to have them once. More important, we used to vote for them. Maybe we've just got too damned fat, too indulgent in dreamy agendas, to plan (and prepare) for what's coming." Message 20886234 --- It's not just leadership, it's the economics. It's not just a failure of recognition, a failure of imagination, a failure of courage: it's denial. At this moment a barrel of WTI costs US $81.37. In 5 years or less that price will easily double. The reality is simply more than people can accept - so they pretend it doesn't exist. In our whole lives we'll never see a better example of man's consistent self-delusion. We're not prepared. We won't be. There'll be a series of shocks and recessions as prices rise, but we'll continue to deny until the truth is inescapable. Progressively billions will be economically marginalized. That's the reality. We've lived so long in prosperity and abundance, previously unseen in human history, that we simply can't integrate the harsh truth into the fabric of our present-day existence. Energy and climate dictate a much different future for our descendants. Before mankind adapts to a sustainable existence on this earth, many will die. Jim