Richard Heinberg's Peak Everything - Part 3

[christo930]

Photo voltaics suck! Solar thermal is a much better solution, much cheaper and has more applications. Solar thermal can reduce your heating fuels a great deal even in the winter in Vermont. Solar thermal electric generation is better and cheaper and we can build vast solar thermal farms in the southwest and they produce the most when it's hottest out unlike wind which tends to die down in the heat. So when Texans turn on their AC, the solar thermal plant is producing the most energy.

[PUBLIUS8861]

All communities need to plan for their survival in a world without easy energy. Those commentators who can not understand that will most certainly wish to have the resources and food that transitional communities created. I would like to suggest there are alternatives to a dystopic visions of the future. It dose not help to pretend that this is not happening. Better to be prepared and create healthy communities, just like the small ones our great grandparents lived in before fossile fuels

[beastinblack]

We will have plenty of Soylent Green........

[linghun]

The imbecility of Richard Heinberg is unsustainable.

[SgtThom]

@linghun

It's typical for morons to reside to name calling in order to prove there losing point.

[linghun]

@SgtThom Heinberg's eco-village idea has already been tried in the 1970s in Cambodia and Jonestown.

[auroraglacialis]

hmm - but there are ways to get more nuclear fuel out of breeder reactors and prolong that for a while, right? I mean it would be dangerous and produce immense amounts of radioactive waste and plutonium etc, but if it is possible what is the likelyhood of it not being used in the face of peak fossil fuel?

[oliverhochron]

what is the chance that countries around the world switch over their nuclear reactors to breeder technology before we hit critical uranium reserves? i'd say slim to none even if all countries decided to make this a most urgent priority today. The largest likely untapped source of renewable energy may turn out to be ocean energy. Advancement with tidal and wave energy recovery in recent years has been much better than the rather dismal returns from wind and solar.

[auroraglacialis]

@oliverhochron What I meant was, that people will use a lot of available options, eventually also those that are nasty and destructive. I see breeder reactors (actually an old technology that is already known to work) among them. I am not saying that I like that, to the contrary! I also think they will pursue biofules (which are unsustainable) and coal liquifidation to oil (which causes even more pollution than coal or oil) and many other things, each of them destructive. :(

[beastinblack]

@auroraglacialis 'breeder' 'overpopulation' oh the irony!

[Brandonly23]

wow this guys a major debby downer.

shit!

[dinkolino2]

the more i watch this, the more bad science i see.

[fourplusseven]

Would you elaborate? (I'm totally neutral, just interested)

[fourplusseven]

... matter of fact I also saw quite a bit of wobbliness as went through. There's a lot of skewing the idea of 'peak' so it can include the idea of 'everything' -- emotions creep in.

I have always found John Michael Greer way more helpful in practice; he sees through to the narrative heart of the matter where Heinberg's actual _story_ is rather less sophisticated.

Still I would rather people had peak on their minds than climate change; it does define the future really I think.

[dinkolino2]

ok, peak for fossil fuel, uranium and stuff... but other things are recycleable. especially water

[seanlbrennan]

It may seem counter intuitive, but water is being 'mined' just like everything else. A surprising amount of fresh water that we use comes from Aquifers that are not replenished at our rate of usage. The water might be recycled, but not in a usable form, meaning more and more energy will be needed to make it potable.

Look at the Newfoundland Cod stocks, this was a renewable resource that has completely collapsed due to overfishing.

[dinkolino2]

thats just bull, my friend.. aquifers fill up too...

grond water is everywhere, one might just considernot poisining it everywhere..

ofcourse there are some regional problems in dry areas with high population density, but thats about it. there is no peak water.. its total bullshit

[seanlbrennan]

There are two types of aquifiers: replenishable and nonreplenishable.

Nonreplenishable ones have a finite amount of water.

The problem with replenishable aquifiers is the rate of usage. In many of these we are using water at a much higher rate than they are being replenished, meaning sooner or later they will run out at current usage. Having had wells run dry, this is a problem.

Google Aquifer depletion.

Having said that, desalination plants might help with this problem.

[simplyjbr]

@dinkolino2 Yeah! Totally! I mean all of those water resource specialists whining about how rivers like the Colorado and Ganges no longer reach their destinations- bullshit. All those whiny bitches "wah! wah! water rites are being bought by Nestle, and communities are being pumped dry!" Who cares about "communities"? Oh no, soil salinization is sucking up all the water - do I smell bullshit? Fresh water in ice caps melting into sea -bullshit! Oh, and you're an idiot.

[rarelibra]

the North Pole will be ice free this year (2008) - not too far off a prediction.

[dinkolino2]

well, we have had a very cold winter this year...

[moreaudan]

Turning to Iraqi deaths, expert studies support as many as 1.2

million dead Iraqis, almost entirely civilians. Another 2 million Iraqis have fled their country, and there are 2 million displaced Iraqis within Iraq.

Afghan casualties are unknown.