One of the wild cards of peak oil is the fact that since it's a liquid fuels problem, you can always pump oil fields with a net loss of energy. If there is an excess of electricity (for example) we can always use that electricity to pump oil out of the ground at a net energy loss seeing how there would be a need for liquid fuels. We could build geothermal electricity generating stations near depleted oil fields and pump out the oil with the electricity.
@christo930 - if we had enough energy we could synthesize our own oil. the problem is that fossil-fuels are the main energy source. we already had electric trains etc plenty of demand for electricity and we didn't develop solar,wind,geothermal etc.. they can't compete with oil as an abundant energy source. No two ways about it, end of fossil-fuel age is less energy to go round unless we crack fusion
@walter0bz There has been good breakthroughs in fission nuclear power plants including breeder reactors which convert Uranium to ether a new isotope or different element which can utilize more of the energy in Uranium, which tends to make it look like you put a T-jule in and get 2 TJ out, of course all of that energy was in the Uranium to begin with (it's in no way an over-unity reactor). But I really think Algae is going to play a big role in liquid fues. Clean, renewable and carbon neutral!
I agree algae is a great way to store solar energy.
As i understand it, fossil-fuels were like an energy lottery win. renewables are more like welfare cheques.. never run out, but very unlikely to provide anything like the quality (or quantity) of life
we'll be eating algae(spirulina). desire for fuel will compete with feeding people as use of sunlight.
uranium has same problem as oil, its finite, we're 'drawing down earths capital' instead of living on solar income
@walter0bz If the cost of Algae production can be brought down, the scalability of Algae is really high and could potentially replace oil, at least as an energy source. There are also some breakthroughs in using ethanol as a feedstock for plastic and other uses of oil that aren't energy related. But I agree entirely that we are in overshoot and drawing down earth's "capital" faster than the earth can naturally replace it.
I do agree that a market is the best way to micromanage resources.
But I get incredibly skeptical as soon as people talk about money and energy together - see the way money was printed into existence for the market signal of scarcity (rising property prices).
Cost of Algae: how can it be any 'cheaper'? water + sunlight+animal waste to feed. If alternative energies are viable, they can replace oil as the raw material, an independant economic phenomenon
@walter0bz Initially oil was very expensive but we got better at extracting and refining it. Algae production for energy purposes is in it's infant stage and there are probably many improvements we could figure out that will lower the cost. Just economies of scale alone will bring the cost way down.
In terms of overall trends, I reject anything that says 'cheaper/move expensive' - this refers to micromanagement. For overall potential the process seems clear: oil was a huge resevoir of existing energy, whereas algae is just another plant limited by the steady trickle of sunlight and we've been manipulating plants for our benefit for thousands of years already (selective breeding)
Part of the premise of algae i think is it can be grown where food can't but its just plants still, if you can pump water and make algae grow you could be making food there and feeding local people :) Hence my extreme skepticism that biomass or solar can keep a modern civilization going. I think you could only keep modern technology for a small elite, or for a vastly reduced population. (e.g. X square km feeds 10 people or 2 people + car + tv + web )
@walter0bz Keep in mind that we can bio-engineer the fastest growing Algae and find better processes. But I do get what you are saying. Oil is millions of years of solar energy stored and ready for our use upon extraction. We will have to accept a lower standard of living, but keep in mind that we don't actually NEED all of energy we use, most of it is wasted.
americans waste alot. the rest of the world uses the remaining 20% to survive.
i dont know the exact split ('you'd need 5x resources to give everyone western standard of living'). eliminating the waste might draw out the process but the fundemental issue is the switch from 'energy-lottery winner' to 'steady income' conditions. Doesn't matter how much more efficiently you can use it if Zero is available.
@walter0bz Zero isn't available, especially for electricity. We could set up solar thermal electric generating plants in the southwest desert and provide electricity for the entire south and west coast. With solar thermal, the capital costs are high, but the running costs are much lower than conventional. Furthermore, land that is totally useless for raising crops may be used for raising algae and you don't even need to use potable water since most algae are salt water crops.
r.e. using biomass for transport fuels, I hypothesize the Bicycle will be the superior transport.
e.g. compare land area required to 'feed' a car, vs land area to 'feed' a human on bike (miles of transport per area of fuel).
perhaps we'll be able to carry resources around long distances slowly on baloons with good (web based) planning. But frighteningly many believe the highly specialized/complex society to run computers wont be possible without fossil-fuels
@walter0bz We don't NEED to travel as much as we do. For example, we could go back to using railroads to deliver goods from one part of the nation to another and use electricity to do it. We could also use what's called a 6-pack which is 6 container ships with one barge to deliver goods from the west coast to the east (vice-versa) for 1/18 of the energy use (over trucking). Just in efficiency alone we could cut our energy use in 1/2.
i would like proof of carrying capacity. until I see it proven that people can survive without digging up energy, i want a 1 child policy. until then it's all theory.
I know we can transport less - but its the conditions of energy abundance that allowed a lot of the progress. e.g. people living in comfort free from basic subsistence that can then study harder to create demand for technological progress with spin off uses ? Ido know americans in particular have a lot of waste.
@walter0bz The problem with the one child policy is that we will end up with an unbalanced sex population. China is having that problem now. There are millions of men in China who will never get a woman. In populations that embrace polygamy there is inevitably violence, it's the reason polygamy is illegal. Why bring up polygamy? Because having so many men with no women makes a violent society and a one child policy leads to there being too few women and leads to millions of men with no woman.
unbalanced sex is a consequence of infanticide, social rules/customs (such as surname propogation) inapropriately designed for our predicament .. not of the one child policy itself.
there's always going to be jealousy and competition in sexual selection. can't make everyone equally desireable, wealthy, happy in their relationship etc. the world is too chaotic
@walter0bz We don't want a situation where men outnumber women by the millions, it creates violent societies. This is not my conjecture, but a well studied and understood phenomenon. You have to remember that a woman that might not be the most desirable is better than no woman at all. This is why polygamy is illegal in west, we don't want the violence that comes with millions of men with no chance of getting a woman (because there aren't enough of them).
i wonder what portion of the population is really happy in their relationship :) women's instincts are to secure a provider, then go behind his back to get the best possible sperm.
'polygamy/west' -I dont think any culture has a monopoly on violence. Perhaps excessive competition with 'have nots' does cause more. Same with Land/Wealth I guess, if the wealth gap gets too big. But anyway - China's prob from 1CP are TINY compared to feeding an extra 500M people-THAT would cause war
@christo930 - I can beleive that the population will reach 9billion, but I would hardly use the term "Stabilize" to describe the situation we'll be in at that point :)
solution to chinas predicament is serial monogamy. Timeshare the women.
>>" You have to remember that a woman that might not be the most desirable is better than no woman at all."
-- really?!! I gather many couples produce kids simply to stay together, even though they dont like eachother. Not an ideal starting point, IMO. Do you think couples that dont like eachother should be FORCED to stay together, or is free choice for divorce ok ?
@walter0bz I am just telling you that when there is a large shortage of women in a society, it tends to become very violent. It's not competition, it's millions of young men with nothing to do. They tend to form militias and other disrupting things. This is replicated all over the world and China is greatly worried about it.
-- ok my practical suggestion is ditch strict monogamy. Lots of good porn, & timeshare the women. 'Someone for life' is a luxury they can't afford, they need to adapt social expectations.
In west we have terrible diet, so few peeps get 'healthy' looking parter, let alone match media expectations.
I'm wifeless myself, but wouldn't trade for "no food" & I'm sure 'feeding kids' = bigger incentive for violence..
@walter0bz "Timeshare the women" could either be polyandry or prostitution. But this is a well observed phenomenon. Whenever a society has polygamy or more men than women, the society turns violent, creates civil wars etc. This isn't my opinion, this is well established and well supported by the data.
@christo930 - ok I dont disagree with you that imbalanced male:female is a problem, but I strongly disagree that its a bigger problem than 500million extra chinese people needing food, shelter etc.
'timeshare women' whats wrong with serial monogamy. People get pair up , split up. Happens all the time. Lets say you have 4:3 m:f. Instead of 3 happy couples and 1 left out, how about 2 couples, and 2 people that get to date sometimes. Or better still, 1 couple and 3 that 'date sometimes'. Adapt.
i've even encountered nutters who claim chinas 1cp was deliberately to engineer warlike population. i'm quite convinced overcrowding is a much stronger war-making incentive. Hitlers strategy was awarding medals to fertile women who bred a lot of potential soldiers.
(*without wealth coing in from rest of world before you say singapore etc)
>>". It's not competition, it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
nothing to do ? this is down to raw materials. Whether its 'raw materials' for making kids, (work to support them), or raw materials for doing something else constructive (land for farming, wood for craftsman, metals for engineers, oil for chemists .. ). If they had women but no raw materials, the raw material shortage would still create violence.
1CP caused sex selected abortions due to custom r.e. family name (& dowry issue??), and in past you needed manual labourer to provide. Clearly custom needs adapting for todays challenge
>>" it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
-- if they had women, they'd be busy breeding, it just defers & amplifies the problem to the next generation. Hungry peeps get violent too. (get violent when they sense they have a chance of ending up hungry). ->overthrow leaders and/or invade
1CP caused sex selected abortions due to custom r.e. family name (& dowry issue??), and in past you needed manual labourer to provide. Clearly custom needs adapting for todays challenge
>>" it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
-- if they had women, they'd be busy breeding, it just defers & amplifies the problem to the next generation. Hungry peeps get violent too. (get violent when they sense they have a chance of ending up hungry). ->overthrow leaders and/or invade
@christo930 -- ok I read its' 30million men who will never find a wife (if their society goes down the innappropriate "strict monogamy" route). Alternative was 500million extra chinese needing food. This would have caused far more instability.. crime/incentive for war. I've seen nutters who actually claim constant upward population pressure+continual small wars is preferable. Nutters.
@walter0bz I agree with you that China was between a rock and a hard place and had no real easy solution. I also agree with you that there are too many of us and that we are in overshoot. How this is going to play out is anyone's guess, but my assumption is a combination of famine, war, water shortages and disease.
lets say sustainable carrying capacity is 2billion (ie. forget the most pessimistic MMGW case of 500m)
thats 4+billiion to go. spread over 100years, thats 40m per year - a rate of misery per person worse than WW2 (20m of 2billion killed in 5 years?)... for a century. another real possibility is a single event like nuclear war killing billions in one go (ie peak at 9billion then full nuclear conflict)
@walter0bz There doesn't need to be misery there just needs to be a slowdown in the birth rate and attrition will take care of the rest. I also don't think it will happen evenly across the earth. The wealthier nations will be the las to go, African nations will probably be the first. Already there are countries in Africa with double digit % of HIV infections and these nations tend to have the highest birth rates.
if we had global TFR = 1.0 , we could indeed get the population down ahead of the decline in oil production... until we're back at the level where we're living renewably. But the point is there isn't global TFR=1.0. people are still producing regular families, funded by debt.. so misery is inevitable. People weren't convinced by the need for 1cp so we're in the dead end
r.e. using biomass for transport fuels, I hypothesize the Bicycle will be the superior transport.
e.g. compare land area required to 'feed' a car, vs land area to 'feed' a human on bike (miles of transport per area of fuel).
perhaps we'll be able to carry resources around long distances slowly on baloons with good (web based) planning. But frighteningly many believe the highly specialized/complex society to run computers wont be possible without fossil-fuels
@christo930 (i.e. we've been manipulating plants, shifting water around to help them grow for 1000's of years, and algae is just an reversion to that)
essentially your claim is like saying we can improve on any of the existing symbioses we already have establshed in the biosphere which is entirely based on cycles between animals & plants already, with machinery far more complex & refined than anything we've engineered.
>>"There are also some breakthroughs in using ethanol as a feedstock for plastic and other uses of oil that aren't energy related."
- I'm confident we could get plastics etc from some sort of biological source. After all, nature routinely produces some very impressive materials (mother of pearl, spidersilk). but as you seem to agree the issue is Quantity, compared to fossil-fuel conditions where we had an 'energy lottery win'.
>>"If the cost of Algae production can be brought down, "
- so, at some point 'it will be economical' but what this really means is oil became more scarce, rather than algae became more abundant. I suspect we'd be looking into ways of extending where we can grow plants anyway (eg. pull water into desert pool to grow spirulina algae as food) regardless of considering it as fuel. I always think of Fuel & Food as interchangeable, in the big picture.
Wow they act as tho $50 a barrel is expensive.
Tampa0123456789 5 months ago
The worrying thing is the amount of views and the pure ignorance of the general public.
GWHITE5287 8 months ago in playlist Understanding Peak Oil 9
Is this an excuse for wall street traitors to make prices higher on it?
Licmycat 9 months ago
One of the wild cards of peak oil is the fact that since it's a liquid fuels problem, you can always pump oil fields with a net loss of energy. If there is an excess of electricity (for example) we can always use that electricity to pump oil out of the ground at a net energy loss seeing how there would be a need for liquid fuels. We could build geothermal electricity generating stations near depleted oil fields and pump out the oil with the electricity.
christo930 1 year ago
@christo930 - if we had enough energy we could synthesize our own oil. the problem is that fossil-fuels are the main energy source. we already had electric trains etc plenty of demand for electricity and we didn't develop solar,wind,geothermal etc.. they can't compete with oil as an abundant energy source. No two ways about it, end of fossil-fuel age is less energy to go round unless we crack fusion
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz There has been good breakthroughs in fission nuclear power plants including breeder reactors which convert Uranium to ether a new isotope or different element which can utilize more of the energy in Uranium, which tends to make it look like you put a T-jule in and get 2 TJ out, of course all of that energy was in the Uranium to begin with (it's in no way an over-unity reactor). But I really think Algae is going to play a big role in liquid fues. Clean, renewable and carbon neutral!
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930
I agree algae is a great way to store solar energy.
As i understand it, fossil-fuels were like an energy lottery win. renewables are more like welfare cheques.. never run out, but very unlikely to provide anything like the quality (or quantity) of life
we'll be eating algae(spirulina). desire for fuel will compete with feeding people as use of sunlight.
uranium has same problem as oil, its finite, we're 'drawing down earths capital' instead of living on solar income
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz If the cost of Algae production can be brought down, the scalability of Algae is really high and could potentially replace oil, at least as an energy source. There are also some breakthroughs in using ethanol as a feedstock for plastic and other uses of oil that aren't energy related. But I agree entirely that we are in overshoot and drawing down earth's "capital" faster than the earth can naturally replace it.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 'cost of algae production...''
I do agree that a market is the best way to micromanage resources.
But I get incredibly skeptical as soon as people talk about money and energy together - see the way money was printed into existence for the market signal of scarcity (rising property prices).
Cost of Algae: how can it be any 'cheaper'? water + sunlight+animal waste to feed. If alternative energies are viable, they can replace oil as the raw material, an independant economic phenomenon
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz Initially oil was very expensive but we got better at extracting and refining it. Algae production for energy purposes is in it's infant stage and there are probably many improvements we could figure out that will lower the cost. Just economies of scale alone will bring the cost way down.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
In terms of overall trends, I reject anything that says 'cheaper/move expensive' - this refers to micromanagement. For overall potential the process seems clear: oil was a huge resevoir of existing energy, whereas algae is just another plant limited by the steady trickle of sunlight and we've been manipulating plants for our benefit for thousands of years already (selective breeding)
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
Part of the premise of algae i think is it can be grown where food can't but its just plants still, if you can pump water and make algae grow you could be making food there and feeding local people :) Hence my extreme skepticism that biomass or solar can keep a modern civilization going. I think you could only keep modern technology for a small elite, or for a vastly reduced population. (e.g. X square km feeds 10 people or 2 people + car + tv + web )
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz Keep in mind that we can bio-engineer the fastest growing Algae and find better processes. But I do get what you are saying. Oil is millions of years of solar energy stored and ready for our use upon extraction. We will have to accept a lower standard of living, but keep in mind that we don't actually NEED all of energy we use, most of it is wasted.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
americans waste alot. the rest of the world uses the remaining 20% to survive.
i dont know the exact split ('you'd need 5x resources to give everyone western standard of living'). eliminating the waste might draw out the process but the fundemental issue is the switch from 'energy-lottery winner' to 'steady income' conditions. Doesn't matter how much more efficiently you can use it if Zero is available.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz Zero isn't available, especially for electricity. We could set up solar thermal electric generating plants in the southwest desert and provide electricity for the entire south and west coast. With solar thermal, the capital costs are high, but the running costs are much lower than conventional. Furthermore, land that is totally useless for raising crops may be used for raising algae and you don't even need to use potable water since most algae are salt water crops.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
r.e. using biomass for transport fuels, I hypothesize the Bicycle will be the superior transport.
e.g. compare land area required to 'feed' a car, vs land area to 'feed' a human on bike (miles of transport per area of fuel).
perhaps we'll be able to carry resources around long distances slowly on baloons with good (web based) planning. But frighteningly many believe the highly specialized/complex society to run computers wont be possible without fossil-fuels
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz We don't NEED to travel as much as we do. For example, we could go back to using railroads to deliver goods from one part of the nation to another and use electricity to do it. We could also use what's called a 6-pack which is 6 container ships with one barge to deliver goods from the west coast to the east (vice-versa) for 1/18 of the energy use (over trucking). Just in efficiency alone we could cut our energy use in 1/2.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
i would like proof of carrying capacity. until I see it proven that people can survive without digging up energy, i want a 1 child policy. until then it's all theory.
I know we can transport less - but its the conditions of energy abundance that allowed a lot of the progress. e.g. people living in comfort free from basic subsistence that can then study harder to create demand for technological progress with spin off uses ? Ido know americans in particular have a lot of waste.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz The problem with the one child policy is that we will end up with an unbalanced sex population. China is having that problem now. There are millions of men in China who will never get a woman. In populations that embrace polygamy there is inevitably violence, it's the reason polygamy is illegal. Why bring up polygamy? Because having so many men with no women makes a violent society and a one child policy leads to there being too few women and leads to millions of men with no woman.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
unbalanced sex is a consequence of infanticide, social rules/customs (such as surname propogation) inapropriately designed for our predicament .. not of the one child policy itself.
there's always going to be jealousy and competition in sexual selection. can't make everyone equally desireable, wealthy, happy in their relationship etc. the world is too chaotic
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz We don't want a situation where men outnumber women by the millions, it creates violent societies. This is not my conjecture, but a well studied and understood phenomenon. You have to remember that a woman that might not be the most desirable is better than no woman at all. This is why polygamy is illegal in west, we don't want the violence that comes with millions of men with no chance of getting a woman (because there aren't enough of them).
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
i wonder what portion of the population is really happy in their relationship :) women's instincts are to secure a provider, then go behind his back to get the best possible sperm.
'polygamy/west' -I dont think any culture has a monopoly on violence. Perhaps excessive competition with 'have nots' does cause more. Same with Land/Wealth I guess, if the wealth gap gets too big. But anyway - China's prob from 1CP are TINY compared to feeding an extra 500M people-THAT would cause war
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz The population is supposedly going to stabilize at 9b and then drop from there. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 - I can beleive that the population will reach 9billion, but I would hardly use the term "Stabilize" to describe the situation we'll be in at that point :)
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -incidently, what is the M:F ratio in china, just curious. compared to my 4:3 example.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
solution to chinas predicament is serial monogamy. Timeshare the women.
>>" You have to remember that a woman that might not be the most desirable is better than no woman at all."
-- really?!! I gather many couples produce kids simply to stay together, even though they dont like eachother. Not an ideal starting point, IMO. Do you think couples that dont like eachother should be FORCED to stay together, or is free choice for divorce ok ?
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz I am just telling you that when there is a large shortage of women in a society, it tends to become very violent. It's not competition, it's millions of young men with nothing to do. They tend to form militias and other disrupting things. This is replicated all over the world and China is greatly worried about it.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 .
>>"It's not competition.."
-- ok my practical suggestion is ditch strict monogamy. Lots of good porn, & timeshare the women. 'Someone for life' is a luxury they can't afford, they need to adapt social expectations.
In west we have terrible diet, so few peeps get 'healthy' looking parter, let alone match media expectations.
I'm wifeless myself, but wouldn't trade for "no food" & I'm sure 'feeding kids' = bigger incentive for violence..
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz "Timeshare the women" could either be polyandry or prostitution. But this is a well observed phenomenon. Whenever a society has polygamy or more men than women, the society turns violent, creates civil wars etc. This isn't my opinion, this is well established and well supported by the data.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 - ok I dont disagree with you that imbalanced male:female is a problem, but I strongly disagree that its a bigger problem than 500million extra chinese people needing food, shelter etc.
'timeshare women' whats wrong with serial monogamy. People get pair up , split up. Happens all the time. Lets say you have 4:3 m:f. Instead of 3 happy couples and 1 left out, how about 2 couples, and 2 people that get to date sometimes. Or better still, 1 couple and 3 that 'date sometimes'. Adapt.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
i've even encountered nutters who claim chinas 1cp was deliberately to engineer warlike population. i'm quite convinced overcrowding is a much stronger war-making incentive. Hitlers strategy was awarding medals to fertile women who bred a lot of potential soldiers.
(*without wealth coing in from rest of world before you say singapore etc)
walter0bz 5 months ago
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@christo930
>>"Whenever a society has polygamy or more men than women, the society turns violent,"
-- violent enough to go bombing people to get more oil ?
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
>>". It's not competition, it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
nothing to do ? this is down to raw materials. Whether its 'raw materials' for making kids, (work to support them), or raw materials for doing something else constructive (land for farming, wood for craftsman, metals for engineers, oil for chemists .. ). If they had women but no raw materials, the raw material shortage would still create violence.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 --
1CP caused sex selected abortions due to custom r.e. family name (& dowry issue??), and in past you needed manual labourer to provide. Clearly custom needs adapting for todays challenge
>>" it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
-- if they had women, they'd be busy breeding, it just defers & amplifies the problem to the next generation. Hungry peeps get violent too. (get violent when they sense they have a chance of ending up hungry). ->overthrow leaders and/or invade
walter0bz 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@christo930 --
1CP caused sex selected abortions due to custom r.e. family name (& dowry issue??), and in past you needed manual labourer to provide. Clearly custom needs adapting for todays challenge
>>" it's millions of young men with nothing to do. "
-- if they had women, they'd be busy breeding, it just defers & amplifies the problem to the next generation. Hungry peeps get violent too. (get violent when they sense they have a chance of ending up hungry). ->overthrow leaders and/or invade
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -- ok I read its' 30million men who will never find a wife (if their society goes down the innappropriate "strict monogamy" route). Alternative was 500million extra chinese needing food. This would have caused far more instability.. crime/incentive for war. I've seen nutters who actually claim constant upward population pressure+continual small wars is preferable. Nutters.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz I agree with you that China was between a rock and a hard place and had no real easy solution. I also agree with you that there are too many of us and that we are in overshoot. How this is going to play out is anyone's guess, but my assumption is a combination of famine, war, water shortages and disease.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -
i think your assumption is about right.
lets say sustainable carrying capacity is 2billion (ie. forget the most pessimistic MMGW case of 500m)
thats 4+billiion to go. spread over 100years, thats 40m per year - a rate of misery per person worse than WW2 (20m of 2billion killed in 5 years?)... for a century. another real possibility is a single event like nuclear war killing billions in one go (ie peak at 9billion then full nuclear conflict)
walter0bz 5 months ago
@walter0bz There doesn't need to be misery there just needs to be a slowdown in the birth rate and attrition will take care of the rest. I also don't think it will happen evenly across the earth. The wealthier nations will be the las to go, African nations will probably be the first. Already there are countries in Africa with double digit % of HIV infections and these nations tend to have the highest birth rates.
christo930 5 months ago
@christo930 -"there doesn't need to be misery.."
if we had global TFR = 1.0 , we could indeed get the population down ahead of the decline in oil production... until we're back at the level where we're living renewably. But the point is there isn't global TFR=1.0. people are still producing regular families, funded by debt.. so misery is inevitable. People weren't convinced by the need for 1cp so we're in the dead end
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
r.e. using biomass for transport fuels, I hypothesize the Bicycle will be the superior transport.
e.g. compare land area required to 'feed' a car, vs land area to 'feed' a human on bike (miles of transport per area of fuel).
perhaps we'll be able to carry resources around long distances slowly on baloons with good (web based) planning. But frighteningly many believe the highly specialized/complex society to run computers wont be possible without fossil-fuels
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 (i.e. we've been manipulating plants, shifting water around to help them grow for 1000's of years, and algae is just an reversion to that)
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930 -
essentially your claim is like saying we can improve on any of the existing symbioses we already have establshed in the biosphere which is entirely based on cycles between animals & plants already, with machinery far more complex & refined than anything we've engineered.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930
>>"There are also some breakthroughs in using ethanol as a feedstock for plastic and other uses of oil that aren't energy related."
- I'm confident we could get plastics etc from some sort of biological source. After all, nature routinely produces some very impressive materials (mother of pearl, spidersilk). but as you seem to agree the issue is Quantity, compared to fossil-fuel conditions where we had an 'energy lottery win'.
walter0bz 5 months ago
@christo930
>>"If the cost of Algae production can be brought down, "
- so, at some point 'it will be economical' but what this really means is oil became more scarce, rather than algae became more abundant. I suspect we'd be looking into ways of extending where we can grow plants anyway (eg. pull water into desert pool to grow spirulina algae as food) regardless of considering it as fuel. I always think of Fuel & Food as interchangeable, in the big picture.
walter0bz 5 months ago