Congressman Roscoe Bartlett on Peak Oil [Part 7]

[1981busch]

Watching this man i know what Noah must have been like and done, except now it's the judgement by fire. May Jesus bless you Roscoe :)

[joti108]

Scary that less than 2000 people have watched this video :(

[kurtilein3]

i think that as long as there are as many scientists with as many resources working on it, meaning that research doesnt get interrupted by big wars or depressions, nuclear fusion will be there in maybe 30-40 years. i mean, the first reactors going online. then a few more decades until it provides most electricity.

the gap is the problem. nuclear fusion is making progress, but its still decades. now we mastered superconducting coils, the LHC proves it, but a few other problems remain.

[soylentgreenb]

Neither fission, fusion, wind turbines or solar energy is immediately useful for vehicles or a direct replacement for oil. There's an enormous amount of work to do before electrical energy can be a drop-in replacement for personal transport.

Rail can be electrified easily and so can mining. Very large container ships can run directly with a small nuclear reactor(as many ice breakers, sub marines and naval ships already do).

The rest is really hard.

[soylentgreenb]

"Somebody is making a big bet that nuclear fusion will come through, because nothing else is going to be enough to fuel transportation after fossil fuel use declines significantly."

Your average crust contains 3 ppm uranium and 10 ppm thorium. That's the equivalent of over 100 barrels per tonne of the Earth's crust. We've have several centuries worth of U-238 already mined. There are many thousands to several billions of years worth of fission fuel left depending on what ore grade is acceptable

[soylentgreenb]

continued

...Fusion will probably surpass fission in economics at some point, but I doubt it will be this century or the next.

[jaralero]

Well, a lot of rubber still comes from the rubber tree, though it's true that the most used plastic is polyethylene (polyester textiles, drink bottles, ...) made from ethylene (needed for synthetic rubbers & produced in the petrochemical industry). Surprise!, world's largest ethylene complex is located in Iran. Bio-derived polyethylene (sugar cane) and Bioplastics seem to be in their infancy. 'Don't know about raw materials, but the silver bullet for energy has to be the sea: tides and seaweed.

[allgoo19]

How about the politicians in D.C. start using bicycle showing us the example? How about more space on the road for bicycles, restrictions for cars in shopping area of the town?

That'll help reduce the use of gas but I don't see that happening. In fact, I'm seeing the opposite. They keep building new roads more lanes for the cars and less space for the bicycles, at some area, no bike lane at all.

[maddogmarinho]

poor guy, he should be president.

[mrcoder]

Only 882 views.... I guess most people like to merely cover their eyes when their train is running out of track.

[aleniko17]

I think this page really explains the problem we're facing. A speech by a congressman on a subject that may be the most important subject ever, and all I see here are 3 responds.

Congressman Bartlett did mention in 'A Crude awakening' than not one in a hundred americans really know what we're facing.

[jaralero]

Yes, Nemesis is catching up with Americans addicted to oil and credit, this channel has no importance so lack of comments here doesn't mean anything, what saddens me is the lack of debate in the U.S. Congress. It's a bleak assembly where elected officials read long speeches before empty seats. M. Simmons, an energy adviser to the Bush administration, believed -in 2005- that oil was too cheap and should be about $182 a barrel!!! Jefferson was right, banks are more dangerous than standing armies.

[Baestaens]

thank you for uploading this jaralero it gave me a lot of answers.

But it seems like we all are screwed lol

[1randomguy08]

We got no silver bullet but I feel that if we use all of the options and be more fuel effiecent it wont be too bad. But that is still some time off.

In the short term(next 18 months) I think we should worry about oil hitting $200/barrel.

[jaralero]

"In 2005, Matthew Simmons bet John Tierney and Rita Simon, $2500 each that the price of oil in 2010 will be at least $200 per barrel."

Oil was then $50 a barrel. $64 in 2007. The price in dollars has doubled in a single year. With a FED interest rate of 2 per cent, oil will probably hit $200 by 2009.

"Monetary policy is calibrated for now to promote rising employment and moderating inflation." (D. Kohn, FED VC, communicating with planet Earth)

One silver bullet: a strong dollar.

[Mikannika]

Roscoe Bartlett did an excelent job here. I would love to have those sheets in ppt.