Escape from Suburbia: Economy, Peak Oil, and Climate Change (DVDs $20!)

[38snipshow]

I think the Federal Government of Canada/ USA should just ban the production of SUV's, they're purposeless unlike pickup trucks should remain and just strictly sell crossovers. Anyone agree....

[MrEnergyCzar]

One way I prepared for peak oil was converting my home to a net-zero solar powered home that uses no oil or gas..I made a video about it called, "Preparing for Peak Oil"....

[kendallpar]

Hubbert's peak oil curve and the rise of population are all connected. As oil goes away, so will the population. It is the ultimate end game scenario and it can not be stopped no matter what. We have squandered our most prescious asset.

[ForzaJersey]

Its silly, oil, will go the way of wood and coal, it will stilled be used but, for other uses. Oil is hardly running out but, it will be replaced by some other form like hydrates, natural gas or nitrogen.

[DJtechmission]

Hydrates - a chemical term meaning compounds that contain water. Methyl/Ethyl hydrate is another term for methanol/ethanol. Both burn great - but we would have to use more farmland than we have to make enough to burn for energy.

Natural Gas - same as oil, dwindling faster too.

Nitrogen - doesn't burn. Good thing too. Makes up almost 80% of our atmosphere. Some Nitrogen compounds burn - like ammonia - which we get from oil.

[ForzaJersey]

liquid nitrogen can be used for power plants, the electricity produced can be used compress purified air to power cars, etc.

Converting our transportation system to burn gas rather than oil will open us up to a far cheaper and renewable energy source that could return us to the abundant energy heyday that America enjoyed from 1920 until 1970.

Hydrates are essentially the stinky gases(methane) that we find in swamps and the ocean floor, not farms as with ethanol.

[DJtechmission]

I havent' heard of lN2 being used as a fuel since you can't burn it. how would this work? temperature gradient? Keep in mind, Nitrogen liquefies at -195C. Since these temperatures don't exist anywhere on earth it will take energy, a lot of energy to liquefy nitrogen to be used in this manner. Also at the end of the day what's the efficiency? if its less than 100% (which it most certainly will be) you will actually have a net energy loss.

I'll check it out but i'm skeptical...

[DJtechmission]

Also,

Methane is NOT a hydrate.

Hydr - hydrogen

-ate - means a compound WITH oxygen

Methane's formula is: CH4, that's one carbon, and four hydrogens. No oxygen there.

Methanol does qualify as a hydrate because it contains an oxygen with hydrogen meaning it contains water.

Again, we have LESS natural gas (which is methane BTW) than we do oil. So it suffers from the same problem as oil. Hell, if that were the solution, don't you think we'd be doing that already?

[libertyplayground]

This movie is an EPIC FAIL

Solutions come from localism, not globalism

Solutions come from bottom-up attitude change, not from top-down edicts

Global warming is a foil for socialism, and pushed by government education indoctrination institutions

[givemeabreakhere]

The earth is warmed by the sun. Sunspot activity is directly related to temperature changes on earth. CO2 is a lifegiving gas, not a poison. CO2 has little or no affect on temperature changes.  If it did then temperatures would go up every year as more CO2 is present. Temperatures have decreased over the past ten years. So, logically, it is obvious that increased CO2 levels do not cause the earth to warm.

[DJtechmission]

Wow. Astonishing. You must have failed all of the sciences in high school. Why you think you would have anything to say on atmospheric science is beyond my comprehension.

CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. Yes the earth is warmed by the sun (duh) but it is CO2 and other trace gasses in our atmosphere trap heat in instead of it dissipating into space.

It has everything to do with maintaining our earth's temperature.

Too little - we freeze

Too much - we bake.

We ARE disturbing this equilibrium.

[ForzaJersey]

No need to insult someone whom may disagree with the premise that man is the sole cause of global warming. The Sun plays a primary role, if the sun shuts down it would not be long before we would forget about global warming.

The issue at hand is how to find more abundant renewable energy sources that can produce more energy per ton of carbon produced and not the volume of carbon produced. Eventually Carbon-production will level off and energy production will continue to exponentially rise.

[DJtechmission]

If the sun shuts down we can pretty much forget about everything :) True, the earth has had harsh greenhouse effects before, but these are usually over geologic timescales.

We have very good data, the best being from antarctic ice cores (which trap air in bubbles to give us a chronological record in layers of ice). The only other times in earth history that we've seen short term (like the last 100 years) spikes in carbon dioxide levels is when there has been super-massive volcanic activity.

[DJtechmission]

argh, word limit - so essentially the only thing that could have caused this much CO2 to be put in the atmosphere over the last hundred years would be enormous volcanic activity - on the order of we would not survive - or that it us burning billions of tons of dead plants for a hundred years.

[DJtechmission]

You make an excellent point though - I should not have insulted "givemeabreakhere" that was not appropriate and I apologize.

I do however stand by everything past the first para.

[sonofdrella09]

CO2 gets all the publicity, but other greenhouse gasses, like methane (from cows), are much worse!

[DJtechmission]

Methane is indeed a potent greenhouse gas, however its concentration in our atmosphere (thus its contribution to the greenhouse effect) is far less than CO2.

Too bad we can't tap the cows for fuel ... or can we ? :)

[steadydecline]

An interesting connection: The title "Escape From Suburbia" is also the title of Carol Anne's theme song on the Poltergeist soundtrack. This was probably unintentional, but still a little freaky.