Do you want oil production to peak, sometime in the reasonably near future?
Yes I do
53%
[ 98 ]
No I don't
46%
[ 86 ]
Total Votes : 184
Author
Message
thuja Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Oct 15, 2005 Posts: 1531 Location: Portland, Oregon
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:25 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
TonyPrep wrote:
JohnDenver wrote:
I'll give you the same objection you gave me: Where's your *timetable* for shutting off the fossil fuels/nuclear and switching over to 100% sustainable energy?
The timetable is not as critical, if one isn't looking to maintain business as usual. Since renewable energy is the only viable sustainable energy, it is the only long term supply strategy we should adopt. If we want to avoid complete chaos as we move down the energy slope, some serious public education is needed, in order to enable a move to a non-growth economy.
For a fair way of managing oil decline, the Oil Depletion Protocol, along with some form of Tradeable Energy Quotas seems sensible.
Pain is unavoidable but attempts to continue growing the energy supply will lead to more pain, even if it starts later.
As much as I am a proponent of sustainable energies, I don't think we will be able to politically mandate a reduction in consumption below the likely decline in production level that will take place after the peak.
That means we will simply have to adapt to, not outpace, oil depletion.
Radical conservation and energy efficiency, coupled with continued fossil fuel usage as we transition to alternative energies is the best bet in my mind. We have lost the time to try and reduce consumption before the depletion sets in.
This is why Bali is worthless as well. Any attempt to reduce emissions will simply pale in comparison to the likely depletion rates, and thefore emission rates that are coming down the pike.
Joined: Sep 25, 2005 Posts: 1976 Location: Waiuku, New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:50 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
JohnDenver wrote:
So you're of the opinion that planned governmental action is not necessary, then?
Certainly not. We need to figure out a way to get to using resources only at their renewal rate, without unmanageable adverse consequences. The government will have a big role to play, since market forces are unlikely to do what's needed. Initially, governments should ensure a massive education programme takes place, to educate the public about the end result of our current way of life.
JohnDenver wrote:
TonyPrep wrote:
JohnDenver wrote:
Quote:
Since renewable energy is the only viable sustainable energy, it is the only long term supply strategy we should adopt.
Who appointed you as the spokesman for everybody? You're not the king. We live in a democracy where policy is ultimately decided by the electorate.
No-one appointed me king, I was merely stating the obvious. If you believe that non-renewable energy sources can be maintained indefinitely, then maybe you can put your name forward for Grand Miracle Worker. Nature has the final say over what people would like to be the case.
The statement "we *should* only adopt sustainable energy" is a totally different proposition from "non-renewable energy sources cannot be maintained indefinitely". The second is an obvious fact that everyone agrees with. The first is your personal opinion, which virtually everyone disagrees with.
People disagree with it because of their irrational desires. If renewable energy is the only viable long term strategy, we should adopt it, though what the people will accept (in the short term) is a different matter. Hence the need for massive education of the public.
JohnDenver wrote:
I'm a realist because I don't think people will give up non-sustainable energy simply because you think they should. Sermons about the powers of Mother Nature don't affect that point.
I agree. My realism comes from the fact that nature doesn't care what people want. People will have to give up non-sustainable energy anyway.
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:51 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
JohnDenver wrote:
You have given no reason to believe there will be a nitrogen fertilizer crisis. If you are so sure such a crisis will occur, tell me why and when.
If you want to worry about fertilizer, think about phosphorus then nitrogen btw.
I agree that chemical industry could find at least in principle a way around nitrogen fertilizer.
Solar (or hydro or nuclear) electricity--->hydrogen--->ammonia--->nitric acid.
However once rich phosphate ores are exhausted, you will no longer be able to provide phosphorus fertilizer of high bioavailability, so yields from industrial agriculture will fall 2-4 times.
BTW, I doubt we can reprocess phosphorus in the fashion like Chinese did in the past, unless we return to agrarian systems.
Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 434 Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:35 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
Concerned wrote:
I voted yes.
We have the technology and the wherewithal to change.
- We can use solar and other alternatives like wind. Microwave technology from space would be amazing.
- We can use modern safer nuclear reactor designs as well as the breeder reactors they are working on making commercially viable.
- We can work less hours like the French do and hunter gatherers of old did.
- We can recycle and build things so that they last and not simply throw away to be replaced every 5 years.
- We can share this rich sustainable life with all mankind. e.g. nano solar is now cost competitive with coal. When it scales up it will provide clean energy for all humanity.
What can we do collectively if we stop breeding and move our military budgets to cutting edge energy technology?
You can take the pessimistic view or the optimistic view. I think humans will change in ways that will surprise people. Sure it might take a few wars, bird flu and population reduction (die off) but I can see a better world. Mind you I could also see a much worse world but you got to hope for the best, it's not like the current world situation is all peachy.
Could not agree more. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. _________________ "That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top, well I say, <censored by peakoil.com> floats"
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 572 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
jeezlouise wrote:
Oil-Finder: I think this is a BS question. Oil production will peak sooner or later (or already has) regardless of what we want. I get the feeling that what you really meant to ask was:
"Do you want to see the violent destruction of civilization within your lifetime so you can participate in it, because you are a minsanthropic doombat?"
Personally, to that, I'd have to say no. But there are plenty of non-doomers on this board who will answer your original question with a "yes" because they'd rather get whatever ill effects of the production backslide over with now, rather than put it off until the world's population is even larger and, as such, the total suffering might be greater.
Those two are not really mutually exclusive. I, myself, am somewhat of a misanthropic doombat. I rejoice that fools, great and small, will die because they can no longer use fossil fuels to defray the cost of foolishness.
I feel glee over the fact that comfortable people who, because of their social position or wealth, felt smug and superior, will soon feel mortal terror instead.
I want the stupid-heads of the world to fall shrieking into hell, while I munch my apples, nibble my shelled walnuts, snack on wild-lettuce salad, and read all the best fantasy novels.
I want to know that all the people who got the better of me in the games of office politics are now inescapably victims of a dieoff that I had wisdom enough to save myself from.
I want all the people who Were Warned, but assumed that they Knew Better, to learn--to have their minds forcibly centered on the fact--that, no, they didn't.
I desire to have the Last Laugh.
However, I also prefer a short, sharp shock of a few years to a long, drawn-out bloody drag of several decades. And I prefer a smaller dieoff sooner to a larger one later.
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:36 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
With the explosive rate of growth in population and industrialism, and the effect it's having on the environment, all of it driven by, or reliant on, heaps of cheap oil, then why wouldn't you pray every day for peak oil and an early collapse? At least this way perhaps some of the worst consequences of overshoot and global warming can be averted. The only thing worse than peak oil is no peak oil.
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
Jenab6 wrote:
I, myself, am somewhat of a misanthropic doombat. I rejoice that fools, great and small, will die because they can no longer use fossil fuels to defray the cost of foolishness.
I feel glee over the fact that comfortable people who, because of their social position or wealth, felt smug and superior, will soon feel mortal terror instead.
That is a bit simplistic view.
Certainly large number of these peoples will face total ruin, but many of them will use their wealth and influence while it is still there to invest massively in land, natural resources etc.
These will become some sort of seeds of emerging "aristocracy" of the future.
Quote:
I want to know that all the people who got the better of me in the games of office politics are now inescapably victims of a dieoff that I had wisdom enough to save myself from.
Again, read above.
Quote:
However, I also prefer a short, sharp shock of a few years to a long, drawn-out bloody drag of several decades. And I prefer a smaller dieoff sooner to a larger one later.
I agree with that view.
It would be kinder to environment.
However my gut feelings are that, at least in US, collapse will be decades long process entailing authoritarian state, following resource wars etc.
It may even proceed (but not necessary will) to global atomic war.
In any case economical collapse, hunger, disease, crime, other forms of social pathology will finish off a party at the end, but it will take time to get there.
Meantime you will enjoy Mexican life standards for a while (and Mexican "invasion" too...).
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:15 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
I thought a lot about the fallout from this poll. I think some friction arose from the fact that the poll doesn't really give people the opportunity to justify their 'yes' or 'no' choice.
People could choose 'yes' either because they want to see the human cancer purged from Gaia's flesh or because they want to re-localize community and find a workable human place in the ecological balance of the earth. Both categories of people get lumped in together with this poll.
Similarly, people who chose 'no' because they love Global Corporate Capitalism and want to keep it going get lumped in with anti-globalization types who hate trans-national corporations but still don't want to initiate a "Malthusian Correction."
-KMO _________________ Respect for the vulnerability of human beings is a necessary part of telling the truth, because no truth will be wrested from a callous vision or callous handling.
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:33 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. _________________ The whole of human history is a refutation by experiment of the concept of "moral world order". - Friedrich Nietzsche
Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
Yes, I do want peak to happen and I expect it to be horrible.
However, the longer it is pushed into the future, the more people there will be in existance - and how many additional billions will suffer then?
The sooner peak oil, resource depletion, climate chaos and all the other woes to come start the ball rolling, the sooner we will get to something similar to a sustainable life for the survivors. If it comes sooner, hopefully our planet will be not completely destroyed for the survivors who are left.
But really, it's not a fair poll. Who WANTS disaster or chaos or death and suffering? It's going to happen whether you want it to or not. My opinion matters not a whit to the planet!
Joined: Oct 17, 2007 Posts: 114 Location: New of Zealand
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
Well the first 4mths of 2008 have definitely gone the peakists way. I wonder if this whole thread would have been different had it been started now?
Personally I want peak oil to happen. Peak oil has opened my eyes to a LOT of other issues. Not just resource depletion, but political issues, environmental issues, health, consumerism, etc... And in almost all cases, the way we are heading is not good. I'm not going to go into a massive post, but when you consider, topsoil, fresh water, global warming, depression/suicide rate, cancer rate, food crisis, etc... its all pretty bleak stuff, and perhaps it would be better to rethink and start fresh.
Had you asked me this a few months, or even a year after my discovery of "finite oil", hehe, then I would have outright said no, but it has led me to find other knowledge.
This doesn't mean, however, I can advance or delay peak oil. I can't will it on, or stop it from happening. So, if they found 5 new SA's next week, then I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't deny that it would offset peak for quite some time.
I think, Oil-Finder, that you will find it hard to disuade peakists just by giving them "estimated" reserve numbers, "possible" flow rates, and "projected" production figures. The talk of building 35,000 wells for example is certaintly technically possible, but in the realms of normality its a mammoth and unlikely task. I think we just prefer to believe in what we can see. Until a field actually produces x amount its all just guesswork, and certaintly recently, its seems that things are getting worse than previously "guessed" (not just with oil).
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1140 Location: Seattle
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
s0cks wrote:
I think, Oil-Finder, that you will find it hard to disuade peakists just by giving them "estimated" reserve numbers, "possible" flow rates, and "projected" production figures . . .
Well, all that talk was kinda off-topic anyway. The real question was what people wanted to happen, regardless of more technical issues.
The results of this poll have swung toward the 'no' side of late. For a while it was mildly in favor of the 'yes' side. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:48 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
OilFinder2 wrote:
Well, all that talk was kinda off-topic anyway. The real question was what people wanted to happen, regardless of more technical issues.
The results of this poll have swung toward the 'no' side of late. For a while it was mildly in favor of the 'yes' side.
What technical issues would dissuade peakists? Especially when one of your home boys like Jeremy Bentham see's plateauing of to conventional oil around 2015.
Last edited by hironegro on Thu May 01, 2008 2:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 9:38 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
Yes, I want it to happen.
So this rat race will end and some of us can get back to what is real in life. And this corrupt government can be cleaned OUT
So all the people that live above their means and are in debt to their asses will have to pay the piper.
So all the rich jerks that think their money will save them will SOL.
So all the preps I made don't go to waste.
I'm looking forward to riding my bike to the super market and the hardware store.
I want to see some riots,,, yeah RIOTS, crackheads gettin beat down.
Everyone will be packin heat, yeah HEAT, crackheads gettin beat down
Mostly I,m sick of waiting, I don't want to be to old when all this really gets going, but I want my kids to be a little older, so 5 more years of the sham of a life we live would be good.
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:35 am Post subject: Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?
s0cks wrote:
Personally I want peak oil to happen. Peak oil has opened my eyes to a LOT of other issues. Not just resource depletion, but political issues, environmental issues, health, consumerism, etc... And in almost all cases, the way we are heading is not good. I'm not going to go into a massive post, but when you consider, topsoil, fresh water, global warming, depression/suicide rate, cancer rate, food crisis, etc... its all pretty bleak stuff, and perhaps it would be better to rethink and start fresh.
Had you asked me this a few months, or even a year after my discovery of "finite oil", hehe, then I would have outright said no, but it has led me to find other knowledge.
Very well said.
Peak Oil has forced us all to confront the most fundamental underpinnings of society as it has evolved over the past 150 years (since the discovery of oil). Peak Oil awareness has shown us that the vast majority of modern commercial society is built on an unsustainable house of cards ....... and PO awareness has revealed to us the deepseated and escalating corruption which inheres in any regime which desperately tries to cling to this unsustainable illusory existence.
The only way to rid society of its overpowering addiction to oil (with all of the negative consequences which flow from that addiction) is complete and total deprivation / abstention. Peak Oil is the only cure for this insidious addiction.
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