Oil Alternatives or Paying The Price

[Rolo]

The "The Day After Tomorrow" thread got me thinking, that the movie showed a possible hollywood doomsday future, and alot of people watching it, will start thinking what can be done to prevent this from happing. However at the same time, then we are daily showed another, prehaps more real, "doomsday" type future - the future of oil, but this future is shown to us in 15-30 sec news clips daily (giving us the current oil price), and not in a 2 hours hollywood movie, so people are probably more immun to this future?

With the growth in world population, and the higher engery consumption per capita, then the world will need more oil in the future. Mix this demand with problems in the middle east, possible lower oil production, and we might only see the price for oil going up and up...

Now the question - is the western world ready to invest in oil alternatives and engery saving (might be very expensive, and mean changes in lifestyle), or will we choose to pay the price both economic and military/security/democracy in the future (ex. having trops in the middle east, fighting groups who try to destabilize the region)?

Both options seams like massive tasks/costs, but we will have to choose one of them or prehaps a bit of both, but no matter what we choose, then our daily lives have and will be changing - not in a drastic fast way, which hollywood can put into an 2 hour action movie, but over the years, and decades to come.

What do you think the western world should do?

----

The optimist version of the problem: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/916492.stm

The pessimist version of the problem:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ (html)
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/crisis.html (flash movie - 11MB download, and 20 mins of slooow reading)

[Winetalk.com]

Oil alternative will kick Middle East in the ass,
and it's NOT the matter of IF,
it's matter of when

[SykkBoy]

There are already alternative fuel sources, namely wind and of course hydrogen

http://www.hydrogennow.org/

[fuckingmoney.com]

In the netherlands they are allready testing cars which are fueled by hydrogen, tests run well, there are some slight problems (government not really helping, no good places to fuel up the cars and really expensive.

As goes for "regular" energy, most homes in the netherlands are powered by "green" energy(windmills, etc)...

[SykkBoy]

Originally posted by fuckingmoney.com@May 30 2004, 02:36 AM
In the netherlands they are allready testing cars which are fueled by hydrogen, tests run well, there are some slight problems (government not really helping, no good places to fuel up the cars and really expensive.

As goes for "regular" energy, most homes in the netherlands are powered by "green" energy(windmills, etc)...
Yeah, I've been reading a lot about hydrogen power...the whole hindenberg thing has people paranoid, hehehe

The way I'd do it if I had a couple million $$ lying around is get with a car manufacture to private label hydrogen powered vehicles for major city markets and they put in a chain of hydrogen feuling stations in those towns....sew up both markets ;-)

[fuckingmoney.com]

What u said, that same idea was going to be effectuated in the netherlands, but our government isn't really effective, not wanting to place such fueling stations or just don't know what to do.

Its a shame though, on one hand our government says "cars need to become cleaner, diesel is bad" and on the other hand they aren't stimulating the usage of cleaner forms of energy.....

[Rolo]

Replacing oil with another source is a good idea, however todays alternatives are also expensive and ineffective compared with oil, so if we were to change from oil to alternatives, then we would need to consume less engery per capita, because we will not be able to afford as much, and still have growth in world population. Beside less fuel, then it would mean less electronics, cars, clothes, books, food etc. bascily all the things which uses energy to be produced and/or delivered. And the problem with less consumption is that it will hurt the economy, forcing business to close.

Would we be willing to lower our standard of living, or would we need to be forced?

Ofcourse humans are masters in adapting to changes, so we should not be worried about the survival chances of humankind, but civilizations thru history have always been faced with challenges threating their position of power, energy/oil is one of ours - and terrorists know this.



Last edited by Rolo at May 30 2004, 03:22 AM

[sarettah]

Since the very moment that oil was discovered to be a viable fuel resource, we have been warned that we will one day run out. Viable alternatives to oil have been available since before the discovery of petroleum as a fuel and have been successfully used. These have been as efficient as oil, many times cheaper than oil, but have not managed to change our oil guzzling habits not one iota.

As long as there is oil in the ground to be pumped, the powers that be will not make any real commitment to getting us off of our dependency for oil. They will milk the earth and the pocketbook dry before they will admit that other sources of fuel are available and are as efficient.

As far as I am concerned anymore, go ahead, pump it dry. Use up all the petroleum and the sooner, the better. Because we will not see "true" corporate support for energy alternatives until that point at which the petroleum is gone.

*******************************************
At the 1876 Centennial exposition there were more solar powered products available for sale than than are on the market today.

The Indy 500 has run successfully on alcohol as have most races for many many years.

Brazil has been running alcohol engines almost exclusively for some 30 or 40 years.

Offroaders have been using hydrogen as a fuel for over 30 years, safely and reliably.

Many small farmers run their equipment on alcohol that they can produce themselves.

The gas turbine engine (extremely energy efficient) has been multiple times termed as "unsafe" for automobiles, yet, city buses have been using it successfully for 30 or 40 years without any major "safety" incident.

Henry Ford's automobiles, through 1931, were designed to run on Alcohol or Oil. Henry Ford himself was a big advocate of alcohol as a fuel.
*************************************************

http://www.permaculture.com/alcohol/intro.htm

One enterprising automaker of the era preferred alcohol as a fuel. It was safer, cleaner, cooler burning, and being a consistent product rather than a dirty burning, variable industrial solvent/by-product, was easier to engineer for. Henry Ford opposed centralization of energy, population, industry, and political power in the cities. He envisioned a day when the industrial revolution would benefit the rural landowner and technological innovations would make his work easier and life more ideal. In short, Ford was as philosophically opposed to his contemporary, John Rockefeller, as one could be. Until 1931 Ford's automobiles, including the Model A, were designed to run on either alcohol or gasoline.7

Alcohol was killed as a fuel alternative by high taxes (designed by the temperance movement to curb the drinking of alcohol and financed by the oil industry):

But those uptight citizens found a powerful patron and benefactor in, of all people, the Rockefellers! That family donated $1.5-$4 million (the figure varies according to whose report you read) to the anti-alcohol movement. Members of the large influential Rockefeller family sat on the boards of several temperance organizations, including the Anti-Saloon League.9 10 And $1.5-$4 million went a long way in 1918.

[Winetalk.com]

Alchohol IS an alternative fuel,
no questions about it!

1) Look at the price of the cheapest booze at the store:
$4-5 a bottle for about 1/2 a gallon, and that
A ) drinking quality
B ) with all sin taxes included

2) the supply of alchohol is UNLIMITED,
US Government pays farmers NOT to grow,
just IMAGINE where would we be with supply if farmer were PAID to grow grains to distill in alchohol fuel?????

seems like the game plan of today is:
pump it all out and than BUY US produced alchohol

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Russia with vast amounts of agriculture available land are the MAJOR benefeciaries of the "doomsday future"

[Rolo]

It would be great to know, that someone in power had a gameplan, since scientist are debating, if the oil peak production will be in 2015 or 2030... if it happens in 2015, then we have very little time to waste, if 2030, then sure we can waste 5-10 years more... but at some point someone in power have to invest more than "chump change" in replacing oil.

Long term this could be one of the best things happing in the western world - local produced energy, development, replacing and updating of infrastructure - creating local jobs, making us less depended on global development, and prehaps the energy we choose would be more clean than oil.

I hope our politcians are thinking long term, but until I see somekind of a gameplan, then I´m skeptical...

[chodadog]

Originally posted by Serge_Oprano@May 30 2004, 06:07 AM
Alchohol IS an alternative fuel,
no questions about it!

1) Look at the price of the cheapest booze at the store:
$4-5 a bottle for about 1/2 a gallon, and that
A ) drinking quality
B ) with all sin taxes included

2) the supply of alchohol is UNLIMITED,
US Government pays farmers NOT to grow,
just IMAGINE where would we be with supply if farmer were PAID to grow grains to distill in alchohol fuel?????

seems like the game plan of today is:
pump it all out and than BUY US produced alchohol

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Russia with vast amounts of agriculture available land are the MAJOR benefeciaries of the "doomsday future"
Australia doesn't have vast amounts of land suitable for agriculture. It could, if the farmers weren't such stubborn and useless fucks who can't see what's going to happen next week, let alone in 30 years.