"Limits to growth" was right?

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

War, poverty/starvation, and wealth gaps are at the best they've ever been. There's never been so few wars and so little bloodshed. There's never been less starvation and the wealth gap in the world (depending on definition) has never been better.

Most of what you are describing can be attributed to access to information to let us know what's actually going on elsewhere

Yeah fair enough.

My point is more that we have the ability to put all those things on a full stop today. But our attitudes towards what we view as a good standard of living is very warped and the cost of obtaining that is getting higher and higher. When there are people living in floating huts in Cambodia while watching Netflix and texting on their iPhones, there's a very weird view of what is a necessity and what isn't. And getting access to those things is great, but we're not taking care of the actual major problems that exist.

In the same breath, people in NA living with more tvs than people, more computers than people, and more cars than people in a household while there are employed people who can barely feed themselves is also warped view of how we should be living and what we actually need vs what we want. We all need things we want in order to have joy in our lives, but what we want is really getting out of control.

Our priorities are really messed up.

[polak]

I believe the answer and cause to our priorities is "YOLO".

Trying to take in as much experience as we can.

[bysutter]

Originally Posted by kevman

Society is a ponzi scheme. Everything we do, and have done, is at the expense of a future generation. On a world scale the lives we live are unsustainable. One day the gig will be up. C'est la vie!

"Society is a Ponzi scheme"....Classic....May I use this?

[Mr.Coffee]

with respect to concerns over non-renewable energy scarcity, I don't buy we are in trouble or that we will be in trouble. i do buy that oil and gas may eventually come to an end, but economics will drive innovation and technological changes that spur cheaper energy alternatives to fill our giant energy need gaps.

If you read Peter Tzerkian's 1,000 Barrels a Second he describes just that in the intro of the book, the fact of the matter is that we used whaling and whale blubber as a key energy source for decades until whales faced extinction. Prices skyrocketed and a natural and cheaper transition was fossil fuels which were being found abundantly. It will be a similar energy change when the economics force this fate for oil and gas.

[GGG]

We have something like 200 years of coal available and people don't really look for it anymore. We have 200 years of uranium available not including what can be recycled. 50 years of oil.

So really we have at least 100 years of currently found energy reserves before really considering the renewables we need to transition to.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

We have something like 200 years of coal available and people don't really look for it anymore. We have 200 years of uranium available not including what can be recycled. 50 years of oil.

So really we have at least 100 years of currently found energy reserves before really considering the renewables we need to transition to.

And at the speed of renewables transition, I think it's quite likely they'll be able to "bend the curve" to be more economic than fossil fuels before then. The real trick will be storage, of course, and you might see some peaking natural gas power plants past most other fossil fuel use.

I believe it was a former opec boss who said, "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone, and the iron age didn't end because we ran out of iron." The point being of course that fossil fuels will be naturally replaced by something more efficient over time. I suspect it would be wise for governments to let the market figure it out, but that's only my political opinion.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by GGG

We have something like 200 years of coal available and people don't really look for it anymore. We have 200 years of uranium available not including what can be recycled. 50 years of oil.

So really we have at least 100 years of currently found energy reserves before really considering the renewables we need to transition to.

The amount that we have left is not really the main issue with fossil fuels.

Uranium is alright, but still involves large scale mining and people have a bit of an irrational fear of the word nuclear.

[burn_this_city]

Batteries have no where close to the energy density required to make a smooth transitions to renewables. I don't know how aircraft, and heavy transportation will ever make the transition. I can envision power generation and private vehicles making the jump, but there's still a lot of work to do on the bigger stuff.

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsn...8/backpage.cfm

[polak]

Originally Posted by GGG

So really we have at least 100 years of currently found energy reserves before really considering the renewables we need to transition to.

We'll kill the planet before than if we don't make some changes.

[polak]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Batteries have no where close to the energy density required to make a smooth transitions to renewables. I don't know how aircraft, and heavy transportation will ever make the transition. I can envision power generation and private vehicles making the jump, but there's still a lot of work to do on the bigger stuff.

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsn...8/backpage.cfm

Why does everything have to transition at the same time? Leave Planes and Trains running on Fossil Fuels until we get to a point where we can reliably and effectively store renewable energy. We can start taking steps else where though.

Automobiles. Lets start with that as we already have cars that can replace daily city driving and I'm sure long distance driving will get there soon.

That alone will account for quite a bit of the damage we cause.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by polak

Why does everything have to transition at the same time? Leave Planes and Trains running on Fossil Fuels until we get to a point where we can reliably and effectively store renewable energy. We can start taking steps else where though.

Automobiles. Lets start with that as we already have cars that can replace daily city driving and I'm sure long distance driving will get there soon.

That alone will account for quite a bit of the damage we cause.

Never said it needed to be at the same time. Just think the magnitude of the challenge is greater than people realize.



Less than 50% of our oil consuption could hypothetically be reduced if you could eliminate gasoline vehicles.

[polak]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Never said it needed to be at the same time. Just think the magnitude of the challenge is greater than people realize.



Less than 50% of our oil consuption could hypothetically be reduced if you could eliminate gasoline vehicles.

Nothing wrong with using Oil for lubricants and the like. We just need to stop burning it like it's going out of style.

[FlamesAddiction]

I think it's species arrogance to assume that we can keep advancing our technology in order to keep increasing the carrying capacity of the planet, whether it is for energy or food needs.

Unless of course, that technology includes ways to drastically reduce our populations.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I think it's species arrogance to assume that we can keep advancing our technology in order to keep increasing the carrying capacity of the planet, whether it is for energy or food needs.

Unless of course, that technology includes ways to drastically reduce our populations.

Why is that exactly? That's what has continued to happen since the beginning of time, and its not like we're anywhere close to using the amount of energy that is input into the system by the sun.

Although, the doomsayers will eventually be right. The sun will burn out and the planet won't be sustainable any more. Personally, I'm not going to worry about that.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Almost 50% of our oil consuption could hypothetically be reduced if you could eliminate gasoline vehicles.

FYP How is 50% not substantial?

If it can be transitioned into personal power consumption as well that takes another good chunk out of it. That "Less than 50%" also doesn't include diesel fuel and heating oil, both of which could potentially be substituted and your looking at cutting back closer to 2/3.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by MattyC

FYP How is 50% not substantial?

It's very substantial; the problem though to electrify transportation is now you'll need 60%-100% more electricity generation and hundreds of millions of batteries with several TWh of total storage.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by accord1999

It's very substantial; the problem though to electrify transportation is now you'll need 60%-100% more electricity generation and hundreds of millions of batteries with several TWh of total storage.

Yes, this is assuming a clean energy solution. Which, while burn_this_city is "not convinced any of the alternatives will be sufficient" (even though more energy from the Sun hits the Earth per day than we have used ever), we could already have with the current (abhorrently underfunded and under researched) green technologies.

http://www.ted.com/talks/debate_does...gy?language=en

This is a debate of Renewables vs Nuclear. Mark Z. Jacobson argues that if all renewables were implemented properly, as tech exists today, they could supply what we currently use.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by MattyC

FYP How is 50% not substantial?

If it can be transitioned into personal power consumption as well that takes another good chunk out of it. That "Less than 50%" also doesn't include diesel fuel and heating oil, both of which could potentially be substituted and your looking at cutting back closer to 2/3.

Where did I say it wasn't substantial? Diesel is primarily a transportation fuel, I don't think we're able to realistically slash its use.

You still end up needing 35-40 million barrels a day for everything else in the pie chart if you eliminate gasoline and heating oil.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Where did I say it wasn't substantial? Diesel is primarily a transportation fuel, I don't think we're able to realistically slash its use.

You still end up needing 35-40 million barrels a day for everything else in the pie chart if you eliminate gasoline and heating oil.

Your comment of "Less than 50% would be reduced" implies that it's not all that great or even maybe not worth the effort. It sounded Ho-Hum to me. Apologies if taken wrong.

I agree that your still needing oil for the other 50-30%, and I can't really comment on what types of alternatives there are for that side of things as I honestly don't know. It's just this attitude that "well, we'll still need it" or "it probably won't be enough" really irks me to the core as it implies it's not worth trying. It absolutely IS worth trying. And the more effort, knowledge and money that get's put into alternative fuel sources, the more likely we are to come up with solutions to the other half of the chart. But there seems to be a lot of will against doing this, which I just can't understand.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Your comment of "Less than 50% would be reduced" implies that it's not all that great or even maybe not worth the effort. It sounded Ho-Hum to me. Apologies if taken wrong.

I agree that your still needing oil for the other 50-30%, and I can't really comment on what types of alternatives there are for that side of things as I honestly don't know. It's just this attitude that "well, we'll still need it" or "it probably won't be enough" really irks me to the core as it implies it's not worth trying. It absolutely IS worth trying. And the more effort, knowledge and money that get's put into alternative fuel sources, the more likely we are to come up with solutions to the other half of the chart. But there seems to be a lot of will against doing this, which I just can't understand.

Just injecting some realism to the conversation. The oversimplification of a complex energy problem is annoying. This isn't an easy problem to solve, and in the context of GHG emissions or continuous economic growth it becomes even more concerning.

If we need to stop burning fossil fuels ASAP to avoid catastrophe, our lifestyles will need to change drastically. Too many people think this is just a switch we flip and that there isn't a series of tradeoffs involved.