Re: Supposing Some of the 5 Billion Object?

Great - a "fossil fuel" discussion on sci.physics.fusion,

First off - _Oil Is Not_ a Fossil Fuel. Get this out of your thought process. Coal *is* a fossil fuel, oil and natural gas are *NOT* fossil fuels.

Oil is made in subduction zones (tectonics) where limestone/iron minerals/and water are compressed at high temperatures. Natural Gas is constantly colloidally forming and sedimenting itself out of seawater in deep sea environments - and enough methane-hydrides are built up as ices just under the silt of the continental shelves to give humans a very clean energy source for 500 or more years (depending on how we control our population and manage the rest of Earth's life systems..)j

Actually, the more of us there are - the greater the probability that fewer of us will survive any global event that causes the collapse of the agricultural infrastructure (built on oil) that keeps us all fed (mostly with crap)..

I just saw "War of the Worlds" tonight - maybe we *are* just a stockyard of life chemistry for an advanced race breeding "penicillin in a Petri dish"..

The greater threat is that the Javanese super-volcano' is quickly nearing eruption.

Thanks,

Rick



Ali.Hass. wrote: 
"Bob Eldred" <nsmontassoc@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ETXxe.38635$J12.34388@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Bret Cahill" <BretCahill@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Found this on alt.environment.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Oil and People


First published July 2005; article no. 573


The population of the World expanded six-fold in parallel with oil
production during the First Half of the Age of Oil. William Stanton,
author of The Rapid Growth of Human Population 1750-2000, contributes
the following analysis of how population will have to return to pre-Oil
Age levels. Let us hope that it does not come to this, but the options
explained do have a certain chilling logic.


Reducing Population in step with Oil Depletion


Recent articles in the ASPO Newsletter have agreed that the explosion
of world population from about 0.6 billion in 1750 to 6.4 billion today
was initiated and sustained by the shift from renewable energy to
fossil fuel energy in the Industrial Revolution. There is agreement
that the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves will reverse
the process, though there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable
global population would be.


In this time of energy abundance, and the complacency it engenders, the
vast majority of the general public assumes that what the future holds
is "more of the same". They argue, if pushed, that the expertise
inherited by post-fossil-fuel scientists and engineers will allow a
smooth transition into a new kind of energy-rich world in which
renewable generators will produce as much energy as fossil fuels do
now. Such a view is untenable because it ignores the fact that almost
all materials essential to modern civilization will be orders of
magnitude more costly, and scarce, when they have to be produced using
renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.


In 2150, for example, a wind turbine constructed of steel, concrete and
plastic may not be able to generate, during its lifetime, as much
renewable energy as would have been used up in creating it. Imagine
mining, refining and smelting the metal ores, quarrying and
transporting the rock, growing the biomass; fabricating the component
parts, and erecting and maintaining the structure, using only the
trickle of electricity produced by another similar turbine. Vast
engineering projects such as constructing the first Airbus A380
airliner (Bowie 2005), using only renewable energy from start to
finish, would be unthinkable (to say nothing of flying the plane
without oil!).


If, in this article, I discuss ways in which a global population
reduction of some 6 billion people is likely to take place during the
21st Century


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Cheney nuking anyone who gets between Halliburton and any remaining oil
fields should take care of a lot of 'em.


Bret Cahill 

I don't buy it. It's true that the population has increased dramatically
during that period and continues to increase world wide today. But, the
driving engine has been technology not energy. Technology allowed much
greater food production and food transportation fueling the population
increase. Energy use and development is a result of technology not the


other

way around. We did not get technology because we had energy, we developed
energy sources because we advanced technology. Without technology there
would have been no fossil fuel development. It is now technology that will
take us out of the petroleum age just as it took us out of the "wood" age


in

the late 19th century. In this very group are discussions of ITER fusion
research project and there are recent articles on methane hydrates,


renewed

interest in fission reactors, plus solar and wind plants. Bio-fuels are
beginning to be sold and most of the gasoline used in the US contains 10%


or

more ethanol. So we are coming to the end of the petroleum age and it is
technology that is the engine behind it making it possible.

The fact that the earths population is way too large to be sustained over
the long run is another issue. The large population is made possible by
technology and energy but technology and available energy did not cause


it.

In fact, the most technological societies that use the most energy have
actually reduced or controlled their populations in recent times. The
population increases are out of control where technology is primitve and
where energy use is low by comparison. These primitive societies are
vulnerable to a population crash by starvation disease, famine and other
factors. The fact that we are coming out of the petroleum age has little


to

do with it.
Bob



This article has shades of "Soylent Green". No need for those colourful
biccies!
We may be running out of oil, but it's quite simple to produce alcohol and
run fuel cells on it. Even the dregs of oil that's left after depletion
will, in a sufficiently pure form, work in a fuel cell. That will give you
much more efficient energy conversion than the ICE.
Everyone is discussing hydrogen, but it's expensive to make, hard to store,
dangerous to carry and I really think that alcohol is the answer. It's easy
to produce and safe to carry.
I've never understood the interest corporations have in hydrogen. All that
will do, in the absence of nuclear power generation, is to move the
pollution from the car to the power station.

Ali.




.

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