[lit-ideas] Re: Fossil Fuel Depletion: doomsday
- From: Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:26:53 -0700 (PDT)
That's why the media doesn't ever mention it, at all, because it will be poo
poo'd exactly like you're doing. Just wondering, Lawrence, how do you explain
$108 a barrel for oil? It was about $60 a year ago. There are no political
shocks today like in the 70's.
Oil is predicted to be at $200 a barrel by the end of the year. Gasoline
today in the UK is equivalent to $378 a barrel ($9.00 a gallon) and there's no
slow down in demand at all. These prices are here to stay.
Oil billionaire T.Boone Pickens say the world has peaked. Why do you think
he thinks that? The U.S. peaked around 1972. That is not disputed. The Mayan
thing is nonsense. Just coincidence.
Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I watched one of Irene?s doom-and-gloom fossil fuel depletion
programs on the History or Discovery channel. Two or three doom-and-gloom
authors were being interviewed while their views were being dramatized.
Someone had done an animation of Saudi Arabia?s oil fields being blown up by
terrorists for example. I didn?t take any notes and don?t recall the authors?
names since a little doom-and-gloom goes a long way with me. Right before I
turned it off they began talking about possible solutions ? so I continued
watching. Brazil?s ethanol solution was mentioned but one of the authors ruled
that out because the processing was dirty, i.e., not environmentally friendly.
Still, ethanol is being explored. One company or agency is trying to get the
production cost down to $2.00 a gallon. At present they can produce it for
$3.50 a gallon; which could be competitive if the cost of gas keeps going up.
One of the authors said that fossil fuel will last for about 100 years but
that won?t help us because the demand will exceed the supply by 2012. We need
to do something by then. That year, another program recently told us, is the
Mayan date for the end of the world.
The hybrids sound pretty good. Batteries will take you 40 mines before your
gasoline engine will have to kick in. Thus, if you worked only 20 miles away,
you could go back and forth and never have to use any gas, but one of the
authors says that won?t really solve the problem because we don?t have enough
electricity to charge all those batteries. Wind and solar power supply only 1%
of our need. Nuclear power supplies another 25%. That leaves 74% to be
supplied by coal which is harmful to the environment.
One of the doom-and-gloom authors predicted that war might very well ensue
over competition for the remaining oil. China and India are going to need more
and more and the U.S. isn?t going to be willing to take less. Wars have been
fought for lesser reasons than that, the author tells us. The animators
depicted ships, supertankers perhaps, being blown up by airplanes.
One of the authors said we need to find more and more oil just so we can stay
in the same place ? and we are finding it. New technology is giving us access
to oil that was inaccessible a few years ago. But this new oil we are finding
won?t keep up with demand. Doomsday is coming in 2012.
Shoot, that?s only four years away. I?ll be 77 and may not have the energy
(so to speak) to handle another doomsday. The first one I remember was when I
was 13. My mother listened to Dr. Clem Davies on the Radio and he predicted
doomsday was a particular Saturday; so before it arrived, I cashed in my
paper-route savings, bought some doomsday-type equipment like a canteen and a
BB gun, made up a sack full of peanut-butter sandwiches and went out to my fort
(made of old 2x4s and cardboard) between the garages and waited. I talked a
buddy into waiting with me. But about dinner time he got hungry for more than
peanut butter and deserted me.
Another doomsday I prepared for occurred in the 60s. It was only a matter of
a few years before we were going to fun out of fossil fuel and I figured I
needed to figure out a way to keep feeding my family. I was already able to
keep our freezer filled with fish, but maybe I needed to expand my fishing
range. No point in buying a boat needing a gas engine since those wouldn?t be
around very long; so I bought a sail boat and learned to sail. I used it as a
diving platform. I would sail it out and anchor and then free-dive for fish.
But then time passed. My kids grew up, I got a divorce. I sold my boat and
got a larger one. My wife got sick and couldn?t go sailing. I didn?t like
sailing by myself; so I sold my other boat and moved out here to San Jacinto
when I retired.
But I get ahead of myself. About 1979 my second wife and I had been married
a couple of years and there was a ?gas crunch.? Gas became scarce and we, when
we got married, both drove Ford Pintos. Actually I didn?t pick the Pinto out,
I hasten to add. My first wife did and I somehow ended up with it after the
divorce, she taking the car I picked out. Anyway, we sold one of the Pintos
and got a very economical motorcycle which got 80 miles to the gallon. We
drove back and forth down between the lanes of the San Diego Freeway, between
the drivers who were not as concerned about Fossil Fuel Depletion as we were.
But then we got tired of riding that uncomfortable motorcycle and traded it in
on one that got only 60 miles to the gallon but was a bit more comfortable.
Eventually for one that got 45 miles to the gallon. Not too many people
thought I was being environmentally friendly in those days. My fellow workers
accused me of having a death wish. The life of an
environmentally friendly engineer is never easy. I drove my motorcycle until
I retired. Now I have a Jeep that is supposed to get 17 miles to the gallon
but I don?t think it does that well. But that?s okay since I don?t drive it
back and forth to work. I?ve only put 23,500 miles on it since I bought it in
2002. But I can be alarmed again, I suppose. When my Jeep wears out, if it
ever does, I could be talked into a hybrid if they made one with four wheel
drive. I take my Jeep into some rugged areas, park it, and let my dogs run
loose.
Wait a minute, some suspicious doom-and-gloomer will say. Are you saying we
have nothing to worry about? No, Irene. I?m not saying that. We have to
worry. We can?t help it. It is our nature to worry about the future. But
some of the ?solutions? mentioned in last night?s program sounded pretty good,
and we have the technology now. The authors dismissed them because they were
?dirty,? that is they were harmful to the environment, but some people were
working on making them less dirty. If we can get batteries to take us 100
miles, we could use even less oil. If we built a few more nuclear powerplants,
which the authors conceded were not harmful to the environment we could get all
the electricity we needed to keep our battery-powered cars rolling along. Can
we do all that by 2012? Maybe not, but maybe the Mayans were wrong.
Lawrence Helm
Assuming a posture like Rodin?s statue
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