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3) ... There's still plenty of time to conquer space

Sadly I baulked at No3. There are those who suggest that the opportunity window is somewhat smaller that suggested by the GP.

The problem is available funds: Picture, if you will, the World in 1000 years time. The (human) population has continued to grow unabated (because numpties get all bent out of shape when people suggest we should be talking about Population Control - they think we are advocating euthanasia or something! Sheeez, we just think we should be talking about it!) and it takes all the World's money to feed the people.

So, the World is now running out of space (to grow food, amongst other things) and we look wistfully skywards towards the untapped potential of other worlds but can no longer afford to explore them without making the decision to stop feeding some of the people, and as everyone knows, that can be a real downer to the voters and you probably won't get (re-)elected!

So, all you clever people out there, what's the best guess on when the GWP (Gross World Product) will be only just sufficient to feed everyone? If we're not off this rock by then it will become very difficult, politically, to find the will to start exploring! If we at least start now we're ahead of the game and hopefully we can already have at least some off-world colony(ies) to play with before we start getting hungry!

... and, lest we forget, religion seems to be doing its best to make this problem worse rather than better (though I guess it could be argued that assisting the spread of AIDS is maybe their idea of the long game)!

3) ... There's still plenty of time to conquer space

Sadly I baulked at No3. There are those who suggest that the opportunity window is somewhat smaller that suggested by the GP.

The problem is available funds: Picture, if you will, the World in 1000 years time. The (human) population has continued to grow unabated (because numpties get all bent out of shape when people suggest we should be talking about Population Control - they think we are advocating euthanasia or something! Sheeez, we just think we should be talking about it!) and it takes all the World's money to feed the people.

So, the World is now running out of space (to grow food, amongst other things) and we look wistfully skywards towards the untapped potential of other worlds but can no longer afford to explore them without making the decision to stop feeding some of the people, and as everyone knows, that can be a real downer to the voters and you probably won't get (re-)elected!

So, all you clever people out there, what's the best guess on when the GWP (Gross World Product) will be only just sufficient to feed everyone? If we're not off this rock by then it will become very difficult, politically, to find the will to start exploring! If we at least start now we're ahead of the game and hopefully we can already have at least some off-world colony(ies) to play with before we start getting hungry!

... and, lest we forget, religion seems to be doing its best to make this problem worse rather than better (though I guess it could be argued that assisting the spread of AIDS is maybe their idea of the long game)!

actually, no. Check the math.

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/optjournal/opt.af.hydrogen.journal03oct.pdf

it takes 2.3L of H2 to have the same energy equivalent of 1L of gasoline. ...and that's in a fuel cell, which is more efficient than an ICE burning H2.

Mile per litre only matters when you actually compare it to gaoline power in an equivalent vehicle.

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/optjournal/opt.af.hydrogen.journal03oct.pdf

The math simply isn't there. 2.3L of H2, even using our best portable fuel cells to equal 1L of gasoline. Complicate that with storage costs, refrigeration, transdportation issues (how do you pipeline something that needs to be kept as under -240 celcius or at over 930 ATMOSPHERES of pressure?) and then there's the whole "driving around in a bomb" thing... not to mention dealing with trapped H2 gas in the ceilings of parking garrages, your home garrage, and other places it collects and explodes in. H2 is simply NEVER going to be an acceptible fuel for humans except possibly for running giant scale fuel calls at sites where H2 can be produced and stored on-site.

If the math was better, if we could make and store H2 for say 10% of the costs of using gasoline, then it might be worth the costs and risks to build the rest of the infrastructure, but here's another tidbit: Filling a fuel cell vehicle tank with enough liquid H2 to travel 200 miles TAKES 4-6 HOURS! (unless you're talking running a full refrigeration system in your car, and keeping the feul liquid by temperature instead of by pressure).

Well, we can't keep using gas, can we? Actually, yes... See the research from dotyenergy.com. The problem is we're using gas from OIL. This is CO2 that ISN'T in our atmosphere yet. If we could use CO2 from EXISTING sources (sequesterd CO2), and run that through an RWGS/RFTS process (in use since WWII), we can use wind energy to MAKE fule, clean, cheap, safe, fule that adds no ADDITIONAL Co2 to the atmosphere. This CAN be done for about $60-80/bbl depending on the local market. It can be made right here in your own town, the process is so safe it barely even ping on the EPAs radar (about as polluting as your local corner gas station, except a plant makes anough fuel to support about 10,000 drivers), and we could have it TODAY! (this is all proven science, not pipe dreams).

Doty has figured out how to simply put all the pieces together. Actually, he did that 20 years ago, and then spent the next years figuring out how to make each piece of that puzzle more symbiotic to other pieces, how to make those pieces more effieint, and in the end got 60 World patents issued for the technology.

All they need not is a measly $5m to build a true scale plant (instead of a lab experiment), to actually prove to the world on a large scale that the number do in fact refelct the science we've been using for 50 years... simple.

After that, anyone can buy a fuel plant (150-250m), hook it up to a small wind farm, (175MW or so), and make tens of thousands of gallons of fuel a day. Big Oil can't have a monopoly. We don't have to import fuel. It;s cleaner fuel (no sulfers or other contaminants, since we're starting with only H2, CO2, and H20.

This is a dream process. But, since it;s not a BIO-fuel; since it uses H2, but NOT as a fuel source itself; since it USES wind, but doesn't develop wind energy; since it makes gasoline, not an alternative fuel (actually, it makes ethanol, propanol, methanol, and a bunch of other hydrocarbons, which are seperated and used for multiple industries); since it's not a hybrid car technology; they don't qualify for a single current government program to help fun their first small scale plant. they need investors... (or pressure on the government to give them a grant).

Read their research (you can buy a copy of ALL of it for about $100, not $5,000 like other charge, and it's the COMPLETE process and design made public...).

I am NOT an investor, nor am I copmpensated in any way by Doty or any affiliates... I simply want this technology to see the light of day. They've asked experts to scrutinize it, and noe have found errors. They've got 60+ patents on technological improvements to this OLD and PROVEN process. This IS real, they just need money...

All well and good they can make a car made of paper and spit go that far, the simple facts remain however, if they can do that with compressed liquid H2, they can do nearly the same on refined gasoline.

In fact:
"Looking at the overall energy transformation, it would take 9.14 kWh of
electricity, = 32.9 MJ of electricity, to produce hydrogen with the same motive
energy as 1 litre of gasoline (which has an energy density of about 33.5 MJ/litre).
This almost equal requirement for energy is a viable proposition when renewable
energy can be generated directly as electricity from renewable sources, as in
Iceland, but generating the electricity from fossil fuels would call for the use of
about 32.9 / 0.33 = 99.7 MJ of fossil fuel energy, about three times the energy in
gasoline, and that would be prohibitive both in consumption of fossil fuels and
emissions of carbon dioxide."

The source: http://www.optimumpopulation.org/optjournal/opt.af.hydrogen.journal03oct.pdf is an older article from 2003 (and an eye opening read on a bunch of bunk our govenrments have been dumping money into), but lets say it's clear that advances in electrolysis since then have been non-existant. Actually, the issue isn't so much making the H2, but in making it LIQUID H2. (getting it to -253 celcius, as doing so is actually more efficient than compressing it to 930 atmospheres of pressure to do it at -50 celcius)

Granted, if we could make H2 exclusively from 100% renewable energy (Wind, which is more plentiful, more reliable, and far cheaper currently than solar or i would suggest solar), we might be able to use H2, but then we have several issues. 1) storage (it leaks through even the best tanks made), 2) transport (build me a pipeline that can handle 930atmospheres, i dare you!, you'll need trucks, lots of trucks, and 2.3x the equivalaent storage of gasoline minus bleed losses), 3) danger: you're not driving A BOMB!, 4) redesign all garrages and parking structures (H2 rises, and would collect in the ceilings, and eventually combust causing ground shaking explosions unless we can let it vent completely away), 5) filling time: since liquid H2 can't just "flow" like gas, and since your tank is at 930atm and room temperature, it needs to fill SLOWLY to avoid generating massive amounts of heat during filling, about 8 hours or so for enough H2 to go 200 miles.... 6) again, storage: LOTS of energy is needed to keep large tanks cols (since the bigger the tank, the more difficult to keep massive pressures).

Lets try another way: www.dotyenergy.com.
Instead of making H2, then compressing it into liquid, and dealing with all the logistics issues and dangerous problems noted above, we'll leave it as a gas. However, instead of using it as a fuel itself, and dealing with storage and transport, we'll simply pipe it from the electrolysis chamber directly into an RWGS/RFTS engine, with some small amount of water, and a bunch of CO2 waste sequestered from a coal plant. Now, we end up with this formula: H20 + energy = H2 + 02 (we sell the O2 to hospitals). CO2 + energy = CO + O2 (again, sell the O2). H2 + CO + energy = Fuel!

Sound impossible? Well, we were already DOING THIS in WWII to make diesel fuel where we could not bring it to the troops. Doty Energy has augmented the process, redesigned the RWGS process to make it more efficient, and has been issued over 60 patents on processes that greatly improve the energy needed to operate the system. Combining pieces of various proven scientefic processes together opened doors, allowed sybiotic use of energy and waste, and when powered by wind, (especially off-peak wind that the power company is literally GIVING away, and in some markets PAYING people to use) we can essentially make fuel at between $60 and $80 per barrel depending on the market. This is 100% clean, contaminant free fuel in any grade you like (from lubricants and oils, to high powered jet fuel

http://www.maropeng.co.za/index.php/exhibition_guide/footprint/ implies we use 'around' 2.2 hectares per person for the typical American lifestyle. (Other sources quote number as

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_b/mod09/uncom09t05bod.htm has the mean as 1.8 hectares per person available.

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.md.suspop.13Dec07.pdf - is a bit more of a scientific analysis, on a related point, but isn't looking at quite the same thing - conclusion is approximately the same though - the world cannot support the current population at the top level of lifestyle.

This may not be quite what I said, but ... distribution isn't the _only_ problem we (and by 'we' I mean, those who aren't currently enjoying the rather nice lifestyles) face.

I'll troll for better sources when I finish work, as I'm fairly sure I've seen this question before (and it'd be nice to have sources on hand)

Sorry, the format messed up, just see the table in the link http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.more.migratio n.uk.html

From http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.more.migratio n.uk.html (From what I have heard the immigration since 2003 has increased greatly because of the new Eastern European EU countries) 2003 512,600 361,500 151,000 2002 512,800 359,400 153,400 2001 479,600 307,700 171,800 2000 483,400 320,700 162,800 1999 453,800 290,800 163,000 1998 390,300 251,500 138,800 1997 326,100 279,200 46,800 1996 317,800 263,700 54,100 1995 311,900 236,500 75,400 1994 314,400 237,600 76,800 1991 328,000 285,000 43,000 1986 250,000 213,000 37,000 1981 153,000 233,000 -79,000 1976 191,000 210,000 -19,000 1971 200,000 240,000 -40,000

>It has tonnes of cars, tonnes of bad drivers (not as many as the US though, our driving test is a bit more advanced) and lots of accidents.

That's true. A BBC World News reporter took a test in Montana and reported how laughably easy the test was. He passed with flying colours.

Funny, though, that he later took an Ontario, Canada driving test and failed miserably. I'm not certain which test he was given, as there are two separate driving tests in Ontario that need to be passed to have a full license.

Some interesting stats:

7.3 per 100,000 Ontarians die in accidents (2002).
14.93 per 100,000 Americans die in accidents (2002).
5.78 per 100,000 Britons die in accidents (2002).

Compiled by combining info from this and this. I'd just get the per 100,000 population count from the UK website but it's particularly pathetically designed, requiring over 6 links just to get to a single stat that's pointlessly in PDF.

It's just interesting that the increasing the difficulty level of a test not only follows the laws of diminishing returns, but also, apparently, can cause an increase in accidents as the difficulty level increases past a certain point.