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Bill Gates is a megalomaniac and probably insane (advocating mass murder).

Besides the occasional disaster, man made or otherwise, there will always be organized warfare. If we seen anything, these plants are fragile, easy to destroy targets.

The amount of radionuclides stored in each of these nuclear power plants is enough to make even the largest nuclear weapons ever built look like pop-guns. Once the contents are spread thoughout the country side it will be many centuries before a long lived mammals (like humans) can repopulate the affected region.

Oh, the rich have a plan in case of another World War. They will all fly down to Southern hemisphere, while anything larger than a house cat left behind in the Northern Hemisphere will suffer horrible, unspeakable, ugly deaths, and deformities.

Some important references and obscure but very important observations/calculations you may have missed.

Fukushima: Prestigious doctor: US nuclear 'Baby valley of death,' Millions to die

Bioconstration of radioactive I-131 in thyriod gland

Relative radioactivity of Cs-137 verses natural potassium (K-39, K-40, K-41)

Let's not forget.. LFTR, or Thorium only reactors don't exist, nor will they ever exist.

Bill Gates is a megalomaniac and probably insane (advocating mas murder).

Besides the occasional disaster, man made or otherwise, there will always be organized warfare. If we seen anything, these plants are fragile, easy destroy targets.

The amount of radionuclides stored in each of these nuclear power plants is enough to make even the largest nuclear weapons ever built look like pop-guns. Once the contents are spread thoughout the country side it will be many centuries before a long lived mammals (like humans) can repopulate the affected region.

Oh, the rich have a plan in case of another World War. They will all fly down to Southern hemisphere, while anything larger than a house cat left behind in the Northern Hemisphere will suffer horrible, unspeakable, ugly deaths, and deformities.

Some important references and obscure but very important observations/calculations you may have missed.

Fukushima: Prestigious doctor: US nuclear 'Baby valley of death,' Millions to die

Bioconstration of radioactive I-131 in thyriod gland

Relative radioactivity of Cs-137 verses natural potassium (K-39, K-40, K-41)

Let's not forget.. LFTR, or Thorium only reactors don't exist, nor will they ever exist.

Bill Gates is a megalomaniac and probably insane (advocating mas murder).

Besides the occasional disaster, man made or otherwise, there will always be organized warfare. If we seen anything, these plants are fragile, easy destroy targets.

The amount of radionuclides stored in each of these nuclear power plants is enough to make even the largest nuclear weapons ever built look like pop-guns. Once the contents are spread thoughout the country side it will be many centuries before a long lived mammals (like humans) can repopulate the affected region.

Oh, the rich have a plan in case of another World War. They will all fly down to Southern hemisphere, while anything larger than a house cat left behind in the Northern Hemisphere will suffer horrible, unspeakable, ugly deaths, and deformities.

Some important references and obscure but very important observations/calculations you may have missed.

Fukushima: Prestigious doctor: US nuclear 'Baby valley of death,' Millions to die

Bioconstration of radioactive I-131 in thyriod gland

Relative radioactivity of Cs-137 verses natural potassium (K-39, K-40, K-41)

Let's not forget.. LFTR, or Thorium only reactors don't exist, nor will they ever exist.

Here is the base problem: It's not that everything else is too expensive, it's that fossil fuels are too cheap. Too cheap in the long run. We've had a something like 100 year run on FF and we're going to run out of cheap versions of it (the Peak Oil concept). We're too stupid and spoiled as a culture to really put the money down for the next base power technology so we're going to run up the credit card now and really have to change our minds on how we live in the not so distant future.

There is plenty of power around. We waste a perfectly enormous amounts of it and we know how not to, but it's not easy changing the way that billions of people do things.

So the invisible hand will slap the ever living crap out of us in about 50-60 years. Our grandkids will wake up with one hella hangover.

You might want to read through these articles: http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/michael_dittmar

I strongly suspect that projects like interstellar colonization and Dyson spheres are theoretically possible, but that so far no intelligent species has ever managed it. It seems the simplest explanation by far. My theory is that advanced civilizations only last for a few centuries before they run out of metals. Or at least, that this is what will happen here on earth. See what you think: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3451

It's possible that the answer to Fermi's Paradox is a depressing one...

So?

Solar power in Germany is even more prohibitively expensive. Yet it received great subsidies and a lot of praise: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7053

In short, it doesn't: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6638

CO2 load is lessened by about 2 times, but leaked CH4 more than compensates for it.

You won't get any greenhouse gas emissions using natural gas. CH4 is about twice as effective as carbon per mole of emitted CO2.

However, the problem is in methane leaks. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 and just about 2% of leaking CH4 will negate all the benefits of natural gas.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6638

So in practice a switch from nuclear to natural gas will increase global warming emissions.

apparently you think resources are infinite. good luck with that.

all the easily accessible, cheap energy has been found. most of that has already been consumed. the rest is slow to access and requires an increasing amount of energy to extract. some of it will never be practical to extract. who cares if there's energy someplace if it takes more energy and resources to extract than it provides?

look at the geometric growth of both population and oil consumption over the past 100 years. is that growth sustainable? we need only look at the correlation between Egypt's uprising and its transition from net oil exporter to importer just to cover domestic demand.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7425

at some point even if the entire earth were comprised of oil we will have burned through it all.

is it reasonable to argue that peak oil is a bit further out than now? sure. but you seem to be arguing that oil/gas/coal are infinite in supply.

you also neglect the incentive our leaders have to lie to us and give us reassurances that there are tons of reserves out there to maintain social order. e.g. recently released US diplomatic cables from the wikileaks trove rather dispute your assertions regarding reserves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks

Once the oil price tends towards infinity there won't be anything left but green farming.
Just have a look at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7767.

if we just stopped building coal plants and build nuclear instead, we would have significantly less pollution in ~10 years.

the pollution from nukes is still there, it's just been transferred to a generation sufficiently removed from the present. (unless something goes wrong, but that probably won't happen ever again;)

The greatest thing about nuke plants is that power stays centralized and certain people make a ton of cash. The EROEI, the measure of most interest, nukes aren't all that. I've read other assessments stating it is closer to 5:1.

The biggest problem facing humankind is the belief that unlimited growth is possible...and desirable.

But the latter will help not at all: more energy will be made available and will be used for other (granted hopefully more productive) purposes.

This is assuming business-as-usual economic growth and population growth, I'm not sure we can expect that this century because energy prices are going to go up.

But the reason you cannot magically build wind turbines is that for mere legal reasons, you will have delays of 2-4 years depending on where you want to build them. Then you need to update your grid, which is a massive undertaking. And in the end you need to provide for the baseline. And take into account that electricity consumption will explode with the coming of electric cars.

Legal reasons depend on a government's priorities so that may change rapidly. Denmark doesn't seem to have such "legal reasons" problems. Updating of the grid is a smart long-term investment anyway so "it is a massive undertaking" is no excuse. A "smart" and decentralized grid is probably also much more disaster- and terrorism- proof, but it removes a chokepoint of power by central government over provincial governments, which could be a political problem in certain countries.
The baseline is a very important problem, but note that the demand side is not evenly-balanced during the day either and somehow that is accounted for without problems. It would just mean that the difference between "peaks" and "troughs" becomes even more pronounced, so more storage is necessary. What kind of storage I don't know, hydro storage is inefficient and you need suitable geography for it, but ideas like cooling frozen food warehouses extra during off-peak hours seem easy enough to implement.
I think we don't have the luxury to wait to do all those large infrastructural investments. One idea I had (I think I must have read it on the theoildrum.com but maybe it's an original idea :-) ) is that, assuming you want to build say a wind turbine, you can do it two ways: build it now, or build it later.
Many people say building it later is better because we'll have better technology. But what about the energy used to build the turbine. It needs a lot of steel for the pylon. All that steel can be either melted now, using today's cheap energy, or "in 50 years" as you say. But assuming population growth continues, the "in 50 years" energy price to build the pylons is much higher than now, so they should start building *right now*.
Renewables are more expensive than fossil fuel (coal) plants which is another reason to build those pylons with cheap fossil fuel energy rather than "in 50 years" with expensive wind energy.
Also, because Peak Oil is coming (maybe it has passed in 2005), many processes that are currently dependent on cheap petroleum products will have to be switched over to fossil-fuel-independent technology because the future more expensive petroleum is needed for airplane kerosene and for the chemical industry (plastic). It is possible this would mean that electricity is used more for e.g. electric cars, which would also drive the price of electricity up "in 50 years".
It may be hideously expensive to switch over to renewables now, but that doesn't imply at all that energy is going to become any cheaper in the future, or at least until after the ITER and DEMO fusion reactors are successful (if we're lucky).
I've seen many posts that talk about energy "needs". But reality doesn't care about our "needs". There's a Dutch saying "de tering naar de nering zetten" which means: you adapt your consumption behaviour to what you can afford. I think most people on our world understand this but maybe the "rich West" has forgotten it in the past 50 years.

But the latter will help not at all: more energy will be made available and will be used for other (granted hopefully more productive) purposes.

This is assuming business-as-usual economic growth and population growth, I'm not sure we can expect that this century because energy prices are going to go up.

But the reason you cannot magically build wind turbines is that for mere legal reasons, you will have delays of 2-4 years depending on where you want to build them. Then you need to update your grid, which is a massive undertaking. And in the end you need to provide for the baseline. And take into account that electricity consumption will explode with the coming of electric cars.

Legal reasons depend on a government's priorities so that may change rapidly. Denmark doesn't seem to have such "legal reasons" problems. Updating of the grid is a smart long-term investment anyway so "it is a massive undertaking" is no excuse. A "smart" and decentralized grid is probably also much more disaster- and terrorism- proof, but it removes a chokepoint of power by central government over provincial governments, which could be a political problem in certain countries.
The baseline is a very important problem, but note that the demand side is not evenly-balanced during the day either and somehow that is accounted for without problems. It would just mean that the difference between "peaks" and "troughs" becomes even more pronounced, so more storage is necessary. What kind of storage I don't know, hydro storage is inefficient and you need suitable geography for it, but ideas like cooling frozen food warehouses extra during off-peak hours seem easy enough to implement.
I think we don't have the luxury to wait to do all those large infrastructural investments. One idea I had (I think I must have read it on the theoildrum.com but maybe it's an original idea :-) ) is that, assuming you want to build say a wind turbine, you can do it two ways: build it now, or build it later.
Many people say building it later is better because we'll have better technology. But what about the energy used to build the turbine. It needs a lot of steel for the pylon. All that steel can be either melted now, using today's cheap energy, or "in 50 years" as you say. But assuming population growth continues, the "in 50 years" energy price to build the pylons is much higher than now, so they should start building *right now*.
Renewables are more expensive than fossil fuel (coal) plants which is another reason to build those pylons with cheap fossil fuel energy rather than "in 50 years" with expensive wind energy.
Also, because Peak Oil is coming (maybe it has passed in 2005), many processes that are currently dependent on cheap petroleum products will have to be switched over to fossil-fuel-independent technology because the future more expensive petroleum is needed for airplane kerosene and for the chemical industry (plastic). It is possible this would mean that electricity is used more for e.g. electric cars, which would also drive the price of electricity up "in 50 years".
It may be hideously expensive to switch over to renewables now, but that doesn't imply at all that energy is going to become any cheaper in the future, or at least until after the ITER and DEMO fusion reactors are successful (if we're lucky).
I've seen many posts that talk about energy "needs". But reality doesn't care about our "needs". There's a Dutch saying "de tering naar de nering zetten" which means: you adapt your consumption behaviour to what you can afford. I think most people on our world understand this but maybe the "rich West" has forgotten it in the past 50 years.

All OPEC countries inflated their reserves because their market share was allocated proportionally.
In 2008 Saudi Arabia couldn't increase production any more although the price was at a record high and Bush begged them for more.
Right now it looks very questionable if they can really increase their production to pick up Libya's shortfall. Nobody measures how much they export so they can tell us anything. The crude oil price will tell us in the end.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7550

The main problem with shale oil is that its EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) is only about 3, i.e. to produce one barrel of oil you need the energy equivalent of 1/3rd barrel. And that's with the easily extracted stuff. Once the EROEI gets close to one it doesn't matter how much you have and what the oil price is.
http://theoildrum.com/ is *the* resource for this kind of info.

blah blah blah... But very reasonable people can have very reasonable disagreements on those numbers, with no one lying... yammer on etc.

The thing is, there is no reason behind any OPEC countries' estimate of their reserves. Up to the 1980s there might have been some rhyme or reason, but during the 1980s the OPEC countries all were selling oil at a rate that was connected to their total estimated reserves. Prior to this the estimates had been based on actual known reserves but by this time the OPEC nations had all nationalized their oil industries and outside verification became difficult. And every one of them revised their reserves up. Irag by a factor of 3, Saudi Arabia by about 50%, on average by almost a factor of 2! These revisions were not driven by new discoveries, they were driven by the greed of each nation and each nations' desire to increase their quota. But don't believe me, read and learn: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7149

Since the very suspicious upward revisions that happened during the 1980s each of these countries has continued to pump and sell oil, yet their estimated total reserves have remained unchanged. Major discoveries in about 1997 and 2003 actually were reflected in slight increases of estimated reserves in those years, but other that they estimates have remained unchanged. So how is it that they have sold billions of barrels of oil on the open market for decades but their reserves have remained exactly the same? Their reserves seem to only increase, never decrease. In the absence of new discoveries during a period of depletion of reserves, you would expect that the reserves would decline by the amount pumped and sold, but that hasn't happened. It is obvious that they started lying about true reserves in the 1980s and they never stopped. All the OPEC countries over-report their reserves. This is obvious and well known among people who pay attention.

It is a bit comforting that at least someone in the Saudi government has tried to tell us the truth through back channels. I wish our government would start acting like they don't have their heads up their collective asses.

Anyway this is why it is useless to rely on the reserve estimates of the OPEC countries. Look at production numbers, which cannot be so easily faked. We have been on a production plateau for almost a decade now. We may or may not have hit the peak yet but that hardly matters it is pretty clear that we are on the broad plateau of the peak and that we are very near or past the actual peak. In another 5 years, I predict that the days of $4/gallon gasoline will be looked upon as the good old days. Brace yourselves, it's going to be a bump ride!

The origin of this information is a former saudi oil company exec. The leak just quotes it and tells us, that US diplomats think he's believable.

This has been an "open secret for some time. It's pretty clear from various analyses that the Saudis (and everybody else) are just flat out lying when it comes to their reserves.

On a semi related note, the Oil Drum as a collection of the best articles of the past 6 years. Anyone moderately interested in reasonably coherent discussion of Peak Oil and related subjects should read most of those articles.

The origin of this information is a former saudi oil company exec. The leak just quotes it and tells us, that US diplomats think he's believable.

This has been an "open secret for some time. It's pretty clear from various analyses that the Saudis (and everybody else) are just flat out lying when it comes to their reserves.

On a semi related note, the Oil Drum as a collection of the best articles of the past 6 years. Anyone moderately interested in reasonably coherent discussion of Peak Oil and related subjects should read most of those articles.

It's just come out from some wikileaks cables that Saudi Arabia has been overstating its reserves for years and can no longer elevate production to keep prices in check. More than that, we're likely sitting at peak oil, the odds that conventional oil production will never again climb up are getting better and better. While something might replace that, what that something is is not known. Running mass transit off the grid will always be more energy efficient than using cars, even electric ones. The smart and intelligent thing to do us utilize known technology to take up the slack.

Obama is doing the right thing here. The airlines that run those airplanes that the GP thinks are so great were hovering on the edge bankruptcy when gas prices were high. If gas goes up to $4/gallon again this summer, watch what happens to their bottom line, it won't be pretty. Someone else in this thread commented that we should go to Mars, but what good will having a man on mars do us if we can't get to work because gas is too expensive?

An interesting contrast between the US and China vis-a-vis automobiles.

Until we are in a situation where we have one or more resources under significant and consistent pressure over a long period of time that eats up more and more of our collective time and energies trying to manage and maximize, then this mathusian doomsday scenario hasn't even left the drawing board - let alone the hanger.

Oil and

Fresh Water

Quit watching so much Star Trek. Reality can be a cast iron bitch at times.

I'd start doodling if I were you. If your talents don't run that way, try some reading.

The weight of the Earth comes in useful in calculating how many space habitats you could build from it. :-)

Let's see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Space_habitat
http://ramblingsonthefutureofhumanity.blogspot.com/2009/10/designing-space-habitat.html

You can support 15 million people with a habitat requiring 3000 million metric tons of mass (if I got that right), or about
3 billion tons. (One could also ballpark that mass calculation, but I won't right now, just by thinking about a shell of six feet deep material with some surface area.)

The Earth weighs, as above, about 5 billion trillion imperial tons (close enough to metric tons). So, if we vandalized and vaporized the Earth to build space habitats (not that we know how yet), we could build a trillion space habitats that each support 15 million people. Or, that would be about 15 billion billion people, or about a billion times more people than the Earth supports now. I have not double checked that, but it sounds more or less right within a thousand or so. :-)

Anyway, while I don't recommend disassembling the Earth to make way for a space habitat(or hyperspace) bypass, as there are plenty of asteroids and moons in the solar system that are easier to use for mass, and it makes sense to preserve Earth as a historical landmark to our past, this points out that people like William Catton who are spouting imminent danger from "overpopulation" are more just lacking basic math skills and some imagination. :-)
"[p2p-research] Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html
"Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse, by William R. Catton, Jr."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5954
Contrast with someone who though the empowered human imagination was the ultimate resource:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

These calculations have life-and-death consequences as relate to human wars and decisions about having children or abortions. Seriously. Whether someone is stockpiling ammo for the "overpopulation die-off" or trying to get a job at NASA or private or volunteer efforts to build space habitats or even just design better solar panels hinges on this sort of basic math.

The consequences that flow from this simple calculation about the weight of the Earth and the weight of a space habitat in comparison are politically profound. They suggest we should not be fighting over oil as a form of dogma-driven collective "suicide" but instead should be putting a lot of time and effort in developing a serious space program and other advanced technology, but from an abundance paradigm where the wealth is widely shared, not a scarcity paradigm where wealth is tightly hoarded. See also my essay:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based ap

Also, at least in Tampa Bay area, just about all the brick buildings in the area had bricks shipped in from Georgia. There's very little clay available over most of Florida. Insulated Concrete Forms would be the way to go but the cost of concrete has been going up much faster than other building materials, as China expands it's infrastructure.

Our brown coal won't run out for thousands of years at the current rate!

Are Reserves of the Largest US Coal Field Overstated by 50%? Coal reserves: "Perhaps no question has more relevance to strategies for dealing with the global warming crisis than the distribution and quantity of coal available for future mining." How much coal is out there?

Falcon

You are SO screwed... I hope that you get your collective act together in time!

Shell has shown how to get it out without mining by liquifying it with steam and pumping it out.

I wonder where the steam comes from? Time for http://www.theoildrum.com/ !

Right, the 'Economists". Those clever people that think exponential growth can go on forever. The ones that agree with everything and nothing. The really clever ones that are guiding us through these hard times.

Thanks, but I'll stick to tea leaves or Ouija boards. Go read something useful for a change.

Its so simple. 'You' were wrong in 1970 - "haha" - therefore any prediction of oil running out, including the fact that oil is running out right now and has ran out any many places already, will be automatically dismissed and ridiculed by us no matter what. No analysis, no fact checking, onward christian straw men...

Peak Oil is not the same thing as running out of oil.

What these systems analysts working for the military industrial complex are saying is that the rate of production of oil can no longer keep up with our increasing demand for it. And increased demand does not automatically create new oil into the market forever - the same way that the hunger of the economists locked up in my cellar do not create sandwiched for them. At some point the 'laws' of economics meet the laws of physics - one of them wins and its called resource depletion.

Resource depletion is just that: depletion. Initially you discover a resource, you bring it to production at a certain rate. That rate is not arbitrary. The more 'contact area' you have with the resource, the greater the rate can be. Eventually however the resource depletes to a 'level' where your contact area can no longer increase but begins to decrease. From this point on your rate of production will decrease no matter what until the resource is exhausted or the rate of production no longer justifies continuing. The rate of discovery did peak at 1970. Finally now its the turn of production.

This is exactly what you are taught if you're into petroleum engineer. The rigs out there aren't simply sinking their pipes into liquid gold and sucking free money to the surface. Every stake is carefully evaluated, every well is a huge risk to take. Will it produce, at what rate and for how long? And there is no technological fixes left. We have already thrown the kitchen sink into the play for decades: from 3D-seismic modeling, from fracturing to horizontal drilling. All used extensively in all the largest oil fields of the world - most of which are now in decline. The reason is that many of these 'production enhancing technologies' are just 'super straws': they artificially increase your initial rate of production - but they don't increase the amount of oil down there - you are just sucking it dry faster. There is no engineering around Peak Oil.

The many years I have been following theoildrum and I have come to learn a great deal about the capability of people to deny and dismiss the reality around them. With the global warming it was way too easy for them - the science was difficult even for the experts. With Peak Oil it was always only misunderstanding or pure ignorance that worked - because a lot of the facts were out there plain to see with no complex math involved. In fact there was no debate amongst the 'experts' either. Any rig hand you talked to seemed to know exactly what you were talking about and some of the big oil companies like Shell, PB for example are now publicly talking about Peak Oil as well as some governments and the military are starting to publicly use the Peak Oil term.

What is left then for the denilists? Hide in slashdot world? At least have the courtesy of informing yourself and coming up with more then the lame same cliches. There is the mandatory criticism section down there although its been struggling recently. Good luck.

Here's what I saw as critical aspects of the executive summary from the BP report. "Indications of influx with an increase in drill pipe pressure are discernable in real-time data from approximately 40 minutes before the rig crew took action to control the well. The rig crew's first apparent well control actions occurred after hydrocarbons were rapidly flowing to the surface. The rig crew did not recognize the influx and did not act to control the well until hydrocarbons had passed through the BOP and into the riser."



"Well control response actions failed to regain control of the well. If fluids had been diverted overboard, rather than to the MGS, there may have been more time to respond, and the consequences of the accident may have been reduced."

And a viable excuse offered: "The explosions and fire very likely disabled the emergency disconnect sequence, the primary emergency method available to the rig personnel, which was designed to seal the wellbore and disconnect the marine riser from the well.

Given a number of highly questionable decisions, BP appears to volunteer to take a few arrows themselves: "The team did not identify any single action or inaction that caused this accident. Rather, a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces came together to allow the initiation and escalation of the accident. Multiple companies, work teams and circumstances were involved over time."

So BP may claim a collective blame but I go back to their lead off position: ""the crew... did not act to control the well". If you followed the debate between syn and I you can see how I take BP's report: yes...BP and others made mistakes. BUT the TO drill crew "did not act to control the well". And that lack of action allowed the kick to turn into a blow out that killed 11 hands and wrecked the GOM.

Opinions will vary, of course. And in the end there will be legal judgment rendered. But each person, including the surviving participants, will come to their own conlusions.

Summary of the Summary: BP did a bunch of stupid things, but it was TO's (Trans Ocean - the rig owner) responsibility to control the well even if BP purposely designed the rig to fail. They didn't do that. And Boom. IMHO this is not a shot across the bow of Transocean...it's an arrow aimed straight at their heart: "the crew... did not act to control the well".

Gross manufacturing output measurement is completely independent from GDP.

Here's the reference:

For the United States, the output measure for the manufacturing sector is a chain-weighted index of real gross product originating (deflated value added) produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. For more information on the U.S. measure, see "Improved Estimates of Gross Product by Industry for 1947-98," Survey of Current Business, June 2000, pp. 24-38 and "Gross Domestic Product by Industry for 1947-86. New Estimates Based on the North American Industry Classification System," Survey of Current Business, December 2005, pp. 70-84.

As far as raw materials lasting for millennia into the future boy do I have news for you. Perhaps this site will give you a realistic assessment.

http://www.theoildrum.com/

And as far as human ingenuity, sure we can do a lot with that. But thermodynamics is immutable, and that's end of story.

Any evidence to back this up? Or are you just guessing?

I think it's the latter, plus a bit of the former. ;) This post has a chart of subsidies of various energy firms. This post with punny headline states the case for marginal producers: Vladimir's Energy Blog - Obama’s Energy Tax Will Even Tax Strippers TIME had this also LOL (unintended, I assume) headline in 1944: OIL: Subsidy for Strippers. "I call for a fixed deductable on pasties!"

Little of the subsidy cash would go to the big integrated companies. (They and the Oil Congressmen prefer Mr. Ickes' plan for a price boost.) OPA tailored its plan to fit only the small operators of the 200,000 "stripper" wells—the marginal producers who turn out some 15% of all U.S. oil. Squeezed between rising costs and OPA's ceilings many a stripper has been forced to plug his wells and go out of business. And once plugged, the wells are often ruined by salt water seepage.

So even 66 years ago these minor operators were making a substantial contribution to supply, and wanted some assistance to make their operations economical. We could have told them to just take it up the hindquarters of course, but that was way ahead of real consideration of the negative implications of using hydrocarbons. No other nation has drilled anything like the number of wells the US has: Distribution and Production of Oil & Gas Wells. Wells long given up for dead are reopened when the price rises high enough; some of the oldest in the country were fired up in 2008 when the price was on its uptick. We could repeal subsidies, but then the US would have to import more to make up for lost domestic production, putting us in competition with other nations and driving the price up to the point where the wells would be economical again anyway...likely there's a sweet spot somewhere. I'm not in favor of subsidizing the majors much, either. But these small fry are worth helping out while we transition away to something better. I'm waiting for the NOCs around the world to follow the US example, if that's possible given their societal constraints. Seems like a surefire way to boost their production and mitigate their declines a titch.

I had an eye-opening experience the other day over at the Oil Drum, a blog run by folks associated with the industry. Not people you'd exactly think of as being against the consumption of fossil fuels. But the gist of this posting (which had nothing to do with climate change, and received a lot of favorable commentary) was that we're deeply, deeply fucked if we think we're going to continue burning fossil fuels into our old age. The argument was specifically related to the increasing cost of extraction. (In a nutshell, there's a reason we're now getting our oil from wells a mile underwater).

Now, the conclusion of that poster was pretty depressing, though I don't think he covered all of the options. But what struck me is that if you believe his arguments, it doesn't really matter whether you believe that humans are causing global warming. The actions we need to take now to ensure a reasonable standard of living in 40 years are exactly the same actions we need to take in order to deal with the global warming problem. Above all, to place a tax on fossil fuel consumption (and CO2 taxes do this pretty well) as a means to encourage the market to do something reasonable about the problem. The fact that we couldn't even pass the tiny little tax proposed in the recently defeated Waxman-Markey bill tells us something deeply frightening about our chances.

What kills me about the anti-global-warming argument is that its opponents think that it really matters whether AGW exists. It doesn't matter. For either reason we need to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel consumption and develop alternative sources (efficient, cost-effective nuclear, wind, solar, etc._ just to ensure that we and our children have a chance at living a decent life in the future. There's nothing in the universe that guarantees we won't face terrible consequences for our bad decisions, just because we've had a pretty good run for the past few decades.

The dispersant is there to increase the surface area of the oil so the natural processes and microbes that break down oil can do so much more effectively.

If you really want to learn about how the oil industry works and get in-depth technical details about the spill and what has been done to try and stop the flow, you should read The Oil Drum. Here is an article they did recently on the use of dispersants: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6724

It might be right up your alley, the tone is very serious and comes off as unbiased, but the articles are very pro-environmentalist/conservationist. In general, the site assumes that peak oil is already here or coming very soon, and explores how that will affect us as humanity.

On another note, I think your whole thesis is completely wrong- a centrifuge should be able to separate out oil from water regardless of whatever dispersants are in it. Centrifuges separate based on density. As long as you don't just sit there and let the water stand for awhile before you try to remove the oil, the dispersants should not have an effect.

-K

I thought that, for political reasons, the more extreme of the climate models were thrown out of the consensus AR4 document. Google "IPCC", "A1F1"

a bit scare-mongery...

"we are beyond A1F1 which with carbon feedbacks means we on track for over +8 degrees C in warming... Over 5.5 degrees C, at this rate of global change, would by best guess be limit of survival for humanity... Coupled with the recent news on the Antarctic Ocean means that IPCC 4 is hopelessly out dated now."

  Let's pray that Our Mileage May Vary and this one scientist is wrong.

captcha: kneeling

Funny you ask that now. I read this a few weeks ago on the Oildrum: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6640

Any improvements in electricity storage devices will be compensated for by producers of devices which use those electricity storage devices and thereby negate the improvements.

i.e. You're never going to get more than 100 miles out of your electric car. It'll just get bigger heavier and faster instead.

Battery electric vehicles have had a range of approx 100 miles for a century now. 100 years ago, around 40% of all cars sold in the US were electric. How's that for technological history.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6480

Yes, and most years it makes up the bulk of oil that is released into the ocean; however, a single man-made event like this one is 10x-20x greater in 50 days than the Gulf of Mexico releases naturally through seepage in an entire year.

TFA is a good example of why everyone should have the Readability bookmarklet handy.

OK, all you armchair generals and Monday morning drilling engineers:

Before you post your wonderfully insightful method for stopping the spill, read up on the several thousand other suggestions here.

The rest of you just read the various threads anyway. More signal to noise than anything I've seen so far. Even think of donating to help the servers keep afloat.

I'm hijacking this portion of the thread in order to say you should check out The Oil Drum, where a lot of subject-matter experts discuss the progress of fixing the BOP and other BOP-related issues.

This is definitely a plug for this site, and I'm sure there will be others along shortly who agree the above site is wholly worthwhile.

According to NationMaster: Oil usage per capita

#23 United States:
68.672 bbl/day per 1,000 people

#144 China:
5.733 bbl/day per 1,000 people

And China is the #1 exporter in the world, and we are #179.

I know (from CSX commercials, of all places) that a ton of freight can be moved over four hundred miles with a single gallon of diesel fuel, so I don't think moving a person on multi-stop rail would be much worse than that. I couldn't find any good data on breakdown of usage, but I did find an interesting article here:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6126

This suggests that while America may be making bad choices now, China is trying it's best to catch up. Apparently they could overtake our car count by the year 2020 (meaning 1/5 of their population would own one, though), and have a larger highway system within a few years. Still, they are making massive investments in electrified rail, and from what I can tell, have a long way to go before they waste as much energy as we do to perform the same work.

But everything thus far shows us that perpetual growth is possible. Technology is a wonderful thing - each year we're able to do more with less.

There are limits to exponential growth. (And make no mistake, growth expressed as a fixed percentage per year is exponential). Technology can push the limits closer to what the laws of physics allow, but technology cannot change the laws of physics.

Let's look at some numbers to drive the point home. Our global energy consumption in 2008 was estimated to be 474 exajoules.

The total energy received by the earth from the sun during a year is about 5 million exajoules, a fraction of which reaches the surface. 5 million is much more than 474. But at a seemingly modest 2% per year growth rate (as it was between 1980 and 2006), our energy consumption will match those 5 million exajoules in less than 500 years!

Think about that: if energy consumption growth continues at the current pace, then in 500 years we'll either be using ALL solar energy received by the earth (leaving none for the biosphere), or we'll have figured out some magic technology to produce 5 million exajoules of energy per year. Assuming the magic technology, where are we going to get rid of all that extra heat? It would effectively be like having a second sun on earth, cooking us in place.

Granted, you did say "do more with less". So lets say energy consumption will stay constant in the future, and instead we'll derive 2% more "value" from the same energy each year. Now you run into a new problem. No matter how you define "value", you run into physical limits. If you define value as "amount of mass lifted out of the earth's gravity field", then the hard efficiency limit is a minimum of 60 megajoules per kg. If you define value as "amount of computation", then again there are limits given by the laws of physics.

Exponential growth is counterintuitive. No matter how far you push the limits (e.g. by colonizing the entire galaxy or inventing game-changing technology), exponential growth will hit its limits much faster than you think. We're talking about growth with a fixed doubling period here.

Finally, I'd argue that we are already experiencing the end of exponential growth today. After decades of growth, in 2004 global oil production reached a plateau. It's not a coincidence that we experienced a major financial crash and recession soon after that. The era of "perpetual growth" is over. The next era will be that of the "zero-sum game" at best.

I recommending following the news stories and discussions at the news blog http://theoildrum.com/

They have some excellent coverage, in my humble opinion.

latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515

Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)

Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513

Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501

Hope you find this informative...

latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515

Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)

Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513

Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501

Hope you find this informative...

latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515

Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)

Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513

Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501

Hope you find this informative...

latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515

Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)

Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513

Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501

Hope you find this informative...

latest "live" thread with great insights in the comments: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515

Relevant links to top kill procedure (scroll to comments in each, they're very good.)

Deepwater Oil Spill - Permissions and Concerns about Top Kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6513

Deep Water Spill - Waiting for Top Kill (more updated tech) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6509

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill - the Top Kill Attempt (the technical aspect of what just happened) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6505

The Gulf Deepwater Oil Spill, barriers, flow rates, and top kill http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6501

Hope you find this informative...

There is an insane amount of engineering that had to go into this. Getting it wrong would have been an even bigger disaster.

For some excellent discussions on all of this, head over to http://theoildrum.com/