As oil becomes scarcer it will become more expensive, and people will change their behavior.
People will be motivated to use less of it, switching to substitutes or alternative means of doing things now done primarily with petroleum: They'll start to burn other things for fuel. They'll use other substances as raw materials for plastics and pavement.
People will be motivated to find undiscovered oil, and new and/or better ways of extracting and refining what is found, and to make synthetic petroleum and petroleum alternatives of a variety of types, and to make them less expensively.
Petroleum is not like gas in your car's tank, or milk in the fridge: there's plenty and then suddenly there's none. People will notice, and adjust. Or notice and panic. The first group will make money, and keep society running. The second group will provide entertaining panicky warnings.
When it eventually actually does become so scarce alternatives are used almost exclusively, people will have switched to thermally-depolymerized turkey guts, propane, pelletized sawdust, etc. The last functioning oilfield pump will operate in a museum in Pennsylvania or Texas or California, pumping up a gallon or two a day to put in the little bottles for the gift shop.
Golly. It worked with air traffic control software.
Some special-purpose government computerized system -- perhaps air traffic control, perhaps military weapons system, perhaps research sonar or some such, I forget -- is so old it runs software under an emulator for the old hardware, because the old hardware became unavailable. That much I am certain about.
What I'm only vaguely recalling, which may not be right, is that the replacement hardware also became obsolete, so they're running a second emulator on a second type of replacement hardware. Surely that can't be true.
Back to air traffic control. They're finally getting to where they can start slowly phasing in their new system. They're being cautious. Which is good, because there were some Murphy's Law problems during the parallel-production roll-out for one zone, as one would expect. That was a couple years ago.
Apparently, North Korea lies. A lot. Even to a country which could render it uninhabitable for decades. Who could have guessed it?
Eventually -- probably within 10 years, according to my highly-uneducated guess -- the regime will collapse or be overthrown from within.
If things go badly, it will just be another backward awful country that is somewhat less repressive to its people and even less dangerous to the United States (already a negligible danger). Perhaps a notch or two worse than Venezuela.
If things go very well, it will go like East Germany.
School board superintendents here do appallingly well.
Teachers unions fight tooth-and-nail against any kind of performance- or merit-based compensation. Superintendents don't even have to fight to avoid it, apparently.
There have been a number of job-hoppng and job-losing superintendents in the metro area in recent years who made out OK, despite leaving under a cloud or after unimpressive results. "Hazelwood's superintendent was paid $230,308 annually". http://fox2now.com/2016/03/01/...
Not the will to use it, the practicality of using it.
If lithium doesn't get much more expensive, current sources will do. If (more likely, "when") it becomes much more expensive, extracting it from seawater and/or other places will become increasingly practical.
We'll never run out of lithium for the same reason we'll never run out of petroleum or rubber or anything else of the sort: after it gets expensive enough, alternative sources will be discovered and exploited, instead.
There's a lot about economics that is silly or only semi-scientific. What lies behind the previous two paragraphs isn't part of it.
Actually, that happens quite a bit. When it happens and prices keep increasing, due to the "greater fool" phenomenon, it's called a bubble. Eventually, the world runs out of "greater fools", and the bubble bursts.
When a commodity like gold or copper maintains a fairly steady value (if your time-frame is long enough) and many owners buy it but don't use it as a production input, something else is going on.
There's an interesting article which I plan to read carefully. In it, the author states that commodities have, in the post silver- and gold-standards world, served as "partial money". They provide a hedge against inflation and exchange rate fluctuations.
Once I've read what I've so far only skimmed, I may have learned something substantial enough to share here. (Low threshold, I know.;-) )
It starts about 1/3 of the way in, with the section labelled "Prelude to the First Malthusian Scare", in http://unenumerated.blogspot.c...
(Note to self: sarcasm doesn't work when expressed as a URL.)
It's the ziggy-zaggy black line we need to watch, especially the way it diverges from the "Climate Models Best Estimate" line. Diverges by going down, as it happens.
Slashdot Mirror
We will *never* run out of oil. Never.
As oil becomes scarcer it will become more expensive, and people will change their behavior.
People will be motivated to use less of it, switching to substitutes or alternative means of doing things now done primarily with petroleum: They'll start to burn other things for fuel. They'll use other substances as raw materials for plastics and pavement.
People will be motivated to find undiscovered oil, and new and/or better ways of extracting and refining what is found, and to make synthetic petroleum and petroleum alternatives of a variety of types, and to make them less expensively.
Petroleum is not like gas in your car's tank, or milk in the fridge: there's plenty and then suddenly there's none. People will notice, and adjust. Or notice and panic. The first group will make money, and keep society running. The second group will provide entertaining panicky warnings.
When it eventually actually does become so scarce alternatives are used almost exclusively, people will have switched to thermally-depolymerized turkey guts, propane, pelletized sawdust, etc. The last functioning oilfield pump will operate in a museum in Pennsylvania or Texas or California, pumping up a gallon or two a day to put in the little bottles for the gift shop.
We will *never* run out of oil. Never.
"Barney Miller" dialog, from an episode about a guy with a pornography collection:
Arrested Man (in lockup): I'm not a pervert, I'm a scholar.
Dietrich: There's no reason you cann't be both.
No reason they can both be.
Or however it goes. (Or went. Don't recall seeing it lately.) This isn't the first time one state has affected a national producer.
Oh, and there's also Texas and history textbooks.
He's not the only one who's going to be taxed for that.
See Father Guido Sarducci's analysis of the bill for the Last Supper for an explanation. That analysis also applies here.
Hope this helps.
Communists took over the Sahara Desert.
The first five years, nothing much happened. Then they ran out of sand.
If these sorts of mystery problems go away after the North Korean regime collapses or is overthrown -- next year, next decade, whenever -- we'll know.
Not that knowing will help us much now. Or then, for that matter.
I'm sure this US government project will be every bit as significant as the Japanese government's Fifth Generation program.
You know, from back in the days of Japan, Inc.
And this is the dangerously-competent scary country that has some people wetting their pants over a possible attack on the US.
Dupers, dupes, and dolts. Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.
India has a smidge over a billion people, something like 1.2 billion IIRC. The population of the entire planet is 7 billion. You do the math.
If you can. I'm doubtful. That claim about people with more than two children is starting to look a bit dubious, too.
Or was this post yet another joke I didn't recognize as one? Sometimes my sense of humor fails me.
Gosh, how'd they retain control of key committees if they weren't the majority party?
Golly. I bet the Democrats eliminated the ability to filibuster, first chance they got, right?
Obviously I need to RTFA, because the summary seems to say the theory predicts no life on earth.
Last I checked, there was, which rather disproves it.
Golly. It worked with air traffic control software.
Some special-purpose government computerized system -- perhaps air traffic control, perhaps military weapons system, perhaps research sonar or some such, I forget -- is so old it runs software under an emulator for the old hardware, because the old hardware became unavailable. That much I am certain about.
What I'm only vaguely recalling, which may not be right, is that the replacement hardware also became obsolete, so they're running a second emulator on a second type of replacement hardware. Surely that can't be true.
Back to air traffic control. They're finally getting to where they can start slowly phasing in their new system. They're being cautious. Which is good, because there were some Murphy's Law problems during the parallel-production roll-out for one zone, as one would expect. That was a couple years ago.
Time for me to see what the Internet has to say about it, lately. http://duckduckgo.com/?q=air.t...
Apparently, North Korea lies. A lot. Even to a country which could render it uninhabitable for decades. Who could have guessed it?
Eventually -- probably within 10 years, according to my highly-uneducated guess -- the regime will collapse or be overthrown from within.
If things go badly, it will just be another backward awful country that is somewhat less repressive to its people and even less dangerous to the United States (already a negligible danger). Perhaps a notch or two worse than Venezuela.
If things go very well, it will go like East Germany.
We may see a new slogan for a (presidential) election, one not seen before: "Never been indicted"
Reports of it being used in a labor union election are probably a joke or a myth.
School board superintendents here do appallingly well.
Teachers unions fight tooth-and-nail against any kind of performance- or merit-based compensation. Superintendents don't even have to fight to avoid it, apparently.
There have been a number of job-hoppng and job-losing superintendents in the metro area in recent years who made out OK, despite leaving under a cloud or after unimpressive results. "Hazelwood's superintendent was paid $230,308 annually". http://fox2now.com/2016/03/01/...
The Republicans didn't always control the Congress. What about before then?
Coal is carbon-neutral?
Just because I don't believe in the AGW religion doesn't mean I'll let this slide.
It's only carbon-neutral if you're willing to wait millions of years for new coal (or petroleum) to be made.
I'm not a young man anymore, so I don't think I can wait that long.
Actually, that's not how trade works. But I suppose that wasn't an entirely serious comment.
Oh, dear. How unfortunate.
Too bad it is impossible to repeal bad laws.
It is, right?
Not the will to use it, the practicality of using it.
If lithium doesn't get much more expensive, current sources will do. If (more likely, "when") it becomes much more expensive, extracting it from seawater and/or other places will become increasingly practical.
We'll never run out of lithium for the same reason we'll never run out of petroleum or rubber or anything else of the sort: after it gets expensive enough, alternative sources will be discovered and exploited, instead.
There's a lot about economics that is silly or only semi-scientific. What lies behind the previous two paragraphs isn't part of it.
Not unless US law changes. Currently, his attorneys would be prohibited from introducing certain evidence and lines of reasoning to the jury.
Details in _Data and Goliath_ by Bruce Schneier.
Actually, that happens quite a bit. When it happens and prices keep increasing, due to the "greater fool" phenomenon, it's called a bubble. Eventually, the world runs out of "greater fools", and the bubble bursts.
When a commodity like gold or copper maintains a fairly steady value (if your time-frame is long enough) and many owners buy it but don't use it as a production input, something else is going on.
There's an interesting article which I plan to read carefully. In it, the author states that commodities have, in the post silver- and gold-standards world, served as "partial money". They provide a hedge against inflation and exchange rate fluctuations.
Once I've read what I've so far only skimmed, I may have learned something substantial enough to share here. (Low threshold, I know. ;-) )
It starts about 1/3 of the way in, with the section labelled "Prelude to the First Malthusian Scare", in http://unenumerated.blogspot.c...
(Note to self: sarcasm doesn't work when expressed as a URL.)
It's the ziggy-zaggy black line we need to watch, especially the way it diverges from the "Climate Models Best Estimate" line. Diverges by going down, as it happens.
Try this link, instead. http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/st...
And quadcopters?