Rates and quantities over a range. For example, how much net energy, year on year, does the first half of the world's oil supply yield compared to the last half?
Yes, it's all fairy dust and unicorn farts and rainbows!
Any "self sufficiency" will be very temporary, after which we will be running on empty, geologically speaking. All the conventional oil in the USA, frakked or not, wouldn't last the USA 5 years. You can squeeze any sponge harder and get a little more out of it, for a while. While there's lots of unconventional "oil" and natural gas liquids, what remains is, for want of a better word, crud. Low net energy. Lots of sulfur. Expensive to get. Expensive to process.
Natural gas is nifty - a bright spot, assuming the government's supply estimates aren't just political numbers. If the government number are accurate, natural gas in the continental USA is worth about 44 years of domestic oil supply, if it could be used without loss or waste. Realistically, think 30 years. If the numbers are adjusted down (Because, when has the government ever been wrong...?), then we have even less time for natural gas.
We don't have an oil supply problem. We have an ENERGY supply problem. No matter what, we can't keep industrial civilization going to 2100 on hydrocarbons. We have to start exploiting uranium and thorium and develop a battery technology that doesn't suck if we want to keep something like our current level of civilization functioning into the next century.
Mod parent up. Saving our own continental resources for the time when oil gets *really* expensive is a lot more prudent than exploiting it all now for political purposes.
It's all about NET energy. Otherwise, why bother? The total net energy contained by all the oil extracted up until now is MUCH greater than the energy contained in the oil that's left. So whether we've hit peak oil or not is irrelevant. What we're facing is the net energy cliff, at least as far as oil goes. Natural gas is a bright spot, assuming the government's numbers aren't political numbers. If they're real, domestic natural gas represents the equivalent of 44 years worth of oil. In reality, there will be waste and loss, so 30 years is more realistic. Still, anything that extends our energy supply is a good thing.
In the long run, we've got nuclear or nothing if we want to continue to have a large scale industrial civilization.
The conservative Republicans - they've done it. Dozens of knee-slapping gaffes. Ideas that *laugh* in the face of tedious concepts like reality. Well done, fellows. Well done.
It's a very "gray" industry. Most people there are older, still actively working some rather nasty engineering problems (e.g. drilling through 2 miles of water and two more miles of rock) and more likely to understand that your brain didn't turn off when you hit 60.
Disclaimer: At 55, I've gotten heavily into programming powershell to control my little bevy of virtual machine servers and still write my network control software in either vb.net or C#, depending on which one makes my internal customers feel all warm and fuzzy. I'm also pushing for application streaming in the office. I don't expect that I'll suddenly forget how to do any of this in 5 years.
I use racetams like aniracetam and/or piracetam. I also favor eugeroics like Adrafinil. While not miracles, both of these are extremely helpful in enhancing memory and attention. Caffeine too, is a perennial favorite. I've also had good experiences with Bacopa, but you take it the night before, not during the day when you're programming. All legal and available on Ebay too. Bonus!
Silly. Assuming that intelligent life will inevitably use tools, build spaceships and give a rat's ass about talking to us at all is just parochial dumbness. For all we know, most smart creatures slap their awareness into genetically engineered fungi or moss whose spores drift around the universe and whose conscious lives are pain free, effortless and blissful. Minimal energy use. No machinery necessary. A near guarantee of racial survival. Human assumptions are unlikely to be what drives intelligence around the universe.
Apparently, you thought I was making a political statement. In fact, I was noting human behavior. Hungry people don't give a rat's ass about "liberty" or "rights" or the constitution or other points of theology. When you can't pay the heating bill, and your children are hungry, the first organization that comes along and solves those problems wins. If unions succeed in this, that's what people will support. If the government does it, then more government is people will clamor for.
In no case that I can see will widespread poverty be immediately mitigated by libertarians. If you're aware of one, feel free to cite non-fictional examples.
FYI, weapons use goes two ways. I grew up using firearms, my aim is pretty good with a.45 at 10 yards and very good with a sighted-in, scoped 2.22, and I could care less about the political affiliation of any one who's shooting at *me.* I would, however, reply in kind, given any chance at all to do so.
China is about as "communistic" as the Iowa rotarian society. What the Chinese Communist party has become is a vehicle for crony capitalism, a model that all countries seem to be converging on.
Communism may have failed, but class warfare is alive and well. A worldwide depression, or even that of a few nations like the USA, India China or Europe would probably kick start a move to unions. I have no doubt that even if wages were to drop to Bangladesh levels, that prices on most items in these countries wouldn't budge downward very much. Price structure and wage structure are increasingly out of sync. At a certain point, when nobody in IT is making enough to live on, unionization will occur, along with a the sharpening of some makerbot printed guillotines. The speed with which "libertarians" become socialists will be quite amusing.
I actually did all that and I reaped plenty of um, err....benefits. Current changes are both hormonal and psychological. I just don't feel as needy for sex, affection or anything else. The obsessive sexual fantasies of my youth have also disappeared. Everyone is different, of course. I certainly wouldn't quarrel with anyone at any age enjoying romantic interludes of any nature.
'Cause, you know, we'll always have that option. There'll always be building materials, money worth something, a functioning economy and plenty of energy. Yeah, no worries. La de da. The only sense you'll ever have to worry about is financial, now go back to sleep, sheeple.
There's some truth to that. The fact that I despise conservative crazies doesn't mean I don't despise liberal, libertarian or whig crazies just as much. Basically, I despise any party or organization to the extent that their views deviate from provable reality. Admittedly, right-wing republicans have taken over as the top of the reality denial list of late, but that doesn't mean that any other group is getting saner.
Well, it was either that, or some entrepreneurial soul in India, China, Russia, or lower Slobbovia who finally managed to steal everyone's credit card, bank account number and/or bank account content. The cloud is as secure as the people who operate it. A person embezzling from a bank in the pre-computer era could only effect that one bank. Now, they can effect thousands. Modify your behavior accordingly.
Right. I'm sure Romney will do better. Hey! Did you notice that corporations are kinda like, you know... dictatorships? And that CEOs are essentially, well, Kings?
Once refined, it degrades. Oxidation, bacteria. Algae. Amazing things grow in diesel. You can add preservatives, but these only go so far. Keep it too long, and it's unusable. If you don't use it, you have to dispose of it. There's a large disincentive to keep diesel around.
Not everyone chooses to be happy, but a mastery of the empirical neurocognitive techniques that induce it at least give you a choice in the matter. Neither wallowing in depression or being constantly euphoric is particularly desirable.
Slashdot Mirror
Not as looney as it sounds. You increase the effective net energy of crap hydrocarbons by using renewables as a power source for extraction.
Rates and quantities over a range. For example, how much net energy, year on year, does the first half of the world's oil supply yield compared to the last half?
Hint, bunches more.
Yes, it's all fairy dust and unicorn farts and rainbows!
Any "self sufficiency" will be very temporary, after which we will be running on empty, geologically speaking. All the conventional oil in the USA, frakked or not, wouldn't last the USA 5 years. You can squeeze any sponge harder and get a little more out of it, for a while. While there's lots of unconventional "oil" and natural gas liquids, what remains is, for want of a better word, crud. Low net energy. Lots of sulfur. Expensive to get. Expensive to process.
Natural gas is nifty - a bright spot, assuming the government's supply estimates aren't just political numbers. If the government number are accurate, natural gas in the continental USA is worth about 44 years of domestic oil supply, if it could be used without loss or waste. Realistically, think 30 years. If the numbers are adjusted down (Because, when has the government ever been wrong...?), then we have even less time for natural gas.
We don't have an oil supply problem. We have an ENERGY supply problem. No matter what, we can't keep industrial civilization going to 2100 on hydrocarbons. We have to start exploiting uranium and thorium and develop a battery technology that doesn't suck if we want to keep something like our current level of civilization functioning into the next century.
Mod parent up. Saving our own continental resources for the time when oil gets *really* expensive is a lot more prudent than exploiting it all now for political purposes.
It's all about NET energy. Otherwise, why bother? The total net energy contained by all the oil extracted up until now is MUCH greater than the energy contained in the oil that's left. So whether we've hit peak oil or not is irrelevant. What we're facing is the net energy cliff, at least as far as oil goes. Natural gas is a bright spot, assuming the government's numbers aren't political numbers. If they're real, domestic natural gas represents the equivalent of 44 years worth of oil. In reality, there will be waste and loss, so 30 years is more realistic. Still, anything that extends our energy supply is a good thing.
In the long run, we've got nuclear or nothing if we want to continue to have a large scale industrial civilization.
The conservative Republicans - they've done it. Dozens of knee-slapping gaffes. Ideas that *laugh* in the face of tedious concepts like reality. Well done, fellows. Well done.
Actually the planets are free. He only charges for customization and support.
It's a very "gray" industry. Most people there are older, still actively working some rather nasty engineering problems (e.g. drilling through 2 miles of water and two more miles of rock) and more likely to understand that your brain didn't turn off when you hit 60.
Disclaimer: At 55, I've gotten heavily into programming powershell to control my little bevy of virtual machine servers and still write my network control software in either vb.net or C#, depending on which one makes my internal customers feel all warm and fuzzy. I'm also pushing for application streaming in the office. I don't expect that I'll suddenly forget how to do any of this in 5 years.
I use racetams like aniracetam and/or piracetam. I also favor eugeroics like Adrafinil. While not miracles, both of these are extremely helpful in enhancing memory and attention. Caffeine too, is a perennial favorite. I've also had good experiences with Bacopa, but you take it the night before, not during the day when you're programming. All legal and available on Ebay too. Bonus!
Silly. Assuming that intelligent life will inevitably use tools, build spaceships and give a rat's ass about talking to us at all is just parochial dumbness. For all we know, most smart creatures slap their awareness into genetically engineered fungi or moss whose spores drift around the universe and whose conscious lives are pain free, effortless and blissful. Minimal energy use. No machinery necessary. A near guarantee of racial survival. Human assumptions are unlikely to be what drives intelligence around the universe.
Do you know how much those things *cost* to build new. Jeez.
Laser array memory? Internal chip communication? UV laser sterilization wrap? Just off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more.
Apparently, you thought I was making a political statement. In fact, I was noting human behavior. Hungry people don't give a rat's ass about "liberty" or "rights" or the constitution or other points of theology. When you can't pay the heating bill, and your children are hungry, the first organization that comes along and solves those problems wins. If unions succeed in this, that's what people will support. If the government does it, then more government is people will clamor for.
In no case that I can see will widespread poverty be immediately mitigated by libertarians. If you're aware of one, feel free to cite non-fictional examples.
FYI, weapons use goes two ways. I grew up using firearms, my aim is pretty good with a .45 at 10 yards and very good with a sighted-in, scoped 2.22, and I could care less about the political affiliation of any one who's shooting at *me.* I would, however, reply in kind, given any chance at all to do so.
Cheers!
China is about as "communistic" as the Iowa rotarian society. What the Chinese Communist party has become is a vehicle for crony capitalism, a model that all countries seem to be converging on.
Communism may have failed, but class warfare is alive and well. A worldwide depression, or even that of a few nations like the USA, India China or Europe would probably kick start a move to unions. I have no doubt that even if wages were to drop to Bangladesh levels, that prices on most items in these countries wouldn't budge downward very much. Price structure and wage structure are increasingly out of sync. At a certain point, when nobody in IT is making enough to live on, unionization will occur, along with a the sharpening of some makerbot printed guillotines. The speed with which "libertarians" become socialists will be quite amusing.
The more I like books. Paper books.
I actually did all that and I reaped plenty of um, err....benefits. Current changes are both hormonal and psychological. I just don't feel as needy for sex, affection or anything else. The obsessive sexual fantasies of my youth have also disappeared. Everyone is different, of course. I certainly wouldn't quarrel with anyone at any age enjoying romantic interludes of any nature.
Two great pleasures of life you can still enjoy at 55. Other things, not so much.
'Cause, you know, we'll always have that option. There'll always be building materials, money worth something, a functioning economy and plenty of energy. Yeah, no worries. La de da. The only sense you'll ever have to worry about is financial, now go back to sleep, sheeple.
There's some truth to that. The fact that I despise conservative crazies doesn't mean I don't despise liberal, libertarian or whig crazies just as much. Basically, I despise any party or organization to the extent that their views deviate from provable reality. Admittedly, right-wing republicans have taken over as the top of the reality denial list of late, but that doesn't mean that any other group is getting saner.
No really. I can't.
Well, it was either that, or some entrepreneurial soul in India, China, Russia, or lower Slobbovia who finally managed to steal everyone's credit card, bank account number and/or bank account content. The cloud is as secure as the people who operate it. A person embezzling from a bank in the pre-computer era could only effect that one bank. Now, they can effect thousands. Modify your behavior accordingly.
Right. I'm sure Romney will do better. Hey! Did you notice that corporations are kinda like, you know... dictatorships? And that CEOs are essentially, well, Kings?
Once refined, it degrades. Oxidation, bacteria. Algae. Amazing things grow in diesel. You can add preservatives, but these only go so far. Keep it too long, and it's unusable. If you don't use it, you have to dispose of it. There's a large disincentive to keep diesel around.
Not everyone chooses to be happy, but a mastery of the empirical neurocognitive techniques that induce it at least give you a choice in the matter. Neither wallowing in depression or being constantly euphoric is particularly desirable.