Apocalypse Soon?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Futilitist, Jan 1, 2013.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    For a different take on how collapse is coming for the developed western world, which does not even mention the cost of oil, see wise Jim Jubak´s comments, partially condensed by me, here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...e-worse-news&p=3068588&viewfull=1#post3068588

    I agree with Jim, the cost of oil is not a concern worth mentioning, especially now that it is falling in real terms as demand falls. Although Jim does mention the growing debt, living beyond our means on thin-air money and excessive borrowing for decades - my main reasons - his is even more fundamental.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    I want to read this alleged bullshit and I want to see this alleged bullshit in print, prominently displayed so that casual readers will understand that you are a liar. Worse than that, you are a liar so berefet of any moral sense that you continue to deny those lies in the face of absolute evidence that you are lying.

    Despicable!
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    I watched the first few minutes of his 2, 4, 6 & 8 videos. Based on them, he seems to neglect man´s intelligence and adaptability. The sun will shine for many millions of years and provides much more energy than man needs every day. So much that if most were captured, decreasing the Earth´s albedo, the oceans would begin to boil and life on earth would end. Thus, the real problems are not lack of energy, but damage to the earth, first most likely is CO2 and other worse gases trapping the IR radiation that needs to escape if man is to survive.

    Some linear math functions are better understood by the masses than the exponential function. For example most drivers know: Distance traveled = speed times time, if speed is the average. However, the exponential function is understood by many if they have any experience with algae growth. For example one algae cell can be come two in a day. Thus if a pond is 13% covered by algae Sunday eve, Monday eve it is 26% covered etc. So by Friday, it is covered completely, not by algae, but by dying brown scum. This is because algae has low intelligence and lacks adaptability to use other life sustaining procedures.

    When man used whale oil to read by at night, the retired Professor´s thought processes would conclude reading at night would soon end as the exponential function applied to the killing of whales forced that to be true. Well that did not happen as man has intelligence and is adaptable.

    The oil age is already starting to end. Exactly how man´s vehicles will be solar powered, for millions of years (assuming man has not destroyed himself in a few thousand as I expect will happen - probably with created biological plague) is currently unknown but if I were to bet, they will run on alcohol derived from solar energy via DNA modified sugarcane (or cellulose scraps, if that is cheaper and feasible. Gathering the dispersed wood trimmed from forests for fire prevention is much more expensive than harvesting a regular, dense field of sugarcane, but piles of saw dust at lumber mills and old news papers etc. may be cheaper).

    There are false statements in the good professor´s video, even in the tiny fraction I watched. He speaks of corn based alcohol and notes the energy required for fertilizer and distillation is same as the energy in the alcohol produced. Even the Iowa based corn to alcohol is with small net energy gain, despite the need for lots of fertilizer to compensate for the shorter (than tropical) growing season and the use of natural gas, mainly, for the distillation. That intensive fertilization is very damaging to the Earth as soil bacterial convert most of it to NOx, at least as harmful as the CO2 the "not burnt" gasoline fuel powering cars would relese. In the tropics, little fertilized is required for sugarcane, and the crushed cane not only supplies all the heat needed for distillation but the excess heat makes electric power, at least 4% of Brazil´s electric energy. Tropical sugar cane is sustainable energy with about 8 fold gain* on the energy used for cultivation and transport to the distillation plants. It is also slightly CO2 negative, if used as fuel, and extremely CO2 negative if used for plastic production - Currently BrasKem makes 400,000 TONs of plastic each year from the cane grown on 0.02% of Brazil´s farm land.

    If one makes reasonable estimates of how the number of cars will increase in Asia, how most will not use oil based fuels in a decade, etc. then 1% of the world´s arable land can supply all the liquid fuel for all the world´s cars still requiring liquid fuel. The yield of food and fiber, from the 99% of the arable land, not growing sugarcane can be increased at least 10% by the adoption of modern agriculture and partly by use of GM seeds. Getting global warming reduced is the real problem, not the energy supply or the supply of zero net CO2 release liquid fuel. Man solved the whale oil limitations and will do the same for "peak oil" limitations. Man, unlike algae, is intelligent and adaptive. In most developed countries and in China soon, the population is declining and the energy needed per unit of GDP is decreasing more than 1% per year!

    * That "eight fold gain" is at least twice the RoE that shale oil has. I.e. at least one barrel of oil is burnt to heat the shale bearing oil to get only 4 or less, barrels of oil. So shale oil is 25% or more release of CO2 than crude oil and sugarcane alcohol used as fuel for cars is slightly negative CO2 release - the only economically feasible way to REMOVE already existing CO2 from the air. Shale oil can not be used for decades, even though there is plenty for that, as it is making the real probelm worse than crude oil does, but sugarcane alcohol helps solve the problem.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 9, 2013
  8. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    While decreasing the Earth's albinos would indeed warm the planet, this could be entirely counteracted by giving people big white hats.

    (I assume you meant "albedo.")
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    Thanks for the albedo correction.* Those hats would need to be quite big as I said "if most solar energy was captured", but your point is valid. Use of concrete for roads,** requiring all buildings to be painted white, and Al foil stuck on top of any asphalt roofs (or solar cells), etc. would cheaply offset a lot more solar energy being absorbed by solar cells.

    * I have slight to moderate dyslexia problem, so I usually spell check with “Word” but my copy of "Word" does not know “albedo” is a word, and so replaces it with “albino.” Because of my dyslexia, I read most anything resembling what I intended as being the word I wanted, especially if Word has just corrected my misspelled text.

    **Cheaper too in the long run if heavy trucks use the road.
     
  10. Futilitist This so called forum is a fraud... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,586
    This is trolling. I have flagged this post. Hopefully the moderators will deal with this jerk.

    ---Futilitist

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  11. Futilitist This so called forum is a fraud... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,586
    You vastly overate man's intelligence and adaptability. If anything, our intelligence and adaptability have allowed us to overshoot our resource base in a much more extreme way than is possible for other animals on this planet, which will ultimately lead to a much more extreme die off in our case.

    We have no more ability to control our evolutionary envelope than yeast in a vat.

    ---Futilitist

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  12. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    Many are not like you.
     
  13. Futilitist This so called forum is a fraud... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,586
    Yes, most cling to irrational beliefs.

    Seriously, this is a real core issue. Perhaps you could address why you believe that humans have the special ability to defy the natural limits that apply to all other life forms on earth.

    ---Futilitist

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  14. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,051
    I'll give you a hint: its greyish white, resides between our ears, and some people use it more than the others.

    Oh, and your "yeast in a vat" analogy is absolutely perfectly wrong: where did the vat come from?

    Moreover, you are misunderstanding your own argument: yeast DO control their evolutionary environment. They destroy it. That's the basis of your argument for collapse!
     
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    They obivously don´t , by defintion, have the ability to defy "natural limits" * but certainly man can use solar energy and its natural limit is not to heat the earth too much with decrease in the albedo or much more burning of fossil fuels. It is a blessing in disguise that oil is getting more expensive, encouraging the switch to solar energy.

    The last time mankind hit a natural limit on the oil supply (the supply of whales) he invented the kerosene lamps. Hell, this time everything needed to run on solar energy only has already been invented and in the case of sugarcane alcohol fuel for cars shown to work well in practice for more than 30 years in Brazil.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 9, 2013
  16. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    (1) In the most delightful way. (2) and themselves, when the alcohol concentration gets to ~18%
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Sugarcane alcohol? You mean we must manufacture energy?

    There is only one natural, worldwide kinetic force for energy, tidal power. The tidal wave action of the oceans generates unlimited potential energy. The technique is successfully used in several countries including France and China.
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Where have I heard this before?

    Paul Erlich, 1968 - '"In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

    Really? Antibiotics, alcohol, sewers, crutches, clothing and coronary bypass surgery have not "changed our evolutionary envelope?" Interesting claim.
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    I do get a kick out of this ongoing argument.

    Write4U: There is only one natural, worldwide source of energy - tides!
    KitemanSA: Only liquid flourine thorium reactors can power our future.
    BillyT: 1% of the arable land in the world can provide for all our transportation energy needs.

    Futilist: No! Nothing will work! You're all going to DIE!
     
  20. Futilitist This so called forum is a fraud... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,586
    Earlier, I said this:

    This is a very logical statement. It makes a lot of sense. Humans are smart, and that made us successful up till now. But this great success means that we are able to undermine the resources we need for survival to a degree that no other species can. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

    No one really answered this.

    Billy T's non answer was sunshine and sugar.

    Billvon's non answer was Paul Ehrlich.

    ---Futilitist

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Is that not a contradiction?
    What time do you think it is before we run out of fossil fuels? Yes, one minute before twelve, and when that bell rings you will witness a grand human spectacle. But not of intelligence and adaptability, but from finally realizing it was one minute before twelve and then it will be too late to fix it without losing hundreds of millions of lives. That is how Nature takes care of the problem.

    As George Carlin used to say,
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    It wasn't a question. What sort of answer do you want?

    I'll ask you a few questions to get things rolling. "Overshoot our resource base" - whist is our resource base? Is it the same today as it was 200 years ago? How did we survive overshooting our resource base of 200 years ago?
     
  23. Futilitist This so called forum is a fraud... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,586
    Our brains make it possible to use up resources much faster than other animals. That is a good thing only up to a point.

    The vat is like the earth. The yeast cannot escape the vat in the same way that humans cannot escape the earth. The yeast use up the sugar in the vat and they then die out. Human civilization eventually uses up the resources necessary for it's own existence, which causes it to collapse, resulting in a great human die off. This is a really good analogy! The yeast's sugar is our oil. Their alcohol is our CO2. The yeast die out when they run out of energy and pollute their environment.

    Yeast destroy their environment. Humans destroy their environment. Neither one can stop their behavior. Both are ultimately doomed.

    ---Futilitist

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page