Is there Alternative Energy ???
- what can sustain modern energy consumption ?
- Oil will not run out imediatly - it will become verry expensive
- oil is more then fuel for cars , its plastic's , rubbers , all modern motor oil's , fertilizer for agriculture and a lot more
- The expensive oil will no longer be used as fuel for warming or as fuel for transport => to expensive
- Alternative energy is fine for creating Energy => electricity but thats all
try to stock a lot off it its almost impossible
So the big problem will be transport , i can imagine all transport going back to train rail's whit electric lockomotives but personal transport will be a lot more complex forget about personal car or going to Europ or US on vacation , you will go on vakation to the place you get on foot
that first stage - here in modern country's
all industry will have to be moved to the rail roads as truck will no longer run - boats will run for a a time back on steam or sailing like the old day's
it will take a few weeks or more to go to the us so comercialy speekin whe go back to the 14 th century
Eatch region for its own , as country's will become a lot more complex to oversee ,
The biggest problem is as i said transportation , all modern tool are made off components all components are made on diferent plants - cities , country's same for the basic material they are made off .
In lets say 150 years whe will face the fact that all expert whe are whe can just see one littel part off the industry whe work on .
A plumber can place piping and draining but can he make his own tools ??or pipes ??
He can not he has to order them to the guy who makes the pipes - who is dependent off the guy who makes the oven to melt the iron and so on
its a chain when you destroy mobility and comunication it will take a wile but basicly whe will go back living like in 1300 but whit somme modern and some off the old way's .
My point is put Bill gates in the busch and he will not comme back whit a pc , he will be lucky to just survive .
Basicly that what evry body will try to do => Survive because it will not be that Easy .
one more thing :> bio diesel , alcohol driven engines => to plant and recolt is energy negative its take more energy to produce then recolted
Hydrogen ? - actualy its produced verry cheap whit petrol driven industry but an alternative in nowhere to be seen
Nucleair driven trucks ? littel to dangerous and expensive
solar energy ? nice when you live in the desert , pannels are hard to get when poeple are killing eatch other for food .
BUT 1 GOOD point find a solution for transport and you resolve the complete problem => beam me back skotty

why has nothing been mentioned about algal biodeisel?
it has been said that the american economy could be fully supported by 100 square miles of lagoons growing algae which the remnants of could be used as organic fertilizers, or depolymerized to create fossil fueled fertilizers. now 100 square mile is a lot of space to take up but in todays security concious USofA it would be silly to have it all in one place so how about having one thousand 0.1 square mile lagoons located all over the country. most farm equipment, heavy hauling, vehicles larger than an SUV(busses etc) and lubricating needs can be met using this type of medium. a plus side of it all is that the algae will consume a portion of the co2 that is produced by the burning of the byproduct thusly reducing the effects of global warming.
and anyone who has ever owned a fishtank can attest to how difficult it can be to avoid growing algae
the future will not be fun or easy, be prepared to kiss personal transportation goodbye but the doom and gloom of peak oil is hard to swallow at points, there are solutions out there its just that not enough people are paying attention.

this is just my two cents worth but i never see it mentioned in these type of discussions.

also take note of economies around the world that are trying to shake their petroleum habits. i believe iceland is well on their way to transitioning to a hydrogen economy via geothermal means. people who poopoo the hydrogen idea and denounce it as an impossibility are not keeping their ears to the ground, the technological hurdles are being overcome slowly and surely.

and as for converting every vehicle to hydrogen? not many people are aware that there is such a thing as the ICHE Internal Combustion Hydrogen Engine most any car can be retrofitted to run on hydrogen...that only really means a change of fuel tanks(and other small modifications), not the whole car.

sorry for the two post rant but i try to be an optimist when it comes to this issue.

yeah i live up in canada, and its around 98 cents a litre someplaces, which is really hihg. it used to be 50-60ish range, and i heard its gonna get up to 100 dollars candaian a barrel

Hey folks. I'm taking a course in university called environmental science. You can sort of guess what it teaches, pretty much how the whole world works and many problems it will be facing. My professor said that the best alternative for the near future is actually nuclear power. It provides the highest output out of any other form of energy. Uranium resources in the world is also plenty enough since it's highly efficient, a small bit of uranium provides lots of energy. The problem is nuclear waste. It can either be re-enriched to be used again, or put away in a safe place for couple thousand years. The problem with the first approach is possible radioactive leak during re-enrichment, and the problem with the second approach is a good place to keep radioactive waste for thousands of years. Oh and of course the other problem would be crazy politicians making lots of nukes. Modern nuclear reactors are made very safe. Chenobyl was a big disaster yes but that was caused by a combination of bad design and bad operator conduct. Aside from that there aren't many accidents with nuclear reactors because people learn their lessons after such a disaster. As long as you don't have Homer Simpsons running nuclear power plants it sould be very safe.

Nuclear power definitely isn't perfect, but compared all the coal, oil, hydro power, it is THE most efficient, least polluting, and most practical of all. Solar and wind are also efficient and clean, but they're not practical as primary sources of energy, only supplement. Solar energy doesn't work when it's night or cloudy. wind energy takes too much space plus it will stop whenever the wind stops.

Perhaps a near-perfect source of energy for the future would be nuclear fission, but that is yet to be developed.

As for other things that need energy such as cars, I would recommend switching to the hydrogen economy as soon as possible. Hydrogen requires large amounts of energy to produce, but that can be covered if there are enough nuclear reactors. Hydrogen also needs to be highly compressed to have a practical sized hydrogen container with enough hydrogen.


Two problems with nuclear + hydrogen economy approach I can think of right now
1. Too expensive for poor countries. They have no choice but to rely on cheap energy such as coal, oil, etc
2. Greedy oil-company goons who don't want to lose business

Hydrogen engine is still prototype to complex to expensive
most alternative cars run on battery's but the are verry hevy , take a lot off space and tile to completely recharche , and if you have a mobile phone or laptop you know how long those battery's tend to work 100 %
And try to make truc's work on it , you need one for batterie's and one whit the load

Pardon the ignorance, but does anyone know the best/safest way to store gasoline and kerosine?

yeah and all the big oil compaies with the money aer buying out people who have made more fuel effiecient engines and environmentally friendly ways of producing energy. it seems as though the inventors and scientists so far have all had their price, and have been bought by the oil companies. its a shame. and the politicians are making money too for not doing anything about it.

20 years ago I prepared graphs charting oil consumption vs. oil reserves. The graphs showed oil running out in 20 years. Since then new oil has been discovered but oil demand has gone way up. So, the 20 years was pretty close.

I made copies of these charts back then and sent a copy to every senator and congressman. I received replies to the effect, "Yes, we are working hard to reduce American dependence on oil." ...Yeah, right!

Take a clue from this - don't have any false hopes that our representatives will have any solutions. Our society has been blindly running towards the edge of a cliff all our lives, and now the cliff is no longer miles away, but just ahead.

Most Americans used to think of people like the Amish, with their horses and buggies and refusal to use automobiles and electricity, as backwards. Well, perhaps they are the forward thinkers. Oil shortages do not affect them much. Perhaps there is something to be learned from them.

No matter what anyone does, no matter how many wars are fought, oil will become unaffordable for the average person within our lifetimes. So, is it back to bicycles then? Bicycles seem to work fine in China. Is it back to heating only one room in the house and wearing sweaters all winter?

What ideas are out there on building a sustainable society without oil? We need to start yesterday - it takes time, and time is running out. Our corporations are on a rampage raping and polluting the earth (and our bodies with cancer) – they are, after all, just out to make a buck. Politicians do not have answers and their power has been reduced and what’s left of it bought by the rise of global conglomerates. So, that leaves the rest of us. How do we begin building a sustainable society that will work for our children, grandchildren, and beyond?

The problem with renewable energies like wind and solar is that although they exist now we haven't been building an renewable energy infrastructure over the last 20 years. So we can't just swap over.

Also, the wind/solar farm projects will only serve those nearest to it as electricity follows the path of least resistance. If there comes a time when there isn't enough oil to fuel power stations and meet demand only those living near these renewable facilities will benefit.

Our government's should start building local community based renewable energy projects and start planning for a decentralized power grid. A good start would be solar panels on all new homes and buildings.

www.fromthewilderness.com is where I've been doing my Peak Oil research and it's full of many great articles although some do require subscription.

Others are www.peakoil.net and www.peakoil.com

We're all gonna live like the people in the Charlton Heston movie

Soilent green is people

Originally posted by abbadaba
Most Americans used to think of people like the Amish, with their horses and buggies and refusal to use automobiles and electricity, as backwards. Well, perhaps they are the forward thinkers. Oil shortages do not affect them much. Perhaps there is something to be learned from them.

Ah, the good ol' Amish. They used to aggrivate the bejeezus outta us (back when I was in the Army) at Ft. Campbell, Ky. Hwy 41A is one of the most deadly highways in the country and they'd be clippity-clapping down the road in their horse and buggies. It was surreal.

Your point is a good one though. And they are definitely miles ahead the rest of us. Their refusal to conform and partake in our secular society has given them a true jump on the meltdown that's sure to come. What makes their society so strong? They are completely self-sustaining. They grow their own food, make their own clothing, milk their own cows; you name it they make it. And they don't rely on fuel for transportation, as noted above. They are in no way attached to the technological wonders of this current age. Imagine that, no TV! No computers. No none of that stuff. They are educated, though - the old fashioned way - through hard work and reading/studying. We could all learn a lot from them.

Good link Frosty, brings us back to recycling. Recycling for energy needs could be one possibility. And there is plenty of trash to choose from, note the trash barges up in NY. How many plastic containers and such just get thrown right into the land? Stupid thing is, I see the recycling symbol on a quart of oil, but when I took it to a recycling area you couldn't use a container that had oil in it. So I scratch my head on this one. Isn't plastic made of oil?

Anyway, we waste way too much as humans. We have a natural composting system set up with nature, but we use toxic fertilizers. We have recycling centers, but aluminum cans still end up in the trash. There are biodegradable packing materials that dissolve in water but we cling onto styrofoam. The biodegradable foam is pretty cool stuff, I've seen it in a package that was sent to me.

We need to stop running with our eyes shut toward the cliff.

Troy

Do Americans generate electricity by buring oil? How strange?
In Europe it is done through, coal, hydro, nuclear and wind.
Britain is commited to adding renewable sources by an unbelievable amount in the next 10yrs. I had to re-read it when I read it. I have forgotten it now, but it was in the gigawatts per hour range for the added increase each year. The UK uses gas for heating too.

The only problem for an oil and other alternatives shortage is transport. That alone can scuper everything (no coal for powerstations, unless they use electric trains, and not diesel, or they use biodiesel for their trains).

As for food and other consumer items, well, it won't be global anymore, will it? China will be back to square one again, lol. (after all that).
What they do in the EU at the moment with shrimps is this: they catch them in the North Sea off the German coast and transport them to Turkey to be deshelled and cleaned; they then go back to Germany to be sold. It is nuts. The EU encourages this European economic integration by heavily subsidising business travel, otherwise, even with the cheap labour in Turkey, it would be uneconomical to do such a thing. All that would end, and everything would be local. As long as you live near a farm, you will be OK. Farmers in Ireland use pigslurry as fertilizers and a farmer in Scotland is now using rock dust which is supposed to be an unbelievable fertilizer.
You will buy your products at the local market instead of the local supermarket, or you will buy at the local supermarket who will have adapted to buy and sell only the available local products (more likely, as these businesses aren't stupid).

just my two cents. I have given this more balanced analysis, since some believe can go overbaord with their doom and gloom and we are all sinners about to be punished by the environmental god rant.