Peak Oil Apocalypse
 

Alright... I wandered into this after some forum hopping around here. This is some pretty spooky shite.

I had been aware of the fact that oil reserves were going to drop and that we would need to find another source if humanity was going to maintain itself... But honestly I didn't think it would be this serious, or this imminent. Suddenly I can see why people are crying "OMG NO WAR FOR OIL" over Iraq.

I recall that back in the 1970's someone had come up with a magnetic coil... something... that drastically cut down on fuel usage. From what I recall the oil and gas companies legally crushed the guy since it'd cut into their profits, but it looks like we're gonna need it in cars, and need it now.

Also, anyone hear of that hydrino experiment? Powering cars eletrically (or was it hydronically?) with plasma from hydrinos? Did that succeed?

All I can say is, I'm spooked.

Wow... Talk about an eye opener and a downer.

I suppose now we should really start looking at those alternatives to oil huh? Hopefully without losing 90% of the population...

Edit- Or perhaps not. This whole thing really kills any optomism for those ideas. Maybe there's a chance we can look at this before we have to conquer to keep ourselves going? Although this makes looking to the moon or mars all the more interesting... What if we could find something there that holds energy? If mars possibly held life, could it hold oil? What's under the crust?

I wouldn't count on it. If Mars had life it'd be bacteria at least. However they think Mars may have that Hydrogen 3 stuff, which would be a great source for power plants.

The best bet is to start switching to alternate power sources now. If you think of human civilization as a baby sucking off of milk, at one point or another the baby has to be weaned off of it. It can't last forever off the milk, and has to switch to different food sources to sustain itself, or it will die or screw itself up.

But according to the site, we've ignored the early warnings - it's possible that it's too late to completely skirt by any drastic consequences of Peak Oil; and the governments of the world will likely just try to find more oil or fight others for their oil rather than look into the problem. This is one reason why I don't like Bush - not over "Iraq war for oil lolz" but because I see him as a puppet of the companies, especially Big Oil. He won't want to hurt his roots, seeing as a national program to change gears would really kill off those corporations.

In other news, we're locked into this car and we're going to hit that brick wall at high speed (and we're going faster). The brakes are gummed up and it's going to take a lot of effort to get them to work if we want to keep from killing ourselves.

in teh 70s they said we only had 10 years of oil left. well, its been 30 years, and we use more oil now then before.

Prophets that say "ten more years" then, ten years later, say "ten more years!" and ten years after THAT say "ten more years! and this time, i mean it!" don't get my ear much.

of course, if you're really scared, you could take the first step andLive off the grid. But i wouldnt spend much time worrying about it.

EDIT:
ok, i lied. here's some interesting E-prep stuff i found while searchign for "living off the grid"

here's something about emergency food and water sources and treatment: http://www.fema.gov/library/emfdwtr.shtm

a page dedicated to "self-reliant" living: http://www.backwoodshome.com/

Well, I looked into it. Originally they said 2050 would be the end zone. Now they're saying it's 2010, and this site is saying we could have already gone over.

The thing is, we really ought to start getting off oil anyway, even if Peak Oil is centuries away. Space industries, and going to the moon is a good idea and it can help in this sense - we can put solar panels on the moon, or in orbit somewhere, and beam energy to Earth. There's been plans like that by scientists... It's just redesigning the power industry that's a bitch - after all, the companies won't want to change and won't allow change even if we're in "deer in the headlights" mode.

I personally haven't been using a car and would prefer to use a bike, but if/when I have to use a car, I'll get a Prius if possible, or an equivalent hybrid (or full electric). I think a lot of the consumption of oil could be cut if cars switched from gas, at the least.

All this takes into account are those people who can't adapt to life with out technology. I have grown and caught my own food and have survived for months by doing it. and no technolgy I know I couldn't make myself was used to do it. Human beings are alot more adaptable than bacteria. this is why this article is a crock of shit. Sure it will be bad, but not that bad.

I dunno...certain humans are a lot more adaptable. You're average joe is freakin' useless.

I dunno about you guys, but I'd prefer to see the world to continue development rather than regress into the 19th century or even more primitive states due to a loss of oil.

Sure, civilization would continue - in a highly fucked up state. Even if his estimates are wrong, people WOULD die. I'm almost certain wars would break out over the oil. (Barring any bleeding hearts that say it's already begun with Iraq)

I found a link that roughly describes the solar panels on the moon thing.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10926
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...wer020422.html

I wish Bush would go for this. He wants to take us back to the Moon and build a base there, he should be funding this project first before planning a trip to Mars. We should be thinking about our basic survival as a civilization first (without resorting to fighting over a vanishing resource), and then go to Mars when we're squared away...

im a fan of doomsday senerios... but this guy's pushing it here. our "real" unemployment is 15%? the california rolling blackouts and teh massive ast coast black out have to do with oil production? the CA blackouts were due to a combination of bureaucratic and regulatory bungling and power company misakes. the East Coast black out had to do with the delicate balance of power sharing that got thrown out of whack. neither had to do with oil. he catagorically throws out evidence to the contray by assuming it had to do with a single study. he calls the 70's oil crisis "tremors before the earthquake" when it had nothing to do with the peak oil condition he describes (the "earthquake").

Malthus made some very convincing predicitons of starvation and over populaiton... back in the 1700s. Doomsayers and alarmists (who want to sell books) are a dime a dozen. I can read the front page of the local paper or watch th enightly news and be told about fungus thats goign to kill me, school lunches that are going to kill me, neaighbors who want to kill me, gun show fanatics that want to kill me, terrorists who want to kill me, mental problems that will make me kill myself, dangerous products that are going to kill me, and drunk drivers that are goign to kill me.

just look at all the shit that he brings into this issue in his book. 9-11? the War on Drugs? SARS? Global climate Change? his site (and it seems, his book) is saying "the oil crisis is upon us! its the cause of EVERY problem! you can not escape! There is no alternative! make your time!"

pfft to it.

Well, yeah, the guy is like "We're already past the peak, fuckers! You better hang on to your asses!" On the other hand, as I said - some Swedish guys said it'd be within the next decade or 2014, not right now or having already passed. And then there's the old prediction that it'd be by 2050.

But he still brings up a lot of good points. Like I said - we should still do what we can to get off oil. It's a limited resource and as a budding space-faring civilization other ways to get power are within our reach. If we stay on the black milk too long...