Our path to destruction Created 17 years ago2006-05-03 10:09:46 UTC by Jobabob

One thing I found an interesting parallel the other day was how we still do not plan or prepare for the inevitable peak of oil capacity, the subsequent explosion in demand (and skyrocketing prices) and the eventual loss of the oil supplies could cripple every westernised nation in the world, causing absolute chaos. Our fundamental reliance on oil is one of the biggest threats we face yet the oil companies still focus mainly on how to get more oil (despite BP claiming 'greener' alternatives are being developed) rather than in planning for the future.

The parallel is this, for the disposal of nuclear waste we must plan for future generations perhaps as much as 100,000 years into the future, there are strict rules and guidelines that govern this in the western world and everything must be stringently tested and proven (as much as can be) that they will last for such an extended period of time. Why is it that we can plan for something so far away, let falter in something that every day seems so close.

(as a final note, if anyone mentions hybrid cars I will hit them, they are only a stop gap)

Nuclear science is more organised and controlled, clearly. It's certainly pretty regulated; likely more so than oil, or at least was regulated from the start, which I doubt oil stuff was.

Oh please, cow's farting methane is what's destroying our world an you all know it. DOWN WITH MADCOW(s).

yeah, its worrying. but hey, we all know what will happen. one day oil will suddenly run out, and amercia will blame it on afganiskan or some other oil-rich country. however, by then, toilets would have taken over the world!

I had a discussion about this with my teacher and he said in his opinion that yes we are running out of oil but he also said there isn't much to worry about.

He used to be a scientist according to him...

Canada has the largest amount of Oil on the Earth. Problem is its mixed with sand. It must be liquified, then brought up. Very expensive, but not looking so bad considering today's prices.

It would not be so bad if all the "green alternatives" were not bought up, and locked away by the OIL companies. What needs to happen is that we need to outlaw oil except for VERY few applications. start with Hydrogen already, it makes WATER instead of smog FFS. After 100,000 years, if all cars were converted to hydrogen, we STILL would not have enough extra water to flood new Orleans.

ahem... Hybrid Cars.

sorry.

Hybrid cars produce much larger quantities of smug than normal cars

With the current direction of events by the time oil runs out something else would've destroyed human kind.

But it's really a major problem, I mean the only place we can get oil from is Earth, because oil is the result of milions of years of biological life and we still haven't found such other planet.

I guess japanese car companies will come up with a great solution to the oil shortage. As for Europe, most people are using public transport already and it runs on electricity, so it wont be too much of a shock.

And the brethern american people... I smell some huge disturbance over there as they are not very likely to give up their firetruck-capacity cars easily.

You are right about that PTS, although in cities most people use public transport.

I would definitely not say "most", at least not in England. Cars are clearly in the majority in every town or city I've ever been in.

certainly not in london, public transportation trips make up many times more than the number of car trips per day and on average, I would know because I read the TfL's business plan for some reason (bro's in treasury transport dept)

Ah, yeah, I suppose with the trains. Lucky bastards.

Hey I didnt say public transport was a majority. Only in cities. Personal cars are the majority here. SUV's, Hummers, Hummer limos, all the gas guzzlers. I say we remove unused parts of the earth and scrunch everything together to make where you have to go closer. Of course you need to be able to change the laws of the universe, physics, etc. Unfortunatly only myself and the Q can do this.....

with opinions like yours you can do anything surely

Opinion is power!

start with Hydrogen already,

Afaik, Hydrogen fuel cells simply have too many problems to be feasible right now, among them:

-Current methods to convert H2 from Natural gas or coal are simply too expensive.
-Conversions are for your car are too expensive
-High pressure storage tanks for the H2 in your car are dangerous

I just heard on a radio program that there is a relatively cheap way to make methonal from coal. Good things they said about it:

-The U.S. has enough coal to make coal-based methanol cheaply for the next 500 years.
-Cost almost nothing--from the manufacturer--to make a car "flex fuel" or able to run on regular gas/coal-based methanol.
-It would cost $1.77/gallon

Biggest downside is that coal mines are dangerous/dirty for employees and the environment.

Mass transit is not the most feasible option for the United States, since we simply have so much land mass. Believe me, I and everyone else would love it if we could take a train accross the country, and to any other state for a couple bucks, but it's simply not feasible here.

Canada has the largest amount of Oil on the Earth.

I never Knew that, and woud've thought Russia...wow!

It takes 1 gallon of gas to make 1.3 gallons of corn-based ethanol, and you only get 2/3 the energy from it compared to gasoline. I've heard other bad things 'bout ethanol too, but can't remember them...

The point is, it dosen't make sense to use corn-based ethanol until better/cheaper ways are found to utilize it.

If I were buying a car today, it would be a diesel car, converted to run biodiesel. With no shortage of fast food resturants around and they're respective grease dumpsters, you'd have a virtually unlimited supply of fuel.

I've heard the exhaust smells like french fries, which is an added bonus imo.

Bio diesel isn't cost effective either to manufacture, but it's feasible to own a BD vehicle because every resturant on the planet currently throws away they're used frying oil as waste.

The science seems pretty clear about the facts of ethanol, though I'm not proposing the oil companines are beyond propaganda.

Consider:

A 1985 Honda Civic CRX got 57 MPG highway, and the same car today with all our technological advances only gets something like 40 MPG highway.

Oil company doods would say it's because of added pollution controls and the ever increasing restrictions on fuel blends. Sounds like total bullshit to me...we should have cars getting 100 MPG with current technology imo.

Actually, we should be flying spaceships around by now, but that's another discussion

Spaceships: They have them already, they just use up more gas than 20 Ford Expeditions pulling boats on trailers.

http://www.moller.com/

I think you're forgetting all those metal birds that defy Gods will and fly all over the world many thousands of times a day

-High pressure storage tanks for the H2 in your car are dangerous

A few litres of liquid explosive sloshing around you isn't?

We actually have a farmer here in Arkansas in jail now because he decided to make his own fuel for his own tractors. How damned corrupt is that? He was told that it is illegal to produce ones own fuels.

That's quite mad.

there must be a legitimate reason for that though, its illegal to produce your own unlicensed alcohol and its fricking dangerous to try and do it anyway, some markets do need to be controlled so you dont have 'joe bloggs a+ quality explosive oil' being put into someones car

i was just about to mention the hughe fleul flow a 747 has. Heck, when the engines it idle it already burns serval litres a minute. Though there isnt a alternative for airplanes. Yeah, nasa did make a plane that ran on solar power but it wouldnt be a effective means of transport.

I'm pissed at Americans and I AM american. Why do fucking soccer moms need to buy a 30 foot long 11 seat van that gets 4 mpg to transport her 3 kids?

What we need is restrictions on low gas milage. If all the car driving people here drove 60 mpg vehicles instead of SUVs we would be a lot better off.

no, you just need petrol costing $7 a (US) gallon, then you'll know what its like over here

What we NEED is for the government to buy the gas companies. Then we pay a bit higher taxes and gas at the pump is FREE! YAY

We just need to stop making cars that USE gas. and sell engine conversion kits for current common engine sizes. Just buy the kit, have a mechanic swap it out, it bolts right up. simple.

Any... particular engine conversion kits? Ones to run on dreams, hamster wheels?

its illegal to produce your own unlicensed alcohol and its fricking dangerous to try and do it anyway

Yeh, you can produce low level alcoholic drinks and wines as long as you do not sell them. But you can't produce spirits, there are government taxes on them etc. And it is also dangerous becuase when creating high alcohol spirits, other than ethanol, you can also create methanol, which messes you up seriously. Can make you go blind.
Which is why on some bottles of practically industrial strength drinks, they are dyed purple, which tastes foul, so as to warn people.

He's Welsh, so he knows his shit about this shit ;D.

Oh please, cow's farting methane is what's destroying our world an you all know it. DOWN WITH MADCOW(s).

I r teh weapon of massdestruction

---

A new kind of power plant is under development (I think the first one will be done in FRACE in 10 years! )
It's called fusion, it uses the same process as inside stars.
It releases loads of energy!
More than "fission" aka Nuclear power plants.
These fusion power plants will not be dangerous at all, and if you blow one up, it won't cause some gigantic explosion.
It leavs no waste.

If you ask me, I would say it's the ultimate power plant, and it doesn't hurt nature.
So, in the future most countries will probebly have fusion power plants wich will make this world a lot cleaner.

What about it? :S

Seventh Monkey: not hamster wheels. What kind of dolt.... forget it. Hydrogen, perhaps? compost? You seem to be able to use your imagination when trying to find ways to make other people seem inferior to yourself (so insecure!) So use that good noggin of yours to think of some fuels.

I like the rainbow idea, though.

Strangely enough, I don't pretend to know everything, unlike some people. The technicalities of fuel production should probably be left to chemists rather than IT teachers (haha) and Electronic Engineering students. My point was that you seemed to have replied without regard to the rest of the thread.

Yay, we are going to destroy our selves! Why prolong the egony? Lets do it now!!

if you blow one up, it won't cause some gigantic explosion.
It leavs no waste

Not sure where you got your information but your statement translates to "if you explode it, it explodes." In any case, damaging a nuclear fission power plant will not result in a "gigantic explosion," either.

And don't let anyone convince you that nuclear fusion is super-clean. It is not. It will generate radioactive contaminated waste. Not as much as a fission plant, but, yes, it will generate contaminated waste.

Seventh-Monkey: I think we don't communicate too well. First, the rest of the thread seems like a lot of whining aobut gas prices and how the companies laugh all the way to the bank etc. Here's what I meant: If they find a new alternative to petroleum, they won't have to make ALL NEW CARS to house it. they can simply make a retrofitting kit that replaces the most common engine sizes in the most common types of cars. I was not suggesting any certain TYPE of fuels, since I have no knowledge of what works and what doesn't and what they even HAVE nowadays. Other than clean hydrogen and gas. Anyway, I don't claim to know everything, but I'm getting a little sick of when people think I know nothing because I am not certified in some area or another. (i know i'll catch a lo of crap for this, but) I'm actually a MENSA-certified genius when it comes to IQ scores. I know a lot of crap about a lot of crap. This allows me to know just how much I don't know. People who think others think they know everything just think they know everything.

Ones to run on dreams

That would be sweet...

Quote:
-High pressure storage tanks for the H2 in your car are dangerous

A few litres of liquid explosive sloshing around you isn't?

Yeah, I suppose you're right. No doubt they have to crash test the H2 cars anyway, so it would stand to reason they're as safe as anything else.

I suppose just having a tank filled with anything at 10,000 psi scares me a little.

H2 cars still won't make sense to me until easier/cheaper ways can be found to create the fuel, not to mention the logistics of transporting it.

Also if were using fossil fuels to create the hydrogen, what really is the point? It would be pretty sweet if we could create the H2 with solar/electric, or with fusion lol.

Well, the idea is to use petroleum to create the FIRST hydrogen cells, then use nuclear energy or other hydrogen to run the plants after that. Getting started will be the hardest part.

Too bad we couldn't find cleaner ways to utilize coal...since we have so much of it here in America.

I know you can creat H2 from coal, but I'm not sure what the increased demand would do to the environment.

I dunno, isn't coal the HUGE cause of acid rain and other stuff? We do have a lot of coal, but the way it's mined and processed and used are ALL so eco-unfriendly. It'd be great to find a way though.

Methane is explosive fuel that every living organism on Earth releases aplenty because of the processes of food digestion. You're all making a mistake by thinking of how to replace one fuel that's running low with another one that'll run out a little later. We should instead concentrate on fuels with theoretically unlimited supplies (sun, wind, water, etc.)

It takes 1 gallon of gas to make 1.3 gallons of corn-based ethanol, and you only get 2/3 the energy from it compared to gasoline. I've heard other bad things 'bout ethanol too, but can't remember them...

Ethanol can be distilled with electrical heaters instead of burning.

Simply put the ENTIRE human mechanical technology is based on the wrong methods - expanding gases. If you think about it technology hasn't moved a step away from steam engines - even the nuclear plants use the heat output to create steam and rotate conventional turbines, which are around for like 200 years. Humanity has only mastered it's methods of killing, aparently. So sad...

Yeah, thats some thing we are good at. I'm so proud of the Human race. It's countless genocides commited no and then, the stronger ones that almost always enslave the poor ones, the pointless wars and tyriany.(still exists in what we call the pure westren world ) Ah, what a wounderfull world.

Fair enough, nickel, although knowledge isn't intelligence, as you should surely be aware.

Not sure where you got your information but your statement translates to "if you explode it, it explodes." In any case, damaging a nuclear fission power plant will not result in a "gigantic explosion," either.

You sure?
What about that incident in russia ( I think it was in russia :S )
An explosion blew up a nuclear powerplant and fired of a small nuclear explosion.

(Not 100% my area, but I have read about it. )
The town was evaquated before it exploded though..
I don't know if the story is true though, I've just heard it somewhere.

Anyhow, a nuclear powerplant could explode, right?

And also, nuclear waste from fusion.
Are you really sure about that one because I've read that it leaves nothing.

Madcow: If I am right I believe you are reffering to the poor children who were infected by radiation...There was a picture in a newspaper showing the ruined town...