Please read this report.
Do your own research and thinking, starting with this executive summary of the IEA report, but consider as a possibility that the author is correct:
What this means is very, very simple. There will be an energy crisis in the near future that will make anything we've experienced so far seem like a pleasant memory.
Tempus fugit.
My '06 VW TDI diesel gets anywhere from 43mpg to 53mpg depending on driving and ambient temperatures. There are Ford and VW diesels being sold in Europe that get 70+ and 80+ mpg. Can you imagine having such a vehicle HERE in the USA ? No one cannot. Why ? Because the green weenies and the Federal government's EPA won't allow them here.
ReplyDeleteJust think....if we cut motor vehicle fuel consumption in HALF because of diesel technology. Imagine the savings in oil consumption and taxes (yeah, right....bastards would raise taxes).
Is diesel the end all solution ? No. But we can run diesel motors off of biofuel.
No....petroleum is slowly disappearing. But the US government and it's tyrannical EPA have truly done nothing to help the situation. Just look at the diesel motor restrictions in this country.
If any readers here have a lick of sense....they'd look for a '06 or older VW Jetta TDI to buy. Find one NOW. And start learning about the benefits of a diesel motor car.
DAN
III
Utilities are very much in bed with the government by nature of their business. Their profits are determined by the PSC in many cases and they simply do not tell the government, "no."
ReplyDeleteSo even if organizations like this weren't predicting doom, the wise man would seek out as much independence (i.e. freedom) as he could get right now.
Energy independence is nigh on to total independence.
For what it's worth. There will be a man contrived energy crisis in the near future. There will be a real energy crisis sooner or later but that could be 10-20-30-40 years off.
ReplyDeleteThis is a lie by omission. There is no energy crisis. Peak oil may be true, but peak oil does not mean peak energy. The continental USA has a two hundred year reserve of coal in the ground. This solid coal may be converted to the liquid fuels we currently manufacture from oil through hundred year old, well-known chemical processes.
ReplyDeleteIn a free country, the energy currently being supplied by cheaper oil would be backfilled by nuclear fission using present technology, solar using just-arrived printed-cell technology, and nuclear fusion using future technology. Government may prevent this adaptation by taxing and regulating it to a standstill. If it does, we won't have a energy crisis, we'll have a government crisis.
Peak energy, Muslim terrorism, global warming: all lies to stampede you into a closed-end canyon where you are easier to pick off.
Oil-producing foreign countries are releasing less oil from their unimaginably vast (200+ years at current demand) supply into the market to keep prices artificially high. The enviros insist that we squeeze oil out of most difficult places because it's better for the planet than easy drilling into our own immense crude oil reserves. Obama and others are forcing us to adopt alternative energy sources that are nowhere near efficient and so are very expensive. All at the same time. During an economy that is going into respiratory arrest.
ReplyDeleteConspiracy THEORIES my foot.
My first post on this site (which I love). I've been around in energy, from conventional to solar to biomass to wind, and can only say that there are MANY ways of creating usable energy, from so called "cold fusion" to oil from Algae to well-designed nuclear. In fact the creation of energy is not a one-size-fits-all situation simply because local needs and energy producing capabiities are hugely varied. It's not as easy as the one-size-fits-all solution that we take for granted today, but a variety of sources of energy is within our grasp if only we had the will to take an honest look at them all and get on with it. You'll notice I didn't say "political will". Why so? Because like everyone on this site, I understand full well that government is almost always (perhaps always in fact) an impediment to good solid action.
ReplyDeleteAll that's required is the will to create energy that people will buy. It's "people" - you and I - that make the real decisions, and if companies offered, for example, a "cold fusion-powered" home heating system, people will doubtless buy into it, much like they did with Edison's lightbulb and Ford's Model T.
Instead government spends huge amounts of money on companies that do research. Fine. But like Cancer research, nothing will be accomplished by throwing money at researchers who simply don't or won't produce actual working solutions, because, well, it's really comfortable getting free government money to do research as an end in itself. For example, if we actually found a real cure for cancer do you think it would hit the marketplace? Not while so many are feeding off government research money.
So the solution to the energy problem, is for companies to do what they are good at: produce items, including energy itself, that people will buy, in any way possible. For a profit of course.
This was my reply to the author of the post...
ReplyDeleteSir,
There is no such thing as "peak oil". You have no doubt heard that term for years, yet most fields continue to produce, long after they were expected to.
However, the most compelling information is the fact that petroleum is not, in fact, a fossil fuel!
It is produced through a natural process involving, among others, "...the high-temperature, high-pressure continuous reaction between calcium carbonate and iron oxide..."! It is self-regenerating.
There are many supporting documents which may be found with a search of the 'net.
The only thing that will "starve" the economy is lack of political will. The methods of extraction you referred to are becoming less technologically challenging and less cost prohibitive. They are, however, becoming socially demonized, therefore politically challenging.
The United States alone has an enormous amount of petroleum, untapped, that is only unavailable due to political constraints.
I would be very interested in your opinion of the attached articles, and curious as to any further investigation on your part.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952 (Petroleum is not a fossil fuel)
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34233 (US has abundant energy supplies)
I do understand that the 2d article actually refers to oil as a fossil fuel, but it's irrelevant to the point. The point is, it's available for introduction into the economy.
So long as we can muster the political will.
My apologies for such a short reply to your lengthy post. You have clearly done more work on your end than I have on mine, at least for tonight.
No response yet, but it's been too soon.
So even if organizations like this weren't predicting doom, the wise man would seek out as much independence (i.e. freedom) as he could get right now.
ReplyDeleteEnergy independence is nigh on to total independence.
Alvie grabs the brass ring.
Nice to see more gun guys are catching up on one of the other methods of human control --energy. When that wire gets connected to finance, food, etc. maybe we'll see a big light bulb turn on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dan that a lot of the blame for the lack of increased fuel economy is that of the enviro-whackos, and on those pols who are either in their pocket or who lack the courage to resist and expose them. I cannot tell you all how frustrating it is to know that diesel minivans are produced in this country that get 35 mpg, yet they are all shipped to Europe because we aren't allowed to drive them here. What a freaking waste of our money (which is shipped to the likes of Chavez and the terrorist-financing Arabs) not to mention an affront to our right to purchase private property.
ReplyDeleteAs for an "energy shortage," I simply don't believe it. We sit on vast deposits of coal, oceans of shale oil and the thorium in available would power thosands of nuclear plants. Government should get the Hell out of the way, or not be surprised if many of its higher-ups end up hanging from trees someday.
From the wikipedia for Khmer Rouge:
ReplyDeleteThis organization is remembered primarily for its policy of social engineering, which resulted in genocide. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the deaths of thousands from treatable diseases (such as malaria). Brutal and arbitrary executions and torture carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during purges of its own ranks between 1976 and 1978, are considered to have constituted a genocide.
The Khmer Rouge subjected Cambodia to a radical social reform process that was aimed at creating a purely agrarian-based Communist society. The city-dwellers were deported to the countryside, where they were combined with the local population and subjected to forced labor. About 2 million Cambodians are estimated to have died in waves of murder, torture, and starvation, aimed particularly at the educated and intellectual elite.
The American Left's Gaia god demands you reduce your consumption and live closer to the land. They idolize primitive agriculture and third-world cultures, and the myth of the noble savage. The Left wants you to reduce your consumption...all the way down to zero, until you stop exhaling CO2.
The American Right wants World Made by Hand as their preferred Mad Max. They want the same destruction of industrialization as the Left, the differences are only cosmetic.
Freedom lies in the direction of greater material production through industrialization spread throughout society. That's why all politicians oppose it; the rat race is a weaker form of slavery. Suppose you found out there didn't have to be an energy crisis, or a collapse of industrial output. Would you be happy? Or would you be angry that the pretext for your social reforms had vanished?
The happy future comes from more energy consumption per person WITH less pollution per person.
ReplyDeleteLondon in Charles Dickens' time had so much coal fire smoke in the air that everybody had lung problems. That problem is solved today, and London supports many more people. Look at the trend of postcard photos of Los Angeles: in 1950 there was heavy smog from cars, but in 2010 the smog has cleared yet there are way more cars.
The happy future is nuclear power for centralized, solar power for distributed, domestic coal in the meantime. Anyone who wants there to be an energy crisis or a reduction in material prosperity from industrialization is not your friend. Manufactured goods from China are a saving grace. Imagine if the current anti-business regulatory environment was combined with an iron curtain of protectionism to keep foreign-made goods out. America would have the living standard of Cuba.
The real problem is Peak Government. The real solution is to consistently agitate for less government at every opportunity. You want a minimalist night watchman State that obeys the Constitution? I want less government. You want the Articles of Confederation describing a loose confederacy to make a unified defense against foreign armies? I want less government. You want taxation or regulation? I want less government. You want a monopoly police force in a privileged legal position? I want less government.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's worthwhile to remember that energy works BOTH ways. The major cities in the US DO NOT have their own viable energy supply. Almost ALL of it is "imported" from elsewhere in the country. Whilst the Great Enablers MAY be able to convoy food and such into the cities to sustain them in the event of a major unpleasantness, they have no credible way of doing so for energy against determined Lone Wolves. Powerline? Pipeline? NO credible way to protect that all the way from the source to the sucking cities. Just how long do you think the inhabitants of the major cities would tolerate a major impact on their energy supply?
ReplyDeleteJust sayin', of course...