Life after the oil crash
 

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Very interesting stuff. I especially like the parts where he debunks every possible alternative energy source.

We're fucked, there's nothing we can do.

Its all true too, because its on the internet.

You should try reading it, smart guy.

So long as the female population continues to thrive, I think I can live without oil and everything it does. Maybe sex will be the next energy resource.. You have to have sex every night so that your car has enough sex juice to drive around for 12 hours.

Hey, I can dream.

energy from friction on your inflatable doll? lube sales would plummet

damn swing midpoint...
time to stock up on non perishables

To say that this guy is a little 'extreme' in his viewpoint would be a mild understatement. He's firmly a candidate for tin-foil. Many of his assumptions are that people will not adjust to what we'd consider reduced standards of living (extended families in one large house, returning to a more agrarian lifestyle, etc) that I don't agree with, particularly the claims that all alternatives will never match up to oil so there's no point in even trying.

- Individual houses in sunny areas can run quite fine on solar alone, or a combination of solar and 'other' (biodiesel/biogas/wind,geothermics/whatever). It'll involve a reduced standard of living compared to what we currently enjoy, but it's obviously doable because there's a lot of people off the grid currently doing it. Yes, it would cost a lot to get everyone outfitted with solar, but with families moving back to live with the 'rents/gran'rents, it's not like every single detached dwelling CURRENTLY in existance would need this. Additionally, as the economy wound down, much of that energy would also no longer be necessary and be routed towards more immediate concerns of living (ie. farming).

- Oil may have a limited availability that's shortly coming to term, but there's certainly (unfortunately) enough bitimus coal out there to run power plants for a good long time, and you can, right now, today, get electric cars or gas-electric hybrids that can yield astonishingly high miles per gallon. A recent article about people modifying toyota prius to accept wall current for recharge claims a yield of up to 180mpg(!!). Additionally, food movement (which still remains the most important cargo) can be handled by train.

- Food GROWING will become problematic and more expensive as the slide progresses... expect to see the return of the 'victory garden' in a big way when tomatoes get up to $5/lbs. One expects that governments would turn over more resources to food growth and agricultural development, but that assumes a government can retain control over a hungry, desperate and angry former middle class (which, in the US, would be armed to the teeth) clashing over the scraps.

Even in the worst case scenarios of no new oil hard crash everything go boom, the people that survive will thrive much as they did prior to oil's big debut. Civilization, art, science, culture, travel, medicine et al progressed at a more languid, leisurely pace in the 1800s, but it did progress at a far more sustainable level than we currently press on with today. Of course, there were a lot more farmers and a lot less mouths to feed...

I don't know how much dieout as a result of famine could be warded off in a 'catastrophic failure' like that, but if you're that worried about it buy a hundred acres near a stream somewhere and get familiar with dirt again. Hell, even if YOU don't farm it, by virtue of having the land and the means to retain it puts you in a great position if some hungry people come wandering by willing to trade work for food. If we're destined to return to a sharecropper society, I sure as fuck know I'd rather be the landowner than the tennant farmer. :2 cents:

Of course, with a topic as complex and dark as this, I suspect most people reading the thread will now demand pictures of tits and twat. :winkwink:

Water is another problem ahead. A big problem.

water will never become a problem

Only in places that don't have it.

Of course, the people living in what would otherwise be a desert if not for extensive and expensive irrigation shoulda maybe thought about that back in the day. :winkwink:

I suspect it's gonna be pretty damn unpleasant in places like Nevada when there isn't enough power to run the AC. Enjoy Vegas while you can! :thumbsup

Water renews itself

Although i'm not sure what happens to it when its used to create hydrogen (prly our next major power source)

Hydrogen is a pipe dream, probably the least likely candidate available. Reason being, it takes a LOT of energy to produce the hydrogen, and it takes hydrogen under very high pressure before it gets an energy density tolerable for use in vehicles (I believe it requires 200 atmospheres of presure to force hydrogen into a liquified state). The only advantage to hydrogen is that burning it produces nothing but heat and water... essentially you're transporting a portion of the energy originally taken to convert H2O into H2, and burning it in your car to make it go and convert it back to H2O.

Far more realistic is conversion to a pure or hybrid electric system, with centralized power generation that can take advantage of scale conversion from one power source to another (solar, wind, nuke, coal, whatever) and has a long proven and existing method of transportation (the grid, although it could sure as hell use some 'shoring up' in places).

Or maybe just getting off our fat asses and walking or biking places. :thumbsup

edit: Yes, chemistry purist, burning hydrogen can yield other compounds like peroxide, etc. Don't be a pedantic asshole.

Summarizes it for me....thanks

i believe it was last week that i saw a news report about this. could of been total bs but they had hydrogen filling stations ran solely on solar energy.

You got some premise for your conclusion?

Not going to be a fun 10 years or so i'm sure

Water's not a problem??


The World Bank reports that 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten health and economies while 40 percent of the world ? more than 2 billion people ? have no access to clean water or sanitation.

As populations grow, industrial, agricultural and individual water demands escalate. According to the World Bank, world-wide demand for water is doubling every 21 years, more in some regions. Water supply cannot remotely keep pace with demand, as populations soar and cities explode.

Half the world's rivers and lakes are seriously polluted with toxic substances.

By 2025 the demand for fresh water will rise by 56 percent and as many as two-thirds of the world's population will be living with serious water shortages or absolute water scarcity.

The US National Intelligence Council, a group that reports to the CIA, warns that water will become the main resource-scarcity problem by 2015 and that the instability created by water shortages "will increasingly affect the national security of the United States."

etc. etc.

about 80% of the world is covered with it
it renews itself
if a shortage occurs desalination of the ocean although costly will become a priority

Also just recently saw a PR that said they had a working prototype of a car that (from what they say) not only ran off hydrogen but was able to extract it

It's possible to run a hydrogen fill station using solar or other alternative energy sources. I'd be more curious to know how much electricity it took to run the electrolysis to generate the gas. A solar fill station that only produces a liter of liquid hydrogen a day isn't going to serve too many people. :winkwink:

national security seems to be the standard footer on all reports these days giving them legitimacy in the media. just as a gas shortage "scared" the government into conservation efforts and alternative energy water is becoming the new scare tactic. who cares if it hits in 2025 anyways, we'll all be dead of skin cancer from global warming diminishing the ozone layer

http://www.pathology.washington.edu/...nnat/alden.jpg

Also, don't forget the fuel cell problem...fuel cells that convert hydrogen to electricity require platinum, which isn't exactly an abundant element.

ah, i must of misunderstood the report or they just plain reported it wrong. i was under the impression the station not only provided the hydrogen but created it aswell.

Desalination requires energy though :(

I wonder how big the plate has to be?

If electrolysis was "run in reverse"?that is, if hydrogen and oxygen were combined to make water?the process would release electricity.

This is what a fuel cell does. The hydrogen fuel is fed into one end of the cell, where it comes in contact with a platinum plate. The platinum acts as a catalyst that helps break down hydrogen atoms into positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons.

The electrons are then screened-out using a substance called an electrolyte. The ions can pass through it; the electrons cannot.

All the electrons are collected and sent through a wire. That stream of electrons is electricity, which can be used to power a motor.

The wire eventually is routed back to the cell, where the electrons, ions and oxygen combine to make water?the fuel cell's only waste product.

yes it does. thats not the point though. this isnt something that'll just disappear one day and never be found on earth again. people need it to survive and what good is a government without people to pay for it? water sustains life and until something else is created as an alternative (medical science) we'll goto the ends of the earth to survive.

Walmart would love an end to transportation. Imagine having to walk everywhere for all your needs. You could walk all over the city looking for what you want or you could walk to your neighborhood?s own walmart super center. Time to buy some walmart stocks :Graucho

I guess I see the increasing cost of acquiring quality drinking water as being the problem.

If we put aside the problem of its increasing cost of acquisition, then yes, there wouldn't seem to be as much of a problem.

i dont see it as a problem just yet. the cost of gas affects everything including water so id consider that the main issue. the only cost the consumer will fill is when the water companies switch to metered service regulating the flow of water which will only force us to limit our usage(something that should be done already). this is something that was inevitable anyways so being concerned about it now is basically pointless. i could really care less if bottles of water go up $0.02 per bottle because i dont drink it anyways.

I don't see it as a problem at this very moment either, it's a problem for the future, but I don't look forward to the idea of grandchildren asking me to tell them what it was like when basically everyone rich or poor had all the free water they wanted.

i heard the same story from my grandparents talking about how cheap gas was. this issue will be brought up with everything eventually with our ever growing population of consumer whore gluttons who think since its "free" it can be wasted.

Uh oh.



This doesn't read like a fairy tale!

60% of the Dutch using gas...

i'm thinkin' that its gonna be like mad max and shit all around us

Man, those movies were so fucking ahead of their time, fuck thunderdome, though. Fucking Corky's in that shit.