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No More Overseas Travel? - Running out of oil?


jackb

26-Oct-2007
12:51:23 PM

Its not just about the cost of fuel we should be worried about. Petrochemical's are used in the manufacture of just about everything. Everything you wear and most things you buy. Oil reserves are expected not to last past 2050 even if we curbe our growing use of it. So when it runs out what will our slings be made of, or our harnesses and ropes?

Everything will get more expensive.


martyb

26-Oct-2007
1:37:51 PM

Why is everyone getting afraid of change?


IdratherbeclimbingM9

26-Oct-2007
1:47:15 PM

>got high 7's, so I used that (and rounded down to 7 because I figured if fuel prices doubled or tripled in the next few years people would buy super efficient cars).

Get a motorbike 5 L/100Km is more the norm and it’s a fun ride up Buffalo!

>That Goran Kropp dude rode his bike from his home in Sweden to Everest and then climbed it solo without O2s.

…but what did he do on grit? (Heh, heh, heh.)

>rode his bike

Luxury!
Tim McCartney-Snape (was so poor! he), walked it from Bay of Bengal to the summit …

>Now he's dead. I hope he didn't get run over by a car.
… or a (WW steroid fed) Jack Russel Terrier!
Heh, heh, heh.

>Offset your trip to the crags by not eating meat.
… maybe should reduce that g-gas output by eating more meat? ... I've heard that in some countries they eat their Terriers ...


oweng

26-Oct-2007
1:49:30 PM

On 26/10/2007 jackb wrote:
>Its not just about the cost of fuel we should be worried about. Petrochemical's
>are used in the manufacture of just about everything. Everything you wear
>and most things you buy. Oil reserves are expected not to last past 2050
>even if we curbe our growing use of it. So when it runs out what will our
>slings be made of, or our harnesses and ropes?
>
>Everything will get more expensive.

Yes the cost of fuel is the immediate short term effect. The cost of manufactured goods and food itself will become significantly more expensive. The world will plunge into recession. Already impoverished people around the world (particularly in Africa) will die in large numbers because the rich west (including us) will be buying large amounts of grain to convert into biofuels.

I found this piece of bleakness in an article discussing the reliance modern agriculture has on oil:

"The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

Bob Saki

26-Oct-2007
1:50:32 PM

luckily I've nearly finished my Flux Capacitor, now where to get a DeLorien

Ronny

26-Oct-2007
1:56:58 PM

On 26/10/2007 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:

>Get a motorbike 5 L/100Km is more the norm and it’s a fun ride up Buffalo!
>

Yeah but a car gets (say) 8L/100km with 5 people in it. 5 people on bikes and suddenly its at least 15L, more like 25.

Would be a pretty nice ride though.

It occurred to me a couple of years ago when the price of petrol really went up that if the prices had been that high a few years earlier when i was at Uni there's no way I would have done so many trips. As it was I could get to moonarie every couple of weeks living on YouthAllowance. That would be pretty hard now.
J


Organ Pipe

26-Oct-2007
2:01:55 PM

On 26/10/2007 nmonteith wrote:
>That's is impressive Organ Pipe! Whats the range? (ie how often do you have to fill up?)

I'll try to get some more info from him re and LPG speciffic changed that BOC may have made to the engine but:

My 'modus operandi' is to fill her to the gills up at the Todd Rd Shell (next to the westgate bride) when heading up. Then on the way home I fill again at the same spot (2 shells one on either side of the fwy)

Last time I did this (Aug I think) I put $42 in the tank on my return fill up, which means I had only used that much since leaving that spot on the earlier journey.

NOTE: No filling up in between these two occasions.

I don't know how big the tank is - but that is sort of irrelavent I suppose. I also didn't note the price of LPG at the time of fillin up, only the price I payed.

Not having a clue about fuel efficiency of cars, is this way outside the curve? or just "pretty good"


IdratherbeclimbingM9

26-Oct-2007
2:26:14 PM

>Why is everyone getting afraid of change?

Yeah.
Oweng is having a gloomy/bad day given it's a Friday and end of working week?

All this pessimism; pfht; ... nothing a good war or natural disaster wouldn't fix !

What?


Eduardo Slabofvic

26-Oct-2007
2:28:12 PM

On 26/10/2007 oweng wrote:
> Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will
>not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in
>excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have
>to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people to 2 billion-a reduction
>of 68% or over two-thirds.

Bring on that Bird flue pandemic!

Bob Saki

26-Oct-2007
2:32:29 PM

there are still many poorly guarded vials of plague in Russia and other former Soviet nations


nmonteith

26-Oct-2007
2:33:02 PM

On 26/10/2007 Organ Pipe wrote:
>Not having a clue about fuel efficiency of cars, is this way outside the
>curve? or just "pretty good"

I have no knowledge of gas, but this sounds insanely good to me! I remember someone telling me that
gas is very fuel effeicant, but you need much greater storage capicity - so range was limited. Thats why i
asked. teh fact you get 800km+ on one tank is fantastic (i get about 750km out of my 80 litre diesel tank)


mousey

26-Oct-2007
2:33:40 PM

i try to be loving but i totally have no problem with a reduction in americans


oweng

26-Oct-2007
2:42:52 PM

On 26/10/2007 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>Yeah.
>Oweng is having a gloomy/bad day given it's a Friday and end of working
>week?

There is no excuse for me having a bad day, its Friday, and I had a public holiday yesterday! (drove to hillwood (5 hour return drive....), did 4 or 5 routes, 20 degrees and sunny, awesome!)

I declare the rest of today sunny and upbeat! Doom and gloom begone.


anthonyk

26-Oct-2007
2:50:39 PM

welll.. there are alternative technologies, they're just not economical. once (if) people start getting hungry they'll switch to alternative methods pretty quick. there's MASSES of energy in coal and nuclear still, and the technology exists to make reasonable hydrogen fuel cells. people will buy different cars & ag equipment, even at twice or 3 times the price, before they start getting short of food. and the more production the cheaper the cost. the cost of running the same system we have now on fuel-cell equipment instead of petrol combustion is possibly no more expensive or inefficient, its just the switch-over cost that makes it impractical. raise the price of petrol and you can get a pretty quick transition, there's just lots more cost in switching over than keeping with the status-quo.

i'm not saying coal-hydrogen is a good solution, but its a far, far more likely case then americans dying of hunger. nuclear-hydrogen isn't such a bad approach either given the alternatives, unless you're a tree-hugging pinko lefty scumbag.

;)


anthonyk

26-Oct-2007
2:57:46 PM

as for biofuels, they're a quick-fix because they can be run on basically the same equipment you run with petrol, but once you're competing with peoples food it causes a lot of problems. will people care? hungry people are angry people, and if food competition leads to political instability in places like mexico they'll realise pretty quick that its not worth it. so i don't think they'll encourage that path for too long.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

26-Oct-2007
2:59:40 PM

Man shall not live on shredded sugar cane or past-its-use cooking oil alone?

spicelab

26-Oct-2007
4:59:24 PM


anthonyk

26-Oct-2007
5:39:43 PM

On 26/10/2007 spicelab wrote:
>The chapter on aviation is one of the scariest things I've ever read.

i don't know what he says in that book but hydrogen is suprisingly practical for use in a jet engine. it has 3 times as much energy per weight as kerosene, its just more expensive to produce and, well, a bit explosive. experimental scram-jet engines only use hydrogen fuel, there's been research into using hydrogen in regular engines, the principle is fine, when kero becomes uneconomical it may catch on.

yes its costly to make LH2 but if you make it from off-peak power it is surprisingly economical, i've heard comments that it is already competitive with the price of aviation fuel, there just aren't any LH2 planes to make use of it.


Zebedee

26-Oct-2007
6:47:26 PM

On 26/10/2007 BigMike wrote:
>
>If you're worried about global warming and greenhouse gases ...
>
>Global livestock production releases more greenhouse gases than all the
>trains, planes and automobiles in the world.
>
>Offset your trip to the crags by not eating meat.
I am not sure livestock are such a large greenhouse gas factor. The fuel for your cow or sheep is a short lived grass that has just trapped co2 in growing. This may be converted into methane (a more 'effective' greenhouse gas) but needs to be offset against the original loss of co2 as the fuel for the cattle/sheep was produced. Whereas your fossil fuel trapped its co2 quite a while ago and releasing this into the atmosphere now makes a permanent change to the balance. Having said that there is no doubt that killing a few animals (humans) could certainly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Sabu

26-Oct-2007
9:38:31 PM

On 26/10/2007 Zebedee wrote:
>I am not sure livestock are such a large greenhouse gas factor. The fuel
>for your cow or sheep is a short lived grass that has just trapped co2
>in growing. This may be converted into methane (a more 'effective' greenhouse
>gas) but needs to be offset against the original loss of co2 as the fuel
>for the cattle/sheep was produced. Whereas your fossil fuel trapped its
>co2 quite a while ago and releasing this into the atmosphere now makes
>a permanent change to the balance. Having said that there is no doubt that
>killing a few animals (humans) could certainly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Am pretty sure that the methane produced by cows (considering the sheer numbers of cattle thes days) is immense and is a very large contributer to greenhouse gases!

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