Unfortunately, this line of thought is common. Purely a convenience and short sighted view of cost/benefit. Obviously it’s dumb to go electric in a world of cheap oil. But why is oil cheap? What are the hidden costs? Future costs?
There will come a point where te cost of recovery of fossil fuels exceeds the price people are willing to pay. And eventually cost has nothing to do with it, There won’t be any oil left.
OIL IS A LIMITED RESOURCE!
Have you noticed that oil is not so cheap anymore. This is only partly due to Russia’s shenanigans.
We pay almost $300.00 p/mo for our home energy now and it won’t go down .
That means in less than 2 years you can become oil energy independent and the newer storage batteries promise even better performance than the Tesla car batteries.
But a better indicator is that billionaires are investing in new, better-than-the-current lithium batteries that can already be life savers during
energy blackouts and be recharged with portable solar panels so you can have your own portable FREE energy that with judicious use will run your appliances and power tools anywhere there is light.
For $5000.00 you can become basically energy independent and even charge your electric car in a day wherever you are on the road.
Regular price today about $2,500.00. Two of these HD units will keep your house liveable for a long time.
The regular price for a HD unit is about $2,500.00
Sure, you could use a gas generator. But those make a ton of noise, draw unwanted attention, & have toxic fumes.
Not so with the new power generators. they’re lightweight, fume-free and safe to use inside your home. It’s whisper-quiet and won’t attract attention. Most importantly, you’ll be able to recharge it again and again… for FREE.
Picture all the ways you’ll use your solar generator:
Cycle your fridge or freezer
Charge cell phones & laptops
Keep CPAP & oxygen going
Turn on a TV for important news
Run a fan, or electric blanket
Take it tailgating or in your RV!
Use power tools in weather events
Turn on lights for comfort, or to ward off looters
Charge your electric car
And much more
24 Hours a Day / 7 Days a Week / 365 Days a Year
Compared to the previous model, the new generators now have a continuous output of 1,800 watts, with 3,048 peak. And it can hold 768 Wh of power (60 Ah).
That means that if an appliance uses 1,800 watts of power or less, your Patriot Power Generator can run it. Most small appliances including your fridge and freezer fall into this group.
Imagine that in underdeveloped countries the villages can create a small reliable electrical network that will enable the residents to use light industrial tools and establish small businesses.
Last I heard - several years ago - is that we have around 400 years of oil left at current consumption. Roughly 80 % of the cost of booze is tax. We can make alcohol from all sorts of things. Crude oil is being made by bacteria deep in the earth as we speak. (Surely you don’t believe the “dinosaur in your thank” thing.) The Navy is developing processes to produce its own jet fuel using bacteria.
What is not cost effective is transforming electricity into electrical potential (putting it into a battery) extracting it and transforming it into mechanical rotation (a motor).
Edison favored that approach. But, now we have AC power. Scale brings efficiency.
Yeah, but Edison did it for purely self-serving profit reasons.
Besides that was a very different time and a “grid” did make lots of sense for a lot of reasons.
But that was then and this is now.
A lot of thoughtless stuff has happened in-between.
Not to mention the little matter of us totally upending our global weather systems, and evolving it into genuine civilization destroyers. It’s climate as much as anything making any future national grid next to impossible.
It’s difficult to have this discussion with the fact-free people. There 47 years of oil left, and it takes millions of years to create. If there was more, burning it at high rates, like we do, would still kill us. All the facts back this up, and there’s no point in moving on if you can’t prove me wrong.
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Try 40 years. And it is impossible to stay at current consumption with a growing population. At 1 % growth our consumption will double every 70 years. We’ll be out of oil long before that.
34,240,953 Oil pumped today (barrels)
1,423,616,361,984 Oil left (barrels)
14,846 Days to the end of oil (~41 years)
One of my other bad data friends just posted this. Must be hot right now
I had not seen this video. Interesting. It goes along with the discovery of bacteria living (and dying) at depths and temperatures previously thought not possible. Many articles on-line about deep bacteria discoveries; pick your favorites. Not much of a stretch to connect the corpses of those bacteria to the “fossil fuel” version of oil. But, this man seems to favor the idea that oil is a mineral, not produced biologically. I had not heard this before.
The “peak oil” idea has been around for more than a hundred years. Reminds me of the infamous statement way back that everything in science that could be discovered has been discovered.
It sounds like we’ve been collecting a valuable resource in our garbage dumps and land fills. It would be ironic if people in the 22nd century reclaim the garbage we’ve been dumping there.
You think?
Our actual physical planet has other plans (thanks to all we’ve so thoughtlessly done to it) for the next few centuries . . . . . . .
I do appreciate obsessing over it doesn’t help much, but glibly ignoring it is even weirder. And oh so counter productive
[quote=“ibelieveinlogic, post:29, topic:9887”]
I had not seen this video. Interesting. It goes along with the discovery of bacteria living (and dying) at depths and temperatures previously thought not possible. Many articles on-line about deep bacteria discoveries; pick your favorites. Not much of a stretch to connect the corpses of those bacteria to the “fossil fuel” version of oil. But, this man seems to favor the idea that oil is a mineral, not produced biologically. I had not heard this before.
Let’s hope we never hear about it ever again.
The “peak oil” idea has been around for more than a hundred years. Reminds me of the infamous statement way back that everything in science that could be discovered has been discovered.
“Peak oil” means peak oil production (current consumption) and has nothing to do with remaining reserves.
When you pour water from a bucket you pour “peak water” until the bucket runs dry. Then there is “no more water” for any production.
This is exactly the reason why all estimates of remaining reserves include the term “at current consumption”.
That is why;
14,845 Days to the end of oil (~41 years)
Countdown to the end of Oil
Assumption: If consumed at current rates
Sources and info:
- World Proved Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas, Most Recent Estimates - Energy Information Administration (EIA) - Data from BP Statistical Review, Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil, BP Statistical Review, CEDIGAZ, and Oil & Gas Journal.
I am always amazed why idiots like that guy above, with books about the Apocalypse on his bookshelf, are quoted as “knowledgeable sources”.
I live on top of the aquifer that feeds the St Louis River and I’m near the source of the Mississippi. I should probably start building the compound around my few acres now. They are busing immigrants up here and we’re doing our best to absorb them, but, the ironic thing is, that’s exactly what we should be doing, but just with a lot more thought and planning. Instead trying to save places like Sanibel Island, we should be looking for places that don’t need a ton of energy just to be livable, and start moving industries there.
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What I hear you saying is that you are willing to accept a lesser quality of life in order for people in other places to have children. I heard on the TV that 80 percent of the population of Singapore lives in government sponsored housing. I don’t consider that an acceptable life style.
I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to allow the construction of 40-story high-rises on my acre and a half just so people in Honduras can have more babies. I accept that people already in a lifeboat have the right to refuse to let an unlimited number of additional people climb in and sink the boat. Anyone who thinks we have no right to control our population should recognize that ultimately we will have to eliminate every other kind of animal on the planet just to make room for more of us. Of course we’re doing that already. Better perhaps to extinct humans and hope a smarter species evolves.
I’m sure that’s what you hear, and the fear machine makes sure you hear it. It’s not how I see it. What I hear from you is that you are fine consuming more resources than the planet can support, that you are unaware of how those “babies” are helping you do that, although “unaware” is charitable because it’s easy to find out about the child labor conditions around the world that support the economy that will eventually eat itself and your lifestyle will no longer be possible.
There are 16 billion acres of habitable land on the earth. We need a few billion to grow food, but there’s plenty for everybody. I believe in the power of the middle class, that if we reduce the consumption at the high end, the nested yacht McMansions, that will stabilize the economy and people will see a future for their children and will have the time to support them, so they will invest their energy in two or three and we will learn how to have a no-growth economy. That is, growth will occur in health care, exploration, cleaning up the mess of the last few centuries, but we won’t need junk food and products that are designed to fall apart or fashion shows.
But you have been convinced of a fake trade-off. That either you get your 1 acre, or it has to be given to someone who isn’t contributing.
Here’s some similar bad logic. People who have managed to get paid to think up these arguments go to college campuses and use them on people who are just figuring out how the world works. It’s a clip, so who knows if anyone ever did call D’Souza on it. It takes a while to develop, but ends with Dinesh challenging the kid to give up his place at the college so a less privileged can have it.
That’s not the world the kid is arguing for. He is as much against people “giving up” their places as he is against there being privileged places to get. D’Souza can’t see past the zero sum game, or he can but wants to keep it in place because he was given a privileged position in the current game.
What the kid wants is for there to be places that are earned by merit, and for advantages to be given to as many young people as possible, not just ones that look like him and were born in the right place, just by luck. With small changes to the current system, he would apply to colleges and get in and be blissfully unaware of the selection process. If he wanted to review that process, he would find it is fair. He isn’t blind to the fact that all of these problems can’t be solved overnight, that he will still need to work for justice until he dies, but he’d like to live where people don’t argue against fairness and equity.
The premise of the student’s argument was that everyone “deserves” an equal opportunity. Of course he reserves the right to determine the parameters for enforcing such equality. What he, and possibly you, don’t seem to understand is that the only things we “deserve” are what we earn and what we inherit.
The obvious complaint about deserving what we inherit is that we did nothing to earn it. That is a false argument. We do earn it every day we protect our “right” to it. We protect it by maintaining the system of government which recognizes the right of an individual to own property and the right to transfer that property to whomever we wish, by whatever lawful means we wish, particularly by inheritance to one’s children.
With a name like “ibelieveinlogic” you’d think you would be a little less circular.
My government gives me the right to inherit property
I maintain that system, lawfully
That’s an effort, so I earn it
Therefore I deserve to get it
This is the same circular logic that justified slavery 200 years ago.
One of the big things you miss is, when do people start earning their keep? They are pooping their pants for the first few years, and that’s when their brain is developing, so are they getting equal access to nutrition and a healthy environment? School quality varies wildly from town to town, so you can’t claim that’s equal. The kid isn’t even aware of this until they get through ten years or so, at which point hopefully they have the basic skills, like reading, so they can begin to employ them for further access to all the advantages of their country. Until they can drive and sign contracts, their ability to earn is limited.
You just didn’t really think this through.
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One of the basic tenets of communism is that the individual has no right to private property. Those who adopt communism or communism-lite, aka socialism, cannot accept that individuals can inherit property because private ownership of property is not allowed. I do not expect them to accept that anyone can earn the right to own property or to inherit property. If they do allow themselves to accept the idea of private property they would not be able to argue against the capitalist system which is based on the idea of the right to own property. The hypocrisy of these communist, socialist, all-powerful central government folks who call the car they drive, the home they live in, or the money in their wallet “mine” is obvious. One must wonder if they have thought their position through.
And where is this true in the US? Ever heard of Social Services?
Fundamentally all that is required is to pay your fair share of the commonly shared social services, such as "Common Defense, Interstate Highways, regulation of Interstate Commerce, Education, Health and Welfare, Social Security, Medicare.
All these programs are provided by the Federal Government at this very time. Have they taken any of your property?
The ideal form of government is a balanced Socio-Economic system of governance, where every citizen is entitled to a portion of the Nation’s wealth, but must contribute a fair share to the cost of these services depending on their ability to pay.
You know what is a crime? Corporate Welfare, where billion-dollar corporations don’t pay any taxes by manipulation of the tax codes and placing billions of dollars in tax-free offshore accounts which creates a greater tax burden on the working middle class who cannot afford high-priced tax accountants.
Lausten, you are so right. I remember the guy who declared his opposition to ACA (ObamaCare) socialism, but then warned against taking away his Medicare that he had contributed to all his working life.
These people have no clue what the feds do to keep this Nation functional. They think that all the tax dollars go to profit the Government. They don’t consider that the government is a not-for-profit organization that cannot make a profit from the public services they provide.
I had to read that a couple times, so many insights into what whole populations think. I don’t know how you do that. Capitalism could exist without property ownership. I’d say it’s more based on earning what you get, not accumulating something. You work and then sell the results of your work. Inheritance can happen with no input at all, you’re getting the results of someone else’s work.
“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries, and horrors would the human race have spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!” – Rosseau
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