Comment Re:We run out of oil, so what? (Score 1) 640
"So what if we run out of oil?"
You're not serious, surely?? What do you think powers all those automobiles and buses and trucks you see on the street everyday? Got news for ya, pal...the vast majority of them ain't been converted to biodiesel yet. And for that matter, are you aware just how much of the fertilizers used by our agricultural industry are manufactured using petroleum (I'm not just talking about the machines which are used to make it, either)? The plastics industry is another major consumer of petroleum -- don't you know that? If you were to search through your house and make a pile of everything that is in some way dependent on petroleum, either in its manufacture or in its operation, I think you'd find that you have a *much* bigger pile than you might expect (People have actually done this). Not to mention the fact that these days, most of the food that you purchase in the grocery store was transported a considerable distance before it arrived on the shelves -- which means that a truck or a train had to carry it there.
As it happens, we also don't have quite as many readily available alternative sources of energy as you appear to think we do and those which we do have are at least somewhat problematic. If it were otherwise, doesn't it make sense to think that we would be taking greater advantage of them and weaning ourselves off petroleum more efficiently? There are some under development, yes -- but most of them are not yet at a place at which they can replace petroleum. At least at present, ethanol is not an efficient fuel because it uses up more units of energy in the process of manufacture than it actually creates. According to some of the experts, domestic natural gas also appears to be approaching peak production -- so that's not really a secure alternative. Perhaps if we'd continued paying attention to solar and wind power after the energy crisis of the 1970's (resulting from domestic oil production reaching its Hubbert Peak), they would be in more widespread use but we didn't. Nuclear energy inevitably produces radioactive waste which must be stored for a very long period of time so that it does not harm the environment -- and if you want to know what can happen if there's ever a serious accident at the plant, just go to the Ukraine and ask people there. Neither coal nor wood is as efficient as petroleum -- if it were otherwise, one would think we would have kept on using them as we did in the past even after the discovery of petroleum -- and coal has the additional drawback of being an environmental pollutant through carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide ("acid rain") emissions. What petroleum can be extracted from oil sands and oil shales costs more to refine than sweet crude, and the fact that we're already considering them is not a particularly good sign. Off-shore drilling is potentially harmful to ocean life -- or didn't you hear the news recently that most of the seafood may be *gone* in the next forty years due to overfishing and destruction of habitats?
If you really wanna stick your head in the sand and assume that everything is going to be hunky-dory, feel free to go right ahead -- I can't stop you -- but Aesop said it best more than two thousand years ago in his fable about the ant and the grasshopper. It's better to be safe than sorry.
You're not serious, surely?? What do you think powers all those automobiles and buses and trucks you see on the street everyday? Got news for ya, pal...the vast majority of them ain't been converted to biodiesel yet. And for that matter, are you aware just how much of the fertilizers used by our agricultural industry are manufactured using petroleum (I'm not just talking about the machines which are used to make it, either)? The plastics industry is another major consumer of petroleum -- don't you know that? If you were to search through your house and make a pile of everything that is in some way dependent on petroleum, either in its manufacture or in its operation, I think you'd find that you have a *much* bigger pile than you might expect (People have actually done this). Not to mention the fact that these days, most of the food that you purchase in the grocery store was transported a considerable distance before it arrived on the shelves -- which means that a truck or a train had to carry it there.
As it happens, we also don't have quite as many readily available alternative sources of energy as you appear to think we do and those which we do have are at least somewhat problematic. If it were otherwise, doesn't it make sense to think that we would be taking greater advantage of them and weaning ourselves off petroleum more efficiently? There are some under development, yes -- but most of them are not yet at a place at which they can replace petroleum. At least at present, ethanol is not an efficient fuel because it uses up more units of energy in the process of manufacture than it actually creates. According to some of the experts, domestic natural gas also appears to be approaching peak production -- so that's not really a secure alternative. Perhaps if we'd continued paying attention to solar and wind power after the energy crisis of the 1970's (resulting from domestic oil production reaching its Hubbert Peak), they would be in more widespread use but we didn't. Nuclear energy inevitably produces radioactive waste which must be stored for a very long period of time so that it does not harm the environment -- and if you want to know what can happen if there's ever a serious accident at the plant, just go to the Ukraine and ask people there. Neither coal nor wood is as efficient as petroleum -- if it were otherwise, one would think we would have kept on using them as we did in the past even after the discovery of petroleum -- and coal has the additional drawback of being an environmental pollutant through carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide ("acid rain") emissions. What petroleum can be extracted from oil sands and oil shales costs more to refine than sweet crude, and the fact that we're already considering them is not a particularly good sign. Off-shore drilling is potentially harmful to ocean life -- or didn't you hear the news recently that most of the seafood may be *gone* in the next forty years due to overfishing and destruction of habitats?
If you really wanna stick your head in the sand and assume that everything is going to be hunky-dory, feel free to go right ahead -- I can't stop you -- but Aesop said it best more than two thousand years ago in his fable about the ant and the grasshopper. It's better to be safe than sorry.
