Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alice on June 28, 2011 at 6:44pm

Carbon tax? I think Australia is about to bring in a carbon tax. It will shake the economy up for a time, but after it settles we'll all get used to it. It's like a game of chess, you make a move, see the result and them make a new strategy based on the consequences of our move. Of course real life isn't as predictable as chess and so we must take one step at a time and be reasonable, rational and thoughtful at every move as the playing field adjusts.

Permalink Reply by Christopher Baughman on June 28, 2011 at 6:00pm

Oh, we're allowed to just go off the deep end with theoretical shit?  Fine, I choose harnessing heat from the mantle to provide our energy.  If it fails we're fucked in more ways then one.

Permalink Reply by Alice on June 28, 2011 at 6:45pm

They are looking into doing that - although they can't yet work out how they're going to do it. I think they are digging in Australia somewhere.

Permalink Reply by Christopher Baughman on June 28, 2011 at 6:57pm

lol

I only mentioned it because talking about theoretical technologies to save our ass seems almost akin to bowing down hoping for a deity to solve all of our energy problems.  Stole it from a science fiction book with detective elements.

Anyway I don't think we'll find a solution in any one technology.  Odds are we'll end up embracing a multitude given our own electrical economy doesn't revolve around a single fuel.  The most outlandish that I think we'll see in the next 10 - 20 years is fuel coming from genetically modified organisms.  The US just doesn't seem to want to embrace the idea of electrical cars so it'll face stiffer resistance then using some form of hydrocarbon garnered from vat grown bacteria.  As for what people use in their homes I'm not sure we'll see massive change given our obsession with coal and this sudden push to use natural gas for increasing amounts of tasks.  At the end of the day I'd love to be idealistic and say we'll use less energy and try to make up the difference in green energy solutions, however I just don't think it'll happen.  I guess I'm just not in the mood for pipe-dreams right now.

Permalink Reply by Sean Murphy on June 28, 2011 at 7:47pm

Oh, energy usage will reduce fairly quickly in the not-so-distant future one way or another. Some estimates already have us at peak oil production - as demand goes up and production levels off and then drops, prices will skyrocket beyond the ability of any piddling National Reserve to alleviate. When gas prices hit twenty and thirty dollars per gallon, energy usage will definitely drop. Greenhouse emissions will drop at some point as well, for similar reasons, although they may go up when coal makes its big comeback fro a little while, but the coal will get used up as well. Unless we make existing technologies work well enough to replace oil and coal, we will lose our chance to ever develop any of the theoretical science-fiction stuff...

Permalink Reply by Alice on June 29, 2011 at 12:01am

as oil runs out or is harder to get, prices will go up and it will be necessary to look for alternatives or change how we do things. Poorer people will make different choices simply because they are unable to afford to carry on with their current high consumer lifestyles.

Permalink Reply by Alice on June 29, 2011 at 1:16am

I'm sorry - I didn't understand that sentence!  I agree it's not simple.  Are you saying that cheaper technologies will not be economical in the future?  Which technologies are you meaning?

Permalink Reply by Alice on June 29, 2011 at 4:36pm

I see what you are saying. I think we will naturally innovate and adapt to our new environments. If the cost of travel goes up too much, we will move closer to our work places and family - we will use the Internet instead of travelling to work. The changes in energy will slowly change what is practical to do. Getting a car may become a luxury. As far as I'm aware, Americans have 2 cars at least per household and those cars are large and consume a lot of gas per km. Perhaps we'll go to smaller cars, or motorbikes, or public transport might be more efficient. Things will change slowly. If you were smart you would adapt to the shifts of power costs - those that don't may suffer as they try to maintain their current lifestyle with rising costs.

Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on June 29, 2011 at 5:16am

In his book Nemesis the late professor of Asian studies Chalmers Johnson stated the United States has over 700 military bases world wide. He further states that the military base is how our (the United States) empire is propagated. He asserts that to maintain an empire or to preserve our individual freedoms and culture without slipping into fascist dictatorship is the crossroad which all empires ultimately face. He represents in the case of England how this was accomplished successfully while in the case of Rome the divestiture of empire came in the form of collapse.
Think of the power requirements of each one of those military bases. Think of the fuel costs to operate all of the vehicles in the air on land and at sea and the fuel for emergency power back up generators each base has or more regularly the monitary costs to receive that power from commercial grids in host countries. Factor in the cost of personnel and household goods in storage and the cost of accommodations for military families living over seas. Factor in the costs of readiness exercises and standard evaluation teams traveling around the globe to maintain the quality of that military presence. There are plenty of estimates how much all of this costs. It's going to cost even more now that our 10 year treasury bonds are not triple A rated. The same old politics needs more time and revenues for more military strategic planning.

Permalink Reply by Apeman Jim on July 9, 2011 at 9:53am

Jeebus!!!

... how about we stop killing brown skinned people around the world, stop voting for fucksticks that serve their masters on wall street and decimate our economy for the profit of a few, and mandate a newly funded and empowered DOE take on a manhatten-project style pursuit of clean power technologies?

Oh... and a renewed focus on education might drag us out of our slide towards a dark ages.  Our capacity for self destruction still exceeds our moral restraint... how much longer can we walk this tightrope?

 

Fossil fuels need to go for thousands of reasons...

The energy "crisis" is a profit machine.  Supply and demand, money and power, politics and ignorance are all tied to a world balanced on the edge of a sword wielded by a few.

Permalink Reply by Chris G on July 9, 2011 at 11:21am

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  has some interesting articles.

Permalink Reply by Chris G on July 10, 2011 at 3:45am

Jared Diamond wrote a book called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail, or Succeed. National Geographic made a show based on his book. Climate meddling dates back 8,000 years. Watch the video showing deforestation. Thomas Jefferson noted in his diary how cutting trees in North America to make farmland affected climate.

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