<DrumBeat: July 31, 2007 The Oil Drum Sir David King’s View on Peak Oil>

151 comments on Peak Oil Booklet: Chapter 3: What's Ahead?

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Gail the Actuary on July 31, 2007 - 8:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I see a couple of big problems -

1. There is likely to be a decrease in availability of replacement parts and other manufactured goods from overseas, particularly from third world countries experiencing load sharing and the like.

2. Everyone in the US would like to build new factories and other types of infrastructure, but in total all we have in terms of resources is:

• What we can mine (or otherwise produce)
• What we can recycle
• What we can import from abroad

Lack of capital is just a symptom of lack of resources.

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auntiegrav on July 31, 2007 - 11:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

2. Everyone in the US would like to build new factories and other types of infrastructure, but in total all we have in terms of resources is:

• What we can mine (or otherwise produce)
• What we can recycle
• What we can import from abroad

Lack of capital is just a symptom of lack of resources.

or, HEAVEN FORBID!!
4. What we can grow with the work of our hands and the sweat of our brow, powered by the biggest hydrogen fusion source within 4 light years of us.

Speaking of resources, How much energy do we throw away 'treating' sewage when every human being produces 1500 lbs of fertilizer per year?
Our System of Systems is insane when it comes to resource use and waste.
We take our children off the land and pay for them to go to schools to learn about plants and animals from video screens. Then we send them off to war to get more oil to go to war. The ones that don't get killed on the highways to get to the wars spend their time driving to work to make money to buy cars to drive to work at jobs created by 'incentives' taxed from the landowners who buy oil-based machines to replace the labor which is paid a $40,000 bonus to die in a war to raise the price of oil.
(was that one sentence? ;-o)

"Other than working and paying, what are you good for?"

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eric blair on July 31, 2007 - 10:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

How much energy do we throw away 'treating' sewage when every human being produces 1500 lbs of fertilizer per year?

A whole lot (motors that move the sewage need to be started and stopped with the power grids knowledge so they can spin up and down the generation for the load) because 'we' are managing the process and shrinking the land used for treatment VS having acres of solar powered treatment or using $15 of electrical power per day to treat 35 tons of human waste a day and letting earthworms do the processing in a worm gin product. (Deployed in South Korea)

The waste treatment plant used to use a Mercury bearing (Yup, floated the aeration arm pivot point on Mercury) till the metal engineering was able to be handle the forces.

And NOT having a connection to the city sewer means you are illegally inhabiting a structure. (Same with a connection to the power grid)

And finally - you'd have to have a change in behavior - all the time with the backdrop of cholera and other disease outbreaks.

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151 comments on Peak Oil Booklet: Chapter 3: What's Ahead?

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