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45 comments on What you can do about Peak Oil and Petrol Prices
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45 comments on What you can do about Peak Oil and Petrol Prices
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Another relevant thing that people can do is lobby politicians for an appropriate policy response. While it is fun to be on discussion forums covering a wide range of views, I would also like to find other people with similar views to my own to coordinate lobbying. The 3 policies I wish to press for are:
For a rationale please see http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg7nkx7d_41g5zrpx8k. People who more or less agree are invited to join a discussion at grampsgrumps.blogspot.com, or to e-mail me at rks987@uow.edu.au. Those who wish to disagree will reach a wider audience here than by posting on my blog. I'm already aware that most people currently disagree.
OK so I think your first two are good, but how does nucelar deal with a liquids fules crisis? There is not an "energy crisis" it is a liquid fuels crisis. Any response to that needs to be in the context of climate change.
The current liquid fuels crisis is just a symptom of a larger malaise.There are three overall problems.(1)Excessive population relative to resources.This is global and will eventually be subject to a Malthusian solution.
(2)There is an overall energy crisis as our sources,in the main, are not renewable and are causing (3) Environmental damage which translates into decreasing food production and the real wild card,climate change.
The current boom mentality in the political,business and media mainstream in Australia means that no effective action to address any of the issues is being taken and probably won't be until the situation deteriorates to the point of no return.
There is a lot which can be done.Nuclear power is one of the stop gap solutions although probably not so important in Australia because of our wealth in renewable energy sources.We are exporting large quantities of natural gas which is a good stopgap fuel in the transport sector.
I could go on for pages about the insanity of what we are currently doing.I think that the situation is going to have to get a lot worse before there is any realistic possibility of it getting better,given human nature and the abysmal quality of our leadership.
The first 2 points are good.
The third is unnecessary - nuclear power isn't the long term solution, so we should go straight to clean energy sources and avoid a repeat of the current problem using a different fuel.
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As soon as the clean energy stuff is up and working we can give up nuclear. Let's not just step off the cliff with hope. So far our clean sources in production have been biofuels (an EROEI and humanitarian disaster), and wind. Denmark is often cited as showing what can be done with wind, but I think they only claim 7.9%, and that's misleading because often it arrives when not needed and they dump it on nearby countries; and they keep coal power up and running to provide fill in power; and they buy electricity from nuclear Sweden and other countries.
We'll need a lot of extra energy when the fossil fuels are gone, just to prevent a huge population crash. Nuclear, using thorium and breeder reactors, is a very long stopgap.
My point is that thorium and breeder reactors are more expensive and less proven than wind and solar (and continue the existing extract and pollute paradigm), so why bother ?
This is about making optimal choices, not "stepping off a cliff with hope".
Anybody that says we should evaluate options based purely on engineering considerations has my complete support. I think a vigorous open expert on-going investigation of the engineering considerations is crucial. My feeling is that we will need a LOT of energy because we are running out of other things as well as fossil fuels, and energy can substitute for many things (e.g. fresh water via desalination). I'm pretty pessimistic: I think we'll be seeing people starving to death live on TV, and the only question is: How many? Stalin said "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic". It will be hard to resist that attitude if we don't have enough energy to do anything about it.
Personally I'd like to see us aiming for making energy cheap and abundant - everyone on earth hould be able to have access to as much energy as the average European or Japanese person enjoys today.
I agree desalination is just one more thing we'll be needing copious cheap (and clean) energy for.
As for people starving, it happens today - even with more than enough food and energy to go round.
There is more than one problem to solve here.