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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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T-J
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Location: Seoul EunpyungGu Yeonsinnae
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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 Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for posting the link T-J.
Now after some people here have seen the film, we can start by answering the question, Is Michael Ruppert a crackpot? Or is he a genius? |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Dev wrote: |
Thanks for posting the link T-J.
Now after some people here have seen the film, we can start by answering the question, Is Michael Ruppert a crackpot? Or is he a genius? |
He might be both, but I'm sure alot of what he says about the current state of the world is spot on. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:06 am Post subject: |
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| So Marx was right. |
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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It's weird to imagine this, but probably the people who stand the most chance of surviving in the future are in small agricultural communities in developing countries that grow their own food and use oxen as opposed to tractors.
The worst off will be city dwellers in developing countries because in these countries, they won't be able to afford the oil to power the trucks to bring the food into the cities.
In developed countries, it will be the rich who survive because they are able to buy the food at high prices. Supermarkets will probably have armed guards. The middle class & lower classes will probably all die because there will be no jobs. Industries supported by people's disposable income will perish (putting millions out of work) because people will be spending all their money on food and rent (if they have a job & money).
Or we might survive if we
- switch to solar or wind power
- only buy locally produced food. |
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Hightop
Joined: 11 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Dev wrote: |
Or we might survive if we
- switch to solar or wind power
- only buy locally produced food. |
There is some independent thought. Wind power? nahh wind farms are built from steel, the world can not make enough steel to build enough wind farms to provide enough energy. Solar power, it uses more energy to make the soalr panels and transport the energy than the panels can produce.
Buying locally produced food. Now that is a good idea. But, we all love those massive strawberries. |
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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Ruppert makes an interesting point in the film about North Korea. He states that energy shortages were the blame for NK's famine.
That makes sense because if they don't have oil, the farming equipment doesn't work.
Theoretically, that could happen to the rest of the world. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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Oxen should be utilized to plow fields, and cows, which by nature's arrangement supply enough milk for humans as well as for their own calves, should be allowed to eat their natural diet of grass instead of genetically altered corn mixed with chickencrap (or worse) and then end up mercilessly slaughtered when they grow old and no longer yield enough milk.
Nature (and God) can only stand so much before cataclysmic change restores natural order. |
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CapnSamwise
Joined: 11 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Hightop wrote: |
| Solar power, it uses more energy to make the soalr panels and transport the energy than the panels can produce. |
So your argument is "Alternative energy sources don't work, the only possible solution is to continue to rely on petroleum."
You are aware that there's a finite supply of it, right? I mean, there will come a point at which we have found and extracted every last drop of it. It just seems like your ilk run around shitting over people trying to make a difference, not knowing that, yes Virginia, we will run out.
Also you are catastrophically wrong about solar power. |
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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Hightop
Joined: 11 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| CapnSamwise wrote: |
| Hightop wrote: |
| Solar power, it uses more energy to make the soalr panels and transport the energy than the panels can produce. |
So your argument is "Alternative energy sources don't work, the only possible solution is to continue to rely on petroleum."
You are aware that there's a finite supply of it, right? I mean, there will come a point at which we have found and extracted every last drop of it. It just seems like your ilk run around shitting over people trying to make a difference, not knowing that, yes Virginia, we will run out.
Also you are catastrophically wrong about solar power. |
CapnSamwise, you clearly did not read what wrote. At no point did I talk about oil. All I wrote was my doubt in the net energy gain of wind and solar energy. Lets talk more about your great savior, solar energy.
Sure, enough energy from the sun hits the earth in a single day to supply the world with energy for a whole year. This gets people like yourself all worked up, oh great lets make some solar panels and we can have free energy forever yayyyy. But the reason that this seemingly infinite energy source so far only accounts for less that one percent of global energy consumption is cost and the vicious circles among natural resources.
A the moment there are two ways for capturing solar energy, solar cells made from photovoltaic materials and solar collectors. Solar cells are made from silicon which is difficult to work with and difficult to produce with a manufacturing process which requires huge amounts of fresh water and energy. Even if you take this into account solar cells make a net energy gain. But the sun only shines during the day and not all the time during the day. This means that we have to find ways to store the energy. To date, there is no economical way to store solar energy. As there is no economical way to store solar energy there is no net energy gain. Until there is an economical way to store solar energy this will remain.
On the bright side thin film photovoltaics have come a long way and companies such as First Solar have lofty dreams of grid parity in a short space of time. This would be great but there is a catch. This technology relies on tellurium. Tellurium is one of the worlds rarest metals and since 2000 prices have increased more than ninefold. Why? Because there is not much of it. At existing use levels geologists believe it will be at very short supply by 2020 and if production of thin film photovoltaics were to increase to grid parity this would surely happen sooner. Moreover most tellurium comes from the refining of copper. As energy costs rise mining for copper will become more expensive which of course will put pressure on the prices of tellurium.
Solar collectors concentrate the heat of the sun and and use it to boil water which in turn generates electricity. This method can only work when the sun is out thus requires some kind of storage. On top of this the materials used to make the collectors include a variety of resources such as aluminum and copper whose scarcity and therefore price would be dramatically affected is solar collectors were put into widespread use. There resources, like oil, are not finite right CapnSamwise???
Next time before you run your mouth about 'my ilk' you should read what is written without making assumptions based on your black and white worldview. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Peak oil isn't really that big of an issue right now. It could be in the future, but pundits have been predicting we will run out within the decade for four decades.
If it ever does become an issue, ie the price of oil goes to $1000 a barrel or something, this will create a massive incentive for people to find an alternative. Someone who can sell a unit of energy, measured in barrels of oil, for less than $1000 (or some other arbitrary figure) will make a killing.
Personally, I don't envision some Mad Max style dystopia caused by the end of oil. No one on this thread has mentioned nuclear. The economies of scale aren't there right now, but it is by far the most promising alternative on the horizon, imo.
Cue invective from CapnSamwise. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| CapnSamwise wrote: |
| Hightop wrote: |
| Solar power, it uses more energy to make the soalr panels and transport the energy than the panels can produce. |
So your argument is "Alternative energy sources don't work, the only possible solution is to continue to rely on petroleum." |
It' pretty obvious that, at this point, alternative energy doesn't work. Most people wouldn't choose to install solar or wind in their homes as it does not make economic sense for them.
Hightop is just stating something he believes to be a fact. And it would seem the evidence agrees with him.
| Quote: |
| You are aware that there's a finite supply of it, right? I mean, there will come a point at which we have found and extracted every last drop of it. It just seems like your ilk run around shitting over people trying to make a difference, not knowing that, yes Virginia, we will run out. |
This doesn't seem that likely. Did we extract every last drop of whale oil in the whaling days? No. Something else came a long.
| Quote: |
| Also you are catastrophically wrong about solar power. |
I guess you have some inside knowledge on solar power that no one else knows about? Care to share it? Otherwise it's kind of pointless making big claims without backing them up. |
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Dev
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Senior wrote: |
. No one on this thread has mentioned nuclear. The economies of scale aren't there right now, but it is by far the most promising alternative on the horizon, imo.
Cue invective from CapnSamwise. |
Watch Collapse. Mr. Ruppert talks about nuclear energy and writes it off.
Common sense would also tell you that for most of the world, nuclear is not an option. It takes a lot of capital to get a reactor going and run it properly. |
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