Korean Job Discussion Forums

[funplanet]

enough oil? just run a comb through the hair of the G8 protestors and I'm sure you could come up with enough "oil" to light up London for a year

[Butterfly]

[igotthisguitar]

>. Oil is of the dinosaur age ... in more ways than one ...

The world's entrepreneurs, in conjunction with public initiatives, ought to be free to more actively pursue, develop & promote the embrace of alternative fuel, energy sources & technologies.

Wind, solar, geo-thermal, tidal etc. etc.

One main problem for the greed heads mind you would be monopolizing the resources & technologies in order to suck bigger profits off of the world's consumers.

As was, according to Darwin, the key to the Survival of a Species: "Diversify OR DIE."

[some waygug-in]

Perhaps things like this will become more common:

http://www.surftilyoudrop.com/forever-flashlight.htm

It's not much, but it is a step in the right direction. Maybe this will lead to other things.

A few years back I heard of a "wind-up radio" which was being made for third world countries where batteries are non existant.

Why can't we get more things like this happening, like a wind-up power supply device to run our computers etc?

Cheers

[matesol]

There is a cheap alternative. It is easy to convert most diesels to this form of fuel. Why isn't it being done? It's too easy to cheat on your gas taxes using this form of fuel.

http://www.greasecar.com/

Burning USED vegetable oil gets rid of grease that is usually just disposed of. Also, it doesn't put sulfur into the air and it smells nicer than diesel fumes! Since the plants from which Vegetable oil is produced consume CO2 as they grow, the net addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is zero. In any case, you can usually get the fuel from FREE. Restaurants have to PAY to get rid of used vegetable oil. Thus they are more than happy to give it to you for norhitng. Imagine having a car that cost you NORTHING in terms of fuel and is good for the environment.

[Wrench]

Man people just don't get it. Alternative fuels are great and all but are you willing to collapse the entire world market to do it? Maybe because I have and economics degree but none of you have the slightest clue what this would do to the world.

[Hater Depot]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[Manner of Speaking]

[Manner of Speaking]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

I think at around 100 dollars a barrel many things like Shale oil would become economically lucrative.

[Kuros]

[Manner of Speaking]

Kuros, you and Joo haven't said anything that I disagree with...but I think that there is a certain wrinkle to this issue that people are overlooking (I'm not talking about the people here on the board, I'm talking about the public in general).

Because of Peak Oil, and the fact that the world is running out of cheap, easy to extract oil, US$100 per barrel (or higher) will inevitably become the norm. The issue is not whether there will be enough oil; at $100 a barrel, or $1000 a barrel, there will be "enough" oil. As the article I quoted above mentioned, we will probably never see a "last" barrel of oil. The issue is, what will be the nature of national and global economies when the price rises beyond $100 a barrel, and keeps on rising, forever. Yes, at that price, alternative fuels will become competitive...but they will still be comparable to $100-$200 a barrel of oil.

The issue is not availability of large volumes, it will be price and cost of production. It won't matter how much oil there is, if gas is so expensive that people can't afford to buy cars. The price won't go down because no one will produce or sell oil below its production cost.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

I would say adjusted for inflation 100 dollar a barrel oil is about the same as 40$ dollar a barrel in 1980.

That was very uncomfortable for the US but it didn't put the US out of business.

Even at 100, or even 120 dollars a barrel oil is still cheap enough for the US to pretend that there is no such thing as global warming.

And at some point in time Americans will eventually drive hybirds which will allow Americans to get more out of each barrel of oil.

I think - out of self interest -that the US and other industrial nations ought to buy out Japanese patents on hybrid auto technology and share them with the whole world. Just because that would mean (a little ) less consumption of oil world wide and (a little) less polution overall.

Less oil consumption wouldmean less oil is used , which might moderate the upward surge in prices enough to make it cost effective to buy out Japanese patents.

[Manner of Speaking]

Although the vast majority of vehicles on the world's roads are fuelled by crude oil (basically), oil is more than just a transportation fuel. It's a source of electricity generation, a basic feedstock in thousands of industries, and is used in the manufacture of everything from agricultural fertilizer to portland cement to road ashphalt. And almost all plastics used nowadays are manufactured from petroleum distillates.

So, from a very broad perspective, the question is, what will our civilization be like when all of the cheap oil is gone? When the return airfare from Toronto to Vancouver will be CAN$8000, or the annual cost of fuelling a fighter jet is greater than its purchase cost, or the cost of a pound of cement is $60?

Aircraft use airplane fuel, a petroleum distillate that is lighter than gasoline. At present (technologically) there are no other alternatives available. Since the 1970s commercial aircraft have become no more than 10% more efficient in their fuel use.

Ships of all makes, including fishing vessels and container ships, are heavy users of petroleum products. As a result, most seafood, strangely enough, are energy-intensive food products. When all the cheap oil is gone, it may be prohibitively expensive for many exporting countries to ship their cars, computers or other manufactured products overseas.

Cement is an extremely energy intensive product; it takes a very large amount of energy to reach the high temperatures required to manufacture portland cement. In the future, cement and ashphalt may be much more expensive to manufacture than today.