mrstickball said:
zarx said:
mrstickball said:
Not to mention, that we do have some alternatives like natural gas.
Does peak oil exist? Yes. Will it destroy humanity in a mathusian-like scenario? No. We have tons of oil reserves both proven, and potential. I believe we'll drag out production for oil shale for decades, to ensure a smooth transition to better energy sources over the next few decades.
Heck, look at the US. We're starting to really like the idea of electric cars. Hopefully they catch on, and we can transfer how we use oil to less gas-intensive projects.
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the problem is that crude oil is used to produce just about everything Soup, plastic, fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, paint, synthetic rubber, most inks and dies and then there is the fact to replace all the ~600million cars on earth with electric ones would consume ungodly amounts of resources. The transition better get a lot faster and new ways of making just about everything we use in our day to day lives better get invented.
But there has been promising work on algae that can produce something close to oil so there is hope lol.
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Problem is, the vast majority of oil isn't used for the things you mention:
Cut off cars and trucks from using oil, and you cut US consumption by 50%. Remove oil boilers from the power supply, and you cut another 10%. I think its do-able over the next 10-20 years.
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true but the only way to replace oil for transportation in 10-20 years is to move to biofuels (if you think 600 million cars are going to be replaced in 10-20 years...) which have their own problems including using from memory something like 40-60% of arable land for biofuel crops like corn, sugar cane, sugar beats and oil seeds for biodiesel which would lead to food shortages. There are promising developments using algae but a lot of it is 20 years away from widespread use. I just hope there is enough oil to last another 20 years for it to be not needed for transportation and the transition to other fuel sources and yes I think it will take 20 years.
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