Fire Jack

I was looking through the straight dope archives and came upon Cecils latest Question/answear post. He places a few well reseached stats (I hope, he always does good research). This really came to my attention when I attended a speech by David Suzuki, he is a very good speaker and until I actually say him I never realized how bad the situation is. Anyone have any good stats on how long we have until americans have to start rationing there food (and millions of people start starving to death world wide).
Or will anything happen at all?

ashe

It's not just food either. We have power shortages coming up early within the next century. Mainly in the oil department.

It's going to be fun.

FoE

Well you could join the David Suzuki Foundation and help reverse the trend.

Derec

Nonsense. There is more than enough energy. Coal, non-conventional oil, nuclear and some regenerative will last us a long time.

Besides: We-are-runnung-out-of-oil-in-30-years is almost as old and almost as bad as Jesus-is-coming-real soon. "Almost" because oil will indeed run out sometime.

UMoC

ju'iblex

and what about that environmental impact of using such resources? Does that matter?

Derec

Of all the sources I listed coal is most dirty and has the worst energy/CO2 ratio. Using non-conventional oil (essentially same chemistry as oil) is much more manageable. Just consider how much cleaner modern cars are compared to the ones that were on the road during the 60s or 70s.
Our best bet is strong reliance on nuclear power supplementeed with fossil and regenerative (where it makes sense).
Nuclear power is very compact and yields a lot of energy. Nuclear fusion is an obvious thing to work towards but other developments are promissing too. Like reactors using a Thorium cycle which will not yield Plutonium (single most dangerous component of nuclear waste and a proliferation concern) as a by-product.

You have to recognize that the global energy needs will continue to increase during this century. Dramatically reducing our energy consumption is not realistic. Therefore we have to think how to meet our energy needs while maintaining the enviroment.

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Does that matter?

Of course it does. However, I was mainly countering ashe's point that we will run of of energy come 2101 or so.

UMoC

Jimmy Higgins

Just bought an electric lawn mower. Gotta watch that cord! But here we see a product that is probably at level with the competition with other push mowers, but you don't see people buying them. No oil or gas. Very low emissions of pollutants. Sure, it uses electricity, but I make up for that by using a clothes line.

How much energy would be saved nationally, if everyone that had a yard, had to use clothesline in warm weather? I think it would be a dramatic savings.

Problem is we, in general, are too lazy to change or do a little more work to save in the long run. The dinosaurs went extinct because they couldn't adapt to a tragic event, an asteroid impact. Humans may see a drastic reduction in population because we got too smart and ran out of stuff.

Jimmy Higgins

The problem with nuclear energy is that how long term is it a solution? I know current power plants have a lifespan or what, 30 to 40 years?

Future is in renewable energy. Solar is the key. What is it, 1000 joules/m^2 of power generate a second? Currently problem is that we can only harness so little of that. If we gave 80 billion to solar research like we just handed over to the oil industry for Iraq, we could probably get better solar cells. Also, closed systems. My Honda Insight is the foresight of this concept. If your system loses energy, try to toss a net out and save some!

Smarter home HVAC systems. Systems that can see the future forecast, and optimally adjust the HVAC needs accordingly to meet the needs of those inside, ie, saving energy when it can by keeping the household within a certain temperature range that won't require larger amounts of energy to increase or decrease the ambient temperature.

In conclusion, I think the sun and efficiency is the future. People are too stupid, we need to the smart ones to program the efficiency into the systems to conserve as much energy as feasible, without compromising the standards the fat-cat 1st worlders have come accustomed to.

Derec

How about a biological lawn mower? Sheep, goats and te like.

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Gotta watch that cord! But here we see a product that is probably at level with the competition with other push mowers, but you don't see people buying them.

It is the convenience. You have to run a long cable and be careful not to zap the cable. Another alternative are cordless electric lawn mowers.
http://doityourself.com/tools/cordle...lawnmowers.htm
Batteries, of course, remain a problem.

Of course electric lawn mowers also have their pluses in the convenience department. So watch out for them as battery technology improves.

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No oil or gas. Very low emissions of pollutants. Sure, it uses electricity, but I make up for that by using a clothes line.

Yes it uses electricity so the enviromenntal impact is contingent upon the way electricty is produced in your area.

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How much energy would be saved nationally, if everyone that had a yard, had to use clothesline in warm weather? I think it would be a dramatic savings.

Compared to the total energy consumption not even a drop in the proverbial bucket. I have nothing against people doing it, at least in warmer, drier parts of the country. But I have a definite problem with the words "had to use" implying a government coercion to do it.

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Humans may see a drastic reduction in population because we got too smart and ran out of stuff.

I think that is overly pessimistic. What stuff are we about to run out of in the near future? And don't say oil. First we have been running out of it my whole life and second we primarily use it for energy which we can get from a variety of sources.

UMoC

Jimmy Higgins

The problem with sheeps and goats is that the Animal Rights nazi's won't let you store your sheep and goats in the shed. Those bastards! No way am I letting them in the house. We all saw what happened to Wallace in "A Close Shave".

You just need to pay a little more attention. Its just like vaccuming. I never vacuum over the cord. But then again, that used to be a job thing I did.
I checked them out. I was impressed until I found out I'd be shoveling out $150 to $200 bucks every 3 to 5 years to replace the batteries!
I didn't see the environmental benefit over the corded mower, especially when you have to dispose of the batteries. What I liked about the electric was that the price was in line with all the other mowers, in fact, a bit cheaper than its competition, I think. $179 is lower-mid range.
You think? Perhaps I should rephrase that to household, although you are probably right. When I need to use the dryer an extra time, I don't see the hike in the bill like I did with the Central Air at my apartment. We are talking $1 to $2 a night for my little place. But it also is a place to start. And I also wasn't suggesting have the national guarding taking people out for not using the clothesline.

I really don't like that point of view. Being an engineer, I'd like to fix the problem before it got too bad. Kinda like what our government is doing with social security. They are fixing.... oh wait... bad example.