World running out of time for oil alternatives

[Nemmerle]

Originally Posted by Jeffro

World running out of time for oil alternatives

You mean I might not have to put up with cars? Gee, I'm so disappointed...
A lack of oil is hardly something that bothers me, mass transport is hardly important to my wellbeing. (Yes I do realise the deeper implications.)
I mean hell I'll just grab my knives and my bow and head for the hills. Sit back with a nice cold drink in one hand and watch as the rest of you kill each other over the last few useless resources that are left. If it happens it's not the end of the world. I don't think it will happen, but if it does it's not a big bother.
Give it a few thousand years and people will work their way back up.

But this time we know more, we can handle energy much better than we could in the past, I don't think that even if we didn't make it in time for alternate energy sources we would be delegated to a long dark age, maybe five hundred years before we get back to a decent technological advancement.

I mean hell, what do you have to lose? Are you really worried about losing your precious 24/7 job which you do day after day just so you can stay alive to do it the next day? It's not the end of the world, it's not even a terrible calamity, sure it would be a shame to lose the amassed knowledge of so many generations but it's nothing we can't replace. So I ask what is there that's really important that we'll lose? Our electric lighting perhaps; our central heating? Maybe just our comfortable chairs... These are all things that do not however rely solely upon oil, you can have lighting without oil, you can have heating without oil, you can have a comfortable chair without oil.

There's very little that we have that cannot be done without the aid of the internal combustion engine and its oil centric economy.

It's like everyone's, 'oh god the oils going to run out.' So what? If it does it does, you can get by, hell you might even enjoy yourselves while you're at it. And humans do get a second chance to do things right in the unlikely event it all flies apart at the seems.

[Oblivious]

Just give me a Star Trek transporter, and I'll be happy to give up my car(s). I would love all the extra sleep I could get with a commute time of just a few seconds. Who knows, we may have them some day, but they'll probably need oil for fuel...

[NuclearFieldMarshall]

Just give me a Star Trek transporter, and I'll be happy to give up my car(s). I would love all the extra sleep I could get with a commute time of just a few seconds. Who knows, we may have them some day, but they'll probably need oil for fuel...

But what happens if you get... lost in transportation? If you remateralize in a wall? Or a car? Or a fat guy? Or a...

If it came to Star Trek (which it won't), thank you, I'll take a shuttlecraft. Nothign beats flying into your parking spot and overtop all of the trafic.

[Akula971]

Yes, good riddance to the car. Most working people could actually do their jobs from home (doctors and nurses excepted etc) But the work culture is so slow to adapt. DoI enjoy my 20 minute stress drive to work everyday? No. In the UK traffic could be halved by working from home, buying your groceries on line, school buses for the kids. How many people see women in hugh 4x4's clogging up the roads on the school trip? Most consumer goods could be designed to use less power now. All the TV set top boxes in the EU use 4 power stations output to keep them in standby mode! Switch the bugger off!
But our governments do not really want us to change, to move away from oil, too many people with vested interests. They must appear to make the right noises, but never really achieve anything.
The UK has one hell of a long coastline, you'd think tidal/wave power would be high on the list? well last year it got 8 million pounds towards research, whilst spending on nuclear was billions!. Oil men control or in the case of the US are the government and have no wish to see their nice big fat source of revenue go elsewhere!