patrick.net

I'm suprised this hasn't generated more discussion. Anyone taken a look at that link? The author fully accepts human-caused global warming and does some basic calculations to determine if it's physically possible to stop using fossil fuels while maintaining our standard of living.

The world is not getting off fossil fuels and doesn't need to.
The USA has an ocean of natural gas under it and it can run all cars and trucks here for 200 years or so.
If they find a way to harvest the deep sea methane hydrates, our fuel supply will be another thousand years or so.
Whether humans cause warming is irrelevant, since the sun's energy varies so much we are likely to freeze to death anyway in another mini ice age. This was a scare in the 70's, the "norther hemisphere cooling" caused southern hemisphere droughts and bad grain harvests in argentina,australia, etc.
Buring natural gas and methane hydrates (someday) produces less CO2 anyway because of the chemical structure of methane compared to gasoline or coal.
What is the ideal temperature of the earth? What year was the ideal temperature?

Well that's a whole different argument. My point is to show how much of a challenge it will be to completely stop using fossil fuels IF we decide to do so.

How hard could it be? We just get 50% of Americans to stop using electricity, which is how much is generated by burning coal.
We will never "decide" to do any such thing of course.
I have lived in England and been around in Europe. They have no energy and this is one of the several reasons that Europe is essentially poor, but they do have a decent standard of living because of their welfare state. No one really starves in France or Spain.
Outside of London, most of England was quaint and the people mostly were broke. Bed and breakfast is when you have no money, no job and have a house so you rent out a room to strangers.

True. It would be very difficult. Maybe even impossible. At least with current technology.

I didn't start this thread to imply it would be easy to get off fossil fuels. Quite the contrary.

There are too many people that think it would be an easy thing to do, and think the only reason we don't is because of evil fill-in-the-blank.

I don't think we CAN "get off fossil fuels".

Could we reduce our use by 50% or more? Easily.

What we need:
1) Living closer to where you work
2) Housing targeted towards efficiency & livability
3) End of the 3,000 mile Caesar salad
4) Urban design for people & neighborhoods not for cars.

All those would go a long way WITHOUT techno-miracles

Here's a great TED Talk with Kunstler about suburbia:

http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html

I watched it twice. I find myself seeing "Nature bandaids" everywhere now.

CaptainShuddup says

Quote Like Dislike (1) Permalink Share Edit

A Plan

Really??? A dislike?

I don't know why that surprises me, if there's one thing Liberals just LOATHE is a well thought out plan.

clambo says

The USA has an ocean of natural gas under it and it can run all cars and trucks here for 200 years or so.

No we don't. All those gas wells have over stated capacity. That is why they keep having to reduce reserves by huge amounts:

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38463/

And nat. gas has lower energy density then gas or diesel too BTW, you need much more of it to go the same distance as you would vs gas. It could be a nice supplement to gas powered vehicles but you couldn't replace all vehicles with nat. gas ones, not for 50 yr and definitely not for 200.

clambo says

If they find a way to harvest the deep sea methane hydrates, our fuel supply will be another thousand years or so.

LOL where the hell are you getting these ideas, SyFy movies or something? They'll never be able to harvest methane clathrates economically. Deposits are too sparsely dispersed and buried deep below the ocean floor to be worth while to get, EROI would probably be worse than solar power. Also the estimated amounts that exist are thought to be only somewhat more than current nat. gas reserves, nowhere near 1,000 yr worth of it exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Oceanic

wthrfrk80 says

Well that's a whole different argument. My point is to show how much of a challenge it will be to completely stop using fossil fuels IF we decide to do so.

We just have to go nuclear. Even if you happened to dislike LFTR's you can still run thorium or uranium in a proven CANDU style reactor. The newest versions are very safe and cost efficient. You just standardize the design and build many of them to reduce costs and legal as well as manufacturing delays, which BTW is how France runs their nuclear program.

The main issue with doing something like that is getting past the "OMG ATOMZ" NIMBY crowd. They'd probably stone wall it.

tts says

We just have to go nuclear. Even if you happened to dislike LFTR's you can still run thorium or uranium in a proven CANDU style reactor. The newest versions are very safe and cost efficient. You just standardize the design and build many of them to reduce costs and legal as well as manufacturing delays, which BTW is how France runs their nuclear program.

I've heard different things about nuclear...like that we only have 50 years of uranium. Others say we have much more. I really don't know who to believe. I guess if it's good enough for France it's good enough for us. Assuming we have access to uranium here in the states. Of course that still doesn't solve the transportation problem, just the electricity problem. Although batteries keep getting better.

wthrfrk80 says

What it will take to get off fossil fuels.

Combining wind power with porn.

wthrfrk80 says

I've heard different things about nuclear...like that we only have 50 years of uranium. Others say we have much more. I really don't know who to believe.

Anti-nuke activists are the guys who go around telling everyone we only have 50 yr worth of uranium left. What they fail to mention is that you can reprocess the stuff many times over and there is still plenty left in the ground. Reprocessing fuel isn't done in the US because Carter made it illegal but France does it without issues.

One odd side effect of Carter's decision is that the US has vast stock piles of uranium...in the form of nuclear waste just sitting around in cooling ponds. They can start reprocessing that if they really want to, just have to change the law to allow it. The real world pessimistic estimate is we have somewhere around 80-100yr supply available, the optimistic estimate is over 200yr.

Note, that is for uranium. We have much much more thorium available for use if need be.

wthrfrk80 says

Of course that still doesn't solve the transportation problem, just the electricity problem. Although batteries keep getting better.

If they pushed mass electric trains in areas of high population density that would go a long way towards fixing the transportation problem. Rural areas or the exurbs would probably still have to rely on gas, same thing for tractors on farms and such, but that probably isn't so bad.

Dan8267 says

Combining wind power with porn.

How about more directly turning human energy into motive power, like hooking up a generator to gym equipment:

CaptainShuddup says

Threads: 8
Comments: 86
Add Location

Update Profile
7 Thu, 5 Apr 2012 at 6:19 pm Quote Like (1) Dislike (2) Permalink Share Edit

CaptainShuddup says

Quote Like Dislike (1) Permalink Share Edit

A Plan

Really??? A dislike?

I don't know why that surprises me, if there's one thing Liberals just LOATHE is a well thought out plan.

Why was my "Serious" and yet honest and most of all intelligent answer deleted?
Really do you people really think we'll get off Fossil fuel by deceit, lies, fighting, fraud, and waste?
Patnet is testament, to why this country is like two big Idiots with stew pots on their heads playing head on chicken. God forbid someone has a better idea, you folks get all chagrin and systematically flag their answer.

If there's one thing Liberals hate is a well thought out plan, they hate that as much as they love censorship.

We'll never get off fossil fuels, until you guys grow up, and learn to communicate. ... and more importantly become capable of formulating a PLAN.

There's no getting off fossil fuels without abandoning the suburbs.
It's very difficult to convert the national power grid to renewable energy. Adding to the power grid by replacing all or most of the cars on the road today with electric cars will make that nigh-impossible in the foreseeable future.

The suburbs have to go, biggest waste of resources and energy in Human History.

Vicente says

How about more directly turning human energy into motive power, like hooking up a generator to gym equipment:

http://inhabitat.com/human-powered-gyms-in-hong-kong/

Right. We can run our civilization on human power alone. LOL.

There already a guy in our highly conjested town running up and downtown Hollywood Blvd on busy week ends. with one of these numbers...

I'm just waiting for the idiot report, to report carnage on night on the 6 Oclock news.