glenn morton wrote:
>
> Before I move I thought I would say something about some possible events
> that will transpire within the next 10 years which will have profound
> effects upon the world long term. Sometime between 2004 and 2010 the world
> oil production will peak out at something like 30 billion barrels of oil
> per year. After that will come a slow, inexorible decline in world oil
> production. Very little that we do will be able to turn that decline around.
>
> I write this as a person whose responsibility it is to find new oil
> sources. While we have been wildly successful over the past 3 years, my
> group hasn't been able to change the facts outlined below by much more than
> a dent. ............................................
Glenn -
I appreciate your brief summary & references on this. The fact that we'll run
out of oil sometime in the 21st century doesn't come as surprise but it helpful to
have the situation set out clearly by someone working in the area. A few comments:
1) Due (perhaps in part) to the frontier experience, Americans are especially
prone to think that resources are infinite. There's more land &c on the other side of
the mountains. But there are no more (metaphorical) mountains. It ought to be possible
to convince anyone with a brain that we'll run out of terrestrial oil _sometime_. But
...
2) We have a "right" to drive as much as we want, in as fuel-inefficient
vehicles as we like, as cheaply as we like. Rush Limbaugh unfortunately has got the
attitudes of Americans pegged when he tells his audience that they can ignore calls for
changing driving habits &c - "Folks, you don't have to change your lifestyle." The
technical OT term for such people is "false prophets."
3) We've got to get over our terror of nuclear power, a terror based in large
part on ignorance. Of course it isn't 100% safe but neither are any of the other energy
sources. & of course it isn't inexhaustible - earth has a finite amount of uranium too.
Wayne suggests fusion which in theory is great, but 50 years of work haven't gotten us
very far toward anything that might be commercially feasible fusion power.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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