>I asked what you thought would be accomplished if "someone could >convince people that the government will do this [seizure of the oil >fields] several years from now". What I was trying to get at was: why >do you concentrate only on one speculative possibility, when we are >faced with many burning crises?
I have explained this before, but let's take it one step at a time. (Do you follow the "oil drum?" http://www.theoildrum.com/ ) #1. All economic activity (in the physical sense) requires energy (physics). See http://jayhanson.us/oil.html Central banks can print money but they can't print energy. Instead, energy must be spent to obtain more energy. The difference between the amount spent and the amount recovered is the "net energy." See http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/6545 #2. "Peak oil" is not a speculative possibility. It's just a matter of time and it's probably here now. #3. No combination of alternative energies can replace oil. After peak oil, net energy will fall for many decades. Thus, economic activity (in the physical sense) will fall for many decades. http://jayhanson.us/l3.html #4. Historically, a shortage of natural resources has led one country to attack another and grab its resources. War doesn't have to make any more sense than the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Please be concise. Do you understand my points above? Jay =========== DECLINING PRODUCTIVITY OF MONEY <http://tinyurl.com/y9kc42r> <http://tinyurl.com/2berho5> <http://tinyurl.com/2369c22> PEAK OIL <http://tinyurl.com/33qz6rh> RENEWABLES New renewables paper by Ted Trainer <http://jayhanson.us/_Energy/TrainerRenewables.pdf> a b s t r a c t Virtually all current discussion of climate change and energy problems proceeds on the assumption that technical solutions are possible within basically affluent-consumer societies. There is however a substantial case that this assumption is mistaken. This case derives from a consideration of the scale of the tasks and of the limits of non-carbon energy sources, focusing especially on the need for redundant capacity in winter. The first line of argument is to do with the extremely high capital cost of the supply system that would be required, and the second is to do with the problems set by the intermittency of renewable sources. It is concluded that the general climate change and energy problem cannot be solved without large scale reductions in rates of economic production and consumption, and therefore without transition to fundamentally different social structures and systems. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
