I was sitting around a bunch of educators and the conversation of oil supplies came up. It was their contention that the world supply of oil would deplete in 50 years. I found that hard to believe.
I am now beginning to entertain the implications of severe oil rationing. Is this hype or real? What will happen to quality of life? Will America be hit the hardest? Will this change our military? Thoughts?
EDIT---The link only takes you to the newspaper...you need to click on "national" at teh left hand column and then click on The World at $100 a Barrel. I guess the web address doesn't change per individual story.
[ April 13, 2004, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Alexa ]
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
*donates Tupperware to the cause*
(Stupid Tupperware.)
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
When I was a kid they were saying the oil would run out in 15 years. But I think it would be good if some of this stuff got too expensive. Plastic is convenient, but it's ugly. Though it's a good scenario for my fantasy future where we mine our own landfills for plastics.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I remember that the entire world was going to run out of oil in the mid-90s. Before that, it was the early 80s.
I am starting to think that there is a never-ending supply, and that no matter what we do, we cannot run out.
Or at the very least, because of the abundance of junk science, if we do run out, nobody will believe it until it's actually gone. When that happens, let's hope that we find alternative fuel sources *real* quick.
Posted by vwiggin (Member # 926) on :
I love this car. Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Based on what they told me in school, we should have been out of drinking water by now.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Speaking as someone considering a career in the oil industry as a chemical engineer... it'll run out eventually. And the point will eventually come where it's cost-prohibitive to continually recycle plastic as well, because there are always losses.
What it may not do is run out in my lifetime. We'll see. Depends partly on whether or not demand keeps increasing as drastically as it is now as third world countries industrialize.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Its been long obvious that oil consumption will have to drastically change in order for the oil supply to last longer than a few decades (5 to 10, currently, more likely towards the lower range).
Simply put, stop wasting all that oil, people. Ride your bikes, take the bus, walk. Americans and the american government waste billions yearly on oil and oil subsidies (I always found it amusing that the US taxes gasoline -- which import it subsidizes in the first place) and the only way to prevent our dependence on it from becoming a huge problem is to stop that dependence. And its as simple as walking the five blocks to a nearby park rather than driving, biking the two miles to work on a nice day instead of driving, and using the public transportation system when its available instead of driving.
Energy saving around the home can help a lot too (not to mention help with utility bills over time).
Buy fluorescent lighting. Turn off your monitor when you're not using it. Cook your own food instead of buying prepackaged. When you do buy prepackaged, try to buy stuff with less plastic wrap. Recycle (both by taking recyclables to the recycling center, and saving things that can be used many times, like ziplock bags (just wash them and you can use them again)).
America is by far the world's biggest waster of energy, when we really don't need to be. Unfortunately for the efficiency of capitalism in this case, for most people the "cost" of remembering to turn off the lights is greater than the "cost" of a few more cents on their electricity bill every month, which even more unfortunately does not accurately reflect the cost on the environment, because depletion is not accurately factored in to public resources through not I thinking, meaning that normal economic checks do not operate as they should (as with most public resources).
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Though it's a good scenario for my fantasy future where we mine our own landfills for plastics.
Hey! Pooka, that's my fantasy future scenario! In fact, according to my scenario, we're robbing our grand children of minable resources by recycling in the here and now.
Seriously, though, I do think that at some point in the future we'll be mining our landfills for plastics, metals and so forth.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Haven't you guys seen Futurama? There's still tons of whale oil left!
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The press regularly hypes up depletion problems by taking figures given them on production and yearly change in usage, and then leaving production the same in their primitive calculations and projecting usage out linearly. This obviously results in a much sooner time period of prediction, as production, usage, and similar all change in complex ways.
However, more serious estimates have long put the date when oil becomes much more scarce (not runs out, just becomes much harder to obtain) sometime in the latter half of the 21st century.
as for water, I don't know of many, if any, scientists who ever said water would run out. Most of them took elementary school science and knew that the water cycle would keep at least some water around for quite some time.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)