The thread drifted considerably so I changed the title. Also after learning more about Braun I realized how silly it was to suggest conservatives vote for him.
quote:This "designer gene" era of nanotechnology will clearly be the most significant development in human history, resulting in a new species, Homo Immortalis .
Interesting-- were you fronting him as a viable candidate, JK?
[ May 21, 2004, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
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posted
Hey, at least he has an idea for alternative fuel that won't clutter up every square inch of land. Of course, beach front property might not be that much to look at anymore, but people that can afford beach front property. . . well, they ain't me, so who cares? Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I bet you could put these far enough over the horizon it wouldn't matter to the coastal bigots.
Actually he's an intelligent nutcase still might be better than the other two options. Edit: I don't think I'd vote for him on a more in depth reading, some of his positions are too out there.
posted
Because he's too much of an idealist and not truly pragmatic enough. If he was pragmatic he wouldn't be running in the first place, becuase realistically he has no chance of winning.
And I'm a realist bordering on pessimist, so I enjoy optimism and I would vote for the guy, but the campaign couldn't possibly get off the ground enough to effet the election, even to give him an avisory position on energy policy in the next cabinet. He's also way to critical of both Bush or Kerry for them to want to give him any sort of say in energy policy.
I love what he has to say about sushine and health too though.
quote:the only way to get Senator Kerry to change his policies is if my campaign can generate enough public support to make the difference in the outcome of the election. Given how close the election may be, even 1% could make a difference . It is an extraordinary opportunity for a tiny minority to initiate a transition of substance. In the final analysis, however, if I am not ahead of Senator Kerry in the national polls prior to the general election, I will drop out of the race and endorse Senator Kerry.
posted
I disagree with him on Nuclear policy. I spent a summer working for the DOE next to the Handford site, and the stuff is NOT leaching into the Columbia river, last I heard.
posted
He would have to have the 1% of the electorate in swing states, not in already locked up states one way or the other...
Guess it is possible, but I don't think endorsing Kerry or not endorsing Kerry would really make any difference to Kerry himself. He's too much a part of the big machine to begin with. Now if it had been Dean instead of Kerry, yup it would work.
quote:Shifting from oil to solar hydrogen fuel will provide sustainable prosperity without pollution for America and the rest of the human community, but such a "transition of substance" will do nothing to resolve the traffic congestion problems that result from more and more vehicles being forced onto a fixed number of existing roads and freeways. There are two methods of addressing this problem. The first near-term approach involves eliminating as many major intersections as possible with mini-overpass systems that will turn many major boulevards into mini-freeway systems. The elimination of traffic lights at major intersections will significantly increase traffic flow while eliminating the possibility of accidents.
Maybe I won't vote for the guy. This is totally unrealistic. Do you know how much room they have to have for safe flyways? Do you know how much community residents try to protest these overpasses even when the government (state or local) wants to put them in? Do you know how much property the government would have to seize as emininent public domain to do this? It disturbs me already as far as property rights go how easily they can be lost if the government wants to put a highway through.
posted
So, exactly what price are you WILLING to pay to take the future of human civilization as we know it out of the hands of the Bin Laden family?
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posted
I don't think it is in the hands of the Bin Laden family. You know what publication is good for making you realize this? National Geographic, which I was reading today. How the standard of living in Hanoi has improved. How a bunch of nations are joining the EU, and the possible rammifcations. How people are still making their living in Cuba, Kansas. None of it was caused by any sort of recent U.S. governmental policy whatsover.
There are millions of people all over the world, that short of a nuclear bomb will continue living their lives regardless of what the Bin Ladens of the world will ever do, even if they launch biological attacks.(and I believe Bin Laden's family has long since disavowed him)
The future of the world's economy does indeed rest in the hands of the Bin Laden family. But not because we are being terrorized by certain factions of their mafia, er... I mean, family. It's because they control the largest oil reserve on the planet.
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posted
John it is economics. One oil prices go over X ($3 or $4 or who knows?) / gallon, alternative methods will be taken more seriously than they are now. We haven't reached that place yet. Eventually they will go that high due to diminishing supply regardless of how much new drilling or reserves are tapped. Once it actually starts effecting upper middle class people in a more "real" way than it does now, with a few dollars which is actually a relatively trivial amount things will change. We have done a good job at developing seed technologies that will take off then. It won't happen until then though, and I don't know how many years it will be til that point.
I'll have to dig out a book I have on the subject. The title is something about "inventions and technology" and it talks about the mindset of humans and paradigm shifts with new technology and how that technology catches on or fades.
posted
If we found a completely free source of energy right now and started using it, our economy would go into shock. It would be a disaster. We would eventually get out of it, but it would cause all sorts of problems in the short/medium term.
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posted
Of course silly, that's why the government is keeping the fact that we have cold fusion a secret. Sheesh, keep up, would you?
And Banna, have you seen the petrol prices in Europe? It hasn't encouraged them to develop new energy sources.
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posted
No but it has forced them to extremely efficient and user friendly public trasportation.
The thing is that public transportation is only effective with a high population density like exists in Europe. The U.S doesn't have enough population density to sustain the same sort of public transport, other than in a few areas on the East Coast and Chicago, San Franscisco and L.A. http://www.demographia.com/db-hyperdense.htm (some of the data is old, but it is still a good relative comparison)
The entirety of the U.S. has a relatively low population density, though many of the areas are not uninhabitable. This is why we are more dependent on personal vehicles. That plus our culture of innovation is why we will probably turn to alternative fuels before Europe, even if our economic break point for the cost of fuel is actually higher than theirs.
posted
Very interesting, somewhat nutty and idealistic, and there are many good things, but there are others that bother (and worry) me...
quote: Harry Braun will also make Americans aware that we are on the threshold of an era of molecular medicine that will soon make a biological transition to renewable resources inevitable. This “designer gene” era of molecular biology and nanotechnology will clearly be the most significant development in human history, resulting in a new species, Homo Immortalis.
This I violently disagree with. But reading more, I discovered that Harry Braun, as well as predicting the world to begin a downward spiral towards oblivion, is afraid of sickness and old-age:
quote: While those who commit first-degree murder are allowed to have pain-free lethal injections, millions of elderly Americans are forced to live out their final years by suffering in high-cost concentration camp-type nursing homes.
And, of course, Harry Braun's greatest fear is human mortality:
quote: Harry points out that a person’s death is not permanent unless one’s complex structure of DNA and the molecules of memory are lost. As such, if one’s molecules of memory are preserved, at some point in the not too distant future, one can be “reborn” in the rapidly approaching era of molecular medicine and nanotechnology.
And with that, much of what he says boils down to this fear. He is afraid of dying a terrible, slow death, and so, although tinkering with human DNA is fine, tinkering with plant DNA is not, because it is a source of danger...
quote: According to some estimates, over two-thirds of the crops and seeds in America have already been contaminated with genetically modified seeds that were developed by the pharmaceutical corporations, which are now lacing the primary food crops in North America with potentially dangerous chemicals and drugs. Only Harry has proposed to make such irresponsible corporate research and development illegal.
Over and over, this fear is reflected in a desire to protect against death.
Although it is extremely unlikely that Harry Braun gain a significant amount of votes in the next election, it is interesting to imagine the United States of America that could potentially grow from his ideas. I'm not sure I would like it.
Harry Braun definately would not get my imaginary vote.
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posted
yeah it is scientology-esque in places too. His views on religion are basically that that the spirit-force of God is nanobes. Nanobes aren't even defined as living necessarily...
Too trippy. He's got good ideas on solar energy and if his wind ships would work I'm all for them. But I'm also for nuclear power. And he had some truly false things in there. For example if we nuclear bombed Iraq, all of the oil would then be radioactive. Not true. Oil is too far down. you'd have to replace the infrastructure so it wouldn't be radioactive and wear protection if you were touching the surface, (like with chernobyl) but the oil itself wouldn't be!
posted
AJ, take a look at The Ingenuity Gap. It basically posits that humanity's problems are becoming more complex much faster than humans are getting smarter. If the author (whose name escapes me at this particular moment) is right, then we won't be able to solve the problems that stem from running out of oil.
Foremost among them being an end to our ability to manufacture plastic from anything other than recycled plastic. That, to me, is far more worrisome than running out of gasoline for cars.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Well yes, it is about economics, but you're coming to all the wrong conclusions.
Consider this.
Last year in the United States we consumed 20 million barrels of oil every single day (no other nations came close, with Japan coming in 2nd at about 5.5 million barrels). So for the year 2003 our energy needs forced us to purchase seven billion, three-hundred and fourteen million, six-hundred thousand barrels of oil.
That's a lot. Just how much energy are we using from this oil?
Well, one barrel of oil generates about 5.8 Million BTUs.
7,314,600,000 x 5,800,000 = 42,424,680,000,000,000
That's quadrillions, by the way.
The cold hard truth is that there are no alternative energy sources that even come close to having the POTENTIAL to generate this many BTUs. The benefits of current energy alternatives are usually hyped up because of how much better they are for the environment, but little is said about how much energy the alternatives provide in proportion to the energy invested in their use. Most energy alternatives (ethanol & hydrogen, for example) actually COST more energy to use than they produce. A simple understanding of the 2nd law of thermodynamics can help put alternative energy in perspective for you. On top of this, we don't have any way of producing solar cells or fuel cells or ethanol--or pretty much anything else mankind produces--without the use of, you guessed it: oil.
The United States feeds the world and we eat sleep and breathe OIL in order to do it.
Here's something to think about: the trucking industry. Did you know that 1 in 14 U.S. jobs are in the trucking industry? There are 3,120,000 tractor-trailer drivers in the United States. This is because 3/4 of American Communities depend ENTIRELY on trucking for delivery of goods and services.
In 2000, U.S. truckers drove a collective 200 billion miles, or the equivalent of 1,000 round trips to Sol.
The transportation sector in 2002 used approximately 19.25 million barrels of oil every day. What would happen to the economy if diesel fuel doubled in cost? Virtually every good we produce would have a corresponding increase in cost.
But the trasportation sector only accounts for about THIRTEEN PERCENT of our total oil consumption.
Oil prices can only go up so high before they will crash our economy unless we are prepared to make up all those BTUs in some other way.
But wait, there's plently of oil left!
Dick Cheney, 1999:
quote:By some estimates, there will be an average of two percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves.
This can only last so long. When demand for oil exceeds our ability to produce it (expert opinions on when this will happen often range from 2005 to 2015) the price of oil will climb and accordingly the price of EVERYTHING ELSE will climb along with it.
And you don't even want to know how much oil is consumed by U.S. agriculture--which feeds the world--every year.
...
Which brings me back to the Bin Ladens. The great thing about the Bin Ladens is that, because they rule Saudi Arabia, NO ONE REALLY KNOWS FOR SURE HOW MUCH OIL IS THERE. It is considered a state secret. Not even OPEC knows how much oil is really in Saudi Arabia.
Already we get more oil from Saudi Arabia than we do from anywhere else. Soon we will be buying oil from Iraq (we've been very careful not to cause "collateral damage" to oil fields in that country) but the eventuality of the oil economy's doom is certain, no matter when it takes place.
If you don't find a way to produce that many BTUs at a reasonable cost, the system as we know it will collapse. The only alternative is to figure out how to get by without NEEDING all that energy.
You can call Braun a loony if you like, but we are not ready for the changes that WILL have to happen in the very near future, and the less drastically we approach solutions to the ultimate problem (the extinction of cheap energy), the more drastic will be the consequences. I don't know anything about the guy really, and we all know he's got less of a chance of winning than Mack had of converting to Mormonism, but then maybe that's a good reason to support the guy: public awareness of the real issues facing the human race, and the vast amount of work that must be done to avoid the impending doom of our oil-based infrastructure.
Mankind only has one shot at industrialized civilization.
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I don't believe that mankind only has one shot at civilization. History shows that civilizations rise and fall. Yes we might have a giant famine or catyclysm when the population gets too huge. But I don't think everyone will die off either, some will survive and we will rebiuild, if back at a more primitive level. I'm not a fan of Kevin Costner's post-apocalyptic movies, I think they are mostly stupid, but their point is that generally speaking humanity would survive to rebuild in a multitude of scenarios. I suspect humanity will survive at least as long as the dinosaurs did on the earth, even if we haven't gotten anywhere close right now for the longeivity.
quote: the use of lamps that simulate the natural outdoor sunlight in hospitals, schools, and other buildings.
AUGH! Poke out my eyes, man! It's bad enough I have to wear sunglasses all the time outside...now I'll be wearing them INSIDE too!
More seriously, JohnKeats, I think you're right. Oil is the only method of generating enough energy for our civilization. Trouble is, I expect it to stay that way.
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posted
Plastic will become more and more valuable, and eventually they will start digging up the landfills to obtain recyclable plastic. And they will figure out a way to crack and reuse thermoset polymers again as well as thermoplastics.
We only have one shot at INDUSTRIALIZED civilization. The current energy levels necessary for the global economy to keep functioning are simply unsustainable. And once the cheap energy runs out, it will be many millions of years before the planet is able to provide us with enough raw materials to get it started again.
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posted
And twinky, I'll keep my eye out for that book. I've done a lot of cost benefit environmental and alternative fuel research. That was going to be my master's thesis. I had all the data i just couldn't get it on paper right and became overwhelmed (partially due to non school related factors) and dropped out.
We will probably never, in the next 1000 years ever "run out" of oil. It will just become harder and harder to obtain and industries will gradually have to find replacements or die out. But I don't think it will ever be an overnight cataclysm. I think it will be a very very gradual process that has already started.
posted
Like I said, I don't think the cheap energy will run out all at once, and I think other sources will kick in gradually. Maybe the markets will crash, I'm not sure, they are all about perception rather than reality anyway.
posted
>> Plastic will become more and more valuable, and eventually they will start digging up the landfills to obtain recyclable plastic. And they will figure out a way to crack and reuse thermoset polymers again as well as thermoplastics. <<
Yes, but this can't go on indefinitely. The third world wants to industrialize the same way the first world did, and that simply isn't sustainable, particularly once extracting oil from the ground has become cost-prohibitive and recycling becomes our only source of plastic.
>> And twinky, I'll keep my eye out for that book. I've done a lot of cost benefit environmental and alternative fuel research. That was going to be my master's thesis. I had all the data i just couldn't get it on paper right and became overwhelmed (partially due to non school related factors) and dropped out. <<
I've done analyses of the North American crude oil and refined products markets, but nothing on alternative fuels. So I know a lot about who gets what from where, and how much. And as far as Canada is concerned, I know our estimates of how much is left here.
I don't have much faith in the alternative fuels industry, but I suspect that if anyone could convince me otherwise it would be you.
(Actually, I think I want to start a thread about fuel cells. I don't like fuel cells.)
>> We will probably never, in the next 1000 years ever "run out" of oil. It will just become harder and harder to obtain and industries will gradually have to find replacements or die out. But I don't think it will ever be an overnight cataclysm. I think it will be a very very gradual process that has already started. <<
I think when a certain cost threshold is reached (and if I knew what that threshold was, I'd make myself very rich... but I don't), some important governments will finally realize that oil isn't infinite; when that happens, it might as well have been a cataclysm because they'll make a big fuss about it.
My concern is that by that point, it will probably be too late for the first world to be able to maintain its current standard of living.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be combative; I don't want you to feel like you're fighting on two fronts or anything. I just wouldn't mind talking about this with you. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:We will probably never, in the next 1000 years ever "run out" of oil. It will just become harder and harder to obtain and industries will gradually have to find replacements or die out. But I don't think it will ever be an overnight cataclysm. I think it will be a very very gradual process that has already started.
Right, but wrong.
Oil prices are already rising along with Demand. A major factor in this is the industrialization of China. The Oil itself is not going to be thouroughly exhausted, you're correct. That's because much of it is prohibitively expensive to get at. But as prices rise oil becomes more profitable: reserves around the world will be depleted that much more quickly. In the VERY NEAR FUTURE mankind (mostly the US) will be demanding more oil than we are able to produce and the overwhelming majority of the available oil will be in Saudi Arabia. Use your powers of supply and demand that you were trying to use earlier to explain why alternative energy would be "motivated" into existence: the price of oil will go up and economies will crash because of it; we absolutely DEPEND on the cheapness and the hugeness of our energy supply. It doesn't matter that the oil isn't actually compeletely gone, the point is that the system is designed for non-stop growth, which is unsustainable in any case without an infinite amount of energy. The cost of oil only needs to rise so much before everything collapses, and it won't be all that gradual.
posted
One way to reduce a TON of energy pollution is to enact and install the Dark Sky recommendations for lighting and light pollution. It's been shown that the light level of an area only makes people FEEL safer, but not actually any safer, so between fewer lights, and using lamp designs that deflect light down, and not scatter it everywhere (including up), wh can use lower wattage bulbs. The lamps pay for them selves, through energy cost savings in 5-10 years. We lower energy consumption on a wide scale. People like me find it easier to stargaze from their metropolitan areas.
posted
*grin* John, I think we may have to agree to disagree.
There is also the question of standard of living and what it *should* be. I actually think the current U.S. standard of living has become unhealthy since we are lazy don't do as much physical work and now have all these obesity problems.
How many square feet per person does one actually need in terms of housing? It really isn't as much as we actually have on average. Does the average american really need as many possessions as they have? Probably not. How much "happiness" do they get per possession...
Those are the interesting questions to me. I don't think lowering the overall standard of living in the U.S. actually means increasing poverty necessarily either.
posted
Well you're starting to come around... we are going to pay a very high price for our consumerism and our excess. What I'm trying to convince you of is the consequences of that excess, not that we ought to be trying to protect our standard of living. I wholehearted agree with you that that's actually a part of the problem, if not the main source of it.
To give you a better idea of just how drastically the world's economy will be affected by the shift from (supply > demand) to (demand > supply) when it comes to the fossil fuels that make our industrialized society possible, take a look at this rather lengthy essay about US agriculture, without which the majority of us--and much of the world, for that matter--would not be able to survive.
quote:The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy. This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable fossil fuel stocks.
posted
What's intriguing to me about the article is the way they break down what they call endosomatic and exosomatic energy. In the final analysis it shows that humanity's massive population is being kept on life support with an enormous amount of energy being poured directly from the Earth into our food supply. Couple this with an intensive agricultural ecosystem that is absolutely dependent upon petroluem products necessary to sustain its historically unprecedented levels of productivity, and you're working on a recipe for disaster; our collective complacency (technology will come along, someone will figure it out) would be analagous to casually considering whether or not we should biggie-size the deal.
quote:In this study, the authors defined two separate forms of energy input: Endosomatic energy and Exosomatic energy. Endosomatic energy is generated through the metabolic transformation of food energy into muscle energy in the human body. Exosomatic energy is generated by transforming energy outside of the human body, such as burning gasoline in a tractor. This assessment allowed the authors to look at fossil fuel input alone and in ratio to other inputs.
Prior to the industrial revolution, virtually 100% of both endosomatic and exosomatic energy was solar driven.[added: ultimately fossil fuels also derive their energy from the Sun] Fossil fuels now represent 90% of the exosomatic energy used in the United States and other developed countries.17 The typical exo/endo ratio of pre-industrial, solar powered societies is about 4 to 1. The ratio has changed tenfold in developed countries, climbing to 40 to 1. And in the United States it is more than 90 to 1.18 The nature of the way we use endosomatic energy has changed as well.
The vast majority of endosomatic energy is no longer expended to deliver power for direct economic processes. Now the majority of endosomatic energy is utilized to generate the flow of information directing the flow of exosomatic energy driving machines. Considering the 90/1 exo/endo ratio in the United States, each endosomatic kcal of energy expended in the US induces the circulation of 90 kcal of exosomatic energy. As an example, a small gasoline engine can convert the 38,000 kcal in one gallon of gasoline into 8.8 KWh (Kilowatt hours), which equates to about 3 weeks of work for one human being.19
In their refined study, Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to the consumer in the U.S. food system. This includes packaging and all delivery expenses, but excludes household cooking).20 The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy. This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable fossil fuel stocks.
Assuming a figure of 2,500 kcal per capita for the daily diet in the United States, the 10/1 ratio translates into a cost of 35,000 kcal of exosomatic energy per capita each day. However, considering that the average return on one hour of endosomatic labor in the U.S. is about 100,000 kcal of exosomatic energy, the flow of exosomatic energy required to supply the daily diet is achieved in only 20 minutes of labor in our current system. Unfortunately, if you remove fossil fuels from the equation, the daily diet will require 111 hours of endosomatic labor per capita; that is, the current U.S. daily diet would require nearly three weeks of labor per capita to produce.
Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food.
posted
Sadly, I can't see any practical way of easing the problem in time, John. I suppose we could always go for the mass-slaughter route, but isn't that the same thing we're trying to avoid?
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