7 Billion... So now what?

[Doom Shepherd]

What we need is energy. With enough energy supply we can produce all the oil we need for the use as fuel and chemical raw materials (or switch to other chemical that do not need petroleum as the starting point).

 

The question is where to get the reliable, sustained, powerful enough energy source, which does not itself depend on oil.

 

Regards

 

I know where there's a giant fusion reactor with about 4 billion years of fuel remaining.

[Vapymid]

Shhh!!! Quiet! Don't tell anyone, otherwise some green lobby will demand for it to be immediately shut down...

 

But, seriously, I think there are problems with using solar on any great scale:

 

- conversion technologies are inefficient and/or expensive

- no Sun at night (needs massive storage or it's lights out after sunset)

- the sunniest places on Earth are far away from the busiest places (needs long-distance transmission lines)

- are-based (needs extensive area directly exposed to sunlight = competes with agricultural land)

 

While the first obstacle can be overcome, the others will remain. Of course, even with these limitations solar is better than windmills but I don't know if *terrestrial* solar can cover any substantial part of our energy needs.

 

Perhaps orbital solar (with power being microwaved or lased down) has got more potential...

 

The holy grail is definitely fusion but it requires investment and - even more important - the will to succeed. What I resent the greenies for is for undermining that will by constantly suggesting some delusional but seductive (to some) solutions.

 

Regards

[Doom Shepherd]

Perhaps orbital solar (with power being microwaved or lased down) has got more potential...

That's actually what I meant.

 

What I resent the greenies for is for undermining that will by constantly suggesting some delusional but seductive (to some) solutions.

 

If they weren't delusional, they wouldn't be the same greenies.

[Vapymid]

This is an interesting coincidence:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/15/orbiting_solar_stations/

 

As they say - great minds think alike

 

Regards

[Ross Scott]

Things like nuclear and solar power are for electricity production. Very little of oil goes towards that. If we could magically have every power plant in the world operating on renewable energy, it would have almost no impact on the problem with oil dependence. The majority of oil use goes towards fuel, with industrialized farming in particular also relying heavily on it for chemical use. If we had been busting ass to create a transportation network that doesn't rely on oil 10 years ago, it might be such a huge issue. As it stands, we're unlikely to respond until it becomes a crisis situation, and by then we have less resources to work with in making a transition. So the question is how do you feed a growing population when the cost of farming doubles over a matter of a few years?

[Doom Shepherd]

Well, I'm assuming that the conversion to solar/nuclear for cheap, ample electricity production would also have an effect on the economic viability of electrically powered transportation.

 

As the US government still pays out billions of dollars a year in farm subsidies, I would think that dropping some of those would have a positive effect on the price of food that would at least somewhat offset the rise in actual food prices.

 

The real problem I see here is with speed of charging (can take hours), and availability of charging stations. The first is a technical problem - much like increasing fuel efficiency in gasoline cars, and is being worked on. I hear Illinois U. has an experimental electric car battery that will charge in 2 minutes.

 

The second was already solved once - and franchise-based gas stations demonstrate that.

[Vapymid]

Things like nuclear and solar power are for electricity production. Very little of oil goes towards that. If we could magically have every power plant in the world operating on renewable energy, it would have almost no impact on the problem with oil dependence.

 

Ross, what I'm trying to say is with enough energy we can *make* oil. As much as we would want. This is not a rocket science, Germans developed gas-to-liquids process before WWII and used synthetic oil extensively during the war. The South Africans used coal-to-liquids fuel for decades because of the anti-apartheid sanctions. Huge reserves of both the natural gas and coal will still be available for ages but, again, with enough energy you can even use CO2 and water to make saturated hydrocarbons.

 

Regards

[Michael Archer]

I like these arguments, but I'm going to pick apart Michael's

 

Humans are social, yet anticommunal, which is a huge flaw.

 

I disagree. Almost all good things in the world come from someone acting in their self-interest e.g. Google comes from people wanting to make money, your computer comes from someone wanting to make money, your food comes from someone wanting to make money. Even a charitable organization like Wikipedia is run because of a man's self-interest: Jimmy Wales likes that fact that human knowledge is easily accessible in one place. If he didn't like doing it, he wouldn't.

 

We have problems with just 2 people living together for their lives. We naturally have infrastructure problems when we create a society. So yes, overpopulation will result in famine and disease, much more easily than a more dispersed population.

 

The way I look at it is: the more people there are, the more demand there is for sufficient infrastructure--which motivates the "selfish" people to build it so they can make money. Why does the United States have a higher standard of living than in South Sudan? There's lots of social and economic factors, but in the United States, businessmen have a great deal of people to whom they can sell their goods. More people=more business opportunities and infrastructure.

 

I would be amazed if you could find reliable, high-speed fibre optic internet in Wyoming i.e. a state that has a lower population density than Canada which is the SECOND LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

 

That is because of human problems with communities. We are too selfish to do what we don't want to do, but still have to do for necessity of life. Team Fortress 2 makes a perfect example here. You always see teams LOADED with Snipers and Spies. Those people enjoy playing those classes because they are fun classes to play. But, they never win the objective because they aren't composed correctly. Humans work the same in the real world and their flaws make it so overpopulation inherently includes infrastructure problems and thus, famine and poverty.

 

Heh, I just thought of a Team Fortress 2 counter-argument to this:

 

If you're playing on a team of five, just two snipers or three spies will be devastating. On a much larger team, two snipers and three spies are almost expected, especially when taking on many sentry nests. More population means more people acting in their self-interest and erecting dispensers and sentries.

 

Also: an engineer erects dispenser and teleporters out of self-interest. The dispenser heals himself and teammates and allows his teammates to get the front faster; if they can get to the front faster, they'll win and everyone wants to win. On smaller teams, people usually go Scout; engineers are only effective as a group.

 

The United States, under President Andrew Jackson, had removed itself from national debt without declaring bankruptcy. Being trillions of dollars in debt today, we definitely had a much more wealthy economy when our population was around 20 million. Also, during the 1920s, the average person was much wealthier than today's average person, which might show a wealthier society than today's.

 

Alright, fine...you got me. But in this case, I wouldn't say this was a population problem. Back then, they didn't have half as many taxes as we did now and the government's purpose was to protect rights. President Jackson would probably call Obama a tyrant and a dictator because of how big Obama think the government should be.

[Collective Foal]

I can DEFINITELY agree with you on Obama, but Jackson was also quite the invasive president.

 

Anyway, in the real world, "winning" isn't an obvious goal for people, like capturing all the control points. When people act in their best interests, you don't always get lucky. That's why there's gang violence and drug abuse and teen pregnancy and rape and murder and theft and genocide and war and unemployment and famine and plague etc.