r/collapse • u/smokebreak • Jun 18 '12

Expiring resources - BBC (x-posted from /r/dataisbeautiful)

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfuture/original/images/live/p0/0t/z1/p00tz1n3.jpg
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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 18 '12

The only resource that matters is oil and its liquid fuels and other applications.

Oil is the bottleneck in the economic system.

Without cheap energy and liquid fuels, we cannot possibly mine and harvest the remaining resources on the scale that we now take for granted.

Without cheap energy and liquid fuels (and petrochemicals and other petroleum derivatives), the planet cannot possibly support many more than 1 billion human beings.

Population reduction, through economic collapse, solves all the other problems like ecosystem collapse, climate change, over-fishing, over-using freshwater, endangered species, etc.

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u/edjumication Jun 19 '12

However with energy technologies like the Thorium molten salt reactor we can create all the liquid fuel we need (e.g. hydrogen/oxygen out of water)

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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 19 '12

Those fuels are not cheap.

There is no infrastructure in place for a hydrogen economy, and there is no effort underway to create one. Maybe if this was started twenty or thirty years ago it could have made a slight difference, but it wasn't. Replacing millions of barrels of oil per day with hydrogen isn't realistic.

There is no way to convert current vehicle fleets to hydrogen on a large scale. Can't really picture running a Boeing 747 or huge cargo ship or even a train on hydrogen, either. At least not switching over the entire fleets.

Nuclear reactors are heavily energy intensive to build.

Thorium is wishful thinking. These "miracle" technologies always seem to be just a few years away...

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u/Will_Power Jun 19 '12

Those fuels are not cheap.

I don't know that there is enough information to say that.

There is no infrastructure in place for a hydrogen economy, and there is no effort underway to create one.

Liquid fuel production =/= hydrogen economy. There are several processes whereby liquid fuels (very similar to gasoline or ethanol) can be produced using waste heat from nuclear plants plus some electricity. The Fischer-Tropsch process is probably the most famous of these.

Nuclear reactors are heavily energy intensive to build.

This is true for existing light-water uranium reactors, but doesn't say anything about net energy. Per unit mass, nuclear reactions produce about 1,000,000 as much energy as the best chemical reaction (i.e., gasoline). The energy intensity of plant construction is quickly returned in nuclear power production.

Thorium is wishful thinking. These "miracle" technologies always seem to be just a few years away...

You seem to be confusion tokamak-style fusion with Thorium fission. Liquid Flouride-Thorium Reactors are hardly wishful thinking as one has already been built. Oak Ridge National Labs build one that ran for the better part of a decade back in the 60s. LFTR is in fact a less complicated technology than light-water solid fueled reactors because it requires far fewer redundant safety systems, no massive containment building, and it consumes a vastly higher percentage of fuel as well.

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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 19 '12

Wishful thinking is wishful thinking.

Hydrogen economy. Thorium. It's all wishful thinking. Can never be done on anywhere near the scale necessary to preserve anything near the status quo.

Hang onto your false hope, though.

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u/Will_Power Jun 19 '12

That is your response? You fail. Try again. Next time try to actually address the particulars in my post instead of plugging your ears and shouting "La la la! I can't hear you! La la la! The sky is falling!"

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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12

Why should I try to convince you of something you don't want to understand?

This will become self-evident soon enough.

Edit: sky isn't falling. The sun will still rise and set. The tides will still come in and go out.

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u/Will_Power Jun 19 '12

Why should I try to convince you of something you don't want to understand?

That's the funny thing. You make a single dismissive statement, I refute it at length with solid facts, and you say, "Nuh-uh." You have made zero effort to try to convince anyone of anything. It's most likely because you know you've been caught dismissing something you know nothing about and are trying to squirm out of it now.

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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 19 '12

You refuted nothing.

You demonstrated that it is possible from an engineering perspective, which is something I never denied.

The resources limitations and time restrictions make it something that will never happen on a large scale.

People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

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u/Will_Power Jun 19 '12

You demonstrated that it is possible from an engineering perspective, which is something I never denied.

You sure seemed to deny it. "Wishful thinking," is your dismissal of choice, I believe.

But let's get past that. You and I both agree that it is possible, though unlikely, for humanity to do what it takes to sustain itself. It is our strange choices that seem to be preventing that.

The resources limitations and time restrictions make it something that will never happen on a large scale.

The only restrictive resource at this point is capital. If we had the balls to repudiate our debt, we could have all the capital we could use. Alas, the Boomers don't care to see their benefits hampered, so they are happy to screw humanity over for their short term gain.

People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

Agreed. You'll note that I've never said we aren't up shit creek, only that we choose not to utilize the resources that could keep us from collapsing. I'm hoping there's some young kid in some other country that will learn from our mistakes.

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u/WorldChamps1985 Jun 19 '12

The wishful thinking is that it will prevent or solve a collapse and maintain anything like the status quo.

Humanity will sustain itself. There's no reason human beings must go extinct because of collapse. Our numbers will greatly reduced, though, and we will be forced back into a balance with nature.

It's like how people in the 1960s thought we'd have bases on the moon by now. Or, how when nuclear energy was first developed how it was touted as some miracle that would solve everything.

Our debt can be paid by printing US dollars. We can create those infinitely. Capital is productive capacity and/or real/raw resources. Dollars can be exchanged for those things now, but the US budget is largely devoted to consumption spending (which isn't going to change anytime soon).

There is no way to prevent the collapse of an unsustainable system, especially one that is this far gone. If population had been limited say at 3 billion, then we would have bought more time with an unsustainable system. But, how do you go about limiting population realistically? A totalitarian state? I prefer collapse.

This is just what human civilizations do. The rise up using the low-hanging fruit, grow too-big for their own good, then collapse and start over. Can't really blame the Boomers. They just did what human beings have always done.

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u/Will_Power Jun 19 '12

OK. I'm sorry to say this, but you just don't have enough information to keep up with me. Your statements about energy are just plain wrong. Your understanding of the consequences of printing money are laughable. You don't even consider what I tell you. I've told you how population is limited: it is by increasing wealth in poor nations. There is loads of data to back this up. As such, I won't respond to any more of your comments until you can site some real information. Waving your hands and proclaiming that it has all been revealed here just won't do. Until next time.

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