Musings on petroleum.

[pecksniff]

If we immediately shut down all consumption of fossil fuels you don't see a clear and present danger.

No, I don't see it happening at all.

 

[icanhelp1]

No, I don't see it happening at all.

But you want it to happen!

 

[pecksniff]

But you want it to happen!

For the sake of climate-change prevention, I want fossil-fuel burning reduced much more quickly than market forces (or supply exhaustion) alone will do. But I don't see it happening. And I don't want to go back to a pre-industrial way of life -- there's no way to do that, anyway, without condemning much of the present population to starvation.

Which might well happen no matter what choices we make now -- preservation of industrial civilization might not even be possible without cheap petroleum.

 

[icanhelp1]

For the sake of climate-change prevention, I want fossil-fuel burning reduced much more quickly than market forces (or supply exhaustion) alone will do. But I don't see it happening. And I don't want to go back to a pre-industrial way of life -- there's no way to do that, anyway, without condemning much of the present population to starvation.

Which might well happen no matter what choices we make now -- preservation of industrial civilization might not even be possible without cheap petroleum.

Don't you get it!! If you have the two most heavily populated countries going full steam ahead in the use of fossil fuels we as a country cannot just transition until an equilibrium is reached between efficacy, economic feasibility, availability and a market that is exiting one form to transition into the other and doing it fairly, any other way is just national suicide. The extreme left of the democrat party is in a fabricated panic mode and is pushing *pie in the sky* POLICY and presently unworkable. The US is already leading the way in reducing CO2 and carbon emissions in general.

 

[Rightguide]

You don't keep up with technology, do you? The only way to do things is by doing them the way they've always been done, right?

Ever hear of graphine or corn plastics? Graphine has superior potential over most plastics for medical and food handling needs. Most of the other shit you mention have other ways of being produced as well.

Why don't you want America to be the leader in alternative fuel and tech? Can't disturb the petrol gravytrain? If this were a hundred years ago you'd be driving a horse cart and yelling at the noisy motorists.

Conservative sticks in the mud like you are going to miss the boat while others fly past in their electric flying cars.

Is all of the alternative shit you mentioned ready right now? No. As an astute poster has already mentioned change is evolutionary not revolutionary...like on the demands of clueless leftists who don't understand how the world works. You don't understand the scope of the kind of change you are imagining. Nothing happens without fossil fuels. Climate change isn't about the friggin' climate. It's about lowering your standard of living. It's a political agenda. It's about controlling you. It's about Al Gore and his “Are you ready to change the way you live?” he wants us to go back to hanging our clothes on clotheslines and using cold water. He wants to remove our freedom of movement, our convivence of travel. In his world, the only place you'll be able to travel is on your computer with Google Earth. The only way the airlines and the cruise industry can cut their emissions is to stop flying and cruising. That goes for regular shipping as well.

None of the green agenda is feasible in its stated purpose. While he and his kind are choking to death the American civilization, China, Africa, and India will be laughing their asses off, and quite busy raising their standards of living and creating even more of the world's greenhouse gases than they do now.

 

[pecksniff]

Don't you get it!! If you have the two most heavily populated countries going full steam ahead in the use of fossil fuels we as a country cannot just transition until an equilibrium is reached between efficacy, economic feasibility, availability and a market that is exiting one form to transition into the other and doing it fairly, any other way is just national suicide. The extreme left of the democrat party is in a fabricated panic mode and is pushing *pie in the sky* POLICY and presently unworkable. The US is already leading the way in reducing CO2 and carbon emissions in general.

You seem to be thinking of the whole thing in terms of economic competition between nations. That is not an important consideration compared to the scale of the dangers.

 

[pecksniff]

Climate change isn't about the friggin' climate. It's about lowering your standard of living. It's a political agenda. It's about controlling you.

Damned lie.

 

[Rightguide]

Damned lie.

It's the damned truth and you know it. What do you think is going to happen when Americans cannot afford to fill their gas tanks when Biden does what he said he would do and shuts down the fossil fuel industry completely? Which would bring to a halt the entire transportation infrastructure of the United States and our military. How long do you think climate change advocates will survive on the streets of America? Just askin'.

 

[pecksniff]

It's the damned truth and you know it. What do you think is going to happen when Americans cannot afford to fill their gas tanks when Biden does what he said he would do and shuts down the fossil fuel industry completely?

Don't recall him saying anything of the kind. In any case, all of this has nothing to do with any kind of authoritarian control-freak power-lust -- no more than disease-containment measures have to do with such. Nobody demanding fossil-fuel-use reduction wants to lower anyone's standard of living, not as an end in itself -- if that's an inevitable consequence, then the question is, whether it's worth some reduction in standard of living to stave off global warming.

What we really need, of course, is a built environment in which automobiles -- however fueled or powered -- are not necessary to daily personal mobility -- a more densely built, walkable, mixed-use environment than most postwar suburbs. But retrofitting everything along New Urbanist lines would be a daunting task indeed, and itself energy-intensive.

 

[Chobham]

Don't recall him saying anything of the kind. In any case, all of this has nothing to do with any kind of authoritarian control-freak power-lust -- no more than disease-containment measures have to do with such. Nobody demanding fossil-fuel-use reduction wants to lower anyone's standard of living, not as an end in itself -- if that's an inevitable consequence, then the question is, whether it's worth some reduction in standard of living to stave off global warming.

What we really need, of course, is a built environment in which automobiles -- however fueled or powered -- are not necessary to daily personal mobility -- a more densely built, walkable, mixed-use environment than most postwar suburbs. But retrofitting everything along New Urbanist lines would be a daunting task indeed, and itself energy-intensive.

How fucking convenient.

And it is ALL about authoritarian control.

 

[Rightguide]

Don't recall him saying anything of the kind. In any case, all of this has nothing to do with any kind of authoritarian control-freak power-lust -- no more than disease-containment measures have to do with such. Nobody demanding fossil-fuel-use reduction wants to lower anyone's standard of living, not as an end in itself -- if that's an inevitable consequence, then the question is, whether it's worth some reduction in standard of living to stave off global warming.

What we really need, of course, is a built environment in which automobiles -- however fueled or powered -- are not necessary to daily personal mobility -- a more densely built, walkable, mixed-use environment than most postwar suburbs. But retrofitting everything along New Urbanist lines would be a daunting task indeed, and itself energy-intensive.

In the final moments of Thursday night's primetime showdown in Nashville, Mr Trump asked his challenger: "Would you close down the oil industry?"
"I would transition from the oil industry, yes," responded Mr Biden, adding, "because the oil industry pollutes significantly".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54670269

“We are going to get rid of fossil fuels.”

Referring to protestors who interrupted the event, Biden said:
“That’s okay, these guys are okay, they want to do the same thing that I want to do, they want to phase out fossil fuels and we’re going to phase out fossil fuels.”

Biden also said there would be “no more coal plants.“

Biden has also said “we should put them in jail” when talking about fossil fuel executives.

https://www.atr.org/joe-biden-we-are-going-get-rid-fossil-fuels/

 

[pecksniff]

How fucking convenient.

And it is ALL about authoritarian control.

You have no reason to believe that.

 

[pecksniff]

In the final moments of Thursday night's primetime showdown in Nashville, Mr Trump asked his challenger: "Would you close down the oil industry?"
"I would transition from the oil industry, yes," responded Mr Biden, adding, "because the oil industry pollutes significantly".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54670269

“We are going to get rid of fossil fuels.”

Referring to protestors who interrupted the event, Biden said:
“That’s okay, these guys are okay, they want to do the same thing that I want to do, they want to phase out fossil fuels and we’re going to phase out fossil fuels.”

Biden also said there would be “no more coal plants.“

Biden has also said “we should put them in jail” when talking about fossil fuel executives.

https://www.atr.org/joe-biden-we-are-going-get-rid-fossil-fuels/

None of that states any time-scale. Of course we'll have to get rid of fossil fuels eventually -- the question is, whether that means at some point before the natural supply is exhausted.

 

[Rightguide]

None of that states any time-scale. Of course we'll have to get rid of fossil fuels eventually -- the question is, whether that means at some point before the natural supply is exhausted.

When he says he's going to do it, the time frame shrinks to the next few months because if the Congress changes hands he'll be stopped in his tracks.

 

[pecksniff]

When he says he's going to do it, the time frame shrinks to the next few months because if the Congress changes hands he'll be stopped in his tracks.

Do you really think any of it is going to happen in the next few months?

 

[Rightguide]

Do you really think any of it is going to happen in the next few months?

I think the American people and the economy are going to be harmed to a great extent by the actions of Joe Biden and his radicals before they can be stopped. Places on the west coast are seeing gas prices pushing $8.00 gal, with extreme food price increases everywhere else caused by Biden's inflation and high gas prices combined. Remember ports on the West Coast ship to all points east. Gasoline thefts are already on the rise on the west coast: https://www.latimes.com/california/...-reports-of-gas-theft-arise-across-california
It won't be long and people will be stealing food to eat and looking for somebody to blame.

 

[pecksniff]

Biden's inflation

The present inflation is a global phenomenon.

 

[Rightguide]

The present inflation is a global phenomenon.

You lie. The Dollar is global, but it is Biden and the Democrats who are cheapening its value with their Disney-like spending efforts.

 

[pecksniff]

You lie. The Dollar is global, but it is Biden and the Democrats who are cheapening its value with their Disney-like spending efforts.

Never heard the Disney Corporation called profligate.

The dollar might be a global reserve currency, but no POTUS has the power to cause global inflation.

 

[Chernosoth]

Casual assumptions about innovations and problems that other people will inevitably solve are easy while cheap energy is still keeping the lights on. When it stops being cheap, we will have a crash course in what works, what mostly works but at higher cost, what costs more energy than it produces, and what is pure vaporware.

 

[Champakian]

Oh, are you the party of "no"? Lol.

When automobiles first came out, was there a gas station on every corner? Large (multi-GW) scale hydro storage can be built in 4-5 years. How long does a nuke plant take?

Gravity energy storage works. You want a proof of concept? The Dinorwig hydro generation facility is in operation in Britain and provides for the peak demand made by tea time - no joke. , Dinorwig can go from producing 0 megawatts to 1,800 megawatts within 16 seconds, a supply that it can maintain for six hours nonstop.
(That's more than 1.21 gigawatts! you gotta get back to the Future baby!)

This is a fully functional and practical way of stabilizing the grid for peak demand. The larger piston versions would be more efficient and use less real estate than surface ponds. The systems could be scaled to be 50 - 100m across and 1000m deep. Far less area than a coal fired plant.

And if you think that electric powered heavy equipment is in the distant future look at modern mining equipment - much of which is already electric for the sake of the working "environment" within underground mines. Running diesel requires oxygen and ventilation, electric does not.

So when you hear corporate shill politicians chanting "drill baby, drill!" take a look to figure out who is drilling that into their heads. How much petrol money buys congress?

And there's still a gas station on those same corners disguised as convenience stores. More cars need less gas. Newer cars need less mechanics...

You keep accusing everyone else of bing mired in 70s tech, but your mindset sure hasn't;t advanced very far from that either.

As pointed out to you, you can make it as safe as you want, but it's still easier to crush a Coors™ can on your forehead than a Fosters™ can. You can make it as tiny and as tech as you want, but when it meets a semi-tractor, you're still going to end up pancaked.

 

[Champakian]

How? What danger does it present?

Economic collapse and the resultant effects, starvation, disease, conflict...,

 

[Chobham]

I suspect that a great many of those people touting technology that doesn't exist and calling for the demise of fossil fuels are urban dwellers. I'd love to see them take their battery powered Coors cans on a 400 mile drive on I-40, or any of the main artery interstates for that matter. They'd arrive at their destination white knuckled, white haired, and permanently traumatized.

 

[Champakian]

I often get the impression that they already are permanently traumatized
(oftentimes by those purported to be "educators").

 

[Chobham]

*chuckle* No doubt.