The Energy Crisis

[Romdeau]

Mengsk there is no way to currently sustain the amount of energy the world is consuming with ANY energy source asides from oil. There's just no way, alternative energy sources will not make up for the huge gap oil leaves behind. Wakka may be going about it the wrong way, but he's right when he says the current population is just unsustainable. It really is, without oil, we are exceeding population capacity by an enormous margin. Possibly by the billions.

[wakka9ca]

Indeed, even the "methods" I suggested only have very marginal effect on energy reduction. You might cut energy usage by 40-50% but even that is not enough.

Also the economy and politics right now absolutely forbids any "halt" in "infinite" expansion. Only recently that expansion greatly slowed down...because obviously it can't continue. There is still natural gas reserve at least can be used for food production though.

The saying is "milk the cow until it's dry" I'm afraid the cow is nearly dried by now

Either radical lifestyle/social change is needed (drop the current model), or major technological breakthrough (fusion reactors, orbital solar plants, etc) is needed. If any of that fails, population decline is simply natural outcome. In fact, in richer countries, population is declining slowly for different reasons. Soon, China population will shrink. Japan population is already shrinking, etc. Aging population and social welfare issues are then major problems. The problem with population and starvation is the poorer countries that have large population and inexistent population control measures.

Not to sound extremist but current population growth rate must be stalled or at least careful planning and control must be done to maintain an equilibrium.

[Romdeau]

We're running out of natural gas too for the record (at least the US is). Importing natural gas from overseas is costly, expensive, and difficult. So when we run out of that....75% of the agricultural activity in the US is fueled by natural gas. You do the math.

[imortal12233]

The future does not seem bright..
and I am not talking about lack of energy for lamps.

[Romdeau]

The future does not seem bright..
and I am not talking about lack of energy for lamps.

If you're referring to some other crisis, care to explain? I really can't imagine an issue larger then massive energy shortage.

[wakka9ca]

The future does not seem bright..
and I am not talking about lack of energy for lamps.

If you're referring to some other crisis, care to explain? I really can't imagine an issue larger then massive energy shortage.

Well, rising water levels and economical disaster can have very large impact as well.

[Spears]

Isnt u.s agricultural more threatened by lack of water than fuel.
Cars wont become obsolete at all, whatever method of producing power that is adopted by main power stations can be used to supply power to automobiles. We just havent reached the stage where it has become more profitable to start pushing out the infastructure for it than just to persevere with the current model. There is also a bit of holding back going on to see if anyone can improve the method of hydrogen production, nobody wants to spend billions on the wrong horse.

[wakka9ca]

nobody wants to spend billions on the wrong horse.

^This.

Believe me, energy research is pretty hot topic these days in academia. I have a lot of friends researching in energy-related areas.

[fargone]

I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that a sprawling solar energy farm, using the technology currently available, the size of Victoria Australia would provide enough energy to completely replace the current energy provided by petroleum throughout the world.

Victoria isnt that big on a world wide basis. Im sure if governments committed to this and other kinds of set and forget energy production, infrastructure would be created to enhance the accumulation of resources for their production and costs reduced. Even if such practises remained expensive, having something that costs money is better than having nothing at all. Im sure more use would also lead to better and longer lasting cells due to research and development.

Im not a greeny. But I do often wonder what your city skylines would look like if you were running more clean energy. The smog might even clear enough to make solar panels on the building rooftops more effecient, haha.

If only the whole world wasn't focussed on making a profit above the needs of their fellow man, Im sure agreeable solutions would be within reach.

[wakka9ca]

If only the whole world wasn't focussed on making a profit above the needs of their fellow man, Im sure agreeable solutions would be within reach.

Again, I wish people understand what "restraint" is. Why does a single person need billions of $? Capitalists will argue that putting more money into the hands of the more capable (supposedly the rich, but this is extremely naive view) will generate greater wealth. However, one pitfall of this theory is that that "wealth" generated must benefit everyone to a certain degree, which clearly does not happen very often. That wealth is used to buy tools to more efficiently kill fellow humans, etc. Essentially people get caught in the cogs of the system of values that worship money as god and often forget about the things that money is supposed to be actually used for. It's like herd mentality...

About solar energy. If we can construct solar arrays in orbit and beam the energy back on earth, that would be great....