Al Bartlett is a physicist and in this video he talks about population growth and peak oil. His talk is succinct, to the point, and very easy to follow. He says that politicians, journalists, and lay people do not understand the exponential function and how the population doubles about every 30 years. This is called the doubling time and Al Bartlett says that in the next 30 years will we use more oil than as ever been dragged out of the ground since mineral oil was first discovered as as fuel way back in the 18th Century.
This is corporate capitalism going full pelt and some people put the blame for this on the banking industry with its compound interest which takes ever wealth more from the economy. Obviously this can't carry on. But we also rely on oil for plastics and synthetic rubber which are extremely important in our modern lifestyle too. Fortunately solar and wind power is ready to make a breakthrough although many in the West tried to foil this development to keep us addicted to oil, which of course had a knock on effect in the Middle East.
Solar & Wind Power? Forget about it. Nuclear Fusion Energy which may be viable in 5 years, will render all fossil fuels, wind, solar, and hydro power, not to mention nuclear fission energy as obsolete as buggy whips.
ReplyDeleteYou could be right there, cold fusion is for real. I out an article out about it recently.
DeleteThe amount of water the size of a pea could power a house for any ten years. Cold fusion units about the size of a boiler are being developed in South Korea right now.
DeleteNot happening. Most of the world's fertility rates have crashed quite low. Iran is something like 1.78, Europe, Japan, China, Korea(s) and North America are all quite low, Latin America has shrunk as well, as has Southeast Asia and Turkey. Even India and the has it in the mid 2s and dropping.
ReplyDeleteThe only region of the world with high fertility rates are Subsaharran Africa and a few isolated parts primarily in Central Asia, Gaza or for example in Papua New Guinea. Even Subsaharran Africa is decreasing a bit, though it's usually from a very high 6.5 to 4.5 in some places.
If we want to change this, then we need to give Africa and Central Asia free condoms in the name of, say, "HIV prevention".
"The amount of water the size of a pea could power a house for any ten years. Cold fusion units about the size of a boiler are being developed in South Korea right now."
ReplyDeleteKaivey - Do you have a link for the fusion units being developed in South Korea?
I've put the video out again oh Mike Norman's blog.
DeleteKaivey, cold fusion is a myth. Don't waste any time on it. There is a greater likelihood of UFO abduction by alines who look like Elvis than there is of cold fusion. Or Austrian economics being right.
ReplyDeleteNuclear (hot) fusion, however, is very possible, but it is a staggeringly difficult engineering challenge. It'll require trillions of dollars of investment. It'll probably be achievable in the next fifty years or so, not Rombach's five years. This is all dependent on whether the human race can survive the next fifty years of climate change, nuclear proliferation and the advent of new biological warfare.
"Nuclear (hot) fusion, however, is very possible, but it is a staggeringly difficult engineering challenge. It'll require trillions of dollars of investment. It'll probably be achievable in the next fifty years or so, not Rombach's five years."
ReplyDeleteAccording to defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT), their 'Compact Fusion' project is projecting a viable fusion machine within 5 years. If they are correct, it will be the ultimate disruptive technology. See the video...
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html
Rombach,
ReplyDeleteThat's just typical propaganda from military companies. With these professional liars and sadists, everything is always five years away, all it needs is more state largesse for otherwise bankrupt industries. It reminds me of all those other fantastic technologies that went nowhere, like Reagan's "Star Wars" programme, which did little but pour staggering amounts of money into the hands of Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas and the rest of the bloodsoaked money-grubbers.
Fusion is an enormously difficult problem. I used to know people who work on these very problems, and they and their colleagues all say what nearly all independent analysts say: unless there is some gigantic step forward that alleviates all the technical problems, fusion will be about thirty to fifty years away.