Electric cars are a pipe dream
- Thread starter Syzygys
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A problem but one not likely to lead to war between developed nations, nor between china and anyone else with nukes, because MAD works. The oil problem could be handle by alternatives, its just a matter of up-scaling unconventional oil sources and alternative fuels and economies (bio-fuels, electrification) in time. Rare earths are not very rare, rather its mining and refining facilities that were rare, because china had very cheap sources and cheap labor that caused all the other mines in the world to close down, that's changing now that Chinese production costs have risen and export has dropped.
Not nearly as much as they are today, they even have the same currency now!
Hence a major reason for WW2.
If so nothing like they are today. There is no way Germany would launch an invasion of France or Poland today.
Iran and North Korea aren't economically integrated with us, hence the animosity.
We did not have nuclear bombs, globalize commerce and internet before.
And I wasn't speaking of the present, I was speaking of the future, when everyone interdependent on each other, when everyone has a high standard of living, there will be no reason nor desire for war. I cite the example of developed nations like the EU, like the USA, Canada, Japan, etc. These nations do not fight against each other, haven't in many decades and won't ever again if trends keep as they are.
LOL. Easier said than done, which is the whole point of this thread. No alternative or combination of alternative energy sources will amount to the energy we have been getting from light, sweet crude, which is easily pumped, easily transported, and easily refined. Nothing else is easy, nothing else is as cheap, and we are rapidly running out of time.
I hope that this time that's true, but based on how many times people have said that in the past - I think we'll have to wait and see.
Well of course easier said then done, but its not going to lead to war between developed nations. France and Germany, hell even the USA and China aren't going to fight against each other militarily for oil!
We don't pump crude like we did in the 1950's! Back then we put in 1 barrel worth of energy for every 50 we got out. Today with all the "easy" reserves long depleted, having to drill miles deep, pump in water to pressurize and the like we do 1 to 5 energy return ratio, some alternatives like sugarcane ethanol already have the energy return ratio beat, and unconventional oil sources like shale oil managed a pitiful 1:2, you get the same or better returns converting coal or biomass to oil at that point! So when you speak of the ease of oil you must speak of it in pass tense, we aren't "running out of time", we ran out, years ago in fact! Today's oil is not "easy" or "cheap", and it already competing against alternatives which have been getting easier and have been getting higher energy return ratios while oil has been getting worse.
Now you might argue that in the future we will never have anything as cheap as old sweet crude oil like in the 1950's. But I disagree, you can't say what the future will bring. Even today we have printable solar panels now entering the market with costs per watt ratios competitive with coal and oil, who to say decades down the line if energy will become as cheap as sunlight.
Re war.
The nature of war has changed. Today there are two kinds of war.
1. The USA imposing its will on others. Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Small civil wars, like Sudan and Somalia.
Statistics show that deaths in war today, as a percentage of total global population, are at a level lower than any time since the start of WWI.
War is still nasty. It is still to be avoided, and there is no guarantee that a new kind of war may not break out which is far worse than what we have. However, it is worth remembering that the situation has still improved.
As far as Billy's "anti-American" attitudes go, I agree with some. The problem with the USA is not its economy, or its people. The problem is the administration, and the pressure groups that surround the administration. The worst such pressure group is the military/industrial people who drive expenditure into the military and into wars. If the USA could get over its addiction in this area, it could invest resources where they could do a hell of a lot of good, both to America and to the rest of the world. Sadly, there is no sign of this happening any time soon.
The other consequence of the waste of resources is the gradual decline of the US economy. No nation can continue to run an economy so deeply in debt. Sooner or later, that economy will either collapse or at least go into serious decline. Once that point is reached, it takes decades of hardship to climb out of the financial hole.
I think China is poised to become the world's next number one super-power. It will happen within 50 years.
The nature of war has changed. Today there are two kinds of war.
1. The USA imposing its will on others. Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Small civil wars, like Sudan and Somalia.
Statistics show that deaths in war today, as a percentage of total global population, are at a level lower than any time since the start of WWI.
War is still nasty. It is still to be avoided, and there is no guarantee that a new kind of war may not break out which is far worse than what we have. However, it is worth remembering that the situation has still improved.
As far as Billy's "anti-American" attitudes go, I agree with some. The problem with the USA is not its economy, or its people. The problem is the administration, and the pressure groups that surround the administration. The worst such pressure group is the military/industrial people who drive expenditure into the military and into wars. If the USA could get over its addiction in this area, it could invest resources where they could do a hell of a lot of good, both to America and to the rest of the world. Sadly, there is no sign of this happening any time soon.
The other consequence of the waste of resources is the gradual decline of the US economy. No nation can continue to run an economy so deeply in debt. Sooner or later, that economy will either collapse or at least go into serious decline. Once that point is reached, it takes decades of hardship to climb out of the financial hole.
I think China is poised to become the world's next number one super-power. It will happen within 50 years.
That is basically accurate, but I don't "want" the facts to be as I see them. - I have four grand children living in the US. Only offsetting facts will change what I foresee coming.
About 10 years ago, when I thought there was still time to reverse the US trends I wrote the book, Dark Visitor in an effort to get some of the more gifted students planning careers in law or Wall Street, etc. to at least look at the hard sciences. I knew they would not knowingly open a physics book, so Dark Visitor is a disguised physic book - It tells of a possible cosmic disaster - Northern Hemisphere thrown into a new and permanent ice age due to slight increase in Earth's eccentricity (but still less than Mar's) by small passing black hole, BH, that will miss Earth by 12 AU (12 times earth's distance from the sun). According to the book's astronomer, he has fit very small perturbation of Pluto's orbit and concluded it was really going to happen and soon. As the BH does not reflect sunlight, the only way to "see" it coming is via its gravity effects. (Pluto now can only be seen well from the Southern Hemisphere - book's astronomer has been carefully measuring it for years)
I.e. book is written in the style of Well's War of the Worlds, in hope that some of these students would want to do a quick review of physics hoping to see that it was BS - a hoax - but the physics is valid - it could happen.
A few years later, I joined Sciforum and began to tell how one could protect themselves from the then coming, now present, financial disaster – I said: Buy ADRs of good companies in Brazil and India and those that did follow my advice have seen nearly a tenfold increase in their investment, measured in dollars. (Partly because of the dollar decline and partly because of the rise in those stock markets.)
Now it is too late, IMHO to do much about the coming run on the dollar. China can send US & EU into depression, but is not ready too yet. I have explained why China both wants and will benefit economically by a long lasting depression in US and EU. Much of what I predicted long ago has happened but not yet the run on the dollar (My prediction has that happening by Halloween 2014) See following post and others linked in it to confirm that I have been right up to now:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2677836&postcount=365
Instead of attacking my motives or speculating on my love or lack of it for the US, try to show how the trends I see will reverse. Few here have written a book trying to help the US back when that was still possible. When I wrote the book technological leadership was already lost to Asian. For example they make all the commercial hi-tec items. For example: Asia is on their 5th generation of flat screen displays and the US never was able to get economic yield with even the first generation. I wrote Dark. Visitor as a feeble but well intended effort to prevent Asia from taking over scientific leadership as well.
For at least 100,000 years Darwinian effects taught our ancestors that killing everyone not part of your small tribal group was good for its survival. Then agriculture was invented and periodic periods of starvation became rare. The greater benefits of mutual cooperation became clear. Towns were built, oil based economies grew, etc. but IMHO, the era of cheap oil is soon ending and once again, there will not be enough of affordable essentials for all.
There is no way that the Earth’s “limited carrying capacity” can support even its current population at half the level* of US consumption of water and food production and distribution, at a cost the poor can afford. This is already growing critical. Never before have so many American needed assistance to put food on the table for their kids. Cost of food is a major cause of social unrest already in some countries. I.e. the world is soon returning to the condition of 100,000 years ago in one aspect – you are better off if others die. Note that does not include killing them by conventual, much less nuclear war. WWIII is already in progress. Some call it "currency wars" some call it trade "wars / barriers". For at least two decades, at great hardship for its people slaving away long hours at low pay is sweet shops, the Chinese CCP loaded its economic canon. If fired now that would hurt China too, so they are spending reserves in long term delivery contracts for the raw material, energy and food stock they will need to import 20+ years from now. Before then firing that economic gun will payoff for China in the long run despite the one time loss. (US & EU in deep depression effectively removes them as competitive buyers of what China needs to import EVER YEAR.)
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*China, India and several others (more than half the world’s population) have no intention of ceasing to grow their standard of living at half the US level.
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I don't care if you love or hate the USA, but the trends you see are in your head, the Chinese don't want to put the USA or the EU into a depression, they aren't monsters or aliens bent on world domination, they want there people to be happy and not revolt, that about it, the ones I know are good people, and some are even party members (according to them a $10 a mouth membership and your a party member)
More so your predictions you claim are accurate, might very well be correlations and may be due to dynamics that are beyond yours and anyone else grasp. More so its a matter of illogical, why does it matter if the dollar is not longer the world standard? Why should we care? Oh because the Chinese might take over all of use and own us as slaves, oh please
And yet there is over 10,000 times more energy in wind, waves, and sunlight then we use, we still have plenty of viable and potential farmland that not in use, and productions continues to improve in efficiency, these aren't insurmountable problems as you portray it, difficult and tough certianly but not insurmountable and not dooming to us all.
Accounting for the change of population the great depression was far worse and far more famished
Yeah because 100,000 years ago we had 7 billion people and advance technology
Agreed, for now and certainly the people are not monsters (nor were the Germans in WWII). They will want the US and EU in depression when:
(1) they mainly trade with other Asian nations and their suppliers of import items then need;
(2) US dollars in their reserves are significantly less than half the total; and
(3) Oil, or other replacement for it, is about twice the current cost.
Then it makes good economic sense to dump their remain US bonds to destroy the dollar, take that ONE TIME LOSS and not lend any more to the US for the EVERY YEAR SAVING of not having US & EU bidding for the items they must import. See http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2677836&postcount=365
Also, and perhaps more important is the deep psychological reason China want to see the west (and Japan) destroyed economically. See http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2668027&postcount=358
to better understand that.
Oh BS Billy, clearly this was an attempt to CASH IN by creating FEAR in people.
The exact same thing you do on this board, as in your last post.
No Billy, the physics isn't valid and there is no Black Hole approaching our solar system.
http://www.2think.org/darkvisitor.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595303641/rpcman
Give it a rest Billy.
Arthur
No, completeely false assumption on your part (as others have been). I wanted the book to be read so I told how to do that FOR FREE, a page at a time, at the web site I paid for for several years.
By "physics" I mean the laws of physics not the presence or absence of a particular object. For example all three of Kepler's laws are explained and numerically used in the book as part of the normal flow of the text, but never named as that would be like conventional teaching. - Scare my target readers away.
Why don't you? You only seem to want to make personal attacks, question my motives etc. - all based on your false assumptions. Like the one above about my motive being profit. (Nor was it fame - Book's author is also "Billy T", not my real name.) Why not instead show that the trends and facts I cite are in error or not important? Or challenge the logic of conclusions I draw from them?
I freely admit the book appears "disorganized" to one expecting something like a conventional story presentation. For example one chapter explains what cause current climate effects - why wind comes mainly for the West in temperate latitudes but from the East in the tropics, why Oslo, 1000 miles closer to the N. pole than Chicago is much warmer in winter, etc. Then next goes thru the same physics after the DV has past. Explaining why the new ice age in only the Northern Hemisphere is different and never ending type yet the Southern Hemisphere's main problem is terrible floods, that wash away coastal cities etc.
Another chapter speculates on about five different object that could be approaching the Solar system yet not visible in telescopes. (I liked best the magnetic monopole crystal - Monopoles should exist and individually are extremely heavy. Having them aggregate into dense tiny objects is what one should expect and could be why they are not found.)
One chapter explains the finite time step model needed for the three object problem another gives it results for all the planet. Yes the book is hodge podge of hidden physics teaching.
The reviewer who liked my book writes science fiction -was impressed by the ideas in it. I like one of his - ETs come to earth when all life is gone and conclude tribal life had once existed - One tribe was Ford, another Toyota, etc. and while the individual varied greatly in annual cycles, each member always proudly displayed the tribal logo, which never changed.
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Billy, the FACT is you wrote/sold a book that was nothing but a pack of LIES and it's only clear purpose was to SCARE people.
Scaring people with that book is no different that what you are trying to do here and with the same weak evidence, now the only difference is the BH has morphed into China.
Arthur
Scaring people with that book is no different that what you are trying to do here and with the same weak evidence, now the only difference is the BH has morphed into China.
Arthur
If the trends and facts I cite are "weak" then refute them instead of character attacks.
I do admit my objective while not to make money was to scare some bright student, now planning to make big buck as lawyers etc to at least look into physics and math.
Likewise I think it is long over due for Joe American to realize the mess that the US government has been making by "kicking the can down the road" a few years. Unfortunately, I now think that is all that can be done and Obama's huge debt increases for the delay will just get him safely out of office but make the US collapse that much greater and long lasting.
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Well, what we are likely going to do first is to mine efficiency for fun and profit. To wit: the IC engine can be improved sufficiently to allow us to continue to use it for a primary source of transportation. Here is a good one, for starters:
http://ecomotors.com/
As for the war thingie...economic interdependence will make that a non - starter. It could even work with Iran, if the US govt could get creative and open - minded rather than playing the bully.
I am afraid that nothing will work with N Korea......until it self-destructs.
http://ecomotors.com/
As for the war thingie...economic interdependence will make that a non - starter. It could even work with Iran, if the US govt could get creative and open - minded rather than playing the bully.
I am afraid that nothing will work with N Korea......until it self-destructs.
Thanks EF,
So nothing really to get excited about huh.Lots of rare earth metals and less energy density is not an improvement in my book.It seems maybe Chrysler isn't funded well enough to get some good green to market,yes? Or is lost.
Yeah what why they have been boosting their trade with the EU and the USA, increasing imports from the EU and the USA. Ergo your scenario is already void. The USA exports to imports ratio was 1:6 in 2000 with china, in 2009 it was 1:4, Chinese demand for foreign products have been increasing as such there import export ratios have been improving in our favor.
http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/china-trade-statistics-2009-a205058
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-12/29/c_13669649.htm
and it won't be china's fault for dropping the US if that happens, it will be the USA fault for faulting so badly on its lones.
What use will it be if its own economy is wack by the depression of the other economies?
Then it would also make logical sense to be doing the exact opposite of what they are doing now and not be investing the US & EU to minimize the harm it will cause them later to cut off the USA & EU.
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See this is basically saying the Chinese are monsters, no they do not have a deep seated desire to destroy the west, again they want what we all want, an affluent lifestyle and stability. They don't want to destroy Japan, (japan is doing that all by its self) The chinese government push anti-japenism as a diversion issue to divert the attention of china poor, but china middle class and affluent don't buy that shit, nor do they care, as long as they don't fuck with the government the government does not fuck with them, its a very sensible and very unstable system they got, as such the Chinese government is very measured about what it does, its not going to do anything to risk its economy like trying to destroy the west and get its people pisses, without being bribe off by money and affluence the people will revolt, so the money and wealth must be kept flowing with as much assurance and possible, as such they can't help but become co-dependent on the west, on western products, goods and most of all technology.
Well it works for Delivery trucks because they got to do a lot of stop and go driving, have a lot of potential energy in their mass, have alot of space for storage tanks and because batteries to support them scale to a much higher expense than hydraulic energy storage = its much cheaper to make bigger storage tanks then more batteries.
The future us likely filled with many alternatives filling different roles, roles they are best suited for.