The Last War

[Cheese//]

Today, if fossil fuels were to all suddenly disappear then it would be the end of modern civilisation.
In a matter of hours most cities would be without electricity.
We don't yet have the technology to utilize alternative energy sources for sustainable usage for the entire world.

Of course this would happen if all the fossil fuels suddenly disappeared.
But imagine the last few months when all the coal mines are spent and there are no more pockets of oil to be found.
This would probably mean the end of humanity.
Not because we'd die without charging our iPods.
But because of the incredible world war that would precede the end of the digital age.
The gloves would come off as every country would be fighting for their share of the last remnants of our coveted fuel. The only true contenders would be those countries with nuclear power and their fighting would result in so many deaths, it would be unfathomable. Not to mention the need for more arms would result in even more fuels to be used up.
This would be the last "modern" war to happen for a very long time as the survivors would be thrown back into the stone-age.

I believe that in our current state it is unavoidable.
But its coming can be slowed down.

[ZenSilk]

Nuclear power.

Until the come up wiht some AMAZING alternative energy source, Nuclear power is the way i think we need to go.

Well, right after Solar Power...But no one likes to think about things that are THAT easy.

[OBY]

I don't think we will ever run out.... Most of the world has yet to be searched for Oil pockets. We have only searched maybe 10% of the earth.... they also know of tons of places for huge pockets of oil way bigger than any found and drilled yet but it is also much deeper. Once they figure out how to drill that deep affectively everything will be fine.

Also Oil refineries are dwindling. They are owned by the oil companies... the oil companies sell the oil to the refineries... now since they own both they can raise the price to whatever they want.

Oh and I read that they just discovered a way to effectively harness the power of hydrogen. I know Ford already has some buses that off of it in Portland OR.

[ZenSilk]

Ohh eah i saw a cmmerical wiht a bunch of dues wiht waterguns spraying at each other matrix style. And tghen somehting about water... and fuel cells..

Hydrogen fuel cell with water exhast, It's perfecdt!

EDIT: Wow.. Too much whiskey and beer. I was trying to say that the hydrogen fuel cells have water for the exhaust. It's amazing. . Edited November 25, 2007 by ZenSilk

[Johnny_D]

Gaia your so far wide of the goal you could Play for England.

Water will become far scarcer that oil. And a bloody site quicker too.

JD

[TheScotsman]

Ohh eah i saw a cmmerical wiht a bunch of dues wiht waterguns spraying at each other matrix style. And tghen somehting about water... and fuel cells..

Hydrogen fuel cell with water exhast, It's perfecdt!

EDIT: Wow.. Too much whiskey and beer. I was trying to say that the hydrogen fuel cells have water for the exhaust. It's amazing. .

And when does the "hydrogen faerie" show up and make a delivery? The electricity needed to electrolyze water takes more power than the hydrogen created will return. Seems like a loosing proposition! There are a few algae, and bacteria that produce H2 as a byproduct, but they are never going to account for enough to matter. The catalyst is a precious metal, and there are some real problems with cathode poisoning causing cell failure in real world applications. The bloody things don't work at low temps! The PEM cells are getting allot better, but under freezing conditions the water freezes (Would you believe it?) stopping and damaging the cell. There are some really promising high power cells (100MegaWatt) like the molten carbonate cells, but they are still NG or coal fired, and the ultra-high temps they run at are damaging to the cell. But it's a start.

[anathema]

I just saw Live Free or Die Hard. Man did Cheese just watch that movie also? Some people took over utilities and manually shut down those electricity stations(yeah not in my area of knowledge) and people can't get shit done.

And I'm pretty sure everybody procrastinates but it's not going to happen suddenly as to where we have no more fossil fuels. Prices in everything will rise dramatically and the investments in the research to not use fossil fuels or to lower energy consumption will also rise dramatically, and ultimately solving the problem. Hurray capitalism.

Oh yeah and if all fossil fuels disappeared, magically, we'd have massive landslides and craters and earth would crumble and and people will die.

edit: bad bad typos. Edited November 26, 2007 by anathema

[OBY]

This is the thing I read about the new way to create hydrogen.... I think TheScotsman may be going in the same direction but this post says that it uses a small electric charge and the bacteria to get it going..... so I have no idea if your idea may be a little different than this article.

Here is the news post!

[The white Russian]

Nuclear power.

Until the come up wiht some AMAZING alternative energy source, Nuclear power is the way i think we need to go.

Well, right after Solar Power...But no one likes to think about things that are THAT easy.

Nuclear Power is by far the best energy source we will ever have. It is cheap, extremely effective, and the only biproduct is nuclear waste. Which, may seem like some god awful thing to a lot of people, but when you consider the fact that it can be contained and stored away under mountains in remote desert regions no one lives in it's not such a bad idea.
People who think that solar and wind power are the way of the future have not done their research.. or at least not well. Solar power is expensive, takes up a lot of space if you want to produce a sizable amount, and the chemicals that are used in the panals to harvest the energy are far more toxic and dangerous than nuclear waste safely contained in a disposal facility. Not to mention if it's not a bright sunny day, you're out of luck.
Wind power is probably worse. You run into the same problem where if you want to produce a sizable amount you will need a ton of wind towers. Not only that but they are noisy as hell, no one would ever want to live next to them. Plus they only work if there is wind =P
It is really unfortunate that when Three Mile Island happened it basically destroyed our nuclear power industry. Even though the incident wasn't that bad, the amount of radiation that leaked out wasn't anywhere close to harmful levels. After that all the nuclear power plants weren't allowed to be upgraded... and most of them are still running after 30 years without upgrades and they still produce about 22% of the U.S.'s energy. Think how efficient and safe new plants will be when they start building them again.
You know we are doing something wrong when even France has embraced nuclear power. They decided that they didn't want to rely on forum oil and coal for fuel and decided to go nuclear. Now they get about 85% of their power from them and have yet to have a single incident.
With people making such a fuss about relying on forum oil reserves I can't beleive we havn't switched to nuclear power yet. Seeing as the country's with the largest uranium reserves (they fuel used in nuclear plants), besides us, are Canada and Australia I doubt we would ever have an issue with supply.
If we decided to use nuclear power as our major energy source we could further reduce our reliance on foriegn because we wouldn't need it for cars anymore. With the price of electricty driven down and the increased amount of plants we could actually have purely electric cars as a reliable vehicle. Instead of gas stations we could have charging stations.
I doubt this change will happen any time soon though; I know they are building two new nuclear plants in Texas, though, so hopefully we will start seeing some change in the public view on nuclear power.

[unfriekn]

I understand your consern with solar and wind power but you fail to take in to consideration that solar power is comming down in price. As far as space? Look at any suberb. If every house had solar power cell roof than that alone would cut back on our dependency to fossil fuel buy no less than %40. When talking about the millians of barrles used a day in America that is quite a number.

[Johnny_D]

Solar Energy for housing has one very good use.

Hot water. Which we use all year round.

CHP [combined heat & Power] also can increase efficiency of a power station from the usual 30% to around 70% by using the excess heat to heat water and then pump this to local homes and businesses.

It's something that is being looked into for the UK and I am at the forefront of the infrastructure for said CHP. Interesting stuff and makes sound environmental policy. If we can decrease energy usage by removing the need to heat water this in it'self is going to have a positive impact.

Remember I believe that the heating of the earth is part of the normal cycle of the planet and has very little todo with man's activities. This does not mean we should not seek sound environmental policies.

JD

[TheScotsman]

This is the thing I read about the new way to create hydrogen.... I think TheScotsman may be going in the same direction but this post says that it uses a small electric charge and the bacteria to get it going..... so I have no idea if your idea may be a little different than this article.

Here is the news post!

Undoubtedly there are so many new technologies in fuel cells. Actually the PEM cells are the most primitive of the lot. I would think (or at least like to) that some of the more exotic cells would start to make their way into production. I think the biggest flaws right now are fuel storage, and the lack of efficiency in our present-day electric motors. Every few years we see the temps of superconducting metals rise a few degrees, their development is as much, if not more important than cells at this point.

[Johnny_D]

This is the thing I read about the new way to create hydrogen.... I think TheScotsman may be going in the same direction but this post says that it uses a small electric charge and the bacteria to get it going..... so I have no idea if your idea may be a little different than this article.

Here is the news post!

Undoubtedly there are so many new technologies in fuel cells. Actually the PEM cells are the most primitive of the lot. I would think (or at least like to) that some of the more exotic cells would start to make their way into production. I think the biggest flaws right now are fuel storage, and the lack of efficiency in our present-day electric motors. Every few years we see the temps of superconducting metals rise a few degrees, their development is as much, if not more important than cells at this point.

I actually met with a manufaturer of a 'home fuel cell' who believes they will be ready to start production in about 18months. Roughly the size of a dishwasher and will provide eletrical energy for the home.

Coupled with CHP and it could be a total stand-alone unit.

JD