well-reasoned thoughts on the future of alternative energy

[whc03grady]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... nd-em-coal

[Amskeptic]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... nd-em-coal

In 2002, Nocera points out, the global energy consumption rate was 13.5 terawatts. What will it be in 2050? If everybody were to burn through the juice at the current U.S. rate, Nocera calculates, we'd need 102 terawatts — seven times as much. Chances of our producing that: zero.

Huge unsupported catastrophisizing assumption. We must and will find greater efficiencies.
Colin

[whc03grady]

Sigh.
IF. IF. It's not a huge unsupported catastrophisizing assumption, it's simple math. IF all of the 9 billion people on Earth in 2050 use energy at the rate that US citizens do now, we'll need 102 terrawatts. IF. IF. No one is claiming that will, or should, happen.
Read the next paragraph.

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

[steve74baywin]

I just got done reading.

My thoughts were that it made sense, practical stuff.
One thing came to mind that I did not see in there.
We could live on much less. In some ways maybe what is needed is for all oil, coal, and nuclear power plants to just go away, the humans will see they can actually live without this stuff. I'm not saying do away with it all, but we certainly can change. We really don't need to evolve to such major consumers.

[RussellK]

.

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

Why. Was there an anticipated reaction you didn't get? Isn't the point of Free Speech discourse? Personally I'd like to see you put your ideas forth more often. Well thought out and painfully logical.

[JLT]

Sigh.
IF. IF. It's not a huge unsupported catastrophisizing assumption, it's simple math. IF all of the 9 billion people on Earth in 2050 use energy at the rate that US citizens do now, we'll need 102 terrawatts. IF. IF. No one is claiming that will, or should, happen.
Read the next paragraph.

I think Cecil nailed it. He never said that this is our unavoidable future, only that it was unavoidable given current rates of consumption. I hope that Colin's right about our not actually needing all that much power.

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

No. Succeed. You gave us a lot to think about, and we added our two cents' worth.

Cecil Adams's Straight Dope is one of the best things on the Internet. Even if you don't always agree with him, you can't escape the fact that he's done his homework.

[airkooledchris]

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

you pasted a link and walked away without adding anything to it. free speech fail indeed.


the speed at which technology catches up to demands has slowed in the past ten years, but 2050 is still a long way off and there are a lot of great minds working to find alternate solutions.

my prediction - others WILL be using as much energy as we do now, but (hopefully) we will be using much less by then.

[BellePlaine]

.

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

Why. Was there an anticipated reaction you didn't get? Isn't the point of Free Speech discourse? Personally I'd like to see you put your ideas forth more often. Well thought out and painfully logical.

Ditto. whc03grady, get back here and sit down.

[RussellK]

.

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

Why. Was there an anticipated reaction you didn't get? Isn't the point of Free Speech discourse? Personally I'd like to see you put your ideas forth more often. Well thought out and painfully logical.

Ditto. whc03grady, get back here and sit down.

Yeah I know right? Here I have to squeeze my head with a C Clamp to force anything remotely logical out and whc03grady just comes by it naturally.

[Amskeptic]

(Thought I'd give Free Speech another try. Fail. See ya.)

Fail? Me too. I don't know why you take my comments and personal opinions as an attack.

My opinion about the article's "catastrophisizing" has nothing to do with you! Nothing! It was an opinion about the article. For example, I still think it is not likely that we will not achieve gains in energy efficiency ... although when you look at people fighting compact flourescent light bulbs because they take too long to warm up (good grief), maybe we are going to hell in a handbasket.

Personally, I am more optimistic than the well-reasoned author of the article.
Sheesh,
Colin

[dingo]

Theres plenty of cheap energy out there to be had, but its implimentation is held back until its figured out who will make profit from it and how

[Lanval]

One problem with such predictions is the time frame. From now until 2050 is 39 years. When was 39 years ago? 1972.

What were we worried about then?

The Russians/Communism
Nixon/Watergate
Vietnam/The draft
Oil in the Mideast
World population (Remember The Population Bomb?)

and a few significant events
The first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) is introduced (price $395).
Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model-T when the 15,007,034th Beetle is produced.
U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.
The Godfather is released in cinemas in the United States.
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney co-found Atari.
Munich Massacre: Eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich are murdered after 8 members of the Arab terrorist group Black September invade the Olympic Village; 5 guerillas and 1 policeman are also killed in a failed hostage rescue.
The first female FBI agents are hired.
Atari kicks off the first generation of video games with the release of their seminal arcade version of Pong, the first game to achieve commercial success.

Some things we hadn't anticipated 39 years ago:

AIDS
The Internet
Personal Computers
Cell phones
Gene therapy
the end of air-cooled VWs

********************************

Consider the world as it looked 39 years ago, and tell me you really have faith in this guy's (or anyone's) vision of the world as it will be in 39 years.

As far as I can tell, the only guy who accurately predicted the future was Jules Verne. And that's difficult, because maybe it was just that his ideas were so cool, people tried to do them ~ a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

Mike

[Velokid1]

When I hear people assuming that our current rate of consumption and/or our current ability to produce energy sustainably will remain unchanged into the future, I can't help but picture a man and his neighbor building a 1 bedroom cabin for his family back in 1890s Arizona:

"Unless we come up with some SERIOUS innovations- and I'm talking some space-age shit here... shit you only read about in fancy books- we ain't NEVER gonna have enough homes for all the people flooding into America! It takes us 3 months to build a 1 bedroom shack! The end is nigh! Don't EVEN give me that 'Ohhh, well, we'll think up something better than the axe, a crosscut and a hand planer' bullcrap! You live in a fantasy land! There ain't no way around the fact that it take 3 months to build a cabin. Period."

[Velokid1]

And by the way, I realize that the fella in the article wasn't assuming the rates would remain unchanged... he was creating a "what if" scenario in order to make a point.

[Velokid1]

We could live on much less. In some ways maybe what is needed is for all oil, coal, and nuclear power plants to just go away, the humans will see they can actually live without this stuff. I'm not saying do away with it all, but we certainly can change. We really don't need to evolve to such major consumers.

Bravo. That's really the point.