Air travel isn't goin' away. We will see a significant drop in passenger air travel, but we'll always have a need for air freight. Not only that, it's a very efficient means of transport. Oil won't vanish too quickly. It'll certainly become more expensive as we turn to sources like the Alberta Tar Sands, but that supply is said to be enough for at least a couple centuries. Sailing ships haven't much of a future, except as museums and recreational craft. You're not going to move everything that needs moving with 'em. There'll always be plenty of things to burn, whether hydrocarbon or carbohydrate. As always, we should definitely go for greater efficiency and less waste, too.
Do some research on the alberta tar sands its extreamly financially and energy intense to extract apart from being very polluting, with conventional oil you have a energy return of 30 to one for the energy it took and the energy you got back, the alberta shale oil you get 1.5 to one. It also depends on gas which is going to peak soon to but with gas you have a drop not a gradual decline Why do we need to air frieght things ? is this stuff like salad from africa that I see in my local supermarket ....and even if you think you need to transport such things by air you wont have the fuel to do it And if you dont have the fuel to transport food to people they will need to either grow their own food , starve or move to somewhere they can move their own food . At one time most of our populations were involved in agriculture fossil fuels allowed that situation to change with the end of fossil fuels things will swing back if we are lucky , if we are not we will have many millions or billions dieing . There are not plenty of things to burn well not that will power our 600 million cars read and debunk this site http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ lots of links on the subject two films you can watch at the bottom of the screen http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/ I can understand if youve grown up in a certain way you expect that way to continue but we are not going to have hydrogen powered jetpacks in the future or at least in the near future , we will be going back to the bike, the horse, the sailship and a slower pace of life , or a series of oil wars that in the end lead no where future transport
Wow, did you even read my post? We'll always have things that need to be transported quickly. Air freight is a fine and efficient means of doing so, and unlike passenger transport, air freight is actually profitable. And no, I'm not countin' on hydrogen to solve any problems, either. Certainly, there will be change in the future, but I don't believe it'll be anything like what you suggest. There'll be a slow transformation. We'll have to cut back on a lot things and quit being so wasteful and implement new energy sources, but I don't see all machines suddenly falling silent. They'll always be of enough use to us for us to find new and better ways to keep them goin'.
yes I read your post but you clearly didnt read mine, apart from saying that oil shale is very expensive in money and energy I also pointed out that its produced using natural gas that will peak soon therefore the aberta tar sands are not going to be able to fill the gap . you havent told me what needs to be transported by air , and air transport is profitable at the moment because of a thing thats going to be impossible to use in the future . Well I have given you my view of what the future modes of travel will be surely you could share your view, apart from this dream that things will go on much like they do now but without saying whats going to fuel things .
I see can oil being reserved for things like air freight one day. Unfortunately, it'll prob'ly be for military purposes, too. People sometimes need to rush a parcel somewhere. There are foods that must be moved in less ime than they could be trucked, etc. Well, any use we can make of the methods you mentioned would certainly be beneficial and'd help ease the strain on resources. In addition to simply cutting down (which we'll have to do), I see a gradual shift from hydrocarbons (though we'll have coal for a while) to carbohydrates, as I hinted before. It'd take a while to establish a network to support such a thing on a large scale, but I think we'll eventually have little choice. Additionally, I don't see a great need for liquid fuels. We could use solid matter. Pelletized wood would be safe and convenient, and could perhaps be made cheap enough to more than offset its lower energy density. Engines that accept multiple fuels would be desirable to use whatever happens to be the best option locally. Many of the things we throw out could be burned, too (and just 'bout anything we can't should be recyclable).
well liquid coal = much more global warming and pollution and the useable coal reserves are massively over estimated , so it will only be a short term measure so we can keep up our present wasteful lifestyle that will lead nowhere except to faster climate change possibly human extinction. The big coal interests dont want a modern survey of our coal assets taking into consideration what is really recoverable coal and not imagined coal that is to hard or dangerous to get out , because they are toutiog coal as the answer to the end of oil and gas which it isnt, as it and uranium will run out and much quicker than we are being told . leopold do you have shares in airfrieght ,nothing and no combination of things are going to make up for the end of the fossil fuel age , the car is dead or soon will be as will everything that was built by the car . even if you can find a way of running the 600,000 million cars roads are made using oil as are many airfields Globalisation is dead, walmart is dead ,shipping cheap crap from china is dead , they dont know it yet but they are because they were all based on extreamly cheap almost free fuel costs that will soon end . Produce most of the things you need locally using methods that dont depend on fossil fuels , I dont think trade is going to die but its going to localise massively , human and animal is power is coming back, wind, wave, solar, some biofuels,and wood burning, are the way of future . you can run many factorys using human power or renewable energy
overestimated? i believe we have 275 billion tons"at are current rate that will last more than 250 years", what numbers do you come up with? have you read about liquid coal ? like?
well america as been using coal for 150 years so most of the easy to get coal is already gone , and the numbers that get qouted come from research 35 years ago and dont take into account the expense and differculty getting the coal out . very good show on peak coal and how coal interests are against a upto date estimate of useable of coal reserves http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/709 yes I know about making liquid fuels from coal, firstly I think coal reserves are over estimated but even if you were to take the figures that are given with the growth of population http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-7/p47.html and more coal use you would have maybe a couple of decades http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052504_coal_peak.html before you peaked in coal production http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/111704_end_oil.shtml We use now about twice as much energy from oil as we do from coal, so if you wanted to mine enough coal to replace the missing oil, you’d have to mine it at a much higher rate, not only to replace the oil, but also because the conversion process to oil is extremely inefficient. You’d have to mine it at levels at least five times beyond those we mine now—a coal-mining industry on an absolutely unimaginable scale As for running factorys with out fossil fuels you can generate some electricity using hydro wind and solar power or using renewables biomass ect, you can use human or animal powered machines . There is no reason why you couldnt produce clothing using treadle power again you could operate things like lathes using treadles or bicycle power . I see a couple of things joining to make it more likely that we will start making things without fossil fuels , you have global warming and you have fossil fuel depletion . imagine a jacket if you make cloth on a hand powered loom ( like all harris tweed is still made today ) then cut it with a hand operated shears, or pair of scissors, sewing it with a treadle or hand powered sewing machine you havnt added anything to global warming apart from the manufacture of the machines which can last hundreds of years . on the otherhand if you buy a jacket made in a fossil fuel factory system, the material is likely to contain fossil fuels if its a man made fibre ,it will be dyed using oil based dyes , it will be weaved in a factory with massive machines powered by fossil fuels , transported to another factory where it will be made by machines running on fossil fuels and then shipped to you on a infrastucture that depends on fossil fuels .
http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/emit.html Interesting little site on transport , I dont like the way the sites designed but as i say interesting.
I like global warming. The winters are much nicer around here now. I'm not having kids anyway, so this is working out great! Fly more people! Better yet take a boat which apparently takes more fuel to run.
travel to faraway countries is a positive influence on the world. Otheriwse we remain in the dark, ignorant, boxed up, half-living... Sure they should use better fuels...but shouldnt you target something a bit less necessary? Cars, for example Plastic bag overuse. Throwing things away. Commersial farming Planes have a huge positive effect too, thats the problem with singling them out. Im not denying they contribute to global warming. But cars are not needed. Learning is
hmm will all the worlds billions of people be able to travel around the world in jet planes, or do you mean some rich people will be able to travel and destroy the environment and the majority of the world can stay in the dark, ignorant, boxed up, half-living... And I don’t think that flying is necessary at all , I don’t think that people I know who fly a lot are some sort of enlightened beings, that they think they are I would say speaks of some sort of Delusional arrogance . Salmon4me if you read back you will see that traveling by boat can be far less damaging to the environment , I doubt I will have children either whats that got to do with anything ? and if you like living in a warmer country get on a boat and move to one
The biggest growth sector is budget short-haul flights, these kinds of flights within a continent where more efficient alternatives exist should be very heavily taxed, not given tax breaks like they are currently within Europe. Long haul transport is a more tenacious problem because of the lack of alternatives - and people don't want to give up their luxuries, despite knowing how damaging and irresponsible they are being. Properly taxing and offsetting these carbon emissions is probably the only way forward. Without tax penalties and incentives the aviation companies are going to drag their feet on investing in more efficient fuels and planes. Getting a worldwide consensus on such a sceme is probably going to prove impossible though, the aviation companies will just move and base themselves in the places which don't impose as high climate change levies. Nobody can really argue with the pointless transportation of consumable goods around the world when those goods can easily be produced locally. It's purely an economy thing, it may be cost efficient, but the long term effects of this wastefulness should be penalised to stop money being the only consideration for the companies who do this...
90% of the coal we burn is for electricity, which electrical things are only getting more efficient by the day.Coal production is getting way more efficient too.Most of are energy is wasted keeping us comfortable i.e. air conditioning, heating.If we could curb are waste there planes wouldnt be an issue.
Ha, yes! I will go on a boat and move to the tropics just for the sake of not using airplanes. Wait... now I will also stop using electricity... that hurts the environment. Might also stop eating... can't hurt all them poor animals and plants. Hell, I'll stop shitting... that's pollution right there! I would go and kill myself, but I don't want to pollute the earth with my corpse.