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Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room
Paul Chefurka ^ | 2007 | Paul Chefurka

Posted on 02/24/2008 1:41:05 PM PST by ScratInTheHat

As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. This automatically means that its use is not sustainable. If the use of oil is not sustainable, then of course the added carrying capacity the oil has provided is likewise unsustainable. Carrying capacity has been added to the world in direct proportion to the use of oil, and the disturbing implication is that if our oil supply declines, the carrying capacity of the world will automatically fall with it.

These two observations (that oil has expanded the world's carrying capacity and oil use is unsustainable) combine to yield a further implication. While humanity has apparently not yet reached the carrying capacity of a world with oil, we are already in drastic overshoot when you consider a world without oil. In fact our population today is at least five times what it was before oil came on the scene, and it is still growing. If this sustaining resource were to be exhausted, our population would have no option but to decline to the level supportable by the world's lowered carrying capacity.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: carryingcapacity; doomage; energy; genocide; overpopulation; peakoil; population; populationbomb; wearedoomed
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To: ScratInTheHat

Energy independence now. We ignore this situation or drag our feet at our peril.


21 posted on 02/24/2008 2:18:42 PM PST by mysterio
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To: theBuckwheat
Gasoline in Europe is around $6/gallon. At that price, we could convert municipal garbage and sewage sludge into motor vehicle fuels and have all we wanted to buy.

Except that the higher price in Europe isn't a reflection of differing market forces .. it's simply the result of higher taxes there than here.

22 posted on 02/24/2008 2:19:32 PM PST by tx_eggman ("they want to be judged on their intentions, not their results" - libtards official motto)
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To: ScratInTheHat
"As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource."

This is one of the biggest lies ever told.

There has never been a year in my life where our proven oil reserves has failed to increase. Meanwhile the scaremongers keep screaming that the sky is falling. Oil is not a fossil fuel, and the earth is making more than we are using.

Can we move on to some intelligent discussion?

.

23 posted on 02/24/2008 2:21:07 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: Petronski
"Piffle."

Precisely.

.

24 posted on 02/24/2008 2:22:44 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: bukkdems
"Is this slam-dunk or subject to debate?"

It's "Brittany Spears"

25 posted on 02/24/2008 2:24:15 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: ScratInTheHat
The part about oil being finite is also crap. Petroleum in the ground is methane based and will replenish itself. This may not happen on our timetable quickly enough to keep a steady supply coming out of the ground, but it will replenish itself.
The first time I heard this was 15 years ago from a good friend who is a retired Chevron research scientist. Oil did not get into the ground via the dead dinosaur line of crap they taught us all in school. They didn’t know how it got there so they came up with the fossil fuel theory and taught it as fact. That theory has since been proven to be totally inaccurate.
They have found hydrocarbons, the basis of oil, on the moons of other planets. There is methane there but there ain’t no dead dinosaurs.
26 posted on 02/24/2008 2:31:44 PM PST by oldenuff2no
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To: tx_eggman

Sure, exactly! My reason for mentioning this is simply that Europeans have gotten used to paying that much and their economy still functions at that higher price. If we wanted to be totaly free of oil imports, the price in Europe shows how much ‘headroom’ we have and can still function, not that it would be pleasant.

Happily, there are plenty of conversion technolgies that have a break-even point that is close to the present world price of crude.


27 posted on 02/24/2008 2:42:50 PM PST by theBuckwheat
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To: kAcknor

I’m beginning to wonder about the limits of fossil fuels. I read the other day that by 2020, China will have 350 million middle-class people with automobiles, more than the U.S. This demand for oil from China did not exist at all 30 years ago. Combine that growth with the middle-class growth in India and I have no doubt we are definitely straining the world’s oil production capability.

I also believe that the 500 year supply of coal was for a fixed U.S. population that existed around 1970 and that per-capita energy consumption would not increase.

Lastly, “net energy” from oil shale and oil sands is considerably below “net energy” from petroleum extraction. In other words, it takes a lot more energy to extract and process a BTU of liquid fuel from oil sands and oil shale than it does to pump oil out of the ground. That doesn’t bode well for liquid energy prices.


28 posted on 02/24/2008 2:43:05 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ScratInTheHat

The sky is falling again.......


29 posted on 02/24/2008 2:44:08 PM PST by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: oldenuff2no
Consider this article: Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves On Earth ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2008) — Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220200045.htm "peak oil" ???
30 posted on 02/24/2008 2:45:40 PM PST by theBuckwheat
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To: theBuckwheat

Syngas?


31 posted on 02/24/2008 2:51:17 PM PST by tbw2 (Science fiction with real science - "Humanity's Edge" - on amazon.com)
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To: Brilliant

At least Hillary and whoever only had one child.


32 posted on 02/24/2008 2:57:17 PM PST by AZLiberty (President Fred -- I like the sound of it.)
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To: Strategerist; kralcmot
"Nonsensical articles selling a fantasy written by people without the vaguest understanding of geology..."

Who are you trying to fool, Thomas Gold doesn't know anything about geology?? Really?

Adjust to The Reality

"The study also confirmed a major argument of Cornell University physicist Thomas Gold, who argued in his book "The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels" that micro-organisms found in oil might have come from the mantle of the earth where, absent photosynthesis, the micro-organisms feed on hydrocarbons arising from the earth's mantle in the dark depths of the ocean floors."

More Evidence.

.

33 posted on 02/24/2008 3:02:24 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: ScratInTheHat

Just remember that the current population of the earth could fit into an area the size of Texas - 35 people to an acre. That would leave the entire rest of the earth unpopulated. Our population could multiple many, many times before critical mass is reached. Would lifestyles have to change? Of course. But all any of us really needs is a warm place during the winter and food to eat. Those things come pretty cheaply - a sustainable forest and arable land.


34 posted on 02/24/2008 3:02:38 PM PST by DennisR (Look around - God gives countless clues that He does, indeed, exist.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

This is where everyone has there heads in the sand.

It’s like the wind energy crap. The amount of energy it takes to build the machine to capture wind energy negates the amount you will get out of it over it’s working life.

Without Oil everything they are working on gives back so little return (except nuclear) that it’s just never going to fly.

Consumption is going to outpace supply in the next 10 to 20 years at the latest.


35 posted on 02/24/2008 3:08:18 PM PST by ScratInTheHat (Don't like my immigration stance? I'm dyslexic. PC keeps sounding like BS to me!)
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To: theBuckwheat

Like I posted in the header.

Jump over the lib crap.

And it doesn’t matter if the earth produces it naturally (which I believe is very likely). That production will not keep up with the consumption rates.


36 posted on 02/24/2008 3:11:12 PM PST by ScratInTheHat (Don't like my immigration stance? I'm dyslexic. PC keeps sounding like BS to me!)
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To: DennisR

Sounds like just the kind of place that everyone would be killing everyone else.


37 posted on 02/24/2008 3:14:02 PM PST by ScratInTheHat (Don't like my immigration stance? I'm dyslexic. PC keeps sounding like BS to me!)
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To: kralcmot; ScratInTheHat
“As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource.

This explains all the hydrocarbons on Europa. See, all the dinasaurs who died eons ago, on Europa, they created the finite amount of hydrocarbons present on that moon.

38 posted on 02/24/2008 3:14:54 PM PST by Lazamataz (Why isn’t this in Breaking News????)
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To: ScratInTheHat

>oil is a finite, non-renewable resource<

Well, let’s start by not accepting this premise.

Then we’ll move on, if you don’t mind, and reject any assertions that point in the direction of the need for “population control”.


39 posted on 02/24/2008 3:15:36 PM PST by G Larry (HILLARY CARE = DYING IN LINE!)
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To: ScratInTheHat
"The amount of energy it takes to build the machine to capture wind energy negates the amount you will get out of it over it’s working life."

Nonsense. I can show you wind turbines that have been running, producing more energy each day that they run than it took to manufacture them, since the mid 60s.

The hills near our ranch are dotted with old, still working wind turbines, that require almost no maintainance (and that is a lucky thing, since people are not inclined to maintain things until they fail).

40 posted on 02/24/2008 3:30:14 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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