dcstrom said:
The reality is that ALL options need to be on the table - nuclear, oil, gas, coal, renewables and... this is a tough one for a lot of Americans... conservation. But that's what it's coming to. And if you add global climate change into the equation, coal drops even further down the list of preferred energy sources.
You might find this interesting..
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/
This guy approaches it from a dry as a bone in the desert mathematical political free zone perspective, and yes we need all options on the table. Seems many people in your adopted country and mine are missing out on the benefits of the "need" to mine stuff and have to cop all the downsides, while some are getting the benefits and all the upsides, but I totally agree that the situation requires all options on the table and preferably without politics involved.
It's like riding, when you are starting to ride too fast for the conditions you either slow down or your chances of a bad ending climb fast.
All we can say for certain is we are trying to go faster with deteriorating road conditions.
One thing that always bugged me though is with all the energy use growth in the world, ALL energy producing activities should be very busy and welcomed.
The problem is always cost. Society has been used to ever increasing efficiencies lowering the cost of things for decades but as we ramp up the use the side effects become more apparent to those want to look.
Seen any rivers burning lately?
How about sewage in the streets?
Anyone live on a trash heap?
How's the town water? Still brown?
Found any maggots in your meat lately?
This is just the next phase and it is going to add a bit of cost to things. No one stopped driving cars, or eating meat or going to the toilet or drinking or riding bikes.
I am sure I heard a bunch of people telling me we were all rooooned because of those new fangled Electronic ignition modules. And those new EFI thingamagigs were going to be the end of us and ABS is just dangerous.
I can guarabtee you that if the world population was 500 milliion none of this would be even an issue. The earth would cope, the rivers would still be pretty clean and it wouldn't really matter that you had a smoky exhaust. The fossil fuels would be expected to last for millenia and there would be huge areas to ride in that were pristine.
But we kept bonking and consuming. So at some point we have to start paying for what nature can't provide for free anymore, because poor old mum Nature is just about run ragged trying to keep up with all her kids. At some point we will have to do our own washing, cooking, darning and take out the trash ourselves.
Then we may start to realize that the less cooking, darning, washing and trash creation, the better.
Of course the wealthy will still hire help and continue to make "reality" TV shows.