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We also just discovered we have a huge amount of natural gas we can use that would cost us about 50cents a gallon compared to regular gas.
Oil production peaked in 2005. That's why prices are going through the roof. Gas is due to peak around 2020 and coal around 2025. It might be everywhere, but recoverable oil is not.
Capitalism will find a way to synthesize all of the above. If it can be done, the every present push of capitalism to make mankind better his lot in life, will make it happen.
Aren't you aware that the vast majority of "petroleum" used by Germany in WWII was synthetic?? They were desperate for Rumanian and Russian oil after we blew up their syn-plants. They have lots of coal but to petroleum.
Aren't you aware that the vast majority of "petroleum" used by Germany in WWII was synthetic?? They were desperate for Rumanian and Russian oil after we blew up their syn-plants. They have lots of coal but to petroleum.
Metals, can, of course, be recycled.
It wasn't actually. They tried to sythesise coal but it didn't work as its a net energy looser. Also peak coal is around 2025 at current production growth trends.
Last edited by archineer; 05-03-2011 at 03:29 PM..
While it is true that it is ultimately industrialisation that is depleting the planets resources, and any industrialised economic system would produce the same result, Capitalism is dependant on industrialisation (and exponential growth) to survive. Without there it will just descend back into feudalism.
How is the allocation of Capital dependent on industrialization? If I decide to allocate my funds to buy 10 chickens to sell their eggs, I don't need industrialization for that.
You are confusing the ends that happen when we don't follow basic laws of liability and property rights. Exponential growth happens when people and corporate entities are not liable for their actions.
This does a good job of explaining the difference.
If capitalism was such a great system, then why are we in a major financial crisis, unemployment crisis and rising poverty, etc? Is there possibly a better system that hasn't been discovered or implemented yet? We already know the problems associated with communism/socialism.
Also, do you think that communism could work, but it just hasn't been implemented properly in real world situations?
This again? Haven't we already established on C-D that we are not a purely capitalist system here in the US?
Resources are not just physical elements. Resources include intellectual property.
Intellectual Property is unlimited.
So we can have an economy based on just ideas? What use are ideas without physical applications? So you're implying that in the future we'll have have an economy where the actual 'hard goods' economy tanks because of a lack of real world physical resources and we'll just sit around selling 'ideas.' hmm sorry I don't buy that.
Intellectual property is not infinate as it is the product of 'peoples' combined imagination. Those people require food, energy and everything else to remain alive - the carrying capacity of the planet is limited by the energy available to us (we are in population overshoot at the moment temporarily sustained by our use of fossil fuels) and this is the limit of intellectual property- fewer people= fewer ideas. Fossil fuels allow humans to use less manpower for essential economic activity (ie food production) and rely more on machines, this frees up more time for intellectual pursuits- education and the knowledge economy. Take away fossil fuels and all this dissapears.
Last edited by archineer; 05-03-2011 at 05:20 PM..
It wasn't actually. They tried to sythesise coal but it didn't work as its a net energy looser. Also peak coal is around 2025 at current production growth trends.
They already had coal, but airplanes don't run on it, so they made synthetic fuels. It is universally-known among anyone familiar with WWII.
They already had coal, but airplanes don't run on it, so they made synthetic fuels. It is universally-known among anyone familiar with WWII.
I know full well about the Fischer-Tropsch process and the Nazi's attempts to use it- it doesn't work as an oil substitute because its EREOI is less than 1. This means that the liquid fuels (kerosene) derived from coal cease to be an energy source because it requires more energy to produce than is present in the final product. This is why the Nazi's couldn't run their war machine on it, they only tried it out of desperation right at the end of the war.
This is the problem with the infinate substitution argument- if a resource really is a true substitute then we would be already using it.
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