4 ms·
There is a lot of interesting analysis regarding possible responses to declining oil production. If you respond to a 3% decline in production by building infras
by dmm 15y ago
There is a lot of interesting analysis regarding possible responses to declining oil production. If you respond to a 3% decline in production by building infrastructure to produce energy by other means, you only deepen the energy deficit because that infrastructure takes energy to build.
Check out this article: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8526 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8526
You might right though. Sperm whale oil is still used to lubricate satellites.
- Retric 15y agoIf you look at how much energy has been harnessed by farms over time you will see a far more gradual increase. In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh). Oil remained the largest energy source (33%) despite the fact that its share has been decreasing over time. Coal posted a growing role in the world's energy consumption: in 2009, it accounted for 27% of the total. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency Typical crop plants: 1–2% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth Permanent pastures: 26% Permanent crops 4.71% The estimated amount of irrigated land in 1993 was 2,481,250 km2 So something like 1% efficiency * 2,481,250 km2 * 1,000,000 m^2/km * 1kwh / m^2 * 1000w / kw * 8 hours a day * 365 days a year * 3600j = 2.60829 × 10 ^ 21J or 724,525TWH granted plants use much of that but farms are still producing something like 70% of the worlds energy and then spending a large fraction of that on farm animals.