3 ms·

Resources are infinite (Julian Simon). And exponential doesnt mean the peak will be in 20 years. It could be 500 years.

roenxi 2y ago
Real resources humanity can access are not infinite (scientists & engineers) and economists can get their assumptions wrong (everyone, including economists). And there is no way our current trend of oil use can be sustained for 500 years. By then our oil use will be negligible compared to what it is today unless something truly bizarre and unforseeable happens.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  If we make oil from nuclear or solar power using fuel synthesis, we can carry forward indefinitely.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Yeah but we wouldn't do that. It doesn't make sense to pay the energy conversion costs; it is already more efficient to store power in non-oil batteries.
    - Earw0rm 2y ago
      Not true for aviation, where weight and volume are both constraints.
    - jvanderbot 2y ago
      For me, scarcity arguments based on "preferences" don't make a ton of sense, but I see your point. I'd give even odds there will always be use cases for burnable fuels, and almost all vehicles use burnable fuels currently. Sure seems a shorter path to just pull CO2 out of the air and keep moving along as we always have, vs electrifying everything.
baq 2y ago
Grow our civilization’s energy consumption by ~2% yoy and you’ll boil the oceans in 400 years. Or course, the planet will be uninhabitable much, much earlier, so it doesn’t matter too much.
- psychoslave 2y ago
  Maybe we can go with a bit more of nuances here. Uninhabitable is probably an "overstatement", as in, if all human civilizations collapse globally consequently to its collective hubris, chances are good that other species will thrive in this very different world. We can even suppose continuation of some humans but with different life modalities.
  - baq 2y ago
    I’m not sure which part of ‘boil the oceans’ you think we can sort of exist in. In this scenario we become Venus except with thinner atmosphere, so no balloons to save us.
    - throwway120385 2y ago
      They're not saying we can exist. They're saying that it's not uninhabitable to something, therefore making the value judgement that it would be uninhabitable is simply not true. Which is another kind of value judgement about how important your own values are.
    - psychoslave 2y ago
      While such a scenario is certainly possible, it's not something that can be achieved by humanity by solely leverage on its current capacities to transform earth environment. See for example https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/47070/20231113/earth-s-oceans-boil-away-what-factors-make-planet-lose.htm https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/47070/20231113/earth-s... So, to answer your question, in the part where humanity can certainly change the world to its own detrimental, but is currently not able to really put it in a state where absolutely no life form is conceivable anymore, and that even putting it a state where some hunters gatherers would not be able to survive is not a 100% garantie outcome of current trends. though I would rather consider the current trend rather awful if you ask.
Iridescent_ 2y ago
Conventional has already peaked, and it is possible that even producers will decide to stop extracting nonconventional oil because it is too expensive and the price of a barrel fluctuates too much (IEA 2020)

Real resources humanity can access are not infinite (scientists & engineers) and economists can get their assumptions wrong (everyone, including economists). And there is no way our current trend of oil use can be sustained for 500 years. By then our oil use will be negligible compared to what it is today unless something truly bizarre and unforseeable happens.

jvanderbot 2y ago
If we make oil from nuclear or solar power using fuel synthesis, we can carry forward indefinitely.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Yeah but we wouldn't do that. It doesn't make sense to pay the energy conversion costs; it is already more efficient to store power in non-oil batteries.
  - Earw0rm 2y ago
    Not true for aviation, where weight and volume are both constraints.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    For me, scarcity arguments based on "preferences" don't make a ton of sense, but I see your point. I'd give even odds there will always be use cases for burnable fuels, and almost all vehicles use burnable fuels currently. Sure seems a shorter path to just pull CO2 out of the air and keep moving along as we always have, vs electrifying everything.

baq 2y ago

Grow our civilization’s energy consumption by ~2% yoy and you’ll boil the oceans in 400 years. Or course, the planet will be uninhabitable much, much earlier, so it doesn’t matter too much.

psychoslave 2y ago
Maybe we can go with a bit more of nuances here. Uninhabitable is probably an "overstatement", as in, if all human civilizations collapse globally consequently to its collective hubris, chances are good that other species will thrive in this very different world. We can even suppose continuation of some humans but with different life modalities.
- baq 2y ago
  I’m not sure which part of ‘boil the oceans’ you think we can sort of exist in. In this scenario we become Venus except with thinner atmosphere, so no balloons to save us.
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    They're not saying we can exist. They're saying that it's not uninhabitable to something, therefore making the value judgement that it would be uninhabitable is simply not true. Which is another kind of value judgement about how important your own values are.
  - psychoslave 2y ago
    While such a scenario is certainly possible, it's not something that can be achieved by humanity by solely leverage on its current capacities to transform earth environment. See for example https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/47070/20231113/earth-s-oceans-boil-away-what-factors-make-planet-lose.htm https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/47070/20231113/earth-s... So, to answer your question, in the part where humanity can certainly change the world to its own detrimental, but is currently not able to really put it in a state where absolutely no life form is conceivable anymore, and that even putting it a state where some hunters gatherers would not be able to survive is not a 100% garantie outcome of current trends. though I would rather consider the current trend rather awful if you ask.

Iridescent_ 2y ago

Conventional has already peaked, and it is possible that even producers will decide to stop extracting nonconventional oil because it is too expensive and the price of a barrel fluctuates too much (IEA 2020)