LOL! I almost forgot about the idiocy of peak oil! Thats been a long fucking time ago since that hysteria! 

Quote from: Shen Li on Today at 01:07:23 AMYou do know wind and solar use a lot of natural resources that actually are finite?

The technology needs further improvement but it's one or more steps in the right direcition. Oil and natural gas are certainly replenished but not at a rate that is even close to what is necessary based on consumption rates that are only climbing but it's very reassuring to think that oil will last forever. No different than people believing there's another life after this one so it doesn't matter if you fuck it up because some bearded clown in the sky loves you even though innocent people are killed on a regular basis no matter how much they pray.

Oil is not replenished from the Earth. It is formed from the remains of ancient plants and animals that lived millions of years ago and is not available for regeneration. The process of oil formation takes millions of years, and it cannot be replenished faster than it is extracted

Claims that oil is being replenished faster than it's being used have been proven false by numerous well regarded scientific studies.

Quote from: wizer on Today at 02:09:51 AMThe technology needs further improvement but it's one or more steps in the right direcition. Oil and natural gas are certainly replenished but not at a rate that is even close to what is necessary based on consumption rates that are only climbing but it's very reassuring to think that oil will last forever. No different than people believing there's another life after this one so it doesn't matter if you fuck it up because some bearded clown in the sky loves you even though innocent people are killed on a regular basis no matter how much they pray.

Oil is not replenished from the Earth. It is formed from the remains of ancient plants and animals that lived millions of years ago and is not available for regeneration. The process of oil formation takes millions of years, and it cannot be replenished faster than it is extracted

Claims that oil is being replenished faster than it's being used have been proven false by numerous well regarded scientific studies.

The formation of oil in nature DOES NOT take millions of years. Hydrothermal vents in The Gulf of California interact with kelp producing light sweet crude. This oil floats to the surface continuously. Sure, a lot of the oil we pump from the ground may have been trapped for millions of years but it was produced in a very short time.

What this means for humans is we can produce oil from biomass easily. Ethanol from grass and corn has been in production for more than 20 years. I use E-85 in my cars and cut the cats off them because they're no longer needed.

Quote from: Lokmar on Today at 09:24:06 AMThe formation of oil in nature DOES NOT take millions of years. Hydrothermal vents in The Gulf of California interact with kelp producing light sweet crude. This oil floats to the surface continuously. Sure, a lot of the oil we pump from the ground may have been trapped for millions of years but it was produced in a very short time.

What this means for humans is we can produce oil from biomass easily. Ethanol from grass and corn has been in production for more than 20 years. I use E-85 in my cars and cut the cats off them because they're no longer needed.

We will never run out of hydrocarbons. Technology has debunked that myth.

Quote from: Shen Li on Today at 01:07:23 AMwizer my friend, the stone age didn't end because the earth ran out of rocks.

I hate the term fossil fuels because it is so misleading. However, they are renewable just not at the current rate of consumption. Actually natural gas is. That we have an inexhaustible supply that can be scaled up or down and requires nothing close to the land disturbance that diffuse energy sources like wind and solar do.

Peak demand is a possibility. Particularly since Western countries have become so efficient in their use of oil derivatives.

Peak oil on the other hand dates all the way back to the 1880s. Repeated predictions of peak oil supply have repeatedly been moved further into the future. Soviet oil exploration adopted the abiotic oil theory—the idea that hydrocarbons are generated by inorganic processes in the Earth's mantle, not from decomposed biological material.

The Soviets didn't just theorise, they acted. They developed deep-drilling programs that tapped into oil fields far below what traditional fossil theories considered viable. The results?

Dnieper-Donets Basin: Considered geologically "sterile," this Ukrainian site was one of the Soviet Union's most productive oil regions, reaching depths of 6–8 km.

White Tiger Field, Vietnam: Discovered by Soviet engineers, this offshore field also defied fossil logic by producing oil from granite basement rock, far below sedimentary layers typically associated with fossil fuels.

The strongest challenge to peak oil comes not from theory, but from the earth itself.

Eugene Island 330: Replenishing rates were so bizarre that the U.S. Department of Energy funded multiple studies. MIT's Jean Laherrère remarked that the field "appeared to be refilling from somewhere below."

LaBarge Field, Wyoming: Produces oil, gas, and helium—another deep-earth marker. The gases are geochemically traced to mantle origins.
Kola Superdeep Borehole: Although no oil was struck directly, the borehole encountered unexpected water and hydrocarbons at depths where life should not have existed. It confirmed that deep Earth chemistry is far more complex—and fertile—than fossil logic suggests.

If oil is being formed in the mantle and slowly migrating upward, then the question isn't whether oil is running out—it's how much is being created and how fast.

Petroleum products have provided for so many advances besides energy. From agriculture to medicine to engineering to even music. They even play a role in mitigating any potential climate change impacts. It is so essential to an advanced way of life. Nobody seriously thinks we can find an organic resource or create one that could match it's many uses.

What I don't get is if you are concerned about supplies going forward why would you want to replace an energy source you think is running out with something that is more finite than oil and natural gas. You do know wind and solar use a lot of natural resources that actually are finite?

That is true. And their are hydrocarbons on other planets where there was no marine sediment. But, the easily accessed hydrocarbons come from algae and plankton.

It is true that wind solar and electric vehicles are the least sustainable energy and transportation sources.