PowerSwitch

RGR wrote:Signature changed.

For those who didn't run into why yet.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/

Distance between peak oil averages dropped a full year to 9.8

"When humans made the step from hunting/gathering to agriculture, they stepped down the EROEI ladder. Farmers have to work a lot harder than hunters to harvest a unit of energy."

Just wrong. JD you've got to stop saying this stuff, it's so obviously, embarrassingly wrong that it undermines a lot of the other stuff you bring to our attention. Yes hunter/gatherers have a higher EROEI than farmers, but NOT at the point when they change from h/g to farming. They don't suddenly wake up one morning and say "hey lets give up the easy life of killing the occasional big mammal and spending the rest of our time singing, dancing and painting on cave walls. What would be way cooler would be slaving bent over in a field for much less energy return". Of course they don't. They change when the EROEI of farming is better than the EROEI of hunting/gathering. And when's that? When they've hunted out most of the game, thru improved hunting techniques and population growth. As that happens they have to expend more and more energy to get food. Their EROEI is dropping and the EROEI of farming is becoming preferable.
The exact same principle applies to the wood to coal transition. People in England didn't wake up one morning and say"lets stop using this cheap and abundant wood and start burning more expensive and dirty[even satanic as some feared]coal". They used wood until, thru deforestation, it became scarce and more expensive than coal. Then wood's EROEI was lower than coal's and they were forced to change to the now higher EROEI of coal. Sorry to go on but this concept is obviously much harder to grasp than it appears. Oil and alternatives work in the same way-the alternatives only become attractive when oil's EROEI starts dropping.

ziggy12345 wrote:Daily production in June 2005 was 89.6mb/day and they are talking about a peak in 2008 of 82mb/day. How is this a higher peak?

Complete Bollox wrote:Technicality? I would mention that peak oil has been claimed to be the trigger for the end of the world, might be a technicality to YOU but some have built their entire reputation on this event being the trigger for rapturous mass starvation, reversal of the earths magnetic poles, lack of sunspots, etc etc.

Catweazle wrote:

Complete Bollox wrote:Technicality? I would mention that peak oil has been claimed to be the trigger for the end of the world, might be a technicality to YOU but some have built their entire reputation on this event being the trigger for rapturous mass starvation, reversal of the earths magnetic poles, lack of sunspots, etc etc.

You'll have to start using more smileys, it's getting too difficult to separate your ironic bollox from your normal bollox.

clv101 wrote:Some mountains have sharp, well defined peaks, some a larger undulating platteau at their summit. How long, after 5 hours trecking to reach the platteau, do you wander around in the fog looking for one rocky outcrop slightly higher than the rest. If you don't happen to stumble into the highest rock have you still climbed the mountain?

We're at the top of the mountain, here been here for several years. This quibbling over which rock is the highest is irrelevant.

RGR wrote:Technicality? I would mention that peak oil has been claimed to be the trigger for the end of the world, might be a technicality to YOU but some have built their entire reputation on this event being the trigger for rapturous mass starvation...

...

Having watched their body language and listened to what they said as it was happening, I'm surprised you would suggest otherwise.

clv101 wrote: We're at the top of the mountain, here been here for several years. This quibbling over which rock is the highest is irrelevant.

RenewableCandy wrote: RGR I don't think that you have quite grasped that this is a UK site. There's no "rapture" in the UK and no head-for-the-hills-type survivalism.