Dear Questionswap.com

[hatchelt]

Morning all,
So recently at work I've been messing about on questionswap.com, a simple website which lets you ask a question then then lets you answer one. It's all totally random with, from what i can tell so far, a big mix of people using it. After asking the usual 'what should i have for lunch' questions, I decided to move onto Peak Oil and asked the question:

What will you miss once cheap oil becomes a thing of the past?

And these are the replies I got in return. I thought I'd post them here just as a general snapshot of what the average joe public thinks:



Nothing. I will be happy to run my car on hydrogen made from renewable energy. Although salad dressings will never be the same...

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Fresh, variable food. Most people don't realize that a significant amount of oil goes into both the production and transportation of foodstuffs. I do not look forward to having to grow my own personal cucumbers.

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Cars that drive on the ground.

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For one thing my dad works on an oil rig and such so I doubt that will be a problem for me =/


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I will miss cheap oil. I dont really understand the question.. Do you mean because i will miss out on something else because i'm paying for fuel?

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Ease of transport with my car (assuming no other forms are inroduced). Nothing else really comes to mind, but I'm sure there will be repercussions in many other aspects of life.

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I will miss getting rides to school and having to take the metro or walking instead.

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I walk to work, so I won't miss driving. Heating, however, is a bit of an issue. It's about minus a billion degrees here in the winter and without heating oil the options are fairly limited. Going back to coal isn't necessarily the answer because coal is not that good for the environment. Definitely some sort of alternative heating system would be in order; otherwise, by mid-January we'd all be sitting around like Jack Nicholson at the end of "The Shining."

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I suppose international flights. I cannot see expensive oil changing my life in a major way (i'm british and used to it, plus i don't drive a hummer) but as the cost rises some things will have to be sacrificed and I think it will probabbly be long haul flights and holidays.

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Being able to jump in my car and just drive to the sea and take my family out for the day!

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Oil is cheap now? Hey... Im a broke bitch, nothing is cheap to me. Im not even satisfied when they roll back those prices at Wal-Mart.

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Hmm, that's an interesting question. I don't think I'll particularly miss anything, it's more like a downward slope. Gas gets more expensive, so I drive less. Oil costs more, so I turn down the heat and turn off lights, maybe I'll buy a electric car sometime in the future, maybe I'll buy a environmentally friendly house. The point is, these kinds of things don't just happen at once. I don't think I'll miss anything, since it'll all change gradually. Who knows, I might actually like an electric car better.

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I will miss driving. I love driving a lot. I love my car a lot. I love driving around in my car a lot. It's a very economical car and all, and right now the company i work for pays for all my fuel, but the price of fuel is already ridiculously expensive. It's a shame. I really enjoy driving.

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I will miss the sense of world domination that the United States still possesses. Without plentiful, cheap oil it will become harder to maintain our position in world affairs.

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I don't think that it will be as big a problem as people think, as there is a lot of research going on regarding alternative energy sources. Nuclear energy is cheap and efficient, and can provide as much electrical energy as we need, as many nations have large reserves of uranium. Ethanol and bio-diesel can be substituted for most fossil fuels, and can be manufactured quite easily. Coal reserves aren't going to run out anytime soon. Experiments into sustainable nuclear fusion are quite promising, and once the initial engineering problems are solved, fusion can deliver as much electrical energy as we could ever need without the hazardous waste of nuclear fission.

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Driving. I refuse to spend that much on oil. I have 2 legs and a heartbeat. I will use them!

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[skeptik]

Experiments into sustainable nuclear fusion are quite promising

I like that. As soon as anybody tries to bring fusion into the argument, I always try to elminate it as quickly as possible. A useful response is " A commercial fusion reactor is 50 years aways , it always always has been ever since the 1950's. The problem is coming at us in the next decade or so."

Nice to see a bit of optimism though. Now if the British Govt. could just get its head out its bottom for five minutes...

[extractorfan]

For one thing my dad works on an oil rig and such so I doubt that will be a problem for me

Whats he gonna do, bring it home in a box!

The responses are not as ignorant as I'd expected though, quite promising.

[mikepepler]

Well, that's quite fun. I posted a few questions on it and I got this reply to one of them:

Are the governments covering up the reality of "peak oil" because they don't want rioting in the streets? (do a Google search to find out about peak oil)

The fact that I hadn't heard of "Peak Oil" before, probably means that the goverment are trying to cover it up. I do try to keep up to date with news, but I haven't heard it mentioned before. It looks quite a serious buisness, and I am really scared what is gonna happen when the oil does run out.

I guess it's worth some of posting the odd question there - I did a variety of different ones. Maybe we should mention PowerSwitch in it, as the whole thing's anonymous, so people like this who've only just found out have somewhere to turn for info and help.

[bigjim]

That site looks really good.

I've posted a completely different question- for info, it was:

It says on English banknotes, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five/ ten/ twenty/ fifty pounds".

What happens if you go into the Bank of England and you demand the sum of five/ ten etc pounds? What do they give you- coinage? Gold? Oil? Lead?

I've always wondered about that one. Anyone here know?

[wayne72]

My question:
What does "Peak Oil" mean to you?

The answer:
My Balls!


Plus this one
My question:
Do you think it's possible to live in a World like ours with dwindling Oil reserves?

The answer:
Well I guess the right question is can we continue to live and for how long (clearly we can live well enough to ask these questions). I think we would have to reevalute and change the way we go about living in the world. I highly recommend the following books: Peter Singer "One World" Eric Higgs "Nature by Design" If I had more time, I would actually go into detail on my opinions. I've done quite a bit of environmental philosophy, but can't go into at this time. Sorry.

Plus this one, which I did like the answer:
My question:
Is high petrol/gas prices more a result of Peak Oil or greedy Oil companies?

The answer:
both

[dr_doom]

It says on English banknotes, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five/ ten/ twenty/ fifty pounds".

What happens if you go into the Bank of England and you demand the sum of five/ ten etc pounds? What do they give you- coinage? Gold? Oil? Lead?

I've always wondered about that one. Anyone here know?

Do a google search for "promise to pay bearer".

First two hits are both banking conspiracy related.

"I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of......"

On a bank note it states "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of......". What that means is, the bank has pledged to the holder of that note, that on demand, they will give to the holder, the value stated on the note in gold or coinage. A bank note is merely an IOU
Therefore you are perfectly entitled by law, to ask for your bank account's total value to be paid to you in gold or coinage - it states it on all bank notes and is authorised by the Chief Cashier of each bank. So, that means that everyone is entitled to have their money given to them by their bank, in gold or coinage. The only problem is, there is nowhere near enough gold or coinage in circulation to honour these pledges, which means in effect, the paper money is worthless.
If you want some entertainment, I suggest you ask your local bank for a ?10 to be paid to you in Gold. The look on the young clerk's face will be all the entertainment you should have for one day.....

[clv101]

Experiments into sustainable nuclear fusion are quite promising

I like that. As soon as anybody tries to bring fusion into the argument, I always try to elminate it as quickly as possible. A useful response is " A commercial fusion reactor is 50 years aways , it always always has been ever since the 1950's. The problem is coming at us in the next decade or so."

Nice to see a bit of optimism though. Now if the British Govt. could just get its head out its bottom for five minutes...

I've leant quite a bit about the current state of fusion work over the last couple of months. If we had another 30-40 years of business as usual I think we could see fusion becoming a commercial reality. Of course we don't have 30-40 years of business as usual... See my fusion notes here: http://uk.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/15/111827/982

[skeptik]

If we had another 30-40 years of business as usual I think we could see fusion becoming a commercial reality. Of course we don't have 30-40 years of business as usual... See my fusion notes here: http://uk.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/15/111827/982

Plus ?a change, then.

Allowing for the normal 'project slippage' we see in this country on complex engineering its still about 50 years away, and so long as the Canadians can be persuaded to allow half their entire country to be turned into a giant toxic swamp to allow business as usual it might actually happen. (Llewellyn seems somewhat over optimistic about how quickly tar sands production can be ramped up )

I wonder how you'd decommision a fusion reactor? All the electical /magnetic stuff could be dismantled but I suppose the containment chamber itself would be so radioactive you'd just have to cover it in concrete and walk away. A big part of the research problem must be developing some material to line the chamber that isnt going to go brittle in 10 seconds flat under the onslaught of the huge neutron flux.

[bigjim]

I thought fusion didn't leave any nasty nuclear waste behind.

Nuclear fusion smashes atoms together; the atoms bind to form a new atom and releases energy. The process releases energy for all elements until you get to iron; any elements heavier than iron and you need to put energy in to form heavier elements.

Now I didn't think there was much of a radioactivity problem with elements lighter than iron.

(For all those that don't know, fission is where you dismantle elements and energy is given off as a byproduct- fission generates energy until you reach iron!)

[clv101]

I thought fusion didn't leave any nasty nuclear waste behind.

There is a fair bit of high level radioactive waste produced. The 14MeV neutrons make the chamber wall material highly radioactive. This isn't too much of a problem though since the material can be chosen such that the half life of the products are relatively short - just a few years - so whilst there is serious radioactive waste to deal with every few years when the chamber wall is replaced due to degradation, it only needs to be carefully managed for decades rather than thousands of years.

[Neily at the peak]

Aaah! the power of the question! In my experience questions are a far more powerful way of telling people about things than actually telling them. Anybody got any other ideas of websites where we could pose questions?

Neil

[skeptik]

so whilst there is serious radioactive waste to deal with every few years when the chamber wall is replaced due to degradation, it only needs to be carefully managed for decades rather than thousands of years.

Ok... Replaced every few years. Thanks. Was wondering about the chamber wall but didnt realise thats what they were planning. I had assumed that it would be in place for the lifetime of the reactor. FInding a material that only has to last a few years should be a lot easier!

Havent actually read anything about fusion reactors for a long time... not a subject I've thougth worth keeping up with as the commercial version is always 50 years away!

[DaBeeeenster]

That site looks really good.

I've posted a completely different question- for info, it was:

It says on English banknotes, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five/ ten/ twenty/ fifty pounds".

What happens if you go into the Bank of England and you demand the sum of five/ ten etc pounds? What do they give you- coinage? Gold? Oil? Lead?

I've always wondered about that one. Anyone here know?

I am 90% sure it is gold. The problem is that (and I think I'm right in saying this) the Bank of England dont have enough gold to pay everyone back; google "fractional reserve lending" for more info.

[skeptik]

That site looks really good.

I've posted a completely different question- for info, it was:

It says on English banknotes, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five/ ten/ twenty/ fifty pounds".

What happens if you go into the Bank of England and you demand the sum of five/ ten etc pounds? What do they give you- coinage? Gold? Oil? Lead?

I've always wondered about that one. Anyone here know?

I am 90% sure it is gold. The problem is that (and I think I'm right in saying this) the Bank of England dont have enough gold to pay everyone back; google "fractional reserve lending" for more info.

If you handed them a fifty and if they've got any sense of humour they'd probably give you five ten pound notes while trying to keep a straight face.