AI will save us! Oil will last forever!

[Vortex2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3n8txX3144

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3n8txX3144

Quite a turnabout claim for any peak oiler types.

The video was pretty thin on anything oily.

[vtsnowedin]

While intelligence, artificial or not, can reduce waste and improve efficiency it can never replace the the major part of the energy needed to accomplish the base work required for our civilization to operate. Food still has to be grown then harvested ,transported to processing plants, then shipped to markets and then to the consumers home. No supper idea will suddenly put food in your freezer without energy use or heat your house for that matter. And that is just two examples of how we use energy, there are many more.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

While intelligence, artificial or not, can reduce waste and improve efficiency it can never replace the the major part of the energy needed to accomplish the base work required for our civilization to operate.

Sure. But nuclear power can.

I have always found it amusing that Hubbert solved the problem he outlined in his seminal peak oil work in 1956. Even dropped the solution right there in the title, and peak oilers just ignored it all.

Food still has to be grown then harvested ,transported to processing plants, then shipped to markets and then to the consumers home. No supper idea will suddenly put food in your freezer without energy use or heat your house for that matter. And that is just two examples of how we use energy, there are many more.

Fortunate then that with nuke power, you can do all those things. Hubbert was pretty clever seeing all this before legions of others ignored it in their rush to play games in the doom fantasy league.

[vtsnowedin]

What does nuclear power have to due with Artificial intelligence? And you're going to need one long extension cord to connect your nuclear power plant to that corn or wheat combine in Iowa.

[kenneal - lagger]

While intelligence, artificial or not, can reduce waste and improve efficiency it can never replace the the major part of the energy needed to accomplish the base work required for our civilization to operate. Food still has to be grown then harvested ,transported to processing plants, then shipped to markets and then to the consumers home. No supper idea will suddenly put food in your freezer without energy use or heat your house for that matter. And that is just two examples of how we use energy, there are many more.

Food used to be supplied from farms a cart pull away from where is was produced and we will have to get back to that paradigm, or at least somewhere near it to achieve the savings in CO2 emissions required. We have replaced human labour with oil in agriculture and we could reduce the amount of oil used by getting more people involved and moving the production of salads and vegetables closer to its point of consumption. Using more people would also soak up the unemployed from increasing use of automation in a much smaller industrial production base.

If the current intercontinental food supply is required for the future we will have to start replacing our ports now with floating pontoons to allow for the inevitable sea level rise which our governments and economists are locking us into with their acceptance of a 1.5C increase in temperature. On the other hand it might be a waste of time and money as sea level rise will cause a worldwide reduction in food production and probably, if the recent past is anything to go by, a curtailment of food exports as exporting countries keep their previous exports for home consumption.

Nuclear power requires a very high tech supply chain and a complex industrial base for that chain. Given that complexity is very fragile, relying on something with such a long lifespan as nuclear power would be very dangerous for our successors. But then, as RGR has often said, do we give a damn about our successors. Proponents of nuclear power obviously do not.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

What does nuclear power have to due with Artificial intelligence? And you're going to need one long extension cord to connect your nuclear power plant to that corn or wheat combine in Iowa.

Your angle with AI was that it doesn't replace energy needed. I was just pointing out that energy availability isn't the issue, for all the items you mentioned.

And please, while the old idiot-doomers might have been able to play stupid about the electrification of transport, light, medium and heavy trucking, let alone mining and agricultural equipment, you know better than thinking there is an extension cord involved.

[kenneal - lagger]

... you know better than thinking there is an extension cord involved.

Could be. A catenary wire overhead power system could be used for the main haul road with local manoeuvre powered by batteries.

[vtsnowedin]

While we now have battery packs that move a light vehicle 300 miles or more for example the Tesla Model 3 with a 75KWH battery pack a large farm tractor today can have an engine that cranks out (and needs) 272 KW so consumes 2720KWH in a short farmers day. That is a battery 36 times the size and weight of the Tesla's pack.
It will be awhile before battery powered tractors cause the diesel tractors to be parked.
https://www.deere.com/en/tractors/row-c ... 0-tractor/

[kenneal - lagger]

I was thinking of mining and road transport vehicles. I saw a picture of a road in Germany, I think it was, which had an overhead line for electric trucks.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

While we now have battery packs that move a light vehicle 300 miles or more for example the Tesla Model 3 with a 75KWH battery pack a large farm tractor today can have an engine that cranks out (and needs) 272 KW so consumes 2720KWH in a short farmers day. That is a battery 36 times the size and weight of the Tesla's pack.
It will be awhile before battery powered tractors cause the diesel tractors to be parked.
https://www.deere.com/en/tractors/row-c ... 0-tractor/

There is no requirement that the first transition for tractors can only be batteries. Hydrogen and CNG jump to mind as far better first steps, if only because there will always be a place for the density of liquid fuels (long range air transport being another). I don't think I'd volunteer a fuel cell powered tractor at this point, if only because tractors like to burn stuff, and changing them over to electric seems a bit of a stretch when you can probably do a motor modification to combust something else...like NG, hydrogen or methanol.

Just as the market figured out the solution to peak oil, I'm betting it'll handle the agricultural transition to a brave new world just fine.

[vtsnowedin]

Hydrogen and CNG are not AI they are just alternative fuels one of which is a fossil fuel. As agriculture takes a relatively small fraction out of each barrel of oil we consume I expect it's continued use well after we have turned away from using it for daily commuting.
There are easier nuts to crack so we might as well crack those first.