Even more pressing is the troubling fact that, by the most optimistic of predictors, global petroleum production will peak within the next 8 years. From that point on, oil will become ever scarcer, as demand for it increases, until, in the not so distant future, we will find ourselves bereft of what has been to this point our simplest, cheapest source of energy, not to mention all of oil's tertiary uses, like tthe manufacture of cheap plastic goods, pesticides, fertilizer products, etc...What this means is that the bomb is ticking, ever louder. Walter Youngquist, a dean among petroleum geologists, concurs with an ever-growing number of his colleagues in telling us that the transformation of the global economy from petrochemical to post-petrochemical will in likelihood result in the world's population being reduced
by as much as 40 percent, via war, civil war, global economic collpase, famine, and its resulting plagues. Even William Ford, CEO of Ford Motors, has gone on record saying much the same thing.
Now is the time to demand for a massive, Manhattan Project-size or bigger, research and development project, and an equally major conversion project to help forestall the horrible deaths of some 2.5 billion people in a series of holocausts the like of which the world has never seen, and those holocausts' likely child, a time of darkness and evil that will make the Dark Ages look like an episode of Mr Roger's Neighborhood.
At present, the US government is, for instance, committing about 65 billion dollars
for the development of a missile defense system. While that may come in handy
if it ever works, and if, say, global privations reach such a point that it would make economic sense for the Chinese, say, or a newly energized Russian nationalist government to contemplate all out war with the US, its immediate benefits will be more likely to appear on the balance sheets of US arms manufacturers.
Hydrogen, which is the universe's most plentiful resource, is a potential source of unlimited, clean fuel. Powerful enough to power massive rockets, (the space shuttle's launch rockets are hydrogen-fueled) its only emissions are pure oxygen and distilled water. It can be manufactured presently from sunlight and seawater, albeit at present
inefficiently and expensively. But research and development funds dedicated to hydrogen presently languish at around a hundred million a year. 65 billion dollars a year would go a long way towards bringing a genuine alternative to oil to market, creating millions of interesting jobs in the process, and ultimately, perhaps forestalling
our encroaching nightmare.
Plastic goods could, even with existing technolgy, be supplanted by similar goods manufactured from byproducts of the miracle weed hemp, and some other less versatile agricultural products.
But hidebound industrialists and their lackeys in governments around the world seem determined to prevent that transformation to occur, preferring instead to continue piloting this hellbound train into apocalypse.
We need to buy some time, if we want even the glimmerings of hope for a decent life for our children and theirs, and we need to elect leaders who hold this as their first and foremost priority. If we dont begin addressing this, right now, and with massive force, those descendants of ours who may survive will curse our memory as no generation has ever been cursed, and rightly so, as we live like Antoinettes and Neros in our sloth and greed, and leave our children to pay the bill.
yrs,
David Baerwald
PetroChemical economy/Hydrogen
B
Baerwald
(view)
Even more pressing is the troubling fact that, by the most optimistic of predictors, global petroleum production will peak within the next 8 years. From that point on, oil will become ever scarcer, as demand for it increases, until, in the not so distant future, we will find ourselves bereft of what has been to this point our simplest, cheapest source of energy, not to mention all of oil's tertiary uses, like tthe manufacture of cheap plastic goods, pesticides, fertilizer products, etc...What this means is that the bomb is ticking, ever louder. Walter Youngquist, a dean among petroleum geologists, concurs with an ever-growing number of his colleagues in telling us that the transformation of the global economy from petrochemical to post-petrochemical will in likelihood result in the world's population being reduced
by as much as 40 percent, via war, civil war, global economic collpase, famine, and its resulting plagues. Even William Ford, CEO of Ford Motors, has gone on record saying much the same thing.
Now is the time to demand for a massive, Manhattan Project-size or bigger, research and development project, and an equally major conversion project to help forestall the horrible deaths of some 2.5 billion people in a series of holocausts the like of which the world has never seen, and those holocausts' likely child, a time of darkness and evil that will make the Dark Ages look like an episode of Mr Roger's Neighborhood.
At present, the US government is, for instance, committing about 65 billion dollars
for the development of a missile defense system. While that may come in handy
if it ever works, and if, say, global privations reach such a point that it would make economic sense for the Chinese, say, or a newly energized Russian nationalist government to contemplate all out war with the US, its immediate benefits will be more likely to appear on the balance sheets of US arms manufacturers.
Hydrogen, which is the universe's most plentiful resource, is a potential source of unlimited, clean fuel. Powerful enough to power massive rockets, (the space shuttle's launch rockets are hydrogen-fueled) its only emissions are pure oxygen and distilled water. It can be manufactured presently from sunlight and seawater, albeit at present
inefficiently and expensively. But research and development funds dedicated to hydrogen presently languish at around a hundred million a year. 65 billion dollars a year would go a long way towards bringing a genuine alternative to oil to market, creating millions of interesting jobs in the process, and ultimately, perhaps forestalling
our encroaching nightmare.
Plastic goods could, even with existing technolgy, be supplanted by similar goods manufactured from byproducts of the miracle weed hemp, and some other less versatile agricultural products.
But hidebound industrialists and their lackeys in governments around the world seem determined to prevent that transformation to occur, preferring instead to continue piloting this hellbound train into apocalypse.
We need to buy some time, if we want even the glimmerings of hope for a decent life for our children and theirs, and we need to elect leaders who hold this as their first and foremost priority. If we dont begin addressing this, right now, and with massive force, those descendants of ours who may survive will curse our memory as no generation has ever been cursed, and rightly so, as we live like Antoinettes and Neros in our sloth and greed, and leave our children to pay the bill.
yrs,
David Baerwald
by as much as 40 percent, via war, civil war, global economic collpase, famine, and its resulting plagues. Even William Ford, CEO of Ford Motors, has gone on record saying much the same thing.
Now is the time to demand for a massive, Manhattan Project-size or bigger, research and development project, and an equally major conversion project to help forestall the horrible deaths of some 2.5 billion people in a series of holocausts the like of which the world has never seen, and those holocausts' likely child, a time of darkness and evil that will make the Dark Ages look like an episode of Mr Roger's Neighborhood.
At present, the US government is, for instance, committing about 65 billion dollars
for the development of a missile defense system. While that may come in handy
if it ever works, and if, say, global privations reach such a point that it would make economic sense for the Chinese, say, or a newly energized Russian nationalist government to contemplate all out war with the US, its immediate benefits will be more likely to appear on the balance sheets of US arms manufacturers.
Hydrogen, which is the universe's most plentiful resource, is a potential source of unlimited, clean fuel. Powerful enough to power massive rockets, (the space shuttle's launch rockets are hydrogen-fueled) its only emissions are pure oxygen and distilled water. It can be manufactured presently from sunlight and seawater, albeit at present
inefficiently and expensively. But research and development funds dedicated to hydrogen presently languish at around a hundred million a year. 65 billion dollars a year would go a long way towards bringing a genuine alternative to oil to market, creating millions of interesting jobs in the process, and ultimately, perhaps forestalling
our encroaching nightmare.
Plastic goods could, even with existing technolgy, be supplanted by similar goods manufactured from byproducts of the miracle weed hemp, and some other less versatile agricultural products.
But hidebound industrialists and their lackeys in governments around the world seem determined to prevent that transformation to occur, preferring instead to continue piloting this hellbound train into apocalypse.
We need to buy some time, if we want even the glimmerings of hope for a decent life for our children and theirs, and we need to elect leaders who hold this as their first and foremost priority. If we dont begin addressing this, right now, and with massive force, those descendants of ours who may survive will curse our memory as no generation has ever been cursed, and rightly so, as we live like Antoinettes and Neros in our sloth and greed, and leave our children to pay the bill.
yrs,
David Baerwald
