Thursday, September 29, 2011

Rise in Oil Consumption and Products Created

By Ry Faraola
1. History on the Increase of oil consumption
During the Industrial Revolution, there was a demand for energy resources. Muscle power and waterwheels helped to create energy in the beginning. But, as sciences advanced, the steam engine was invented, burning coal and wood to create energy for machinery. In 18th century England  the island nearly was deforested to satisfy the growing demand for power. Shortly after the combustion engine was created, oil industry were created, and in the span of 50 years, these industries flourished. The rise of population, the demand for products, i.e. automobiles, energy, and synthetics, resulted in a world wide expansion of the oil industry.
2. What products effect oil consumption?
Most modern amenities somehow consume oil. Products such as linoleum, or antihistamines are derived from oil through processes such as synthesis. The bag of potato chips needs oil to get the potato from farm to manufacturing plant, and then to ship a bag to a convenience store near you. A person might drive there automobile to buy said bag.
3. What would a grocery store look like after oil?
Gasoline is the use to transport all goods. After oil, without implementation of electric automobiles or high speed rail ways, the average grocery store would lack any mark brand not produced in a close vicinity. Produce would be seasonal, and local. The world might spiral into chaos for a brief moment of history, but alternative energy sources would still create energy.

CAN USING HORSES HELP REDUCE OUR DEPENDENCE ON OIL?



BY ZANE

  1. Can horses help reduce our dependency on oil?
Yes, horses can replace many machines we use every day. For example instead of driving up large trucks, lumber jacks could use draft horses to pull chopped down trees out of the forrest. Another way horses can reduce our dependancy on oil, is with their manure. If we use horses manure as fertalizer, we can cut down on the chemical fertilizer we use and farms use with equals less oil being used to make the fertilizers. The less man-made products and more natural recources we use the less oil we will use.
  1. What are the advantages/disadvantages?
The biggest disadvantage to replaceing cars with horses would be the fact that if we replaced all cars with horses we would have so much methane gas that our atmosohere would already be ruined. We would need a way to get rid of, or utilize the methane gas to be able to relpace cars with horses. An advantage to using horses would be that we wouldn't have to keep destroying our planet to get more oil.
  1. Is there a way to utilize methane gas?
There is infact a way to preserve and use mathane gas. Not only can the methane from horses be utilized, but methane from landfills can and should be utilized. This could infact be the worlds solution to our oil crisis.

USING OIL MORE EFFICIENTLY

BY DAVID

  • Why is oil efficiency such a big problem?
    • Because if we keep consuming this much oil at an exponential rate we will run out of oil soon and unless we find an alternative solution or use A LOT less oil we're in trouble. Although using less oil wouldn't be a permanent solution it would work for a while until we come up with an alternative energy source to power every single thing in the world.
  • What are a few of the things that an everyday person could do to become more oil efficient?
    • We can buy more oil efficient cars or make more oil efficient ones that are made by oil efficient machines or we could completely look into an alternative solution like instead of electricity plants, really big fields of solar panels, or instead of cars, horses.
  • How can we push bigger organizations to use more efficient non-oil consuming sources of energy? What could some of these sources be?
    • We can do a whole bunch of things like not buy any of the things that they produce or petition for them to get there energy/power from a completely different source like wind mills.

GETTING RID OF OIL



Ramsey Kerr:

Why can't we get rid of oil?
 We can't get rid of oil because we NEED it. We depend on the cheap, powerful, and abundant energy of oil and we have for centuries. The government is keeping us from moving on from the dying energy source that we use so much by spending tax money on finding and harvesting oil sources instead of finding clean and renewable sources to power that car and that cell phone and that TV and the million other things that we use oil to power. We don't only use oil for energy but also for material synthesis and farming, all plastic is made from oil and almost everything we use is made of plastic. It even takes oil energy to shape and distribute these products. In addition food, the essence of life (or, one of them), we have over farmed and mistreated the land so much that we have to make it fertile again by, you guessed it, putting oil in it. Fertilizers that almost all farmers use are made from oil. We are currently completely dependent on oil.

What would happen if we got rid of oil, and what will doing this it take?
 If we were to somehow be slightly: selfless, motivated, and aware of what is really going on with oil, we would be sensible enough to start to think about maybe looking at other possible serious sources for energy as a whole nation. But were not, we just keep acting like oil is going to last forever, and ignoring the signs of trouble, like the increase in gas prices. But oil is not going last forever, oil came from plants that were compressed and heated and underwent a chemical process that changed them into oil millions of years ago, and this isn't happening anymore. If we are to eliminate this problem like a tasty, but unhealthy junk food, we need to gradually take oil out of out technology, to have a long time to start finding ways to power our toys, or give them up. There are already people who are using healthier sources for energy, and they are the ones who don't have to pay taxes or oil generated power and refill their car with gas every time they run out.

What would happen if we didn't get rid of oil?
 The alternative is to keep using oil like it will be there forever. The government will keep paying to find more oil, instead of fixing other problems (national debt, education, global warming), and the consumer will keep buying the oil products and paying for the increasingly not cheep and abundant oil generated power. We will keep burning that black goo and not caring about the toxic emissions, or the wasteland we create every time we finish an oil source, or the unusable farming fields that we have filled with oil. We will keep finding source after source and draining it dry, until we don't, because there isn't infinite oil. We will eventually lose oil and there will be an economic breakdown because we will have lost all our plastic products, there will be no more power, and there will be chaos for people who can't get to their jobs or get their food or even pay for it, and we'll think "Why didn't we see this coming, how naive we were!"
 how nieve we were!"

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Oil

by: Keelan MF




Q. How fast will oil deplete? How much time to prepare?


A. first off peak oil is when we have discovered and used the most oil possible and from there it is a decline in the amount of oil we have. predictions vary, some say it already happened and some say it wont happen till  at least 2100 but most agree we will peak between 2015 an 2020, and from there our oil will decline exponential and will soon be completely out of oil. these estimated give us a generous 50 years untill we cant use oil as a source of dependable energy for our growing world.


Q. Can we obtain new sources of energy (not oil) in time?


A. This can really depend. Most energy sources are extremely expensive (all much more than then oil) and the government would rather invest in the big oil companys then to the smaller green energy companies, And the fact that most green energy sources like wind and solar are unreliable and don't work in certain areas. If we find  some great new source of energy that is cheap and reliable I'm sure that the government will have it funded and running strong by the time our oil is gone.




Q. Is there any way we can increase the time we have to transition to no oil energy?


A. we cant prolong peaking unless we find another huge field. If we cut back on energy consumption of all kinds like riding bikes instead of cars and not buying as much plastic. We could graduate the decline.

Financial and economical impacts of the oil shortage.

1. What will happen to production companies and corporations when oil runs out, and what will be the effects of this?
Most production companies either use oil in the products (like plastics) or use oil to fuel their machinery (like tractors). Oil shortage will make production more expensive, and an absence of oil will make production impossible. This will force companies to change or die. Oil drilling groups will obviously have the hardest time because their product is finite, and will be used up. However, right now, oil companies are still raking in enormous amounts of money every year.

2. How do oil prices affect the economy?
Generally, when energy prices rise, the economy goes down. When oil is more expensive, production of almost everything becomes more expensive incurring inflation. As oil becomes more scarce (unless we come up with a solution) it will get more and more expensive until it is completely depleted and gone.

3. What are the financial reasons for not publicizing the oil crisis? 
As of now, our quickly depleting oil is not being publicized. There are a variety of reasons for this. Here are two examples. The first is that the government doesn't want people to be too frightened. The oil supply is depleting quickly, and we will need to get off of oil fast, or our entire system will fall apart when we run out of oil. The second reason is greed. There are still trillions and trillions of dollars worth of oil left in the Earth, and the heads of oil companies are eager to get it. If we switch off of oil too soon for them, they won't get that money.

http://205.254.135.24/oiaf/economy/energy_price.html

Alternative Energy Sources... That We're Not Using

by Maia Rubin

1.What alternative energy sources are there that North America does not strongly use yet?
In Denmark the use of wind turbines is getting greater than the use of oil products. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel, Syrian and Egypt some of the Western world was blocked from Arab based oil. This led to Denmark having to find a new energy source. Denmark has also used the burning of waste product; electricity generated by photovoltaic or solarenergy cells; and the geothermal turbines powered by the escape of underground steam.
As of 2007 Germany was the highest ranking country that used wind energy and solar capacity. They also outscored the U.S. in offshore wind, solar, and biomass power. Germany is also the king in the use of photovoltaic products, accounting at almost half of the global market as of 2007. The people of Germany are payed a cement amount of money if they feed a certain amount of home based energy into the power grid. So it's a win win for Germany.

2. Why don't we use these alternative sources?
North America seems to struggle with the fact that our oil is slowly but surely running out. When people know that oil (life) is running out, they mostly go into denial that oil can't run out which is like suicide. The lifestyle that most people have in North America is based purely on oil. Some people do look towards alternative energy sources but some don't even want to understand that one day, if we don't get alternative energy, must humans will die. We do use some wind power and solar energy and these are on the rise in North America. The international energy industries might not want to give up information about alternative energy, if in a few years they could make our industries pay to get info that would keep life in stable condition. So I think the reason why we don't use some of these alternative energy sources is manly base on denial and disbelief.


3. How can we incorporate them into our country?
People who are aware of the power crisis could spread the world of an global  Apocalypse. Or North America could just sit and wait for the option to arise where we could buy alternative energy source materiel and knowledge from foreign industries. We could also just do more research and look into power alternatives and bring them into our daily lives. The government could put out a "law" that people must have, for example, one solar panel on their home roofs or one wind turbine in a neighbor hood. Then, if this was a must, people would actually be helping themselves, even if it costs money to install the equipment.