Peak Oil and Population reduction

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In terms of this thread, space exploration - and more importantly emigration into space - would allow for there to be more resources per capita. The infrastructure in space would need to be in place before such emigrating could begin, but once the space industry is finally self sufficient it would be able to enable its own further expansion to the not-completely-lethal planets and moons of this solar system as well as the construction of more and more vast space stations. Being able to produce agriculture aboard centrifugal stations is a prerequisite to the further development of the space industry, but once that hurdle has been surpassed I think the rest would follow soon after.

I don't think that space exploration can every provide a greater return of resources than those expended to obtain them.

Personally, I see neither population nor peak-oil as grounds for despair. Rather, I seem them as opportunities.

We can feed 9 billion people, and we can do it easily. Sub-Saharan Africa (and to a lesser extent South America) are vastly underfarmed. Many of the challenges have to do with a lack of infrastructure to get product from field to marketplace, but those challenges are easily addressed, provided that we are willing to break the stranglehold that currently exists on food production in the OECD.

We can cope with peak oil. The technologies exist and can be improved. The economic demand for energy will never abate, so when petroleum ceases to be able to supply that demand, the market will respond. Sure, it will be a dramatic change. Certainly the public sector is ill equipped to mitigate the damage caused by that change. But we can see it for what it is, and we will be increasingly unable to ignore it.

So long as we have oil for the petrolium based fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel for the crop dusters.

Only a few problems with both places, and most are from the fact that a good proportion of the world's rain-forests and wildlife also occupy this arable land. The land that they have set aside is generally poorly managed, but I have seen some good trends, such as abandoning mono-culture and also public gardens in a few Latin American / African nations.

Another issue is that the practice of farming is not profitable, Africa has gotten way too used to importing food or being given food via aid organizations. An independent farmer just can't compete. So direct investment into African / Latin American co-op ventures would be necessary to see this through. But I still don't think we can realistically feed 9 billion and should work to stabilize and decrease the population through voluntary, humane means over the next century, if not just for food and resources but for jobs. As we move forward with robotics and newer smart technologies a lot of the hands on work will become redundant and technological unemployment could be a huge issue, possibly a violent one

I think that if more coordinated irrigation, fertilization, and planting with some forethought were to be done - as in working against the processes of desertification, - prior to the inaccessibility of oil by price or supply, that there would probably be more than enough to feed everyone. It would be wise to start the utilization of space before such a point may be reached though, since the costs of space travel is extravagant enough now it will only be worse as time passes by. So, we ought to act in prudence while we still can rather than despair later on when the construction of space stations may no longer be feasible.

Aside from orbital habitats there is no other place in the solar system where we can live, but here on Earth. And since the stars are so far away the solar system is the only neighborhood we shall inhabit for the foreseeable future.

ruveyn

I work in oil and gas exploration, and I assure that we are nowhere near running out of oil.

Aside from orbital habitats, there is no other place currently in use. However, "ground-based" habitats on the moon are possible with current technology, although they'd be comparable more to an oversized lunar lander until any construction upon the moon were to start.

And even further from running out of energy. What is lacking is mostly will and wits, not the material.

ruveyn

I'm sitting in an office with 1300 people who have both the will and the wits.

Well, all you need is the money and a way of removing the ecological crazies from circulation.

ruveyn

We've got the money. Would love to get rid of the ecological crazies, unfortunately most of them are running our gov't.

Define nowhere near running out. Is this like "the arctic ice caps are melting soon and there are giant reserves underneath" or "there are a ton of deep water sites" type nowhere near running out or actual land-based "no where near running out".


Also, there's a difference between running out and getting past peak production, do you mean we're nowhere near past peak production or simply that there are still reserves left in many wells that have peaked?

In most cases, we are only able to extract about 1/3 of the oil within a reservoir; as new technology develops, more is able to be extracted. Think of it this way: try to visualize a giant tub that contains all of the oil that man has ever pulled out of the ground. Now multiply that by 3. That is the amount of oil that we know is out there. Then factor in that the total amount of known oil reserves increases by approx. 15% every fiscal quarter. (These are by no means intended to be taken as exact figures, just in the ballpark to get the point across.)

Yeah, I know it's a moving target at spots but there seems to be a distinct peak oil effect for at least the time being until said new technology is developed.

What is that 15% growth representative of? New exploratory efforts? Is this growth like we'll be able to explore domestic sites again (old sites)?

New technology comes to market every single day. It's not a case of one big leap; more like a million small steps.

Yes, primarily new exploratory efforts. My intention was to make a conservative estimate, it very well could be much more. Many companies only buy wells that major oil companies have abandoned and profit by coming up with creative ways to extract more oil from them.