X-Message-Number: 27159
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 08:38:34 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Sorry, but we ARE running out of oil

For "Flavonoid" and others:

I don't agree with Mark Plus at all about airlines disappearing etc. He
seems to forget that lots of foreign airlines arrive and leave at 
various US airports. For Australia, which has the international airline
Qantas, Qantas has not responded with bankruptcy to the high price
of oil. It's just raised its airfares a bit. Moreover even a few US
airlines seem to be doing OK; I honestly don't know why bankruptcy
seems to be so common among US airline companies right now.

However there is one essential point with which I may well agree with
Mark Plus. Forgetting the CO2 problem, we're running out of oil
long term. This should not be seen as a catastrophe, but as something
which has happened before in history: coal became popular because 
there ceased to be enough wood. We can put off total exhaustion of
oil by turning to oil shales, but they too are finite.

Both because of CO2, and because we're running out of oil, I personally
hope that we switch to nuclear power for fixed or large power supplies,
and some form of hydrogen fuel cells for smaller mobile power (as in
cars and planes). It may even turn out more efficient to forget 
about direct distribution of electricity and instead have lots of
stationary fuel cells using hydrogen; the nuclear reactors would
not make electricity but produce hydrogen from water (fuel cells
themselves make no energy). And of course, when we get fusion power
the uranium-powered reactors could be removed from service with 
time

I do not include solar power or other sources not because they too
won't be used, but because I strongly doubt that we could live solely
on such power sources.

We just aren't going to awaken in a world that uses oil in any form
for power. 

             Best wishes and long long life for all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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