The Need for a Frontier...

POSTED BY: nanite1018
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 02:19
VIEWED: 11082
PAGE 2 of 6

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Originally posted by Piz:
Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it.

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Actually no there isn't. You are talking about the Abiotic theory of Oil production, which is:
A) not new science by any means
and
B) has little or no credible evidence to back it up.

In fact the oft heralded 'proof' of the Abiotic theory has to do with the oil wells on Eugene Island, which started production at 20,000 barrels a day, dropping to 4000 over it's lifespan. All of a sudden the wells jumped back up to 15,000 barrels again, 'proof' that the well had refilled. Except it wasn't, it was proof that a geological fault had supplied the well with more oil from a deeper reserve.

Oil wells grow all the time, never because the amount of oil in them is increasing, but because rules for reporting capacity stipulate that only AVAILABLE capacity, Oil we can actually get at is to be reported. As more wells are dug to a reserve, and technology for obtaining it are improved the available capacity and thus the reported capacity of the reserve increases, but not the actual capacity. This is why Geologists and even big oil companies don't hold stock in the Abiotic theory of Oil creation.

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The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries.

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All I can say to this is, since when?

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In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to

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Economics doesn't look at the real world, it looks at a theoretical model and that's it. Economics doesn't take into account resources running out, it assumes they won't. As the joke goes:
A physicist, a chemist and an economist were stranded on an island. Upon exploring they come across a can of beans washed up on the shore, but they have no can opener.
"We can smash the can open with a rock!" The physicist says.
"No," The chemist retorts "if we leave the can on that rock in the sun the beans will heat up and the pressure will push the lid off."
The economist shakes his head. "Let’s just assume we have a can opener..."

There’s two nonsensical statements here, firstly that wealth is always expanding, and secondly that even the poorest people in the United States are richer than kings of old. Seriously come on now that's just silly, you think Kings lived below the poverty line (as the poorest do in the US) or live in cardboard boxes on the street (as the very poorest do in the US).

Wealth constantly expanding just completely ignores the fact that the wealthiest nations on the planet are wealthy BECAUSE of others being poor. We are wealthy because we have taken the resources and labour of others without paying for it. We couldn't be wealthy without the third world, so wealth simply cannot spread to the entire planet.

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governmental restrictions

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Before we get a hard on for blaming all the worlds woes on government regulation we should probably remember why these regulations were put in place in the first place. They weren't always there you know (you can check, all regulations stipulate the date they came into effect ) so at one point there was little or no regulation of business. Nowhere is this more apparent than in 19th century England, where lead was added to food, varnish was sold as sweets, people died because they were sold miracle cures that killed them and the pollution of the Thames was so bad London air was un-breathable with the stench. Yeah a real parad

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Thanks Citizen for backing me up. And actually Piz, the thing about overfishing is real. It cannot be profitable without subsidies.

And the thing about China and India is correct. We use as much energy as China. They have more than 4 times as many people. If they and India came up to American levels, the world usage of energy would double. That would probably all come from oil and coal, so oil prices would at least double, if not triple, or quadruple as the rest of the world comes on-line. We'd have 15 dollar a gallon gas if the whole world used as much as we do per person. And that would totally trash our economy. Not to mention the environment.

What part do you have proof that i am wrong on? Because i would love to see it.

And thanks again Citizen.

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bumpage

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Hey Nanite, I'm about to disagree with you on a couple of things, but before you jump on me: I agree we should go to space. Agree so much that I'm currently training to become an Aerospace Engineer and make it happen.

However, some of your ideas I've been over and have substantial problems in em:

I'll start with O'Neill Colonies. They have a substantially sized following among space enthusiasts, however they are extremely impractical. Think about it, why in the heck would we move all that material off a planet (which takes a huge amount of energy) when we could just build on the planet itself? The answer is we shouldn't. It'd be cheaper and better to just burrow into the ground and build down there. The moon has just as much access to solar power as an O'Neill colony would and better protection from radiation by burrowing. The only things that would be different would be the gravity (1/6th g's instead of a generated 1 g) and the mobility (but why in the world would you build a drive into an O'Neill colony anyway? If it's any decent size then you won't be able to propell it anywhere at any speed with out using more weight of fuel than the weight of the entire colony with out the drive!) It is far cheaper, more efficient and just better to simply build on the moons and worlds that exist rather than try and build whole new ones.

Even more reason to simply build on the existing worlds: we could start now, we have the technology. The manned Mars mission they are currently considering could be used to start a colony. Here how: When they go to Mars the base they use gets left behind. Its capable of supporting five people for several years. When they go again they bring a new one. Again, it gets left behind. Each time they bring a new one, eventually they'll have a colony capable of supporting hundreds of people.

The plan was written by Robert Zubrin and others (who's a fanatic, don't get me wrong, but his plan is a good one). The one NASA is considering has been rather modified from it, but the basic idea is the same. If you want to know more about it, check out the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Now as to the orbital solar arrays: no go. Beaming the energy down to Earth you would lose all the advantages of gathering it from orbit. Not to mention that lack of need for structural support, launching the arrays into orbit in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. Its not practical and not worth it.

A far better course to travel would be fusion/fission. Fusion is nearing breakeven. The next generation of reactors may pass it. Fission has gotten a whole lot safer (we're talking 100s of times safer) and cleaner since the days of Chernoble (which was a flawed design in the first place anyway) and Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked). The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal. We just need to find a subduction zone (the one in the ocean would work) lower them down (not just dump) and make sure they get sucked back into the Earth. Problem solved. So if we need energy we should go the way of building Fission to replace as much coal as possible now, and work on Fusion. As soon as Fusion is feasable build Fusion reactors.

As to the issue of do we need to go to space? Yes! Of course we do! Even if the Earth wasn't starting to groan under our weight we should go to space. Just becuase there's a whole universe out there waiting for us to explore, how can we not? What are we doing sitting on one little rock when we could be spreading life across the cosmos, learning, building and meeting who knows what beyond our wildest imaginations! Yes there's a big hump to getting off the planet right now, but once we're over that hump, once we get established out there its smooth sailing. We just need to push over it.

I have more to say on the topic, but I

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Alcon:
Hey Nanite, I'm about to disagree with you on a couple of things, but before you jump on me: I agree we should go to space. Agree so much that I'm currently training to become an Aerospace Engineer and make it happen.

However, some of your ideas I've been over and have substantial problems in em:

I'll start with O'Neill Colonies. They have a substantially sized following among space enthusiasts, however they are extremely impractical. Think about it, why in the heck would we move all that material off a planet (which takes a huge amount of energy) when we could just build on the planet itself? The answer is we shouldn't. It'd be cheaper and better to just burrow into the ground and build down there. The moon has just as much access to solar power as an O'Neill colony would and better protection from radiation by burrowing. The only things that would be different would be the gravity (1/6th g's instead of a generated 1 g) and the mobility (but why in the world would you build a drive into an O'Neill colony anyway? If it's any decent size then you won't be able to propell it anywhere at any speed with out using more weight of fuel than the weight of the entire colony with out the drive!) It is far cheaper, more efficient and just better to simply build on the moons and worlds that exist rather than try and build whole new ones.

Even more reason to simply build on the existing worlds: we could start now, we have the technology. The manned Mars mission they are currently considering could be used to start a colony. Here how: When they go to Mars the base they use gets left behind. Its capable of supporting five people for several years. When they go again they bring a new one. Again, it gets left behind. Each time they bring a new one, eventually they'll have a colony capable of supporting hundreds of people.

The plan was written by Robert Zubrin and others (who's a fanatic, don't get me wrong, but his plan is a good one). The one NASA is considering has been rather modified from it, but the basic idea is the same. If you want to know more about it, check out the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Now as to the orbital solar arrays: no go. Beaming the energy down to Earth you would lose all the advantages of gathering it from orbit. Not to mention that lack of need for structural support, launching the arrays into orbit in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. Its not practical and not worth it.

A far better course to travel would be fusion/fission. Fusion is nearing breakeven. The next generation of reactors may pass it. Fission has gotten a whole lot safer (we're talking 100s of times safer) and cleaner since the days of Chernoble (which was a flawed design in the first place anyway) and Three Mile Island (which was more a success story than a failure, the safety mechanisms by and large worked). The radioactive waste we create isn't a whole lot more radioactive than the fuel that went in. The Earth is full of radioactive stuff so really it's not that big a deal. We just need to find a subduction zone (the one in the ocean would work) lower them down (not just dump) and make sure they get sucked back into the Earth. Problem solved. So if we need energy we should go the way of building Fission to replace as much coal as possible now, and work on Fusion. As soon as Fusion is feasable build Fusion reactors.

As to the issue of do we need to go to space? Yes! Of course we do! Even if the Earth wasn't starting to groan under our weight we should go to space. Just becuase there's a whole universe out there waiting for us to explore, how can we not? What are we doing sitting on one little rock when we could be spreading life across the cosmos, learning, building and meeting who knows what beyond our wildest imaginations! Yes there's a big hump to getting off the planet right now, but once we're over that hump, once we get established out there its smooth sailing. We just need to push over it.

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