Notice how Col Rouge resorts to name calling when he is losing an argument as usual.

"I do recall hearing that in the 19th century drilling could only go to very limited depths, which have over the past 100 years been extended to 12,000 metres (about 8 miles). Until the 1970s drilling was vertical, then innovators found they could also drill on a diagonal. Of course most drilling through history was land based, now "we see coast and ocean drilling.

Your “engineering mates” would have been telling you, 100 years ago “Only land based oil wells to depths of 200 metres” and they would have been as wrong then as they are today."

My Engineering mate said no such thing, I believe you may lost your ability to read as well as your ability to post an reasonable argument.

Now of this does not explain how exactly you are going to drill at 45km under the crust. You just assume that eventually somebody will invent something to do it, while we are at it, lets just assume somebody will invent teleporters, faster-than-light space travel, and a machine that can drill to the centre of the earth sometime in the near future. The current depths maybe the limit to the extent we maybe able to drill safely. Unlike your strange economic theories, in real life (That's science,engineering etc.) there are limits to all technologies. Internal combustion engines can only be so efficient, some electronic components can only be so small etc.

"Leaving places as feral cat and fox reserves is not “sustainable”.

"They are not left as "reserves" for introduced feral animals, which is why the government agencies are actively trying to exterminate them. They have even created special diseases to kill them in the case of rabbits. How dishonest can you be?

These areas are left to ensure local species survive, they are vital to surrounding areas. For example the elimination of certain species from a river can help accelerate algae booms.

"I support the values of free speech and the right of everyone to hold an opinion. I would not vote Marxist simply because someone told me they had studied his preachings any more than support, blindly, the rantings of a scientist about his pet obsession."

Translation: I do not know what I'm talking about, but I demand that my views have the same weight as experts who have actually studied the subject. You do not seem to understand, while you have free speech, it still doesn't change the fact the opinion of experts trump yours when it comes to certain fields just like how the opinion of a trained doctor trumps a self taught witch doctor

Bobitty “Notice how Col Rouge resorts to name calling when he is losing an argument as usual.”

Oh it is just my way of “yammering”, you introduced the invective, I suggest it is extremely poor form to complain about what you started.

As for “My Engineering mate said no such thing,”

What you did say is “my mining Engineer mate tells me is an impossibility for now and the foreseeable future.”

I was pointing out that 100 or so years ago, your engineering mates antecedents would have said “drilling beyond 200 metres was an impossibility, for now and the foreseeable future”

The sign of a small mind is the one which predicts the future by looking at the past and present. You and your “engineering mates” have no idea what is possible in the foreseeable future.

And you prove the point with “some electronic components can only be so small etc.”

What would the manufacturers of WWII radio valves have said about 1960’s transistors and transistor manufacturers said about silicon chips and what will silicon chip manufacturers say about the next technological innovation?

In short, give up being a luddite and stop underestimating the capacity of man to invent and innovate.

I recall in 1978 a 100 megabyte hard-drive had a sale value of around $200,000. Look where “invention and innovation” has brought us.

I can tell you one thing, my next PC will not have a 60 or even a 200 gigabyte hard drive.

It will have no hard drive at all. It will have an array of memory chips with a capacity of as many gigabyte I want. “Solid-state” is always preferable to mechanical alternatives, no worn out parts..

“How dishonest can you be?”
I am being perfectly truthful, wilderness areas are populated by feral cats and foxes. Feral pest populations represent a failure of environmentalists to manage their "wilderness".

As for “just like how the opinion of a trained doctor trumps a self taught witch doctor”
People seek holistic healers because of the herbal remedies which work but which modern doctors do not understand.

Col Rouge,

You must cease your resort to childish personal attacks if you hope ever to be taken seriously in these discussions.

Many people, whom you would dismiss as having 'small minds' would have once been technological optimists like yourself, however, they have come to understand that there are physical limits to what can be achieved with the earth's existing endowment of natural resources. One of the earlier 'small minded' scientists was M. King Hubbert, who accurately predicted that the production of oil in the U.S. would peak in 1970 at a time when the conventional wisdom was that these supplies were, to all intents and purposes, inexhaustible. His pleas that the U.S. not waste those precious reserves were largely ignored by all administrations except those of Carter, and, to some degree, Nixon, and they are now paying the cost.

You appear not to have grasped my earlier point (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5291#66063) about Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI). At one point we only needed to invest one joule of energy in order to extract 100 joules of energy. In other all that was necessary was to drill a shallow hole in the ground, and huge quantities of high-grade oil, which was easy to refine, would flow to the surface. These days, as it becomes necessary to extract oil of ever lower grade from ever smaller fields in ever deeper and less accessible locations, the EROI is becoming less and less, so much so, that alternatives such as ethanol which, has a most optimistic EROI of only 1.67. This means that one joule of energy has to be expended in order to get a net gain of only 0.67 joules, instead of around 99 joules as used to be the case. I am inclined to agree with Alice Friedemann(http://www.energybulletin.net/18978.html) that an EROI far greater than 1.67 will be necessary to maintain civilisation.

(toBeContinued)

(continuedFromAbove)

Most of the technological marvels to which you refer were only possible, on the scale necessary to meet the needs of a significant proportion of the world's burgeoning population, because high grade energy was abundantly available.

As we are forced to divert an ever higher proportion of available energy into the production of energy itself, it will prove ever more difficult to maintain the complex interconnected manufacturing processes which make it possible to produce the hard disks or solid state memory chips to which you refer.

As you also have yet to appreciate, when high grade energy becomes scarce, the cost of extracting minerals from deep below the earth's surface will become prohibitively expensive, not to mention dangerous, as Bobalot has pointed out.

What humankind needs to achieve before we can truly achieve long term sustainable growth, is an ability to meet all of our needs using only nature's 'interest' of energy ultimately derived from the sun, rather than being dependent upon the consumption of nature's capital in the form of fossil fuels and other minerals.

To quote from an article copied from a mailing list onto the web, which compares the record of humankind with that of dinosaurs (http://www.candobetter.org/node/24):

"We have a long way to go to catch up with the Dinosaurs and we have already run into problems. We have been living profligately on borrowed sunlight in the form of oil and coal and we have not developed an alternative for when these finite forms of energy run out."

Daggett “Col Rouge, You must cease”

Never presume to tell me what I must and must not do. You will have already found I am quite contrary by nature. Telling what I must not do is to challenge me to do it.

“taken seriously in these discussions.”

Take me whatever way you care and I will do the same. Better to amuse than bore and my posts are rarely as boring as yours.

“. . . dismiss as having 'small minds' would have once been technological optimists like yourself,”

That they “lost their optimism” is sad.
It is like the cripple with a broken bone, no longer able to walk he resents those who run ahead.

I will never limit my expectations of what might be simple to what already is. The alternatives to optimism are doubt, cynicism and despair.

I am an optimist because I believe there is no greater thing than the creativity of man. Unfortunately, ignorance ensures a ready supply of small minded luddites and doubters.

Do not bother to attempt to limit me to what your expectations are. Ultimately anyone who suggests “there are physical limits to what can be achieved with the earth's existing endowment of natural resources.” Is conditioning themselves for mediocrity.

This earth is, currently, all we have. Without it we have nothing but how we use it is open to the creativity and inventiveness of man.

As for “the cost of extracting minerals from deep below the earth's surface will become prohibitively expensive, not to mention dangerous,”

The process of market supply and demand determines the value of minerals and whether they are worth extracting. Same to the value of the “complex interconnected manufacturing processes” which you refer.

“is an ability to meet all of our needs using only nature's 'interest' of energy ultimately derived from the sun.”

“absolute sustainability” will be achieved by implementing the inventiveness and creativity of optimistic individuals.

Human evolution and mans the ability to manage his environment proves that there has never been any alternatives to the product of the inventive and optimistic individual.