Nuclear as a-BRIDGE-over-PEAKOIL, Charger. Please read carefully. The KAEP concept is not just a one-liner.

And the 30 year limit on nuclear is for the WHOLE planet. Australia could maintain realistic THERMODYNAMIC law & order till at least 2040 by which time I expect the dire circumstnces will ensure polititians are forced to run Australia on 80% Geothermal/ 20% renewables for at least 1000 years. By that time if women can realise their role in overpopulating and polluting the planet, we(humankind) may have a chance of mastering this planet and looking outward to space for future economic growth.

Speaking of women, there was a woman on radio today complaining about 4 stroke lawnmowers polluting more in an hour than 10 cars. What hypocrisy!. Every one of her children will have a home and mow the lawn 50 times a year for 1hour and for 60 years. Thats equivalent to 30,000 cars, not to mention her kids' inexorable expectations of expanding 1st world footprints and the mega-pollution that causes.

Unless women tweak that they are the sole creators of the INCREASING pollution on this planet we are all doomed. I don't get it. If there were no families(and its getting close to that), women would still have kids, so men are not a major part of the blame. Women are wired to have kids and I sometimes believe they just don't give a damn if the world descends into holocaust and environmental decay as long as they feel they can get away with their kids & lifestyle in tact. Women actually think they're smart and I love women but but this duality and deceitful thinking is a joke that could along with dopey Go-4Growth politicians see the ruin of us all.

Girls ... please ... only one-child each! You really don't want to be held accountable in a final-PEAKOIL-analysis.

As for economic growth without population growth: QUALITY is superior to quantity. With vast exports of small PBR reactors and safe Pebble fuel Australia will have the export $capital to continue improving lifestyles even for the aged without mind-numbing, utterly-corrupt, overpopulated, sardine-can-cities.

Keap,

What the? Nuclear is not going to bridge to anything. Especially if the rest of the world says "Hey that's a good idea, lets build a few plants as well". Uranium will peak quicker then oil. You may as well burn coal. It will last longer.

And what's with the women having fewer children? As far as I remember men have something to do with it as well. Unless women tweak "that they are the sole creators of the INCREASING pollution"?

I take it you are joking... otherwise I'd ask you to join the rest of us in the current century.

KAEP,

If anything you're a War-of-the-Worlds artilleryman yourself, proposing urgent adoption of nonexistent technology to avert "thermodynamic disaster" when half the petroleum is still in the ground and a wealth of 'negabarrels' and non-oil energy is lying about on the floor.

I do firmly believe that renewable energy can eventually supply 100% of global energy use. It already supplies 13%. This is basic physics, not Pollyanna economics.

Dire projections one sees with 'demand' soaring above 'supply' are complete nonsense: supply and demand are in equilibrium now and will always seek equilibrium. Prudent leadership and rising prices together will reduce demand, while resourceful people find ways to make do with less by efficiency and substitution.

You have not addressed the point that oil provides less than 40% of present global energy use.

You have not addressed the point that demand for oil (and other energy forms) can be reduced dramatically by sound management, without resulting in economic depression.

You have not answered the question of how you expect geothermal and nuclear energy to substitute for liquid fuels.

You have not addressed the point that we have no present shortage of energy for stationary use. Coal will outlast the oil peak by a century or two at least (even if China passes its coal peak in a couple of decades), and sunshine will outlast both by a couple of billion years.

You have not addressed the point that growth in biofuel is already providing a significant fraction of liquid fuel demand.

You have not addressed the point that coal and biomass are both capable of providing liquid fuels through chemical transformation, and that technology to do so is in everyday use.

I accept that between them, climate change and peak oil *may* cause a major depression. However I know that this is not inevitable, and I am eager to propose solutions rather than cry wolf.

Your "WOLF" is so harsh it's crazy. Your favoured technologies have NO potential to mitigate peak oil. They substitute for still-plentiful stationary energy, not for the liquid fuels whose supply is expected to decline.

Xoddamn,

For the Nth time, you don't know what you're talking about.
Example: "You have not addressed the point that growth in biofuel is already providing a significant fraction of liquid fuel demand".
It has been pointed out on OLO threads many times that there is no growth in biofuels. the damage to the environment in places like indonesia is closing down biofuel plants.
Losing touch with reality is the key identifier of the artilleryman. Like I said, "snap-out-of-it!"

My understanding of the course of events over the next 2 decades is quite rational. Its based on sound thermodynamic science and is supported by http://www.dieoff.org which is an exhaustive study of the effects of PEAKOIL on human populations.

##And Charger, this is the second time you have deliberately misrepresented what I have said.
I will clarify this time but I am sure you won't mind if I don't bother with you in future.

Clarification: "An understanding that in a disproportionte number of cases women are wired to have kids and that they are in a position to have kids whether males like it or not is standard savoir-faire. Seeing you can't read properly I am not surprised you have none and thus probably get none."

And you obviously don't get around or you would have heard the song "50 ways to screw your lover" ----: drop off the 'pill' Jill, tie the man down.

Keap,

You need to leave last century and join us in this one (I mean, 50 ways to screw you lover? Do you still own flairs and a safari suit?).

I've also read the arguments in Die off and to some extent I agree (as I said before as well).

All species are hardwire to reproduce. That's what life does. To blame the population explosion on women is nuts and does you a disservice -- here's a thought, the Roman Catholic church campaigned long and hard (and still does) against birth control. The RC church is a male organization. Why not blame them for the increase in population?

But back to topic. Xoddam, bio fuels aren't going to help or replace oil; Landline had a segment on the spiraling cost of corn due to the US bio fuel growth. This causing problem in Mexico (to the extent of riots) when the price of a basic food stuff went up significantly. I'd rather eat then drive and so would a lot of Mexicans.

Everyone seems to be assuming that is going to be "business as usual" and that there is some miraculous technical solution to the problem (nuclear, geo thermal, solar, whatever) -- these do not have the potential to replace oil in the way we use it now. They might if we change the way we run our economies and the way we live.

Start by buying local (if you can, there are olive farms in sight of my house yet strangely I can't buy their olive oil in my local Woolworths). Buy water tanks. Get a smaller car. Ride your bike or walk where you can. Turn of your pc when not in use. Don't use an air conditioner, design a better house instead. Have fewer children (yes Keap I agree the world is over populated). All these things are achievable with what we have now.

Charger and KAEP,

I know rising food prices are iniquitous. I don't support fuels that compete with food and encourage deforestation. Yet I observe that ethanol & biodiesel continue growing around the world. Brazil, India and China are investing heavily:

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalBiofuel07/idUSN1732024720070117
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/05/business/ethanol.php
http://biopact.com/2007/07/china-announces-agricultural-biofuel.html
http://biopact.com/2007/07/china-to-boost-forest-based-bioenergy.html
http://biopact.com/2007/11/lula-new-oil-find-will-have-no-impact.html
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/10/20/stories/2005102002021100.htm
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/29/brazil-accelerating-biodiesel-production/
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17940/page1/
http://www.financialexpress.com/old/latest_full_story.php?content_id=145882
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/india_ethanol.php

Countries which must 'do without' petroleum as prices rise are also beginning to adopt first-generation biofuels in a big way.

http://mbfimozambique.com/
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710220881.html
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/2007/02/china-exploring-africas-biodiesel.html
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19626263.300-brazil-rides-biofuel-bandwagon-to-africa.html
http://biopact.com/2007/05/myanmar-to-create-biofuel-plantations.html
http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2006/06/28/69248.html
http://biopact.com/2007/04/fuel-shortages-in-heart-of-africa.html
http://www.reeep.org/index.cfm?articleid=760
http://www.reeep.org/index.cfm?articleid=1397
http://biopact.com/2007/05/new-congo-government-identifies.html
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nta62796.htm
http://allafrica.com/stories/200710180787.html

But biofuel doesn't *require* food- or food-like feedstocks. As our OLO forum colleague ForrestGump said, "pro ignis lignis!" Gross biomass, mostly straw and wood, promises to supplant petroleum as the world's transportation powerhouse.

New techniques like cellulosic hydrolysis (producing sugars for fermentation to ethanol or butanol) and established ones such as anaerobic digestion (producing methane), pyrolysis and steam-reformation (to produce biochar for soil improvement and 'syngas', carbon monoxide plus hydrogen), and Fischer-Tropf synthesis (producing quality alkanes) all effectively replace fossil liquid and gas fuel with biomass feedstocks without competing with food.

"It has been pointed out on OLO threads many times that there is no growth in biofuels."

It has been pointed out *incorrectly* on the basis of local, temporary conditions of drought (well I *hope* it's temporary) and rising food prices. Palm oil has risen in price *faster* than petroleum, because it is food as well as fuel! Likewise China has restricted the use of corn as an ethanol feedstock for similar reasons -- it is still gung-ho on cassava and non-food biofuels.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0531/p01s04-wosc.html

"The damage to the environment in places like indonesia is closing down biofuel plants."

I wish it were so! The truth is that illegal clearing and the growth of palm-oil plantations continue unabated.

http://envirofuel.com.au/2007/10/18/palm-oil-deforestation-concerns-continue-to-rise/
http://waterweek.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/turnbulls-tangle-palm-oil-grown-to-earn-australian-subsidies-clears-se-asia-forests-and-creates-greenhouse-effect-australia-to-pay-indonesia-to-replant/
http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?item=news&item_id=2217&approach_id=19

It's price-competition with food, not any decline in biofuel demand or palm-oil production, which has caused closures and delays of South-East-Asian and Australian biodiesel plants. Fuel is likely to dominate prices again before long.

KAEP,

You have now given two incorrect answers to one of my six points. Care to tackle the other five?