Dauric
Posts: 254
Joined: 7/13/2006
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A Zen Arbiter heard a disagreement between two men. When the first had finished his case the arbiter said "You're right, you're right."
The second man was outraged and exclaimed "You have'nt heard my side of it." to which he launched in to his arguments, after which the Arbiter replied "You're right, you're right."
The scribe who was taking notes looked perplexed and said "They can't both be right!" the Arbiter looked to the scribe and said "You're right, you're right."
Lesson: It's all a matter of perspective.
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NorthernGent is talking about "Available Reserves." that is to say the oil reserves that we have the technology to get at. As technology advances we have the capability to extract and refine more oil from more new sources than we had the capability to get at before. There's a research project in Colotrado where they are working on efficient methods of extracting oil from oil-shale. Other projects are re-visiting old oil sites to apply modern technology to wells that were once thought to be dried up.
Kenin and Stephen are talking about "Total Reserves", the fact that there is a finite supply of oil, peroiod. This is also true, there is no way to make more oil once the oil that has been used has been used up. All the technological advances in the world will not help you extract more oil once the "Total Reserves" quantity has been used. Even if you never hit the exact "Total Reserves" amount (which is in question) ther are some reserves that simply cannot be used. That oil shale project I was mentioning above, well they're having problems because in order to spend economically less energy than they would get from the extracted oil they have to break the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
The controversy comes from one side saying "There's no crisis we are finding new oil wells all the time and new technology is letting us get more oil from old wells. There's no sign of difficulty with Available Reserves." The other side says "Great, but we still can't rely on that forever, when the Total Reserves run out we're going to need something to replace out current oil-based technologies."
I'm in the latter camp, but for an argument that people seem to keep missing: Swiching infrastructures takes time. While research and development, as well as infrastructure replacement is taking place oil will continue to be burned. Many people may not be able to replace their current cars, or even small to moderately-sized business corporate fleets in short order simply as a matter of money. Sure all the automakers could switch over tomorrow, but any car built today will be functional for 20+ years. I plan on driving my current, 2000, vehicle for another 14 at least. You're going to advocate that these changes take place when we have 10 years of oil left? 5 years with the hope of finding 15 more in "Availalble Reserves"?
I say that we fund the R&D and the prodction of alternate energy sources, and really put it out there for people to get their hands on. No lease and recall programs, sell the bloody electric cars. Waiting longer will only reduce the elasticity of time in dealing with the problem.
Besides, It's the 21'st century; I was promised a flying electric car. Where's my flying electric car!
But hey, that's just my $0.02.
Dauric.
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RE: "Mass Murder on an Un-Imaginable Scale!" - 
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Makes an electric moter cycle and tries to out run the cops. 
damn gasoline.
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