Britain faces 'oil crunch' within five years, Richard Branson warns

HammerSmashedFace

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Of course it could be done, and it will be when the cost benefit equation makes it neccessary.

The ONLY transport without an already existing and commercially viable alternative is aviation. Which only uses a few percent. No doubt that will be a priority use, along with the few petrochemical processes for which there is no alternative.

But transport will switch when using other energy sources becomes cheaper. And remaining stocks of oil will be reserved for critical applications, for which there will be plenty for a very long time to come.

I wish I had your optimism Hamish, the problem though with this post above is it only has wishful thinking behind it, with no evidence. Here is one question amongst a myriad of questions that need to be answered within a 15 year timescale.....

Almost everything bought to your door or the door of a shop that you use comes on a truck....... How do we transport these goods ?, electric cars are all well and good, but they don't scale to 'truck size', and lets not forget, we roughly have 15 years, to design, develop and manufacture this new product on a global scale, that in itself is inconceivable, to say nothing of the required infrastructure that would need to be set up as well.

That's just one question that there is no answer to, there are many, many more.

Conrad

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

can a solution be found within that time that will scale upwards to the global population ?, no chance.

Of course it can, if we put it on a war footing.

Hitler built Germany's motorway network in 18 months. It took the UK to do the same after the war 18 years.

If it comes to it, we WILL find a solution, but the sceptics throughout history always raise eyebroughs in that knowing way they have..even though they're always wrong.

Conrad

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

the problem though with this post above is it only has wishful thinking behind it, with no evidence.

Do you not know history?

The race to the moon
Hitlers transformation of Germany within a few years
The York Town aircraft carrier being repaired in 2 days when the skeptics said 3 months

We CAN do what ever we want, if the need becomes critical

bernard_shaw

Conrad wrote: »

Do you not know history?

The race to the moon
Hitlers transformation of Germany within a few years
The York Town aircraft carrier being repaired in 2 days when the skeptics said 3 months

We CAN do what ever we want, if the need becomes critical

This is true. One thing that worries me is that those who seek to discredit climate science and/or resource depletion are a significant barrier to orderly progress towards the necessary transitions.

HammerSmashedFace

Conrad wrote: »

Of course it can, if we put it on a war footing.

Hitler built Germany's motorway network in 18 months. It took the UK to do the same after the war 18 years.

Wrong, we already knew how to build roads, all we had to do was build more of them quickly, an easy job. What you're suggesting is we can somehow change the entire fabric of the society that has been built, it cannot be done in the timescale, end of story.

Listen Conrad, I respect your views and you are a learned fellow of other subjects, however your 'head in the clouds' human spirit argument on this particular subject holds zero water. What you keep suggesting somehow means breaking the second law of thermodynamics, it cannot be done.

nitr02007

Conrad wrote: »

Do you not know history?

The race to the moon
Hitlers transformation of Germany within a few years
The York Town aircraft carrier being repaired in 2 days when the skeptics said 3 months

We CAN do what ever we want, if the need becomes critical

I agree, if the energy is available, then we can achieve miracles if we put our minds to it. The point is that over the next few years we're likey to be hit with a shortage of energy, the demand will outstrip the supply. If we cant buy the oil needed to fuel the cranes and trucks how will we build a new infrastructure?

baby_boomer

So - the bearded one wants his toy railway electrified at public expense.

Trust spinmeister Branson to come up with the most publicity grabbing story possible to push his case .

StevieJ

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

I wish I had your optimism Hamish, the problem though with this post above is it only has wishful thinking behind it, with no evidence. Here is one question amongst a myriad of questions that need to be answered within a 15 year timescale.....

Almost everything bought to your door or the door of a shop that you use comes on a truck....... How do we transport these goods ?, electric cars are all well and good, but they don't scale to 'truck size', and lets not forget, we roughly have 15 years, to design, develop and manufacture this new product on a global scale, that in itself is inconceivable, to say nothing of the required infrastructure that would need to be set up as well.

That's just one question that there is no answer to, there are many, many more.

Maybe we have seen peak oil but what about peak gas?

"There is enough gas around, this is increasingly clear," he said, citing data from the International Energy Agency showing recoverable gas reserves worth 250 years of current production. :j

"These figures are staggering," he said. "The gas is there, it is going to take investments and it needs a lot of new technology... This is truly an energy revolution." "People are looking for certainty around three key issues: availability, affordability and environmental acceptability of gas. I think gas wins on all points."

http://news.stv.tv/business/172037-shell-sees-global-gas-demand-up/

Yes I am very happy to hold those 6% yield Shell shares

chucky

StevieJ wrote: »

Maybe we have seen peak oil but what about peak gas?

"There is enough gas around, this is increasingly clear," he said, citing data from the International Energy Agency showing recoverable gas reserves worth 250 years of current production. :j

"These figures are staggering," he said. "The gas is there, it is going to take investments and it needs a lot of new technology... This is truly an energy revolution." "People are looking for certainty around three key issues: availability, affordability and environmental acceptability of gas. I think gas wins on all points."

http://news.stv.tv/business/172037-shell-sees-global-gas-demand-up/

Yes I am very happy to hold those 6% yield Shell shares

it's very lucky that you bought that company that by 2012 will not be an Oil player but a major Gas player...

i'm just waiting for that dip to stock up some of those 6% yielding Shell shares...

Jonbvn

chucky wrote: »

it's very lucky that you bought that company that by 2012 will not be an Oil player but a major Gas player...

All the IOC's have been major gas "players" for some time. In the last few years I have been involved in more LNG & GTL projects than any oil related activities.