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peter lindsay

Physics Teacher,

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What are we going to make stuff out of when we run out of oil?

I'm at my work station in an office. The only things on my desk I can see that don't use plastic are the paper clips. What is all this stuff going to look like when oil is too expensive to waste on day to day items. We might have to save the remnants of the oil supply for carbon fibre and nano-tube production. Or as a source of pharmaceutical precursers.

Topics: conservation global oil plastic pollution
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    Ahimsa Fruitarian

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    May 23 2012: It is easy to grow oil on trees and ecologically too. Palm oil (from fruit) can make bio-diesel and there are many different kinds of oil can be grown on different fruit trees that farmers presently cannot afford to grow. However, when we run out of oil there will be Robots able to plant oil palms and bush butter trees (44% oil), if we want them.
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      peter lindsay 30+

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      May 23 2012: It's not so much the oil itself that is the problem. At the moment we make stuff out of plastic because it is cheap and effective. As oil becomes more expensive so does plastic. What will the world look like when plastic is more expensive than wood or aluminium? Also the bio-oil alternatives will be limited by the fact that they will have to be grown on land that we need to grow food.
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        Ahimsa Fruitarian

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        May 23 2012: Another way to look at the problem you raise about the land being needed for food, is that even if land is given priority for food, then that is only good for a limited population (it does not allow unlimited population growth) So it is not much different to draw a limit to population to allow land for both food and bio-fuels, As the Earth can only support a limited population anyway. In depth,we could shift to a ketogenic diet for more effecient use of food because our present carbohydrate based diet requires cooking that is powered much by oil -fueled power but an edible oil based diet can be eaten without cooking and less waste from digestion
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          peter lindsay 30+

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          May 23 2012: Interesting point. Other than vegitarians telling us how meat is a waste of resources, you dont often hear about people doing studies into th most efficient way of farming in terms of people fed per hectare. I assume the answer would vary for different climates. For example, an arguement I always have regarding meat is that I feel beef production in semi-arid areas is an efficient use of land that would never grow a crop edible to humans but the cattle convert course grasses into meat that we can use.

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