What To Do When the Oil is Gone?

I was reading an article in Reader’s Digest the other day entitled "Time to Turn Off the Synfuels Tap”, explaining the high cost of making and using synthetic fuels, and how the Federal Government is picking up the tab for most of the excessive costs.

Did I mention this edition of RD is from August, 1985? You know, back when it was still small pages and worth reading?

Yes friends, we have been dumping our tax dollars down the Synfuels rathole for over 30 years now. The article references that the program was setup during the Carter Administration; had already spent $2.5 billion dollars (back when a billion dollars still meant something), and was scheduled to spend another $8 billion in the coming 7 years.

And we still don’t have a legitimate program that will lower the cost of ‘fossil’ fuels. I say ‘fossil’ because there is growing evidence that oil is not dead dinosaurs. Here (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952) is a great explanation of the idea that oil is not a depletable resource, but a constantly renewed one by natural processes. But, I digress.

The point is we have spent billions of dollars over a generation trying to eliminate oil as a commodity and have come up with squat, unless you count the idea that the cost of Fritos is now going through the roof so we can burn our food instead of eating it.

Why the push for a Synfuel anyway? We already know man-caused global warming is a crock, used mainly to separate us from our means of production. Hell, if the Green nuts were serious about stopping the burning they would be all over nuclear power like bugs on a bumper.

First, do we need to end our dependence on oil? Maybe not. Experts have been predicting the end of oil since the 1920’s. Yet today we have more proven reserves of oil than we burned between Edwin Drake's first well and the 1920’s. But let’s assume oil will run out someday. I think we could keep going without skipping a beat with a few years planning.

The internal combustion engine would cease production, but with nuclear power and advances in battery technology the electric car would take its place. How long do we have to convert? One estimate I saw (http://www.wou.edu/las/physci//ch371/lecture/oil_reserves/oil1.htm) says 79 years, but has no real confidence that that figure is correct, and is probably wildly conservative, as oil production estimates are usually well under actual production. The site talks about how more oil is now estimated to be left in the North Sea fields that was originally estimated to be there, after 40 years of pumping and the removal of twice as much oil as was originally estimated to be there.

Say we do have just 80 years until the oil runs out. How long does it take to build 2 or 3 hundred nuclear plants? Maybe it’s time to get started?