Is our growth sustainable?

[Tysonboss1]

Energy will never be free, .

I never said free energy, I said very cheap.

It is not immpossible, in fact it is very likely that in the future there will be technologies that can produce un heard of amounts of electricity for next to nothing.

The main cost would be the cost to build the infrastructure, and like most energy infrastructure a pricing system that delivers the owner a regulated 10% return on the capital invested would be fine,

Add to the the relatively cheap energy people will produce themselves at home, eg. solar panels, and future effiency gains throughout the economy, eg switching a large portion of supply away from oil to electrical power,

 

[Tysonboss1]

Here is the full video of bill gates talking at the ted conference on the future of energy. it is a pretty good video if you are interested in sustainabilty and the future.

It also gives a great insight into bill gates,

 

[young-gun]

Lol, why do people engage in these discussions?

Just accept that the future is going to be bad (and it is, and certainly not just because of energy needs), accept that you and others cannot and will not change it, shrug your shoulders, and think about something else.

so in conclusion, don't discuss or comment on things you can't change? best we shut the forum down?

 

[young-gun]

rephrase that to 'Is China's growth sustainable?' and give an answer

Whatever happens to China will effect us. If they boom/bust, so do we....

the videos are in relation to population growth, growth fundamentals, and consumption. not so much the growth of nations or current economic growth.

in saying that you are correct, if china goes bust so to will we.
and no their growth isnt sustainable.


is anyone of the opinion that governments may possibly leave it too late?(unless the private sector acts as gatesy appears to be) i honeslty believe the human race will be heavily impacted(negatively) by very scarce energy sources before full implementation of new and renewable energy has been achieved.

 

[Smurf1976]

It is not immpossible, in fact it is very likely that in the future there will be technologies that can produce un heard of amounts of electricity for next to nothing.

And therein lies the problem. Electricity is the easy bit, but thus far we've got no means of using it to run aircraft, trucks, buses etc.

There's lots of ways to get electricity but liquid fuels are another matter. Hence my firmly held view that we shouldn't be using oil / gas to generate electricity - it's a tragic waste of a truly valuable resource.

We don't turn gold into lead, now do we...

 

[Tysonboss1]

And therein lies the problem. Electricity is the easy bit, but thus far we've got no means of using it to run aircraft, trucks, buses etc.

There's lots of ways to get electricity but liquid fuels are another matter. Hence my firmly held view that we shouldn't be using oil / gas to generate electricity - it's a tragic waste of a truly valuable resource.

We don't turn gold into lead, now do we...

It will happen though, as you said if you can have large amounts of alternative electrcity production you can offset use of fossil fuels (gas and coal) which can be liquified, and even with current technolgy electric cars can offset liquid fuel use, and as technology in that space gets better trucks and buses will use electricity.

Aircraft is much harder, But with the oil use from cars and trucks freed up there would be plenty of oil supply for for aircraft, and who knows what future tech will come in the next 50 years,

 

[tothemax6]

so in conclusion, don't discuss or comment on things you can't change? best we shut the forum down?

You can change your portfolio can't you? TBYS
A man can talk about many things, from torture to pink ponies. I'd rather be talking about the ponies.

 

[Mr Z]

Batteries are a big issue.

Hydrogen cells are effectively a battery BUT commercialization of the tech seems to be a real hurdle. The Toyota guy said ---> sure we can do it but no one can afford the cars.

NH3 is an option, Matt Simmonds liked its potential.

Most renewables require kilowatt for kilowatt backup capacity to exist.

Nuclear has been demonized and held back in its development, there are some great developments that could be achieved there.

Big money in energy == complicated politics.

All good fun.

 

[Tysonboss1]

, Batteries are a big issue.
.

yes, But batteries will get cheaper and smaller with technology, and we have 40 years to have this fully deployed, Although even with existing tech and prices a decent chunk of peoples commute could be power by electricity, it's happening already

 

[Mr Z]

I'm not even sure we have the metals to replace all the petrol driven cars with hybrids, even then they have a short battery life of around ten years with replacement cost writing the car off at that point. Batteries as we know them are not the answer IMO.

 

[Smurf1976]

I'm not even sure we have the metals to replace all the petrol driven cars with hybrids, even then they have a short battery life of around ten years with replacement cost writing the car off at that point. Batteries as we know them are not the answer IMO.

I suspect you are right. A battery car will end up being a "disposable" car that is in practice unrepairable other than minor bodywork, and then only when near new and still with a high enough resale value to make it worthwhile.

If we're ever going to live sustainably then we're going to have to go back to making things to last, not making them to be replaced after a few years at most. Even if we sort out the energy, then we're faced with declining ore grades, pollution and all the rest. Making things to break just doesn't stack up environmentally.

 

[tothemax6]

A battery car will end up being a "disposable" car that is in practice unrepairable other than minor bodywork, and then only when near new and still with a high enough resale value to make it worthwhile.

Lol, and you will get it from a vending machine. Wasteful, but awesome .

 

[Uncle Festivus]

We don't turn gold into lead, now do we...

Not yet at least....?? Nano tech is looking interesting.... and just a little bit scary..

In the meantime, something along the lines of a fuel cell 'cube' at home producing hydrogen for your car??

As to the topic, can 7 Billion people live the way we do? No. So either we have to take a reduction in living standards for the Chinese & Indians to increase theirs or we really do need to spend a bit of money on tech solutions to fuel & food?

http://dicksmithpopulation.com/links/

 

[Mr Z]

The trouble with kids these days is that they simply don't remember when you could repair things that broke.

 

[Starcraftmazter]

I like this
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse


It doesn't matter if clean, free energy ever comes to the public (it won't, there's no way to profit a lot from it, the corrupt corporations and governments will never allow it), every natural resource that we need for food, water and production is very very limited.

 

[Tysonboss1]

I like this
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse


It doesn't matter if clean, free energy ever comes to the public (it won't, there's no way to profit a lot from it, the corrupt corporations and governments will never allow it), every natural resource that we need for food, water and production is very very limited.

As much as a respect chris martenson's work and the effort he has put into his various videos and classes, (I first took interest in his work years ago) I don't feel he makes enough of an allowance for human innovation.

There will be ways to have unlimited energy in the future, and it will be very cheap while the owners of the infrastructure still generate good enough returns to encourage them to contiune maintaining and expanding their infrastructure.

Keep in mind I am not saying their won't be shock along the way, Shocks are nessasary for great innovations.

Unlimited cheap energy gives rise to all sorts of options, will unlimited cheap energy their is no shortage of water, no shortage of metals etc.etc

Energy is by far the biggest cost and the biggest limiting factor in our economy, with cheap energy all sorts of recycling options, mining option, water options become available.

It's a bit crazy to think that we are any where near perfection as far as human innovation goes, in 100 years they will look back at 2011 in a similar fashion to the way we look back at 1911.

No doubt some one as I said earlier from the 1850's making projection about the future of the steam engine and coal supplies would have be way wrong.

 

[Tysonboss1]

I suspect you are right. A battery car will end up being a "disposable" car that is in practice unrepairable other than minor bodywork, and then only when near new and still with a high enough resale value to make it worthwhile.

If we're ever going to live sustainably then we're going to have to go back to making things to last, not making them to be replaced after a few years at most. Even if we sort out the energy, then we're faced with declining ore grades, pollution and all the rest. Making things to break just doesn't stack up environmentally.

I can't see why a Battery car could not have the worn out parts replaced,

and a battery car would have massive savings over it's life in fuel savings and the cost of servicing, So a big one off cost after 10years would not be bad, and would be offset to a degree by trading in the old battery for recycling.

The Average life of a car in Australia less than 10 years any way,

 

[Tysonboss1]

The future of Electric vechicles,

there is two videos one linked and obe embbeded

The link is the better video, but the second video was the only one that would embed.

[video]http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2011/11/01/n_w_tesla_drive_musk.cnnmoney/[/video]

 

[Smurf1976]

I can't see why a Battery car could not have the worn out parts replaced,

and a battery car would have massive savings over it's life in fuel savings and the cost of servicing, So a big one off cost after 10years would not be bad, and would be offset to a degree by trading in the old battery for recycling.

The Average life of a car in Australia less than 10 years any way,

I can assure you that, at least it was a couple of years ago, the average life of a car is about double that in Australia. The average age of a car on the roads is somewhere near 10 years, half of them older and half of them younger. Hence why it took 20 years from the phase out of leaded petrol for new cars to it and substitutes disappearing at the pump.

As for repairs, you certainly could repair one but it comes down to economics. Consider that my own (standard petrol engine) car is 11.5 years old. It's mechanically A1 (only 78,000 km), as new interior but has a few minor scratches on the outside. Now here's the brutal reality - if I am involved in anything more than a truly trivial accident then the insurer will simply write it off as uneconomic to repair. It could easily last another 20 years with my usage, but it's not worth repairing if it needs anything major done to it.

For an electric car I'd expect the situation to be no better and quite likely worse. Without the need for regular servicing, parts will simply be built and the car designed without servicing in mind. Even a simple job will end up needing more labour than it would be worth paying for, and I'm guessing that the cost of replacing the batteries will be more than the car is worth in running condition - once the batteries die it's effectively a write off.

Cars in general are already well down this track. I remember quite well as a child that there were an awful lot of garages etc around back in those days. But what happens now? It gets taken to the dealer or some chain store mechanic for a service and that's about it. Excluding performance cars, modifications etc there wouldn't be too many people actually rebuilding engines these days - when the motor in a standard car dies these days it's usually the end of the car unless it's a warranty claim.

My neighbour had a Hyundai with about 220,000 km on it. It was a 98 model in fairly good condition. The engine needed some work and the end result is the car ended up at the wreckers since repair just didn't make financial sense. Give it a few years and the same will be true of any Holden, Ford etc too unless we're talking about an up market model with a good resale value when it's old.

My comment about not fixing electric cars isn't about electric cars per se. Rather, it's that cars in general are slowly going down the same track as everything else and becoming "disposable". The moment my 11.5 year old car needs more than about one sixth of its original purchase price spent on it, that's effectively the end of it unless I choose to burn money. Sad but true.

Another example along the same lines is the humble household hot water system. With proper maintenance, they have a life of 20+ years. But it's not worth paying someone to do the work, hence apart from a few DIY'ers nobody bothers and instead they just buy an entire new system every 10 years or so. Another thing that is simply "throw away" for no reason other than that the cost of labour to maintain it exceeds replacement value. Cars are about the only consumer item that hasn't already gone this way but even they are slowly but surely...

 

[Tysonboss1]

The average age is 7 years,