[ExI] Oil will never run out

[Bryan Bishop]

On Friday 27 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote:
> I want to take a moment to oficially revise my former position that
> one day the oil will run out and we had better have an alternative
> ready.

Go get a glass of water. Drink it. How much water is in the glass?

> It was very foolish of me to think this. The infrastructure in place
> and all the manufacture and existing machines that all require
> gasoline are almost impossibly expensive to replace - espcially in a
> short 10-20 year period.

Guess we should get rid of the money idea then, huh? Maybe if we really 
want to do it, we'll just do it and not ask for money, huh?

> Instead, the easier approach will have to take place. Finding a way
> to make gasoline and jet fuel that is easier and less expensive than
> getting it out of the ground and refining it while making it out of
> something fairly renewable that can be sustained over a long term.

This doesn't mean that oil will never run out, since it's not guaranteed 
that we can build that solution. One of the methods that I am 
interested in is the construction of particle accelerators to try out 
the whole 'transmutation' thing ;-). You can apparently make some 
simple particle accelerators with cathode ray tubes and also 
piezoelectric crystals. Some labs have done this on a table top, it's a 
rather easy setup, but I haven't explored this significantly yet.

> As soon as I started looking for such things I found dozens of
> companies already on track to do this. There is no reason why it
> can't be done. Oil itself already has been made by accident in
> nature. Making something better faster is only a matter of
> determination and money. With the current gas prices, suddenly there
> are both.

There's always the option of capturing the genome of the plants that 
were involved, and then self-replicating the surface area necessary via 
the transformation of large body masses (asteroids, the moon, ...) into 
the requisite surface area for giant orbital algae farms or giant 
orbital carniferous plant farms.

> I now think that sooner rather than later, someone will have a
> readily available alternative way to manufacture gasoline and jet
> fuel that will work on existing equipment and engines without any
> modification. The fuel will be made from readily available waste - ie
> lawn clippings, garbage, industrial waste, etc. The cost will be far
> less than standard production techniques.

Yes, that's a possibility, but the whole point is that people need to be 
helping us out when we're looking up this information. There's research 
and development involved, etc. And then you have to go talk to people, 
and they turn it into a political issue, rather than an issue of going 
down to pick up a hardware component to assist in the chemical 
syntheses, etc. It's an unfortunate state of affairs. But it's ok, the 
stuff can be done on our own.

> Doe to the low production cost the techniques will spread rapidly.

That's only if the F/OSS guys get there first. Otherwise people are 
going to put some dollar signs on that sucker, and guess where we'll 
be?

> The right genetically engineered organisms may very well make their
> way into an "open source gas production" type of system and many will
> be able to make their own gas in their own homes. Others who don't

The surface area isn't sufficient. And if it's not photosynthetic, then 
you need matter/energy input in the form other than gasoline, which 
takes us back to the original problem of, at some point, acquiring that 
matter/energy, which you're feeding to the gasbugs, which .. etc.

> want to go through that trouble will be able to buy it dirt cheap.

I'd give it away, I think.

> And rather than using  up the very last of the oil in the fields, the
> remaining oil will be left forever in the wells no more useful or
> necessary than all the trees.

No, the remaining oil will be used to go fetch more matter/energy to be 
used as inputs to the system. :-)

- Bryan
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