[ExI] How the world collapses

[John Clark]

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 10:31 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 > Think it over: you carry a small IC running at peak efficiency and
> output always, you have energy storage onboard.
>

Today's batteries are expensive, bulky, heavy and unreliable. True you can
invoke improved technology to save the day tomorrow,  but remember that
most electrical components are astronomically better than they were 100
years ago or even 30, but there is one exception to that happy trend,
batteries, they have improved only very slightly.


> > it [oil] is easy to recover.


And thanks to improving technology it's getting easier. In 2011 the USA
exported more gasoline and diesel than it imported for the first time since
1949, and in 2012 the USA saw the largest yearly increase in oil production
since oil drilling started in 1859.


> > How hard is it to extrapolate forward all the trends we already see?
>
Try extrapolating this trend, natural gas cost about $13 per million Btu's
as recently as 2008, today thanks largely to fracking it's less than $2.
More natural gas is being produced right now than at any other time in
human history. More by far.

> How will we do when we are having to cook the stuff out of the oil sands
> of Canada?
>
I think we will do just fine.

  John K Clark
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