World Population Reaches 7 BillionFollow

I remember when this happened at 5 billion, and 6 billion people.

Inb4 the world is running out of resources when we hit 8 billion.

Define obsolete.

Or don't, since you'd have to look it up as you obviously don't know what it means and that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.

Does it hurt when your flapping arms smack you in the chest or have you pretty well worn that spot down?

I'm as big a fan of alternative energy as the next guy (moreso really), but it doesn't help the implementation of those alternatives when people can't correctly identify the actual factors and keep repeating falsehoods like this.

We use oil (and coal) because they are far more (cost and energy) efficient means to generate sufficient power for our needs than most of the alternatives. The only one that comes close is nuclear and only if we removed the massive blocks that make it so much more expensive than it should be.




Um... No they aren't. It's exactly this kind of repetition of false "facts" that prevents alternatives from really becoming viable. If you can't honestly and correctly assess the relative costs and value of competing products, you will eternally fail to implement any of them properly.

If the price of oil was higher relative to those other sources, they would be big business.

Of course you do. You have to find places that have good sources of those things, then do environmental studies to determine the impact of tapping into them, then you have to convince people that those impacts are worth the "free" energy you'll get. You don't actually think that the most expensive part of finding oil is finding it, do you?



Anything that requires the use of a plot of land is going to have those same problems. Moreso given that most alternatives take up much more surface land (which is what we tend to have the most legal squabbles over btw) compared to the amount of energy generated. Do you have any idea how large an area you need to use to generate as much power using Solar as it takes to generate the same power with coal or oil?



Do you? I don't. I think it mostly has to do with well meaning environmentalists who've managed to convince people that nuclear energy is just too dangerous to use. While I'm sure the coal folks aren't sad about this, they are not even close to the biggest culprit here.



This is true. As fossil fuels become less available they will become more expensive to utilize. Also, as our technology and methodology improves, the alternatives will become less expensive. Eventually, the alternatives will be more viable. But that day isn't today. Not when they're assessed with anything remotely like a fair market comparison.



There's a difference between "investing" in alternative energy and subsidizing the creation of said alternative or artificially inflating the costs of coal/oil in order to make the alternatives more attractive. At the risk of being obvious, in order for both of the factors which will make alternatives *actually* more viable, we need to both use coal/oil until they reach greater scarcity *and* improve the cost efficiency of the alternatives.

Artificially manipulating the market doesn't actually do either of those. It wont just cost more in the short term, but for a very very long term if we do it this way. Let the needs of the market drive which energy sources we use. It'll work better.



You wound me!

Because of the way market shifts work, we should invest in R&D now for other sources of fuel, not get hung up as much on the actual construction.

Also, an externalities market would help give more fair valuations.

Yup. I'm a huge fan of funding research. I'm very much against subsidizing alternative energy products though. If you research until the cost point comparison makes an alternative competitive then you will have a much better product than if you tweak the market to make it appear to be competitive today. We hurt the adoption of real alternatives by doing this.



Why not use the real market? Certainly, level the playing field in terms of pollution restrictions, but don't play weighting games after that point. The danger is that some group of people get to decide how much the environmental benefits of wind or solar should weigh against the economic factors and you're just asking for a screwed up result when you do that.

Global warming, Over population, Ozone holes, and Canukistan still exists. The solution to all these and more is simple. We need to nuke china, india, and greenland! Problem solved.

Once you start nuking, you just can't stop

It's next to canada. The steam cloud will parboil them, and then create a lovely nuclear winter snow. plus all the vaporization should make enough ozone to fix the ozone layer hole! We'll have to make sure the wind is blowing the right way though, or else we might take out finland by mistake.

Thankfully we have oil and coal subsidies to cancel that out

I don't think it ever blows in that direction...besides Scandanavia you'll also do wonders to all that pesky permafrost in Siberia.

You mean the taxes that go towards the state and federal Dept's of Transportation. For use in maintaining and paving more roads. For more cars and trucks. That use gasoline.

Edit: To be fair, some of the state fees (that aren't basic sales tax applied to all products) don't go towards road construction & maintenance. They go towards underground storage tank maintenance. Or reserve funds for soil & water remediation from petroleum contamination. Having tax-payers foot the bill for this is totally of no benefit to the petroleum companies at all.


Or it would be 11% cheaper, as shown on the graphic on the linked page (happily, gas today is about the $3.46 shown on the images from 2008). And as the price of crude oil increases, the percentage you pay in taxes actually decreases since many of the taxes are charged as "cents per gallon" and not a percentage of the pump price, meaning they make up a smaller fraction as the base price increases.

So I guess you meant to say "gasoline would probably be about 9/10ths the cost at the pump it is today except we wouldn't have any money for road construction or maintenance for your car".

Edited, Oct 19th 2011 9:14pm by Jophiel