Stephen Hawking: Off Earth by 2110?

[Temujin]

And that's a great point. Long term survival requires knowledge and equipment to make produce your own food, fuel, clothes, etc. It requires in essence, being prepared to build a functioning community in miniature. And the more people you have working together the better, because no one can do this themselves.

Too many survivalist wankers (and Cthulhu knows I've known my share) think they can stockpile cans and MRE's and go hide out in the woods; and think because they go hunting or fishing a few time a year that they are prepared for the long term. And/or they think they'll just be macho take what they need from someone else, ignoring the likelihood that they'll get their faces shot off.

[Molyneux]

So if we are to conclude that a) getting a human civilization self-sustaining off of Earth is impractical before we start really hitting the crunch, and b) such a crunch/mini-apocalypse is near-inevitable, what can we do to try to lessen the blow?

Maybe someone should start a foundation to engrave the Time Traveler's Cheat Sheet onto sheets of bronze and stash them around the world in various languages, just to save the most important/easily conveyed information.

[Simon_Jester]

The easily conveyed information is, all too often, the most easily remembered. We're really quite unlikely to forget about electricity, or to lose Maxwell's Laws; there are too many widely distributed people who remember them and too many books where they are written down. Unless Iron Age or lower conditions persist for several centuries, that basic information will not be lost.

What is at the most risk is detailed knowledge that is the subject of highly specialized industries, industries that become impossible in the immediate post-collapse era. Metallurgical techniques come to mind, because advanced (late 19th and 20th century) metallurgy would be lost within a few generations if the industrial facilities to implement the knowledge were likewise lost. It isn't recorded in as many places, you see.

[Consumerist]

Is there any empirical evidence that we are nearing the crunch? Perhaps we still might have just enough time to start mining in the low earth orbit if we were lucky(or unlucky) enough to suffer a regional disaster brought about by an asteroid impact.

Also could private enterprise make up for the wasted time caused by governments shortsightedness?

[Junghalli]

Since this debate seems to have moved to not if, but when and how mankind will imminently collapse, I wonder how many of you are survivalists? If I thought as many of you seem to I would be stockpiling guns, petrol and canned food right now, but do you put your money where your mouth is?

Eh, I was discussing hypothetical scenarios. I'm nowhere close to convinced that a complete collapse of technological civilization is inevitable or even particularly likely. Really I was more arguing against the idea of "if a collapse happens we'll never get past 19th century level again" with the defeatist logical implication of "so if it does happen we might as well try to make our eternal Crunch as pleasant as possible and just give up on any thought of ever achieving anything better."

[J]

We are many orders of magnitude away from any sort of energy limit - http://i27.tinypic.com/35jfip2.jpg

Even considering only the 'clean' sources doesn't change this much. It changes the price a little - but only a little. Nuclear is just a few % more expensive than fossil fuels right now, and cheaper if the AGW externality is accounted for.

Those are theoretical limits. You will now explain how we're going to implement them in the real world, as in tell us what needs to be built, how it's going to get built, and the approximate timeline for the contruction.

Yes, hence, "depending on what figures you believe": that oil shale and tar sands are still used, and more so as the price rises, despite their negative EROI. This is because EROI is not the important factor here: the great advantage of it is its convenience for use in vehicles. It's a storage device for energy first and foremost, being a source is just an added bonus, and not necessary for it to be useful.

Nobody uses oil shale as a source of oil, unless you count the small scale operations in Eastern Europe where the shale itself is burned as fuel. The EROEI for tar sands is around 2:1. The only way a less than unity EROEI would be tolerated is if we had a large energy surplus which we could spare to extract all the difficult oil deposits, for instance if we had 1000 nuclear plants in the US complete with full fuel reprocessing. Otherwise the oil stays.

[HMS Conqueror]

We are many orders of magnitude away from any sort of energy limit - http://i27.tinypic.com/35jfip2.jpg

Even considering only the 'clean' sources doesn't change this much. It changes the price a little - but only a little. Nuclear is just a few % more expensive than fossil fuels right now, and cheaper if the AGW externality is accounted for.

Those are theoretical limits. You will now explain how we're going to implement them in the real world, as in tell us what needs to be built, how it's going to get built, and the approximate timeline for the contruction.

What issues are there here? A Dyson sphere would need new engineering and possibly new science, I agree, but what's unusual about nuclear plants?

Yes, hence, "depending on what figures you believe": that oil shale and tar sands are still used, and more so as the price rises, despite their negative EROI. This is because EROI is not the important factor here: the great advantage of it is its convenience for use in vehicles. It's a storage device for energy first and foremost, being a source is just an added bonus, and not necessary for it to be useful.

Nobody uses oil shale as a source of oil, unless you count the small scale operations in Eastern Europe where the shale itself is burned as fuel. The EROEI for tar sands is around 2:1. The only way a less than unity EROEI would be tolerated is if we had a large energy surplus which we could spare to extract all the difficult oil deposits, for instance if we had 1000 nuclear plants in the US complete with full fuel reprocessing. Otherwise the oil stays.

Oil shale is used for sure. And seriously, the oil companies do not even care about EROI at all. It is entirely cost in vs cost out that matters. Oil shale has greater cost in than kuwaiti oil fields (or whatever), but that's just a matter of the oil price diverging enough from electricity prices. See how on that production graph, it already spiked just after the oil crisis? The oil price is headed back that way.

[J]

What issues are there here? A Dyson sphere would need new engineering and possibly new science, I agree, but what's unusual about nuclear plants?

I'm not doing your homework for you.

Oil shale is used for sure.

If you'd cared to look at where that particular wikipedia chart came from, you'd know that it proves exactly what I said in my previous post, that is, the oil shale itself was burned to run power plants in Estonia.

And seriously, the oil companies do not even care about EROI at all. It is entirely cost in vs cost out that matters. Oil shale has greater cost in than kuwaiti oil fields (or whatever), but that's just a matter of the oil price diverging enough from electricity prices. See how on that production graph, it already spiked just after the oil crisis? The oil price is headed back that way.

Prove it. Work out the math and come up with an estimate for what electricity and oil prices need to be for oil companies to begin large scale commercial extraction & conversion of oil shale.

[HMS Conqueror]

What issues are there here? A Dyson sphere would need new engineering and possibly new science, I agree, but what's unusual about nuclear plants?

I'm not doing your homework for you.

Not sure you understand here. You made a claim that I am disputing. It is not me making a claim, that I would then need to demonstrate, but rather you who needs to. I have already done a great deal of research on this subject, which is what makes me think your claim is false.

Oil shale is used for sure.

If you'd cared to look at where that particular wikipedia chart came from, you'd know that it proves exactly what I said in my previous post, that is, the oil shale itself was burned to run power plants in Estonia.

Estonia is a real place, is it not?

And seriously, the oil companies do not even care about EROI at all. It is entirely cost in vs cost out that matters. Oil shale has greater cost in than kuwaiti oil fields (or whatever), but that's just a matter of the oil price diverging enough from electricity prices. See how on that production graph, it already spiked just after the oil crisis? The oil price is headed back that way.

Prove it. Work out the math and come up with an estimate for what electricity and oil prices need to be for oil companies to begin large scale commercial extraction & conversion of oil shale.

Prove what? That the oil price will rise in the future? If there becomes a shortage of it, that is certain. If not, it doesn't matter either way.