[FoRK] peak coal

[Ken Ganshirt @ Yahoo]

--- On Mon, 10/26/09, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> 
> Careful with peak coal, things do not nearly as bountiful
> as some may think. Google peak coal oil drum for some less
> optimistic projections. 
> 

The thing I find most scarey, from my vantage point of 62 years, is that people think reserves of 30 years or 100 years are a Good Thing. It seems like the average person reacts to these numbers as if they are a really really long time.

For instance, I just saw a commercial on American TV recently advertising about why I might want to relocate to some state (Minnesota or Michigan or Wisconsin or one of those). A woman, apparently a typical housewife, was bragging ... yes, bragging ... that the state has nearly 40 years! (her exclamation point) of natural gas in the ground. The people behind this ad obviously have the attention span of a politician.

Readily accessable and affordable reserves of non-renewable energy resources -- or any other non-renewable resources, for that matter -- that number in the order of 100 years should scare the heck out of people. 40 years is nothing. Less than nothing. 100 years is barely a blip. At least it is if you care even the slightest about the future of your progeny. I mean your kids, not your great-great-great-grandchildren.

Hell, I plan to live another 40 or so.

         ...ken...


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