Comments on: Doing the Numbers: What You Need to Know About Oil Depletion

By: Sharon Astyk - Doing the Numbers: What You Need to Know About Oil Depletion « Horta do Vizinho

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:02:35 +0000

[...] Link [...]

By: Lisa Z

Lisa Z — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:59:51 +0000

CrimsonCoconut, every president we’ve had has tried to be a national hero! But most have fallen terribly short of the mark. Our next president or two may try very hard, but unless they have the right ideas and the support of the people they too will fail.

By: Lisa Z

Lisa Z — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:55:52 +0000

There are many who would disagree that canola oil is the healthiest oil for humans. Here’s one link: http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/conola.html

Sally Fallon at Weston Price.org of course! I’ve stopped using canola oil, however, because of the research they’ve done (and b/c my holistic nutritionist friend says it’s bad!)

By: Gracie

Gracie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:09:44 +0000

H. Dean Price,

I truly don’t know much about Canola, but am glad you posted again with this information. Hopefully someone with much more experience and knowledge in this area will post also. Thanks for the additional information.

Sharon,

I’ll try to find this German study. Do you have any additional information on it?

Thanks to all,

Gracie

By: H Dean Price

H Dean Price — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:52:59 +0000

There are several things that make biodiesel made from canola very different and attrctive.

First, canola is a winter crop therefore it doesnt compete with other food crops, ie….corn, soybeans.

Second, the meal from canola after the oil has been extruded is a very high protein feed for dairy cows, chickens, turkeys. BTW, NC and VA are meal deficit states, most of the meal is brought in from the midwest.

Third, canola oil is the healthiest oil for human consumption. Our eventual goal is to take the oil, get it to a food grade, sell/lease it to local restaurants then get it back and turn it into biodiesel. Allowing us to double dip. It’s not a question of food or fuel. It’s a question of food and fuel.

Also, we had several farmers that planted their canola with an airplane. They treated it as a cover crop. They planted on top of soybeans (which are a legume) before they were harvested. This greatly reduced the impact on the soil (no nitrogen added), as well as, the amount of energy used to get the crop in the ground. I feel this could change the complexion of how we look at energy crops.

By: jonathan v porcelli

jonathan v porcelli — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:24:21 +0000

HI Sharon,

I too am an ardent believer in Peak OIl, but one element I believe many of us overlook is that many of our comparisons about future energy needs also use predictions based on todays consumption. I think we will see that the U.S. is slowly weening itself from it high energy diet…mainly through a collapsing economy. But what replaces it will be a less consumptive, maybe more energy efficient economy. We will find our percentage of world energy consumption slowly declining, and allowing renewables to become a large percentage of our energy use. Thats is my hope at least. If its not there to burn then its not there to burn.
thanks
jvp

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:08:04 +0000

Alan,
Yes, they were and that is what is disturbing. All three our engineers; the space guy is an expert in renewable energy systems and works on everything from solar power to biodiesel. The oil guy is a mechanical engineer and was not referring just to foreign oil, but domestic oil; he thinks they stopped producing so much here to suck all the oil out of foreign countires. The other one -the technology one -is a film engineer and has helped make many movies. I know these men and they are all very progressive in their view of the world.
This is why we have such a problem: so many highly intelligent people still buy into the infinite growth paradigm. We are taught from birth to believe in it. And like I said, I think it is a religion and the dominant one today. Religions don’t need to be logical. The Archdruid Report has a good post up this week on this subject with many good comments.
-Rebecca

By: Sharon

Sharon — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:12:12 +0000

There’s an interesting German study that suggests that one season of intensive compost cropping and inoculation of soil with mycorhyzzae (I know I just spelled that wrong) can prevent a major drop in yield in a shift to organic agriculture. My own experimentations with plots suggest that might actually work, particularly if we can get charcoal into some of the soils. But bringing the soils back to life is going to be a major national project – Cuba is quite an interesting model – they had limited topsoil to begin with and used proportionally even more chemicals than we did, but they managed to make the transition fairly well – except that the really large farm level. The big state farms never succeeded – which suggests to me that we’re going to have to break up agriculture into smaller units.

Sharon

By: CrimsonCoconut

CrimsonCoconut — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:29:45 +0000

Sharon, I understand your concern but I think when it comes down to it, we’ll do what we have to as a nation to survive. What president wouldn’t jump at the chance to become a national hero? Seeing as how the attempt to secure oil via military power has failed miserably, we’ll start finding other ways to do things. Still, things will probably get worse before they get better, so it couldn’t hurt to take some precautions!

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:51:36 +0000

“three highly intelligent, progressive men. These were their opinions about peak oil: a) new technology will save us, b) we are about to go to space anyway and evovle so it doesn’t matter and oh yeah, technology will save us, and c) PO is a conspiracy cooked up to keep us from “our” oil.”

Rebecca, these weren’t “highly intelligent” men. If they were, they would realize the fallacies in the viewpoints they are espousing.

And they are definitely not “progressive” men, because progressive men definitely know that the oil under the middle-eastern sands and the African jungles is not “our” oil.

And “progressive” men would never believe that sending a few dozens or hundreds of people out to colonize “space” is an even remotely acceptable alternative to organizing humanity to preserve our biosphere and survive on Earth.

Whatever those guys were, they certainly weren’t progressive and weren’t very intelligent, either.