"Population is on track to level off at ~ 9B by 2050 [...] The population is expected to stabilize at 9 billion by 2300."
Leveling off isn't stabilizing?
"There is no lack of resources, just lack of imagination by the naysayers."
Telling people they lack imagination is not useful, it is criticizing without offering a solution.
As I recall, we would have reached peak oil had scientists not figured out how to extract oil from sand, but they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could [get paid], they didn't stop to think if they should [get paid].
It seems like most people here believe that burning petroleum is bad, right?
Unless mad scientists come up with another evil plan to take over the world, at some point it will start costing too much to produce.
Remember when gas prices rose and people started trading in [paid off] trucks and SUVs [CUVs] for [brand new] fuel-efficient cars, but traded them back in for more gas guzzlers?
Did fuel prices really go down or did the dog at the table just decide "This is fine."
I do not know why I am using Titlemax as a source, but here you go:
https://i.imgur.com/zTZra6e.png
(rehosted on Imgur in case Titlemax takes it down)
For some reason Titlemax has an article about how economists always thought that the global economy was tied to gas prices, but oil has gone down faster than the economy has improved.
Perhaps everyone is expecting another boom. There is always another boom.
The national average gas price is $2.445, down two cents from a year ago, but who thinks we can maintain that? It seems that gas prices can increase 50% without affecting most people's behavior, but again, without some scientific discovery, the price will increase indefinitely.
There are zero replacements. Sunshine and unicorn kisses will not do it. I bought my car for $250, but have paid hundreds in repairs, although averaged out over a couple of years, I still think I got an awesome deal. Would anyone like to guess what kind of interest rate I would be charged to purchase a Leaf? I might be able to put down $1,800. Let's say that I buy a Leaf for $7,200 total. If I finance for five years at 5% interest, my payments would be $101.90, which is not bad, but still three times what I pay to maintain Hondas from the turn of the millennium.
Which would last longer, the loan, or the $7,200 Leaf? I can still drive the Civic that I have had for five years. Will I be able to use a 2013 Leaf in 2023?
So, I buy the world-saving tree-hugging car, and power it with coal, which pollutes more than gasoline, but at least the plants are in the middle of nowhere, not in the greater metropolitan Show Low area--which many people consider the middle of nowhere.
The hippies keep promoting sunshine. I left at nine to see a client, had another in another city at eleven, a third at 1:30, and a fourth at 3:30. I was supposed to see a fifth at 4:30, but they canceled. That would have been an awesome day, making enough to make a couple payments on a $7,200 Leaf (or Civic).
However, if I spent $7,200 installing a 3 KW solar array (a little more than estimated
here, but that is for the Phoenix area.
This guy said that his 3,240 KW solar array was more than enough to power his Leaf over 12,000 miles. However, I would not be home to use that solar power.
I would not have 25% down for that array, so if we consider another five-year loan at 5%, the payment would be $135.87 a month, or $237.77 total for the car and solar, although the latter would out-last the former.
At current prices, it would cost about $70 to drive my Accord a thousand miles monthly.
I could power this theoretical Leaf with a wind turbine, but Consumer Reports installed an $11,000 unit in 2011 that they calculated would require millennia to pay for itself:
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...time/index.htm
One of the selling points is that traditional systems require 7.5 MPH wind speeds to generate electricity. This one works as low as .5 MPH, but when a representative verified the system was installed correctly, they mentioned they needed wind speeds of 6 MPH to just power the inverter.
I am sure another selling point was that you did not need to put it on a tower, it would work on your roof. It did, it just did not do much there. Their roof was thirty-three feet. For optimum performance, it needed to be at 164 feet.
I cannot imagine receiving permission to install something twice as tall as the property is wide.
Wouldn't a $7,200 Civic pollute less than a coal-powered Leaf? I could get at least ten years out of one of those!