Peak Oil vs. Flying Cars
 

I was sitting at the top of a hill the other day that overlooks a country road. There's probably a car that passed every minute, and I got to thinking about peak oil, but also about flying cars. I remember reading Popular Science magazines a few years ago and always being so amazed by the technology and what might come in the future. The typical futuristic concept has been flying cars for decades I think.

But now, with oil production peaking/peaked, and some people believing that cars will be a thing of the past, I wonder what the future will look like. I don't think that cars will necessary cease to exist, but their future must be different. I am an environmentalist, and I don't know if most people on this site are too or just like saving gas, but what do you think?

1) Hydrogen is an obvious bust - at least for now. Takes way more energy to convert coal/nuclear power to split water than we can currently get from the hydrogen. The only good options are renewable sources generating the power, which will be difficult in large scale.

2) Biofuels are similar. We use more petroleum growing corn than energy available by using it as fuel. Unless it was organic corn and the gas is made nearby, it's not energy efficient.

3) Driving efficiently will certainly be a must. There's no way huge horsepower-hogging cars will be for personal public use in the future. I'm pretty sure future vehices will be equiped with so much computer controlling that hypermiling will be as easy as stepping on the gas. More like pushing the "Go" button.

4) I foresee highways become a completely different system. There won't need to be speed limits if gas costs $50/gal and the cars are made for hypermiling techniques.

5) I predict the price of gas will change as better cars are made. $3 a gallon seems like a lot, but what if you get 500mpg? Then it sounds dirt cheap.

Just some ramblings and thoughts. What do others think of those predictions?

Ehm, manufacturers can and likely will scale efficiency and present alternatives such that it'll keep as many people paying as much as possible. No worries, at least any more worries than normal.

You're right, I keep forgetting that we have a shortage of people... wait...
I've been helping a freind of mine build a jet turbine engine for a personal flying machine, and he's hoping that it will catch on to help out with natural selection, people have life styles that are simply to safe, I would rather see a nice spike in the center of your steering wheel insted of an air bag, it would make everyone more carful.

I personally look at peak oil (I must admit I don't like the event having a label, but oh well...) as being something that will wipe out everything we know. As in, there will be no more jobs. There will be no more schools. There will be no more driving. Everything that you and I have come to accept as normal in life will simply cease to exist.

There will be a total and complete fallout of society on a worldwide scale. I think that people REALLY miss the whole point about how tied together our global economy is with oil. As in, without one (and I will let you guess which that is), then the other simply cannot exist.

Learn how to farm, hunt, and survive the cold winters. These are the only basic skills you will need to survive. Oh, and it might not hurt to try to start chumming around with some general practice doctors.

Ethanol from corn is a crappy source of bio fuel. It's being pushed because there are already plenty of corn growers in the US, and thus enough money to fund lobbyists. The politicians like it because they can look like they're doing something about the environment to the average joe.
Soy bean oil as diesel perhaps? I seem to recall reading something about algae engineered to produce oily compounds that could be extracted for fuel.

I think that nuclear power would have to replace oil. Maybe just launch spent waste into space.

The Moller Skycar was an invention that was started in the 50's and still hasn't emerged as a way of travelling as it was thought by now it would be. Those electronic highways just haven't been develloped but it would have taken the driving responsibility away from the cell phone yapping, texting, eating, drinking, reading, shaving, make-up applying, yelling at the kids, CD changing general public!

how much energy does it take to get anything into space? not a very good option, also a bit shortsighted becaus it just shift the problem,to the future...there will be nucear power although where i live all nucleat power plants will have to be closed be 2015 although there's a lot of political debate about it. we'll just have to face there's no alternative to focil fuel, so we'll just have to learn to be more energy efficient...

as for flying cars at the time i really enjoyed "back to the future", but, lets face it, flying cars already exist, they're called planes and helicopters. with the curent technology they're not really adaptable to economic and efficient short distance personal transprotation.

i think the problem with cars is that they're used as personal transport, while they're build to carry at least 4-5 enven 7people. so roughly cars could be 4 times smaller and 4 times more efficient.

without trying to change but rather admit this very individualistic use of the car that's so embedded in our culture, we could still make a huge step forward if people could see the benefit of owning a one-two seat car perhaps capable of towing/connection to, a "trailer" unit capable of carying an additional number of people. this could have a great number of benefits especially if you could rent a trailer to suite your needs... things about going on a holliday, or that one time when most people actucally could use a pick up... than again people might just be driving abound with emply trailers.

What most of the doomers refuse to accept is the viability of our electric transport infrastructure in a post peak-oil world. We had it right in the early 1900s before Ford and GM killed it all by buying up and destroying local EV transit systems and rendering electric cars obsolete for the time by offering cars that ran on this cheap oil crap.

As far as transportation is concerned, this world will adapt just fine.

Nuclear is dangerous garbage IMO and the NIMBYs need to get over it and just deal with wind, solar, and tidal generators in their back yards. The environmental impacts of those are far outstripped by every other option we use today. They don't kill fish, destroy the atmosphere, or threaten to lay waste to hundreds or thousands of square miles through radioactive waste/nuclear accident.

Yeah, I know birds are killed by wind generators, but they reproduce in far better numbers than salmon and will survive in generatorless areas without difficulty.

I think that the corporatocracy of Amerikkka and the oil industry will ensure that oil is being used as much as possible until they run it dry, and then they'll have all of the patents on new technology so that they will milk it for every penny that they can get out of it.

And what happens if NASA screws up their calculations (it happens every once in a while) and the waste comes back into the atmosphere or the rocket explodes in our atmosphere? Launching it into space is just stupid IMO.

Take away oil and tell me we can/will only use solar/wind/tide power. Where do you get the resources to mine for raw materials that go into those projects. Better be thinking new discovery or nuclear. Rockets are freakin crazy anyway, maybe NASA screws things up, but I bet the Chinese could launch a payload into space on paper and black powder.

hahaah oh they prolly could... or a huge catapult that just flings it into space...

were not going to see flying cars for a long time i dont think...i could see cars getting alot smaller and possibly one or 2 seat economy cars, but that would require some insane ammount of politicain bickering to make the safety requirements way down...

sometimes i wish they would put driver safety in the hands of the driver, not in the hands of the car designers...

lol they need to make it alot more strict driving tests/more costly/not so leaniant on tickets. it make you think twice about driving liek a jackass

88, you make it sound like we will just suddenly run out, which could not be further from the truth.

Wind power generators require comparably little resources to implement. We've got enough copper floating around this country in pennies to build thousands of them. We are at the breaking point now where the copper in pennies is almost worth more than the value they arbitrarily represent, so that is an easy source for copper right there.

PV arrays require considerably more resources to manufacture, but it's not likely that they will dry up instantly either. Likewise there are other means to extract energy from the sun that are actually more efficient than photovoltaics on a large scale.

Wave and tidal power is on the same level as wind aside from the challenges of placing the collectors/generators.

Barring a nuclear weapon exchange, we will NOT be going back to the dark ages. Energy will probably be more expensive for a time, but once more renewable sources become ubiquitous, they will actually end up being cheaper both to operate, and in terms of impact to the environment.

Snax, I think I agree on most of that.

I'm pretty sure the idea from 'personal vehicle' will change from SUVs to little commuter vehicles once the prices go up a lot more. Things like the Insight which were cut due to "no one wants a commuter car" will certainly change when it costs more to drive the SUV to work than someone can make in a day of work, if you know what I mean.

On the NIMBYs, those people are downright stupid. If you don't want a wind turbine in your back yard, would you rather have mercury float a few hundred miles into your backyard from the coal plant? Would you rather risk a nuclear reactor destroying your entire city? I don't give a shiznit if you don't think a wind turbine looks pretty! If you are using energy, than you should be aware of where it comes from.

I went to a discussion from an audobon society member that supports wind turbines, but doesn't want them put on ridges where migratory birds and turbines collide. Well guess what, that's the only place where it's worth putting a turbine to make power, and more birds die indirectly from coal plants than directly from wind turbine collisions. That's the part they all miss, the indirect consequences. Sure, you can see the dead birds under the turbines, but what about all the ones that sucked down mercury and NOx and SOx and CO2 and O3 and CH4? Who's counting those? I would bet that 100x more animals die from those than the turbines. I once saw a study that said housecats kill more birds than turbines. Cars was high on the list too.

Driving tests would be easy. Just make people re-take the written and road tests every 10 years or so. The DMV can already require it when you renew your license... It would merely require an internal policy change, not legislation.

I don't see how increased expense would weed out those with poor driving habits.

Tickets... eh. An officer has to be present when somebody's driving like an *** in order to give them a ticket. Given the number of questionable laws that the officers are charged with enforcing, I would rather not see the increase in officer presense required to ticket the few really bad drivers.

I agree with you about the cops bob. There are way to many of them already as it is. I just got back from Ireland, and I was shocked to see that the Gardai was almost nonexistent. I went for days on end without seeing a single Gardai at some times, and guess what? They have a lower crime rate than we do.

I do agree with repete86 about there being too many lawmen. Too many laws, too. We need to scrap it all and start again, maybe the first law being something like "if there are more than 10 laws governing something, the eleventh law can be enacted ONLY if one of the prior 10 is repealed". Simplify. Read the DMV code governing something as elementary as headlights. It'll make you puke with despair. We CAN'T drive micro-compact speck-of-a-cars here in the USA because someone in a giant penis, uh, SUV might hit me. Can I decide that on my own? Noooo. Can't ride a motorcycle without a helmet, either. Sucks. Now that my skull's shaved, I wouldn't have to worry about my hair getting all jacked. We need to be allowed to take responsibility for our actions and stop pointing the finger of blame at others when we step on our own private parts.

vote for tort reform.

i seen a show where some company was testing jet engines to use no oil. the bearing was floating on air. the turbine was spinning on air pressure 20-30k rpms. this would save the plane a buncha weight from the lack of oil needed and money from no oil changes.

i agree with you that CA is really F'ed up with laws. but around me theres not that many that they accualy enforce. but here you dont have to have a helmet, as long as your not driving like a jackass or thought to be drunk, most cops will leave you alone...;)

yea i agree that people accualy need to take responsible for thier own actions. BUT that wont happen any time soon becaus eof the stupid sue crazy country that we live in.( EX: people sueing McD's cuz thier fat, McD's didnt make you eat there every day for the past 5 years) people sueing car companies because when they rolled thier SUV trying to drive 60 on snow and make a turn, someone in the car died...dumb f***ing ppl in this country i swear..

[QUOTE=VetteOwner;65661]i agree with you that CA is really F'ed up with laws. but around me theres not that many that they accualy enforce. but here you dont have to have a helmet, as long as your not driving like a jackass or thought to be drunk, most cops will leave you alone...;)

i hear you man i hate when people want to sue over nothing