czokletmuss

As the presentation from Stanford shows, peak oil may happen as soon as in next 10-20 years. Also, "NO" is not an argument - some facts, sources or at least decent sentence would be in place BTW if you have some time guys you should watch this, very interesting:

From what I know, Arctica contains oil which will suffice for the world (80-90mln barrels per day) for a 1-4 years. If you have some other sources of information, please share with us, they may be interesting. Edit: I posted the estimates; according to the IEA world demand is 30bln per year. 90bln in Arctica will suffice for a 3 years.

Well of course! We all know that the Earth is flat and infinite, so there must be an infinite amount of oil under the ground. It's so simple guys! I don't understand - economics is not "science" like maths or physics but nonetheless it can make valuable predictions. What's more important, it directly influence the science and technology - without money you won't build a reactor or send a mission to Mars. We should concentrate on resources and climate change so that we don't turn this thread into some political rant about evil government or/and corporations, but the matter of economics should be discussed as well.

I don't think that the argument "there may be more" is a good one. Still, even if there is there's also a problem of costs involved in extracting resources. Drilling in Texas in the beginning of XXth century and drilling 5km under the ocean bottom is a completely different thing. So even if it will take "millenia" (why not decades with an increased demand?) I doubt that the energy price will be as low as today. I guess you're talking about Spain. Yes, I don't think so that this is only "corrupted government" problem. Gigantic real estate bubble and high costs of work are amongst the sources of spanish crisis, not only politicians. You think changing Rajoy for someone else (who?) would stop the emigration of young Spaniards? I don't think so - in my country there is a pretty big economic emigration too (to the UK for instance). But enough with the politics - point is, in current situation Spain wouldn't be able to fund thorium reactors or some other emerging technology. And in a world in an energy crisis not so much countries will be able to do this. But it's not the problem of quantity but of a price. "We are prepared to invest more effort to get it" - oh really? Is everyone prepared to "invest more" in a form of a higher bills every month? High investments means higher prices, there is no way around that. Here in Andalucia unemployment rate is more then 30% - you think that after spending billions to find new energy sources and selling them with a proportionaly higher price to make profit everybody will be able to afford it? Peak oil doesn't mean a situation in Earth is somehow transformed to a desert - the biggest issue is affordability. Increasing prices means bigger part of your budget goes to food and transportation and less is left for entertainment, education and so on, which helps the unemployment to rise even more. In theory, yes, there is plenty of space. This is science fiction now, because we send a dozen of people above the LEO for a less then 2 weeks but theoretically yes, you are right. Problem is yet again not in quantity. If China would live on a wasteful level of USA prices will go up very soon and the world will be sucked dry from the resources. There is no point in discussing the colonies on Moon or astereoids right now - if we fail to find a new cheap energy source we may not be able to found such colonies. Andy by cheap I mean high EROEI.

Please explain how changing the whole energetic infrastructure on Earth to provide evergrowing level of life for billions of people would be cheaper then status quo. In USA you got $48.000 GDP per capita, in India $3700 and in China $8400. In the last year there was more cars sold in China then in whole Europe. I find believing in a "no problem" smooth transition wishful thinking - there may be new economic equlibrium, sure. But for what cost and who will be able to afford it? Rising prices of oil will provide an incentive to drill deeper, but who would afford $50 per gallon? Plus you need to have money and technology for a transition, but also a political will. An analogy - we in theory have a technology to send people to Mars. Why we didn't do it? Cost and political will.

Recently there was another proof that space junk is becoming more and more a problem for everybody.

Update: expect next chapter very soon.

Okay but do you realize that this means hundreds of trilions dollars of investments? We're talking about a global scale - substituting billions of oil-driven machines on the entire world, changing its infrastructure and so on. LPG doesn't solve anything because it's extracted with the oil and natural gas. Vision you presented may be sufficient for a few most rich countries. What about the rest of them? What about fertiliziers -which enabled the green revolution and gave the Earth 5 more bilions of humans - what about plastic? The lack of electricity is not the only problem to be adressed.

Thanks, I've never heard about it - it would be great if thorium could be used on a large scale if it works. One more very interesting video, this time presentation made by Professor Roland Horne in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. TL;DR - global supply won't ever exceed 90mln barrels per day.

@Stochasty Thank you, this was interesting. And yes, when politics mess with the science that's always bad; I'm not a scientist nor a climatologist, but the global warming is less important IMHO than energy crisis. I'm also curious what's your opinion about this issue

Oh, that's great. What's your field of expertise? Is it connected to climate or resources? If so, I would love to hear your opinion on that matter. And BTW - the obvious correlation between climate change and resources problem is that by burning all the fossils we could've influence the climate.

Okay - so you propose a communistic society based on some better energy source than oil (based on some Tesla's machines?), which already exist but we don't know about them, because the corporations, might families like Rockefellers and the government (which one?) are keeping them in secret so that they can make a big profit out of it. It sounds like a mix of conspiracy theory and pseudoscience. Please give some sources to support this (especially what's about Tesla?) or please start a new thread, because I would like this to be based on scientific evidence and data (like oil fields depletion rates or smth like this). I wouldn't like to discuss the politics only, this is not the thread about them.

Exactly. Plus you need lots of energy anyways, so you can just use the surplus to heat your base. If you have nuclear reactor, than you can just use the heat from it instead of using radiators or cooling system.

I agree with a lot of you wrote Rune, though you shouldn't treat technology as a source of energy. Yes, if we can master the fusion, the energy won't be a problem for some time. If we were to substitute the fossil fuels with nuclear energy completely the nuclear fuel will be depleted in a 10-15 years. I admire the human spirit and innovation potential, though the scale and challenge is immensly big. Currently we can't even deal with the debt problems and social consequences (youth unemployment). Take a look at Europe. When the bankrupt states like Spain or Italy fall and the very future of EU is endangered, do you think there is a potential to make a transition from fossils-depenedat economies? Progress and technology are great in theory but we have a reality to deal with and then some of this solutions are just improbable to be used. When your country have 20% or more unemployemnt and gigantic debt how are you going to implement brilliant ideas of engineers? I'm afraid that in EU retirement pension or welfare in general will consume the energy and resources which should be focused on problems like the energy crisis. Two more things: "tapping the resources on Earth" means that we are using all the cheap ones in the Earth's crust. They may be more but will they allow us to live on a current level with 7+ billion population? Second thing: "billions will die of hunger" - well, that's the problem. War for resources won't affect only Iraq or Iran or any other state with oil. icemasterpt - I don't think there are any conspiracy. There were resources, we took them, we are using them - where's the conspiracy in this? We do what every spieces do, it's just our technology and minds that allow us to do this on a global scale. I'm not going to say why the causes of a global warming are anthropocentric, it took me 2 years of reading to understand that they are, so clearly small discussion on the Internet won't change your point of view. I don't also think that anticapitalistic (socialist?) solutions will help at all - every single one of them failed in the past. But let's focus on the resources, not on politics.

You'll see; well, all of them are KSP generated "Kadmos" is on the Spaceport: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ipmv-kadmos/ The list is missing (April purge) but I will reconstruct it and the whole AAR in a separate thread when the mission report subforum will be reinstituted.

CHAPTER 6 MOHO ORBIT INSERTION *** - We have entered the Moho's sphere of influence. - It's about time. What's our status BERTY? - Inclination 25.3 degrees. Apoapsis 17 kilometres. Predicted delta-V to execute an orbit insertion – 4494 metres per second plus minus 200 metres per second. - Err, isn't this slightly above our estimations? - That is correct, commander. Total delta-V after the braking burn is expected to be less than 3300 m/s. - Crap. Will it suffice for the Eve transfer? - Including the inclination difference between our orbital planes – yes, although barely. - Have you calculated the “Proteus†mass after Moho Shield separation? - Naturally, commander. - Frak. All right, first things first – begin the preparations for the braking burn. - Affirmative. - Attention, this is commander Jeb speaking. We have entered the Moho's sphere of influence – congratulations everybody, we did it after all. Prepare the ship for the acceleration during the braking burn. Estimated g-force is – what is it BERTY? - 2.23g. - Estimated g-force is more than 2 gees, so secure everything properly. We're about to get some serious artificial gravity at last, if only for a few minutes. Ned, begin prepping the Moho Shield for a deployment. Bill, come in to the command pod please. How are we looking with time, BERTY? - Estimated burn duration 4 minutes 36 seconds. Time to the insertion burn 2 hours 24 minutes 58 seconds. - That quickly? How fast are we going right now? - Our velocity in relation to the Moho's surface equals to 17643,6 kilometres per hour or 4901 metres per second. - Huh, being so deep in the Sun's gravity well it shouldn't be surprising I guess. Okay, we don't have much time so let's start checking the systems. - T minus 1 minute. - Let's hope everything will be fine. - Ned has been checking the engines for days, I'm sure we'll be okay. - And if we don't achieve orbit? - We have a few options but let's not talk about this now, okay? - T minus 30 seconds. - Well, let's hope that this rock is worth it. - Oh I'm sure it is, Bob. We didn't even land on it and we already have made few important discoveries. - Yes, this disappearing atmosphere is puzzling. - T minus 5 seconds. Please prepare for acceleration during the insertion burn. - Long-time no see, gravity! - This is not the real gra… - Oh crap! Everything's… so heavy! - Insertion burn will be completed in T minus 4 minutes 30 seconds. - How… are we looking, BERTY? - 1898 m/s spent, 1826 m/s needed to circularize. “Proteus†remaining delta-V 4827 m/s. - This is taking too long! - BERTY, what's our status? - 2895 m/s spent, 870 m/s needed to circularize. “Proteus†remaining delta-V 3866 m/s. - Warning. Minor structural failure in section B. - Oh great, here we go again… - Elliptic orbit achieved. - Yes! - Warning. Engines overheated. Cooling system initialized. - What's going on, why did we stop burning?! - We're on the day side now Bob, the engines are exposed to the Sun, we need some time before finishing circularization. - Doesn't matter, we're in orbit! Ned? - Yes? - Start deploying the shield and send someone to check the section B, there was a minor structural failure and we don't want any surprises on this ship. - Copy that. - BERTY, circularize as soon as you can and start looking for a landing site. And start calculating our transfer window for Eve. - Affirmative, commander. - We've undocked, “Proteusâ€Â. - Remember, you won't have much time down there. As soon as the Sun shows up you have to get out of there, you got it? - Don't worry Bill, I don't want us the end up fried here. - I'm so excited! We will be the first to land on Moho! - Okay gentleman – it's time for a ride. MISSION STATUS ***

Internet videos rarely explain anything really good. However, they are excellent to make people interested in something. So because I would like to talk about the energy and global climate change, I'm posting this few short videos so that visualizing the problem will be easier: And presentation from Stanford University: Of course, the real knowledge is not to be found in a pretty animations but in a lot of tables, articles, reports and so on. So if you are interested in reading about the issue, here for example you can find interesting sources: http://www.postcarbon.org/ http://www.theoildrum.com/ http://peakoil.com/ Naturallly, you should start with the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil This a very interesting topic, because without a doubt our civilisation depends on energy sources and in fact there are already problems with the supply in various countries in the world - for instance, China will consume all its coal in the next 10-15 years. Some say that peak oil is just a new version of malthusian histery, some say that "the end is nigh" - and I say there is a lot of worrying data which can't be just ignored, because "50 years ago we have computers the size of a truck, now my iPhone is 1000x better then all NASA computers during Apollo program". Progress shouldn't be treated as immutable constant - history shows that only due to the technology which enable the use of the fossil fuels we were able to get here. But what next? Let the civil discussion begin!

CHAPTER 5 MOHO TRANSFER BURN – MOHO ENCOUNTER *** Commander's log, entry 7. The day has arrived. - Okay BERTY, let's check this one last time. Propulsion? - Nominal. - Navigation? - Nominal. - RCS? - Nominal. - ASAS? - Nominal. - Life support system? - Nominal. - Kethane tanks pressure? - Nominal. - All systems nominal, we're ready to go, I repeat, “Proteus†is a GO for trans-Moho injection. - Commander? - Yes BERTY? - Kodspeed nominal. - Err, thank you BERTY. - Look, we’ll pass close to the Mun. - Yes we will, Bob. - â€ÂProteusâ€Â, this is KSC Mission Control. We confirm your status, you have a green light. Fly safe. - Affirmative KSC. BERTY, begin the countdown. - T minus-30 seconds and counting. - I really hope that everything will go smoothly this time. - Don't worry Jeb, we've learned our lesson with “Kadmosâ€Â. You must be happy that we're finally leaving. - Yes, the waiting is the worst part of any journey. - T minus-10 seconds. - But you know what Bill, I prefer the landers. Voice commands don't feel like actual flying. - T minus 6 seconds. Please prepare for the acceleration. T minus 3 seconds. Engines full throttle. - Injection burn completed. Course corrections on route required. - And so it begins. - Where are you going Jeb? - To the airlock. Visual inspection of the hull. - Wait a second, this isn't scheduled and there is no need for that at all. Am I right BERTY? - Affirmative, captain. The probability of hull damage is negligible. - Let him go Bob. - What? He can't… - He spent months in deep space onboard a failing ship. I think he deserves one last look at home. And speaking of which, I want it too. Come on, let's go to the observation pod. - But… - Come on Bob. - Commander, I have to remind you that your unscheduled extravehicular activity will be reported back to the Mission Control. - Thank you for reminding me BERTY. I'm sure they will want to have a serious talk about my disobedience some 4 or 5 years from now when we return. - Hello there. I hope this is not the last time we meet. - Damn, I'll miss this view. - Commander, you are too far from the ship. You have surpassed the safety limit by 147%. Please reduce your distance immediately. - It’s no fun with you BERTY. - Fun is not scheduled for this hour. Leisure activities for the crew will begin in T minus 3 hours and 23 minutes. - :sigh: Okay, okay, I'm going back. Commander's log, entry 8. We have to correct our trajectory. I'm puzzled – it seems that we will have to spend more m/s than our estimates has shown before. BERTY can't explain why. They can say what they won't, but nothing will replace the Kerbal, not even the best computer. Commander's log, entry 9. More than two weeks has passed. Morale is good, though we're all concerned about the trajectory. KSC is still checking the problem. It should have been expected – the first and only probe to Moho was sent there more than 20 years ago. Is it possible that we're missing some data? If so, the capture might be impossible. Sid says that this is rather improbable – how big changes can occur to the planet in 20 years? Commander's log, entry 10. We're still struggling to capture this little bastard but it seems that we can’t hook it. A few decades after “Kadmos†and we still haven’t mastered planetary dynamics it seems. If we fail, we will be forced to wait one “year†on our current orbit to try again. The good news is that we will be able to perform the next corrections with greater precision. We have plenty of supplies but I'm worried about our fuel levels. Still, this means two extra months in deep space; thanks to Moho’s quick orbital period it won't mess up our transfer windows too much. And who said that this time there won't be any surprises? Commander's log, entry 11. I was too frustrated and bored to bother writing anything here. Watching movies, listening to the music, reading and playing videogames – this was our adventure for the last month. And of course exercising – we don't have a centrifuge this time, however the slowly rotating ship provides something like .1g. At least we can observe the Sun. And I have to say that now we know each other much better – pointless floating around in the giant void can bring people together, as “Kadmos†has clearly proven. Out of boredom I even made a table: The brave crew of “Proteusâ€Â. Kod, I wish we were already there. Commander's log, entry 12. It's all crystal clear now why we failed – indeed it was the wrong data. As it turns out we're quickly approaching Moho; it's smaller than we thought and it has no atmosphere. Sid was vividly discussing this subject and this fact was very strange. The very thin and superheated atmosphere just disappeared. Moreover, the planet is not tidally locked to the Sun as we thought. This will be problematic for a lander – second LAMGML is reinforced to withstand the extreme conditions on this rock but surely the surface exploration will have to be shorter. I guess the Moho probe was just plain broken as almost none of its data is correct. Due to our current position we were able to catch Moho’s transit with the “Proteus†cameras – it’s so incredibly small compared to this magnificent star. We will reach it soon. MISSION STATUS ***

Next chapter GMT 23:00 more or less

CHAPTER 4 MINMUS ESCAPE ORBIT – LOW KERBIN ORBIT *** Commander's log, entry two. I don't really now why I'm still calling my notes „logsâ€Â, I guess due to some misplaced nostalgia. I can of course dictate everything to BERTY, but I don' really like that idea. I know that despite our progress in A.I. research, he technically does not possess a conscience. And that „he†is in fact, „itâ€Â. However, I don't find it comfortable to pass my private thoughts through his circuits. So here I am, in my bunk with a good ol'fashioned pencil and notebook. We're all good ol'fashioned here, me and the boys. There is a lot of time before the transfer window to Moho opens and we still have to perform all the tests and meet the rest of the crew. As we move further and further away, the icy features of Minmus get smaller with each passing hour. All that lay before us is smooth sailing to the parking orbit above Kerbin. Commander's log, entry 3. No problems with journey. As soon as we've arrived, Bob and his men left all the work to us and set sail to the KSS „Epsilon†to „evaluate the mission plan in light of the recent errors found in with the Protractor navigation systemâ€Â. I miss the old bold KASA, with less bureaucracy and more spirit. Maybe the new guys will be more entertaining then Mr. Director? The Dragon is finally ready to start, so we expect to rendezvous anytime now. Commander's log, entry 4. Change of plans. The Dragon was ordered to dock to with the KSS „Epsilon†first. The good news is that Bill is coming onboard. Besides this, nothing really interesting is happening right now. Commander's log, entry 5. I didn't know that the Dragons are modified and equiped with the service module now. This is annoying – I still have a feeling that they aren't telling me everything about the mission. Okay, this is a small detail, but something just doesn't feel right about all this. We've had to deflate the lower modules in order to allow Dragon to dock with us and a fully automatic, reusable ship will collect some waste and deorbit. There's still nothing to do but soon we will have to rendezvous with the Kerbin Fuel Depot to replenish our consumables before the giant leap. Commander's log, entry 6. The Fuel Depot is gigantic and even “Proteus†won't be able to use all of its supplies. Oxidizer, fuel, air, food and kethane – we have all we need. BERTY will be performing docking operation with the Moho Shield. The enormous amount of radiation and temperature variations while on orbit above this planet will certainly damage “Proteusâ€Â, so this is a must. Even with the inflatable heat shields this is quite a heavy construction – we won't have a big safety margin while travelling there. After the Fuel Depot departure Bill and I officially started the transfer window timer. Almost a month of “team-building†and “acclimating in the new environment†plus A LOT of tests. New environment, you have to be kidding me… Kod, I hate this administrative jargon. At least Bob isn’t here. - Hey, you! - Sir? - What are you doing? I told you to recalibrate this, not replace it. And stop with this “sir†thing, call me Ned. - Si… Ned, I'm sorry. I must have misheard you. We're working day and night to prepare the “Proteus†and… - Day and night lasts an hour up here. - Ye-yes. We're doing what we can. - That's not enough, lad. Maybe I should find some ways to motivate you. - I'm telling you si... Ned, this ship will be fully operational as planned. - Director Bob does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation. - But he asks the impossible! I need more men if he… - Then perhaps you can tell him yourself when he arrives. - Director Bob is coming here? - That is correct. He's most displeased with this apparent lack of progress. - We… we shall double our efforts. - I hope so, for your sake. Now go on and do this properly. - Right away! - That's it. O, hello there Sid. - You shouldn't prank them like this, you old fart. - Oh come on, I'm bored. And maybe we will really be 100% ready on schedule. - “Director Bob is coming, be afraid!†- this is childish. Besides, he won't be coming. - What? - He's a director, not a kerbonaut. Administrative staff… - Kod, you really don't know? - Know what? - Bob has resigned. He's coming with us. MISSION STATUS ***

In this thread surely they ain't. And about BobCat team work there is only one thing true KSP player can say:

In Kod, of course I'm surprised by the very civil discussion as well. Which reminds of a very interesting debate which took place in Oxford's Museum of Natural Science - I was there once! - between professor Jonh Lenox - mathematician and philosopher of science - and Richard Dawkins - evolutionary biologist and leader of the new atheism movement. It is civil, sophisticated and quite deep, and both of them make very good points about the subject, which is science-religion issue. If you are interested, you can find it here: http://youtu.be/J0UIbd0eLxw Edit: About ethics and religion; in western civilisation the ethic (Greek philosophy) predates Christianity and Islam, so I don't find convincing argument that only believers can be moral. History teaches us, that both believers and nonbelievers can behave in a very noble or very evil way - we're all humans after all.

I like the design, especially radiation shield used as a heat shield Before you leave, could you please tell us how big it is and/or how big the crew can be? Take care!

That's interesting. What do you mean by "everything"?

Tiny update: there are probably 3 or more chapters coming this weekend. Stay tuned.