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  • eikonoklastes (edited 8 years ago)
    +4

    I'd like to see the oil run out. If I'm lucky I'll live for fourty to fifty more years, so there might be a chance. It'll bring a lot of changes and I'm very interested in seeing it play out. For example, there's plant-based plastics, which products will become the new standards? Will they be able to satisfy the demand? And some people say the war in Afghanistan was motivated by oil, will there be conflicts, especially open ones, over resources? What will oil-centric countries do when their money machine stalls?

    • cunt
      0

      I think in the future drinking water will be the big war fuel. I don't see there being too much problem with oil running out as there is technology to replace it which is commonly being invested in - Tidal, Solar, Wind etc...

      • eikonoklastes
        +1

        Tidal, Solar and Wind might become replacements for oil and natural gas power plants, but there are many other things we use oil for. Not mentioning nuclear power plants and the development of fusion reactors. Tesla currently spearheads development of electric cars, but ships and airplanes still rely on oil and those are basically backbones of global trade and travel. I mentioned plastics, there are many different products for special uses, so there won't probably be replacements for all of them. Whole industrial branches might collapse. Other derivatives of crude oil are lubricants for machines and oils for cosmetics, can't replace those quickly and in the needed quantities I assume.

        I'd rather say both, water and oil, are legitimate concerns. Both have a big enough impact to threaten whole countries. It's interesting to see what's happening in California at the moment and I think it will set an example, although good or bad remains to be seen. We already had an example for what happens when a country faces the inability to supply industry and military with oil, it was a precursor to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, a piece in a plan to secure oil resources in southeast asia. Once countries see their existence threatened they'll go the length, the question is how far they have to be pushed first. I hope to watch from the sidelines and not from somewhere right in the middle.