No more petrol? [Archive] - Kiwi Biker forums

Dr Bob

23rd March 2005, 07:15

The problem is that natural oil reserves are disappearing and it is costing much more money to find oil. There will become diminishing marginal returns in the amount of energy that goes into finding new oil fields. Couple this with climate change and global warming and you have a problem. Alternatives are being researched. One good source in the future is 'grown' oil, using a type of algae that they are growing in ponds in a desert somewhere. Fossil fuels came from plant life, so it may be able to be recreated sustainably using the same. However, we may have to change to diesel bikes and spend our time on this forum discussing the merits of canola 35 over generic vegetable oil 31 at the pump.

muzz

23rd March 2005, 08:34

Just get the still going and brew your own alcohol/methenol. :ride: :apint: :2thumbsup

Ixion

23rd March 2005, 08:53

It seems we're going to run out of oil in the next few years. Dunno about you, but I think I'll start riding more ;)

http://www.oilcrash.com/

Thoughts anyone?

Yeah yeah. I've been hearing this for half a century now. There's enough oil in shale to last the world about a million years. And it can be synthesised from scratch . The Nazis did it in WWII and I imagine we've advanced a bit since then.

Only question is how much it costs , which comes doen to how much to we want to protect the profits of the oil companies.

Hitcher

23rd March 2005, 09:15

Don't believe everything you read on the Interweb -- including this...

bugjuice

23rd March 2005, 09:51

had wondered what would happen to bikes when all this crap kicks in.. or kicks out, depends how you look at it!

You hear all the car manufacturers designing hybrids, but what about bikes?!?! Can just imagine it being like I, Robot, where Will Smith gets out the Agusta (is it..??) after being stored away for years.. and it still started first time! good on it..

anyway, what would happen to us?!?!

Motu

23rd March 2005, 10:32

It's hopless,we are doomed,there won't be any motorcycles to ride...it's the end.

For those who realise the uselessness of continueing to ride motorcycles - at considerable cost to myself I will undertake the disposal of unwanted useless bikes,I will pick them up from your place for no charge...anywhere in the country.So don't hang yourself with your Nike shoelaces,help is at hand and I will remove the source of your desperation.

I am sitting at my phone,rubbing my hands in anticipation of your replies....

Motoracer

23rd March 2005, 10:43

Don't believe everything you read on the Interweb -- including this...

I second that!

Skunk

23rd March 2005, 10:58

You hear all the car manufacturers designing hybrids, but what about bikes?Help is at hand! Read this (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=9931)
Attached is a 1.18meg PDF of it.

James Deuce

23rd March 2005, 11:21

Help is at hand! Read this (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=9931)
Attached is a 1.18meg PDF of it.
It's crap, and I sincerely hope that they aren't going to market that POS to bikers. That would result in the mass storming of their corporate HQ, with some well deserved maimings dished out.

There's something ingenuous (and I mean naive) about a company proclaiming how marvelous a bike is that can only be refuelled at one service station in the UK, that has a top speed that probably takes a couple of years to reach some 20mph slower than the speed limit on a UK motorway.

Any alternatively fuelled motorcycle I am forced to buy will need to perform BETTER than my current motorcycle, otherwise what's the point? And if some pointy headed eco-freak tries to point out that I shouldn't be emotionally attached to "transport" he will need to install double glazing in his belly button so he can see where he's going after I stick the aforementioned streamlined cranium up his rectum.

Mr Skid

23rd March 2005, 11:23

For those who realise the uselessness of continueing to ride motorcycles - at considerable cost to myself I will undertake the disposal of unwanted useless bikes,I will pick them up from your place for no charge...anywhere in the country.So don't hang yourself with your Nike shoelaces,help is at hand and I will remove the source of your desperation.

...even sprotBikes? :spudwhat:

Motu

23rd March 2005, 11:37

...even sprotBikes? :spudwhat:

Admitidly some will go straight to landfill....but only the ugly ones,ok?

Mr Skid

23rd March 2005, 11:41

Admitidly some will go straight to landfill....but only the ugly ones,ok?

With all the motard conversions going on, I'm sure you could find some spare 21"/19" rims to fit the ugly ones..

Eurodave

23rd March 2005, 11:52

Just remember one thing

"A 2nd class ride is much better than a 1st class walk!!"

James Deuce

23rd March 2005, 12:03

Just remember one thing

"A 2nd class ride is much better than a 1st class walk!!"
No it's not.

inlinefour

23rd March 2005, 12:11

Don't believe everything you read on the Interweb -- including this...

too much propaganda and paranoia in the web...

Eurodave

23rd March 2005, 12:12

If, some time in the distant future, all that is available is the hydrogen powered "ENV" [& ,no doubt,its electric powered brothers] Id still sooner have one of them than take public transport or walk

James Deuce

23rd March 2005, 12:19

Storm

23rd March 2005, 12:53

I'd rather use light rail than be forced to ride some silent hybrid mountain bike.
What he said. If you're not going to do it properly, then dont do it at all
Nuff said

Skunk

23rd March 2005, 13:19

It's crap,

can only be refuelled at one service station in the UK,

that has a top speed that probably takes a couple of years to reach some 20mph slower than the speed limit on a UK motorway.

Any alternatively fuelled motorcycle I am forced to buy will need to perform BETTER than my current motorcycle, otherwise what's the point? 1. How good was the first car?
2. How many gas stations were there when they made the first car?
3. What was the performance of the first car?
Pointy head? Not me, but everything has to start somewhere eh? We didn't get the bikes we've got when the first one was built.
Thanks for biting... :shake:

James Deuce

23rd March 2005, 13:30

1. How good was the first car?
2. How many gas stations were there when they made the first car?
3. What was the performance of the first car?
Pointy head? Not me, but everything has to start somewhere eh? We didn't get the bikes we've got when the first one was built.
Thanks for biting... :shake:

You should see some of the emails I've sent "friends" who sent me that link.

I think that the points you raise are invalidated by the need to replace an existing infrastructure almost overnight in comparison to the way the current infrastructure has grown up over century or so. Also people's expectations of the capability of current personal transport are at odds with the capability of every proposed replacement for fossil fuelled vehicles I've seen. The only alternative is to ban personally owned transport, and establish a paradigm of on-demand tax payer funded "public" transport, fuelled by "alternative" methods and fixed to set routes.

Hitcher

23rd March 2005, 15:16

Those who watch Top Gear may recall Jeremy Clarkson's comments (in this Sunday's episode) about the relative fuel efficiency of trains versus cars on a per-person-moved basis. Entertaining, yes; but true? I presume he was referring to some British study. If anybody knows anything about this, I would be most interested to broaden my knowledge...

pete376403

23rd March 2005, 17:18

Yeah yeah. I've been hearing this for half a century now. There's enough oil in shale to last the world about a million years. And it can be synthesised from scratch . The Nazis did it in WWII and I imagine we've advanced a bit since then.

Only question is how much it costs , which comes doen to how much to we want to protect the profits of the oil companies.

It's true that there are large reserves of oil shale but the problem there is it takes more energy to extract the oil than is they get back. Pointless spending the energy from 2 barrels of oil to get one barrel back. Likewise oil can be synthesised from coal - Germany in WW II and more recently South Africa did it too, but it still takes more energy that they get back. It's not the $ cost as much as the energy cost.

Ixion

23rd March 2005, 17:21

It's true that there are large reserves of oil shale but the problem there is it takes more energy to extract the oil than is they get back. Pointless spending the energy from 2 barrels of oil to get one barrel back. Likewise oil can be synthesised from coal - Germany in WW II and more recently South Africa did it too, but it still takes more energy that they get back. It's not the $ cost as much as the energy cost.

<shrug>. So use nuke power to extract the oil. can't strap a nuke reactor on a bike, but can use the nuke power to make petrol.

Skunk

23rd March 2005, 19:16

people's expectationsI think those two words pretty much cover the whole "real" problem with getting any alternative working.

Indiana_Jones

23rd March 2005, 20:16

I wouldn't mind if there was no cars etc lol
Give me a chance to bring back old school man-of-war's :D
mmmmmmmm sexy, but no planes though :(
BUT THEN THE BATTLESHIPS SHALL RULE AGAIN!

-Indy

Skyryder

23rd March 2005, 20:58

This

Apparently, according to oil industry people and independent geologists, Hubbert's Peak has possibly already arrived with a plateau in global oil production this very year, midpoint peak by 2008 and terminal decline setting in from 2010. You may have noticed a growing number of stories about it but for those of you who don't know, peak oil occurs when half the oil in the ground around the world has been pumped out. From that moment on the remaining oil is harder to extract, so they pump water and natural gas into the oil field to maintain pressure as the production in barrels per day declines. Using more energy to pump it out and less of a flow means oil is more expensive to produce and there's increasingly less of it to go around. Or in other words, and it's just a simple geological fact, there's no more cheap oil.

From this http://www.energybulletin.net/729.html

Skyryder