But you can gasify coal and then turn it into fuel, as shown by the Germans during WW2.
The other sources of fossil fuel that are available are shale oils, (huge quantities) methane clathrates (enormous quantities) and 'shale gas' which was recently shown by the Americans to be commercially accessible now.(The US reckon they have enough shale gas for 100 years)
Methane can be turned into useful liquid fuels, for example the first incarnation of Shell V-Power diesel contained a significant proportion of synthetic derv.(I know this because both times I filled the tank with it, I got hopeless mpg figures.I e-mailed some expert at Shell and his reply was that the synthetic fuel had a lower density than 'normal' derv.Lower density equates to less weight per litre which leads directly to less enrgy per litre, hence the lower mpg)But it did work.
So, bearing in mind those other sources of gas and hence liquid fuel, I can't see us running out any time soon.Peak Oil, ie the peak production of crude oil may well be upon us, but consumption needn't fall any time soon.
Hence while the price might rise somewhat, our addiction is so strong that we will continue to burn ever increasing quantities.
Which is a problem if CO2 is heavily implicated in the greenhouse effect and GW.
All very expensive processes producing low quality fuel. Libya, on the other hand, produces the best on the planet - and we threw our much depleted military at it to secure it for our own needs.!
Consumption is in no fear of falling, demand in China and India combined will dwarf the greedy gas guzzling USA within 10 yrs. It is this demand that will cause friction between oil consuming states.
Err no. Pure eco-propaganda. No wonder greenies in general have so many problems with science and numbers when they can't even understand basic geography. The school party that got attacked by a polar bear recently was as far north as these bearded wonders ever got.
Our intrepid heroes actually visited the 1996 location of the magnetic north pole and even then they had to drag their boat over the ice for many days to get there. No big shock really; This was after all the same location that Top Gear drove to 4 years ago.
But then, they wouldn't have been physically able to drag their boat the 450 miles further north to the current magnetic north pole, let alone the 800 miles to the true north pole.
I notice too that they ditched the boat there and flew home from an old airstrip 11 miles away. How very green.
Apreciate I'm quoted and old post, but the data now points to a 95% confidence that the rises are not natural variation (previously the 95% hypothesis tests failed).
That's good (or bad) enough for me.
Source ?
Assuming that to be true, that still doesn't make global warming as a real problem (ie a rise of several deg) a fact - though of course it makes it a little more likely to be so.
BBC News - Global warming since 1995 'now significant'
Global warming since 1995
I'm so tempted to say 'Has he got his statistics right this time?'
And more importantly for this thread - how much of the rise (assuming it is statistically significant) - is man made ?
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
There your credibility gone right there.
It's natural and what we do may have a minimal speed up process, but dont like the government or media scare you and put you off spraying your aerosol is what I say.
Peak oil .. possibly already reached ... That simply means oil gets expensive and just keeps getting more expensive. In some processes it will be replaced by other fuels. SOme things become less/non viable (humvees, 8litre citycars, throaway plastic bags)
SHale oil Gas .. See fracking, and the damage its doing in america. Coming to Britain real soon, (hopefully better regulated).
Bio-Diesel (ethanol) .. well that didn't last long did it? Just long enough to secure the votes of the corn producing states for the encumbent president.
In Mad max, if Petrol was so scarce, why did they all drive V8 cars, data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7