A new use for solar power: pump oil

[auroraglacialis]

Re energy sources. Here is a quite sobre and not much romanticised or "smashing" analysis of potential energy sources and their problems:
Searching for a Miracle

And no, he is not saying that we all need to live in the stoneage but he is looking at a couple of problems with the way we use energy now and also at problems with some of the "miracle solutions"

Originally Posted by Human No More

I'm amazed you can say that. This is used for exisitng areas, and significantly reduces use of fossil fuel.

To be a bit polemic, but this is to "call upon satan to drive off the devil". If humans keep on destroying some places in order to fix the problems that were caused by the last destruction that is insanity - it is hoping for a different outcome of the same behaviour.
Also according to this, it would in terms of Avatar be completely ok for the RDA to mine all of Pandora because all that great mineral resources would be used to help reduce the inefficiency of Earths power and transport systems and thus significantly reduce the destruction on Earth. From the perspective of Earth (or in the real world from the perspective of the industrialized nations) this makes perfect sense. Its absolutely logical. From the standpoint of the NA'Vi, of Pandora, of indigenous people on Earth, of salmon, beaver, eagle, sturgeon, wolves and the 200 species that went extinct today alone it is injustice.
I thought that message of Avatar was as clear as it can be, that the solution to a problem is not to destroy someone elses place. That the wealth is not in the ground but all around us. I honestly do not understand - I do not want to just be offensive or trash your opinion or just be oppositional - I really no not understand how you, from all what I have read from you in the past 2 years, especially during the first year - how you can say this.

Without oil, the world would end. There's no way around that, and some kind of romanticised wishful thinking will not change that.

The "world" would end only for those who now benefit from its destruction. It would probably end for me. But it is not the world that would end, it is a way of life that would end. The way of life of one species on this planet. I think a lot of other species and even a lot of humans would indeed benefit from a world without oil - one way or another (by degrowing or by replacing it with something clean)

"I'm white therefore anything by someone who isn't is automatically good".

Wow, that is an entirely new one. I think most people actually have wuite the opposite opinion, that what our culture - which is predominantly white - is the pinnacle of evolution, the enlightened, reasonable civilization that will bring upon the great future. That brown peoples cultures are less important, that a few thousand indians who occupy a vast landscape ar not using the land to its potential and thus better are moved so that Exxon and Chevron and Rio Tinto and Union Carbide and all the others can move in and make proper use of the land for the benefit of the - again mostly white - people living in developed countries.

Originally Posted by Clarke

Meh, we can have the Singularity been and done in 100 years.

Ah yeah - the rapture for Nerds. Maybe we should stop looking for those stupid alternative energy sources and dont wast so many resources on preserving Nature, the well beeing of poor people, other species or our own löeisure and rather divert all energy and efforts to just making a messiah - ah a superintelligent computer that then can solve all the problems for us after the rapture - eh singularity...