The energy crisis and you

[Stormy]

I think I have already asked this before, but I'd like to narrow down my approach. Wether or not you believe that some secretive scientific genius corporation is going to save us all from the impending downfall of cheap energy or if you believe (as I do) that the energy crisis will not be resolved in time for us to sustain our ludicrously comfortable lives, or even moreso, you're waiting for the downfall to a mad max/Frontlines fuel of war style resource war and subsequent post apocalyptic landscape, the rising energy prices are, or will be, affecting you.

My question is this: How do you see this affecting the future of games? Is it even worth pursuing all this education when it is highly likely that in the next 10 years, energy will be too expensive to support a PC in every home? Or will it?

The way I see it, there are plenty of ways to generate electricity that require little fossil fuel interaction. The problem is that in order to set them up they require enourmous amounts of fossil fuel "capital". For instance Geothermic energy could last forever in theory, and would not require (relatively) much fossil fuel interaction once in progress, but lots to set up, taking into account manufacture, transport and construction requirements. The same can be said for solar. Sure it's sustainable, but the sustenance takes unsustainable resources, as well as the initial manufacture.

The oil is going to run out, wether in 2 years or 20, there's no logic in denying it. And the loss of oil is going to mean the loss of manufacturable plastics, therefore components, loss of transport, therefore stock, and therefore loss of replenishable computers. Computers as a form of mass entertainment are going to become unviable due to prices skyrocketing. Bu while the oil will run out, electricity doesn't necessarily have to. Will computers still be a viable form of entertainment? What will people do to entertain themselves that will require us to model, code and design games? What will we do?

I know what I'll do for now. Keep going. Because fuck it, I enjoy the shit out of making games so why embrace the impending downfall? I'll keep a cautious eye on the state of things and make my own version of preparations, but I'll only stop making games when it's absolutely necessary.

What about all you guys? Do you think that digital entertainment is sustainable? Do you fully expect humanity to be making games for generations to come? Do you bury your head in the sand and subscribe to the "they" mentality? ("Oh they'll think of something" "No they won't let that happen to us" Who the fuck are "they"?) Do you ever even think about this shit?

[Gary]

Really, only thing energy-wise in the U.S. we got to worry about is running out of coal. Which I doubt will happen in our lifetime.


And if the cost of energy goes up, I'll just cut down some trees around me and make a wood-gas electricity generator.


Though, the oil in plastics is a valid problem. But there are possible biological solutions for that. Though I'm not sure of the details, so I won't discuss to much further without more researching some more first.

[nub]

We need a fully isolated perpetual machine.

[Stormy]

It's not the running out of coal that is the problem, it's the transport of it and the fuels needed for machinery to excavate it. I work in a metal mine. This place is saturated in diesel, and there is no way that it could ever operate without fossil fuels. Sure there will be heaps of coal, but there is no way to get it out in volumes that we need. It's also the transport industry. Say we found an alterantive measure to get the stuff out of the ground, we still need to get it to market and to consumers in a post-oil world. Trucks could not operate, maglev trains are the only alternative I can think of, and I have no idea about the capabilities there, but the infrastructure for them is not in place and to replace all the existing infrastructure, or to build new, would cost amazing amounts of fossil fuels.

It's not just the energy we get from the oil, it's the functionalities we'll lose when it runs out. They'll affect the rest of the system in devastating ways. I ate a kiwi fruit from italy the other day, and I was in cloncurry, aus. Google maps that shit so you understand me here. Do you realise how ridiculous it is that I was able to eat soft fruit from Italy that was still fresh? That's the kind of stupid shit we can do with oil, and the kind of stuff that is just not going to happen anymore when we run out.

[zombie@computer]

we will never run out of oil. It'll just become really, really, really, really, really, really, really expensive. Up tot he point where its too expensive to extract.

Anyway, most of our dependence on oil stems from the fact that its cheap and easy to get. Take that away and the next best thing will arise. Its not a matter of 'if', its a matter of 'when'.

Electric trucks and boats were never viable because batteries weren't that powerful and electric motors not that efficient. Why use electric motors with all their limitations when you can use cheap oil? Just store it in a watertight tank it'll last forever.
Things are slowly changing. Would you have guessed ten years ago we'd have as many electric cars as we do now? It's just a matter of time before ships become fully electric as well. A lot of larger ships are more or less hybrid already (diesel engine powering generator powering electric motors). Diesel trains often use generators and electric motors as well. Face it, electric motors are here to stay, and changing their power source is relatively easy.

The last problem we need to face is not how to get around without oil, its 'how to get all that energy' without oil. I'm not going to underestimate the problem: This is, without a doubt, the most important revolution mankind is going to have to make before he starts his travels among the stars. 'Unlimited' power means unlimited life.

On the short run i see two alternatives
1) Nuclear. If people weren't such pussies, nuclear would be cheaper, safer and more advanced. The only way you can improve technology is by using it and have it blow up in your face. Doesn't have to be uranium, can also be the much safer and abundant thorium.
2) Wind, water, solar, geothermal, tidal... Not extremely viable, but, well, what other options are there?
3) Coal. If we have to.

On the long term we just wait until fusion kicks in. But again, not likely in our lifetime. I'm not considering bio-oil simply because we need the room to feed western fatties.

Computers are the most important objects in a household nowadays, more important than radio or television. They are (becoming) our primary means for communication, knowledge, even work. More efficient power usage will happen as well. Why would computers, of all things, be a problem in terms of power usage?
I think the biggest problem is running out of the rare earth minerals required to bake the chips.

[Gary]

It's not just the energy we get from the oil, it's the functionalities we'll lose when it runs out. They'll affect the rest of the system in devastating ways. .

You got a point there... Without oil... I honestly can't see everything(trucks, ships, mining equipment) go over to batteries with current tech. Doesn't seem logical. Batteries are great for lightweight cars and short trips, not heavy ass trucks traveling cross country.

I still wonder if hydrogen can be a practical energy storage medium. You could even make the stuff with nuclear. I would have to look into this more...

1) Nuclear. If people weren't such pussies, nuclear would be cheaper, safer and more advanced. The only way you can improve technology is by using it and have it blow up in your face. Doesn't have to be uranium, can also be the much safer and abundant thorium.

No, we need an energy source that is: free, unlimited, and safe for both us and the trees. It should also make me coffee and drive me to work.

We will accept nothing less.

On the long term we just wait until fusion kicks in. But again, not likely in our lifetime. I'm not considering bio-oil simply because we need the room to feed western fatties.

I'm looking forward to fusion. But I also fear it's not in our lifetime. And what do you mean by "feed western fatties"?

Computers are the most important objects in a household nowadays, more important than radio or television. They are (becoming) our primary means for communication, knowledge, even work. More efficient power usage will happen as well. Why would computers, of all things, be a problem in terms of power usage?

Yeah, if anything, computers will be used more. Why waste power on a monitor that can only watch TV? Or waste the fuel to drive to the library that only contains a limited amount of information. A computer can do all those things and more. Hell, if you only need to do those things, you could get a super simple power efficient computer. Only playing games and creating content really requires power.



I bet there could be a bioengineering solution to this... biological organisms can be rather impressive. Shit, termites can produce up to two litres of hydrogen from digesting a single sheet of paper[src].

[Jordash]

I think you're being a bit paranoid, you'll I challenge you to find one educated person who thinks there is a secretive scientific genius corporation which will save the world, or that they believe there will be a resource war at the scale you suggested. I'm not saying there isn't a problem, just that the oil shortage and its consequences are not as bad as you seem to think, the world will not fall apart over night. Humans are very adaptable, 'they' will still function if oil becomes super expensive.

PS. You can run a laptop off a bicycle generator, how else will people get porn post apocalypse?

[Major Banter]

The fact of the matter is that we're in the start of a resource crisis. This is a very important distinction to make. Our energy levels are not critical; rather, the way we get hold of that energy is in jeopardy. At the moment, the key resource is oil and has been for the past 60/70 years or so since the advent of widespread petrol and kerosene use.

The big question surrounding all of this is a lot grimmer than whether we can supply our computers with energy - we're humans, we'll manage it somehow because we just can. The bigger worry is whether we'll be able to do anything at all.

Many societies and civilisations in the past have collapsed and died because they ran out of something. Be it water, military capability or civil stability. The aforementioned question is whether oil is going to be our end. Are we advanced enough to work past the strict confines that we've placed on the functioning of everything, from cars to plastics to electricity? That's a question only time will tell.

We've depended on fossil fuels, as Z@C says, because they're easy and dependable, and there's still plenty in more difficult to access reserves. The UK coal mines were shut down because the coal was easier to extract elsewhere - there's still enough in the UK to keep our nation running for a few decades or more. What we need is a massive push towards nuclear power and sustainable materials. I am absolute sure that we can sustain 11b people on our planet - which according to the UN is going to be the peak population. However, it will take hard work and a lot of overriding the public opinion, and while the general populace - you and me - won't be affected too much, the top 10% are going to have to see their fortunes crash.

If that doesn't happen, we're all fucked in the long term.

If you can get everybody's main grids onto semi-sustainable power such as nuclear fission, then that'll free up fossil fuels to be used for a long, long time in the future. The sad inevitability however is that we as a people will stand against that and switch to nuclear far too late, eliminating the possibility of getting a few centuries out of our remaining oil rather than a few years.

[Ich 666]

1) Nuclear. If people weren't such pussies, nuclear would be cheaper, safer and more advanced. The only way you can improve technology is by using it and have it blow up in your face. Doesn't have to be uranium, can also be the much safer and abundant thorium.

Yeah, of course everyone should stop being a pussy, because theres no chance EVER that a reactor will blow up and destroy peoples lives. And really, if people werent such pussies they wouldnt whine if a reactor blew up in their faces, because "Thats the only way to improve technology!". Yeah, by using it and have it blow up in your face...

Not only do i think that everyone of you nuclear fanatics would suddenly get rid of their appreciation for nuclear energy if they had an incident in a NPP neaby, also do i find nuclear energy a thing of the past. There was a reason Germany shut down their power plants, namely because theres always a huge risk involved, even in a highly technological advanced country like Germany. There were a lot of incidents here, in particular with the cooling systems also there were several incidents, in which the emergency shutdown didnt work right. Also theres always the risk of human failure.

Furthermore there isnt much research on how the people living around a NPP are affected by the radiation there, for example around the NPP Krümmel a significantly increased occurance of Leukemia, especially with children, was registered.

Saying "nuclear energy is secure, if nobody makes a mistake" is much like saying "communism is superior in every way, it was just never executed properly". Accidents happened and we should learn from the past.

[Major Banter]

Actually, it's a sense of ignorance and misunderstanding.

Let's take some facts and figures instead of speculation.

Benjamin K. Sovacool has reported that worldwide there have been 99 accidents at nuclear power plants.[5] Fifty-seven accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and 57% (56 out of 99) of all nuclear-related accidents have occurred in the USA.[5] Serious nuclear power plant accidents include the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), Chernobyl disaster (1986), Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the SL-1 accident (1961).[6] Stuart Arm states, "apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident."[7]

[Wikipedia]

Now let's look at similar oil extraction incident figures.

The nature of their operation — extraction of volatile substances sometimes under extreme pressure in a hostile environment — means risk; accidents and tragedies occur regularly.[12] The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010.[13] In July 1988, 167 people died when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha offshore production platform, on the Piper field in the UK sector of the North Sea, exploded after a gas leak.

[Wikipedia]

Note the short time spans, the specific locations - expand this to worldwide and I think you'll have some pretty horrendous reading.

Obviously we have the case of 'scaling up'; if nuclear energy was as popular as oil, then no doubt accident numbers would increase. However, if a nuclear power station can survive a tsunami and have zero deaths and questionable amounts of contamination...well, clearly something's wrong with the public perception rather than the things themselves. We don't understand radiation, so we shy away from it.

As for environmental hazards, I'd say the average oil spill is a far greater ecological disaster than a nuclear accident, and the probability of a nuclear accident post-Three Mile Island is miniscule. Oil? Several accidents per year, and a cumulative effect on the climate.

We understand oil and we depend on oil, and we're used to these accidents. That's all there is to it. If you can present me a more viable alternative I'll go with it, but nuclear energy is, to use another political analogy, like democracy. "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time", and there is no doubt that while nuclear energy is dangerous and questionable, it's the least worst of a bad bunch.

[skoften]

Nuclear waste bro

[Menno21]

Fuck Nuclear power!! Its expensive, low rendable and above all, dangerous for world living & nature.
Only positive about it, its cost no fuels to create electricity.
But for some examples what happened in Chernobyl and Fukushima!and what people can do with nuclear atomb bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki!, living stops there of over 10.000 years! ( chernobyl and fukushima, human life is just nog possible anymore for many years )
Its the worst human science ever!, people destroy the world with this shit! cause its a chemical shit dosed with radioactivity what only can destroy, there is nothing positive about it, nuclear was all a big experiment in the years of 80, what caused nothing more then accidents in the past (last big disaster 2011). Till now they still dont have good solutions to make this systems 100% safe for continious running. Systems are not stable enough and all can happen again if there will not be take caution of it!, so till its not safe enough! I say stop this shit! dont mess with stuff we dont have full control of it! There are enough other sources to create electricity! this is not ment to be a greenpeace activist cause I am total not!

And same what Ich 666 said:

Furthermore there isnt much research on how the people living around a NPP are affected by the radiation there, for example around the NPP Krümmel a significantly increased occurance of Leukemia, especially with children, was registered.

Saying "nuclear energy is secure, if nobody makes a mistake" is much like saying "communism is superior in every way, it was just never executed properly". Accidents happened and we should learn from the past

There is alot of other ways to create energy, there is still alot of oil deep in earth grounds for at least 300-400 years more so we are safe with that! we can use steamplants driving turbines! and what about green electricity, it is upcomming also! plans to make a solar panel field in the Sahara, what can provide whole england + France of electricity. What about 60 years from now? I think new and better systems are be found, and made realistic! So I think we dont need to worry about a energy crisis! if one source is empty a other will be rice! only work loss, and many people fired! thats the problem!

[zombie@computer]

Lol yeah, hiroshima and nagasaki are inhabitable wastelands... Newsflash: more japs live there now than 50 years ago!

As for chernobyl, fukyoushima: Both reactors were older than i am. Stating that safety has increased in those 28+ years would be an understatement. Comparing the safety of modern reactors to these reactors is stupid.

Yeah, there are risks. But we've been facing risks ever since the first fire was made. Or would you agree that we should have never starting making fire, because FIRE BAD! FIRE PAIN! FIRE DEAD! NO! Denying technology because of simple risks goes against everything humankind stands for. Go live with the monkeys in the zoo if thats the life you want for the rest of us.

As for waste: Modern (read MODERN) plants can use even low-radioactive material. The huge amounts of waste are aren't that large anymore but still, i agree... a large problem. That is why i suggest thorium breeder reactors, which produce lots less, are cheaper, safer etc. At least a more viable solution than say, wind or solar on a large scale. Unfortunately nuclear power is stigmatised and that, is probably its largest problem at the moment...

Im not trying to advocate nuclear power. Honestly. I know more about it than the average joe, but thats about it. Whether or not the risks are too big, i dont know. What pains me, however, is that 99.9% of the worlds population has an opinion about (well, in my view) such a cool technique, without adequate knowledge whatsoever. I cant decide if its safe to use or not, noone on this forum can. Thinking you can just prooves how little you know. However, if we get our info from the media, all we get to hear is:

chernobyl + fukushima = nuclear shouldnt have happened.

if only objective information of nuclear power existed. somewhere. Perhaps someone could convince me otherwise. Until then im just simply gonna be pro-everything greepeace is against. Love coal, love nuclear, love killing whales for science.

[skoften]

why is this in game development?

[Stormy]

Because I originally wanted to get peoples opinions on the effect it would have on us pursuing our long term goals in game development. It's hard to keep a discussion like this on track without finding compelling tangents though, so just enjoy the reading.

Menno, you come across in that post as someone who has not actually researched your subject. That response is exactly what I receive when talking to anyone who is uneducated about nuclear power. Try to see past the media, they are selling stories, not facts. Have a look at some statistical data and try to analyse it logically. You can't compare the state of Chernobyl before it went critical to the state of modern plants and the safety regulations thereof. As for fukushima, I haven't really looked into it, but who could possibly predict a tsunami forty years before the event? (according to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant]wikipedia[url] it was first commissioned in 1971) Freak accidents aren't a logical basis for risk measurement.

I don't have any doubts that electricity will continue to be generated, whether nuclear or other, because there are so many options for doing so. It's the lack of logistical support that will cause the downfall. We won't be able to have products made in another country because the logistics of getting the product around the world will be ludicrously expensive. Electric motors are fine for small implementations like personal cars and small goods transport, but the nature of the technology means that it is difficult to get the necessary amount of torque and power needed to transport heavy loads large distances. While this means that our computers may be more expensive, we'll still pay the money because we love doing what we do, but will the general populace continue to buy components purely for entertainment? It seems like discretional spending to me. This will make our hobbies (and for me, career goals) obsolete, since the customer base won't be there to provide profit. Not to mention the extra costs associated with getting our product into the consumers hands.

I wonder at the timeline for this change. I'm lucky to live in a country that is disgustingly rich, and I know most lopers are as well, but that just means that when the crunch comes, we will be even less ready for it, and will take it extremely ingraciously. The bigger they are the harder they fall. So how long will we be able to look forward to years and years of blissful modelling/mapping/coding in the pursuit of game development? I have my own ideas for how it will happen here but I'm interested to see what other people think.