What Happens when Oil Runs Out?

[eclipsenow]

Just to alter the direction a bit to address eclipsenow's issue about the use of crude oil and methane gas because of climate change... that's fake. Or at least there is no evidence for man made climate change. In actuality, the earth needs more carbon dioxide.

So you know better than nearly 200 years of physics around greenhouse gases? I mean, Joseph Fourier figured this out in the 1820's!

A few short video's that show CO2's heat trapping ability:-
Mythbusters ran a test that confirmed CO2 traps heat! 3 minutes

Watch the candle at 90 seconds in! The candle heat demonstration only goes for a minute. (The rest of the video is great, and demonstrates the accuracy of today's climate models).

 

[Abraxos]

So you know better than nearly 200 years of physics around greenhouse gases? I mean, Joseph Fourier figured this out in the 1820's!

A few short video's that show CO2's heat trapping ability:-
Mythbusters ran a test that confirmed CO2 traps heat! 3 minutes

Watch the candle at 90 seconds in! The candle heat demonstration only goes for a minute. (The rest of the video is great, and demonstrates the accuracy of today's climate models).

I don't think anyone disagrees with greenhouse effects, but we are talking about on a global scale; a open world system. The lower video you insisted I watch (I took the time to watch the videos and even snapped a graph out of it for future purposes) showed only a small sample of a statistic that does not accurately provide a reasonable amount of data to make any grand assumptions. Those statistics is cherry picking and made to look more alarming than it actually is.

 

[eclipsenow]

I don't think anyone disagrees with greenhouse effects, but we are talking about on a global scale; a open world system. The lower video you insisted I watch (I took the time to watch the videos and even snapped a graph out of it for future purposes) showed only a small sample of a statistic that does not accurately provide a reasonable amount of data to make any grand assumptions. Those statistics is cherry picking and made to look more alarming than it actually is.

Sorry, but this thread is about oil supply, and you still haven't answered my post proving that most oil is biological in origin. Even if some oil is generated through abiogenesis, it's not quantitative enough to refill the depleted oil wells we've already capped and left behind. It's not helping oil supply. There are enough climate denial threads on this forum, and I'm not interested in this subject being swamped by more of the same. The main point is that fossil fuels are slowly running out, and that the beginning of the end of fossil fuels starts when they peak and begin to decline, driving up prices and causing international tensions to boil over. We could also talk about how they create particulates when burned and kill about the same amount of people as 650 Chernobyl's a year. I only mentioned climate change in the event that we discovered economic means to get at all fossil fuels, because climate change is REAL SCIENCE, and we're driving it, and we've got to stop it. But if you want to deny that, please choose another thread to. I'm not interested in debating any "Trump-ism" in this thread.

 

[Abraxos]

Sorry, but this thread is about oil supply, and you still haven't answered my post proving that most oil is biological in origin. Even if some oil is generated through abiogenesis, it's not quantitative enough to refill the depleted oil wells we've already capped and left behind. It's not helping oil supply. There are enough climate denial threads on this forum, and I'm not interested in this subject being swamped by more of the same. The main point is that fossil fuels are slowly running out, and that the beginning of the end of fossil fuels starts when they peak and begin to decline, driving up prices and causing international tensions to boil over. We could also talk about how they create particulates when burned and kill about the same amount of people as 650 Chernobyl's a year. I only mentioned climate change in the event that we discovered economic means to get at all fossil fuels, because climate change is REAL SCIENCE, and we're driving it, and we've got to stop it. But if you want to deny that, please choose another thread to. I'm not interested in debating any "Trump-ism" in this thread.

Well we could go back, but it's clear despite the examples and reasoning's that Heissonear and I have provided, you're stuck in a weird place that really has nothing to do with the science or the examples. It's more of a psychological wall you have to deal with. If you really insist, then maybe some day.

Yes, climate changes, but there is absolutely no evidence that man are having any impact on the climate whatsoever.

 

[eclipsenow]

Well we could go back, but it's clear despite the examples and reasoning's that Heissonear and I have provided, you're stuck in a weird place that really has nothing to do with the science or the examples. It's more of a psychological wall you have to deal with. If you really insist, then maybe some day.

Yes, climate changes, but there is absolutely no evidence that man are having any impact on the climate whatsoever.

The peer-reviewed science shows that the vast majority of the oil we mine is biological in origin, and that human beings are responsible for adding the CO2 that is causing the climate change we are witnessing. CO2's demonstrable radiative forcing + mathematics +
CO2 isotopes confirming it's fossil CO2 that is building up in the atmosphere = anthropogenic climate change. We're witnessing the results!

But, as expected, your post contained no science, just denialist assertions. Also trying to Bulverise* me after failing to address to all the evidence for biological petroleum? Adding insult to forum injury, much? When you can bother posting with data to support your mere assertions (like a little kid blaming Batman for the writing on the mirror), get back to me. If you're just going to Bulverise, I'll remind you of the forum rules about character attacks.

Bulverism.
Lewis wrote about this in a 1941 essay[2][3] which was later expanded and published in The Socratic Digest under the title "Bulverism".[4][3] This was reprinted both in Undeceptions and the more recent anthology God in the Dock. He explains the origin of this term:[5]

You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.

In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

 

[Traveling teacher]

Sorry, but this thread is about oil supply, and you still haven't answered my post proving that most oil is biological in origin. Even if some oil is generated through abiogenesis, it's not quantitative enough to refill the depleted oil wells we've already capped and left behind. It's not helping oil supply. There are enough climate denial threads on this forum, and I'm not interested in this subject being swamped by more of the same. The main point is that fossil fuels are slowly running out, and that the beginning of the end of fossil fuels starts when they peak and begin to decline, driving up prices and causing international tensions to boil over. We could also talk about how they create particulates when burned and kill about the same amount of people as 650 Chernobyl's a year. I only mentioned climate change in the event that we discovered economic means to get at all fossil fuels, because climate change is REAL SCIENCE, and we're driving it, and we've got to stop it. But if you want to deny that, please choose another thread to. I'm not interested in debating any "Trump-ism" in this thread.

Many christian geologists believe the oil is from plant and animal decay from the FLOOD...
thus the term FOSSIL FUELS......

I have seen videos on this....
Goes something like this......the continental plates moved and collided and covered the vegetation and animal decay over the last 4500 years.......
Some of this FOSSIL FUEL IS TRAPED a few hundred to a 10000 feet under the earth....
Thus the early oil in America and other places was actually only a few feet to 100 feet under the ground...
So FOSSIL FUELS come from decayed vegetation and animals...

This would make since as if you get potatoes or grain and let it decompose you get alcohol.....
and you can actually get methane gas that will burn ....
or methanol that is used for HOT ROD racing....
or Ethanol that you see at the pump comes from Corn.....

 

[eclipsenow]

Hey Abraxas,
how about actually answering some data for once?

Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae.[57] Vast quantities of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms, mixing with sediments and being buried under anoxic conditions. As further layers settled to the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure build up in the lower regions. This process caused the organic matter to change, first into a waxy material known as kerogen, which is found in various oil shales around the world, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via a process known as catagenesis. Formation of petroleum occurs from hydrocarbon pyrolysis in a variety of mainly endothermic reactions at high temperature and/or pressure.[58]...
....An alternative mechanism was proposed by Russian scientists in the mid-1850s, the hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin, but this is contradicted by geological and geochemical evidence.[61] Abiogenic (formed by inorganic means) sources of oil have been found, but never in commercially profitable amounts. The controversy isn't over whether abiogenic oil reserves exist, said Larry Nation of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. The controversy is over how much they contribute to Earth's overall reserves and how much time and effort geologists should devote to seeking them out.[62]
Petroleum - Wikipedia​

Want to SEE IT!? Go to 14 minutes 30 seconds here. This is from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Crude, the incredibly journey of oil". You can watch a rain of algae falling to the sea floor.

This is significant because it shows that oil is not a finite resource (valuable if in short supply) but an inexhaustible and renewable resource that big oil corporations should never had been able to monopolize on.

Then why isn't it replenishing in existing wells, and why did Hubbert's 1956 prediction of American peak oil happen right on schedule in 1970, hey? Those wells just aren't filling up again, are they?

Algae raining down to the sea-floor is SUCH a well known phenomenon that some climate scientists have recommended fertilising the ocean with iron filings to try and stimulate more of it, so that the algae sequesters our excess CO2 on the ocean floor. Sorry, but you're on an extreme position here like "The Moon Landing was faked."

 

[eclipsenow]

It's just funny how HESS thinks expensive alternative oils like fracking have a future. In just a few years the oil glut will be so bad, conventional cheap oil will struggle to be produced economically, let alone fracking! This is from that last great bastion of Green-Left thinking Bloomberg! ;-)
The message: GET YOUR SUPER OUT OF OIL! Hess, don't say I didn't warn you. You've got 6 to 8 years to get your super right out of oil!

There's only a few years left before a massive, ever-increasing crash in the oil industry!

 

[doubtingmerle]

What drastic emergency measures will we face? I've compiled some of them here: what if we face a really
Sudden oil crisis

Thanks for sharing this. I see the coming oil shortages as a serious problem, and any attempt to make it better are certainly welcome. Here are my comments:

1. I don't see that you adequately responded to the problem that it takes energy to make alternate energy. Tom Murphy does an excellent job of explaining that problem at The Energy Trap | Do the Math . Energy is needed to make the alternates before we get the results from them. And we cannot just borrow energy like we borrow money. If energy is in short supply, and we decide then to divert a substantial portion of the available energy to make alternative energy devices, there will be less energy for immediate needs. So it is better to face that problem now, and build the alternative energy devices in advance.

2. Yes, sailing could be an important future option. But many people live far from coastal waters. And battery powered trucks are basically a dream.

3. I think instead of battery powered trucks, we might be better off to actually lay live rails on major highways. Yes, I know a live rail out in the open is dangerous, but desperate times call for desperate measure. We could lay live rails on the roads, with a gap every block for a crosswalk. If you cross where there isn't a crosswalk, well you won't do it again!

4. Car sharing is a big help. I visualize a world where you tell your computer you want to go grocery shopping sometime this afternoon, you select a timeslot it offers, and sure enough, at the time you selected, a robot car shows up at your door with a neighbor already onboard who is going the same place. When you are done shopping, another robot car picks you up, and picks up totes of groceries for people who ordered by computer. After stopping at the eye doctor and hardware store to pick up two other neighbors, the robot car takes you home. Computers could sync everything up so there are almost always multiple people in a car.

5. Motorcycles? I think a car with 2 people is more efficient than 2 motorcycles, so carpooling may be more effective.

6. Rickshaws? In towns, yes, but in suburbia, that is not going to work very well.

7. Trolley trucks? Ok, but I am not sure if we are going to install all those overhead lines. I think third rails may be more effective.

 

[Traveling teacher]

i think we as a nation today are in the best possible position for oil production we have been in since the 1960s......
We are producing as much or more oil as we ever have and there is an abundance of unfracked oil in the ground for the next 100 years.......
Oil is down half to 50$....gasoline is half at 2$

we are outproducing Saudi arabia as the #1 producer of oil and gas......
I believe we will start expoerting oil in the next few years...
i believe we already are exporting natural gas.......

 

[AV1611VET]

i think we as a nation today are in the best possible position for oil production we have been in since the 1960s......

Yup ... long live the Deepwater Horizon!

Oh ... wait ...

 

[eclipsenow]

Thanks for sharing this. I see the coming oil shortages as a serious problem, and any attempt to make it better are certainly welcome. Here are my comments:

1. I don't see that you adequately responded to the problem that it takes energy to make alternate energy. Tom Murphy does an excellent job of explaining that problem at The Energy Trap | Do the Math . Energy is needed to make the alternates before we get the results from them. And we cannot just borrow energy like we borrow money. If energy is in short supply, and we decide then to divert a substantial portion of the available energy to make alternative energy devices, there will be less energy for immediate needs. So it is better to face that problem now, and build the alternative energy devices in advance.​

It's just not a problem. Today's grid can charge 84% of the fleet, and this won't be 84% for quite a while yet!
Recharge

2. Yes, sailing could be an important future option. But many people live far from coastal waters. And battery powered trucks are basically a dream. ​

What figure did I quote on my blog? From the UN? How much of the world's population lives near the coast? HALF the world's population lives within 60km of the coast. Half. Supplies can be shipped around, and then CYCLED to HALF the world's population. What does that do? It takes pressure off the limited supplies of oil left for trucking while those inland learn to build or move or change their economies to adapt. In a war-time emergency, cultures can change: fast!
Battery trucks a dream? Not so! All intra-city trucking and buses and garbage collection can already be done by EV. But long haul trucking? I thought that was a dream as well, but apparently not so!
Elon is announcing long-distance heavy duty trucking in September, so I'm guessing that it's some form of fast-battery swap or multi-trailer battery system.

4. Car sharing is a big help. I visualize a world where you tell your computer you want to go grocery shopping sometime this afternoon, you select a timeslot it offers, and sure enough, at the time you selected, a robot car shows up at your door with a neighbor already onboard who is going the same place. When you are done shopping, another robot car picks you up, and picks up totes of groceries for people who ordered by computer. After stopping at the eye doctor and hardware store to pick up two other neighbors, the robot car takes you home. Computers could sync everything up so there are almost always multiple people in a car. ​

Yeah, the possibilities are endless!

5. Motorcycles? I think a car with 2 people is more efficient than 2 motorcycles, so carpooling may be more effective.​

You might want to check the math on that. And don't forget, electric bicycles are a thing as well.

6. Rickshaws? In towns, yes, but in suburbia, that is not going to work very well.​

It depends what we're talking about. As economic circumstances change, people change careers. In a REAL oil emergency, I imagine people converting vast McMansions into the local corner store, bike repair shop, all sorts of things! The EV trucks would deliver orders to the local corner store, which locals would then collect by walking their granny trolley, riding their bike, or catching a rickshaw. It's about pooling resources at the local level, and whole systems of distribution can change overnight if necessary!

7. Trolley trucks? Ok, but I am not sure if we are going to install all those overhead lines. I think third rails may be more effective.

Depends what we're talking about. Mines run predictable routes so it might be cheaper there, and more effective. I didn't recommend it for suburbia, but trolley-buses are vastly cheaper and faster to install than trams, by nearly 5 times!

By choosing the cheaper trolleybus over tram or metro, Quito could develop a much larger network in a shorter time. The capital investment of the 19 kilometre line was less than 60 million dollar – hardly sufficient to build 4 kilometres of tram line (source), or about 1 kilometre of metro line (source). Lower investment costs also mean lower ticket fares, and thus more passengers.

Furthermore, the system is well devised (pdf). There is only one ticket fare, payment happens in the station, not on the bus. Stops are comfortable and built to get fast in and out of the bus, there are very good connections with other lines (sometimes via the same stop), and thanks to the exclusive lanes and (at some crossroads) automatically controlled traffic lights the system is extremely reliable. In Quito, the bus always arrives on time.


Get wired (again): Trolleybuses and Trolleytrucks

​

But all of this is irrelevant. See my previous post about Bloomberg's EV analysis. I'm with them. My bet is that we'll see an oil glut and expensive fracking companies and Russia going bankrupt in the 2020's.

 

[eclipsenow]

We are producing as much or more oil as we ever have and there is an abundance of unfracked oil in the ground for the next 100 years.......
Oil is down half to 50$....gasoline is half at 2$

You know nothing about how fast fracked fields peak and deplete. They have a lifetime of about 2 years. But given the rise of EV's, the world oil market will be in a permanent and worsening state of over-supply crisis starting around 6 to 8 years.

Get your super out of oil! The once unstoppable force of international oil corporations are peaking and starting their inevitable decline in the 2020's. Remember the graph above with EV's displacing oil will only increase exponentially faster as robot-ev's are sold. These will drive you to work, then go take super-cheap robot-uber fares during the day, earning you money! They'll be so cheap to hire, many people won't have to buy cars ever again, displacing not only oil, but the car-market itself! Robot-ubers = peak car = end of oil faster than anyone could imagine. When 1 robot car displaces 10 to 30 ordinary oil cars, the end of oil could be only 2 decades away.

This graph is based on NORMAL cars.
When robot cars come in around 2025, it will go vertical in terms of how much oil is displaced.

 

[Traveling teacher]

here is a chart through 2016...on historical production and price........
U.S. Crude Oil Production - Historical Chart

I believe we are at top oil production and # 2 behind russia.....
also the price for oil settles normally around 40-50$......
with 8-10 year spikes in the 1970s and 2004-2012

with the oil structure already set up for fracking and oil pipelines we are in good shape....
When you are fracking wells at almost 99% chance of hitting oil and getting 10-20 times as much oil per well...we are looking good.......
Everyone thought that we were in for another bust in Texas with oil going down to 50$
while this did happen to some extent oil production has not really slowed........

The reports I am hearing is that fracking costs about 20% of what it used to cost 10 years ago............
trump signed the canadian oil pipeline keystone...which will help

The only thing that could change our oil production is a severe drop in price down to 30$....but I dont see that happening as a long term trend

This could increase if oil climbs to 70+$per barrel...but i dont see this happening either.

we are currently adding 1million bpd for the last 4 years....
if this trend continues we will be completely oil independent in 5-10 years and will be an exporter of oil as russia and arabia are now........

that would be going from 9 million bpd up to around 13 milion bpd...
we consume 18 million but mexico and canada produce around 5 million....
so in reaity we could be N America only at around 12 million...
that is easily achievable in a few years......
no more arabian oil!!!!!!

yes we need alternative resources for gasoline deisel powered cars and trucks....
but I dont see any major breakthroughs here either......
Natural gas vehicles have severe costs and infrastructure for fueling....
and then yoyu have explosive gas...if you have ever lit a propane burner you know...
and electric cars have been around since the 1880s as Edison and Ford were both working on electic cars around 1900..........

also electric cars cannot get passed the limitations of distance and time to refuel....
i just dont see them recharging a car in 5 minutes.....
I get impatient at the pump if it goes slow and takes over 2 minutes.....

you could go to FUEL CELL technology........
but this is years away ....and the costs of infrastructure is really high......
also I believe the stations cost around 1Million$ vs the 300,000$ for gas stations....

In short unless oil goes back to 100$ per barrel and gas goes up to 5$ i dont believe any of these alternative fuels are gonna be cost productive...
also if oil goes to 100$ pb then them ruffneckers in West Texas will git them oil wells fracked and pumping again.........

 

[eclipsenow]

here is a chart through 2016...on historical production and price........
U.S. Crude Oil Production - Historical Chart

No one is debating that the turn around is amazing. But the question Merle and I are asking is how long can it last? Your topmost graph seems to indicate 2015 was a peak.

also the price for oil settles normally around 40-50$......

There's no 'normal' when a resource starts to run down. Saudi Arabia opened the valves to try and bankrupt all the overseas competition, that's why there's a market glut and the price has crashed. They didn't like the North American response when the price rose and it stimulated all those fracking fields. So they opened the valves and crashed the price.

with the oil structure already set up for fracking and oil pipelines we are in good shape....

Except that it's a world price and they're going to have trouble staying competitive.

When you are fracking wells at almost 99% chance of hitting oil and getting 10-20 times as much oil per well...we are looking good.......

Please justify 10-20 times as much oil with some data. Are you talking 10-20 times as much per tiny dribble of conventional oil left, in which case I'd probably agree that fracking extends the life of a DEAD well by about 1 to 2 years? Or are you saying 10-20 times as much oil as the original well?

Everyone thought that we were in for another bust in Texas with oil going down to 50$
while this did happen to some extent oil production has not really slowed........

As I said above, the EV's are in the quiet phase of slowly ramping up exponential growth. In 6 to 8 years there will be 2 million barrels surplus, and after that as robot-uber cars start replacing 10 cars for every robot-uber, the oil market will collapse.
Get your super out of oil!

The reports I am hearing is that fracking costs about 20% of what it used to cost 10 years ago............
trump signed the canadian oil pipeline keystone...which will help

There are certain laws of thermodynamics at play here. Please explain how they did that and where you got that from?

The only thing that could change our oil production is a severe drop in price down to 30$....but I dont see that happening as a long term trend

Oh, so Tesla motors doesn't exist? GM did not put half a billion into robot-cars? It sounds like you're talking about a 'long term trend' on a planet that doesn't have these things!

we are currently adding 1million bpd for the last 4 years....

Yup, and found that fields only have a 1 to 2 year lifespan in that process. Try reading the National Geographic article I linked to.

if this trend continues we will be completely oil independent in 5-10 years and will be an exporter of oil as russia and arabia are now........

1. Fracking fields die
2. I can hypothesise on trends all I want on a spreadsheet, doesn't mean it's going to happen in the real world of thermodynamics and engineering realities
3. Tesla, GM, robot-cars, etc. Who are you going to SELL to as the world goes electric!?

that would be going from 9 million bpd up to around 13 milion bpd...
we consume 18 million but mexico and canada produce around 5 million....
so in reaity we could be N America only at around 12 million...
that is easily achievable in a few years......
no more arabian oil!!!!!!

No more American oil either.

yes we need alternative resources for gasoline deisel powered cars and trucks....
but I dont see any major breakthroughs here either......

1. EV's.
2. Robot-ev's that will become super-cheap taxi-cabs that replace 10 ordinary cars
3. Elon Musk announces electric long haul trucking in September

Natural gas vehicles have severe costs and infrastructure for fueling....
and then yoyu have explosive gas...if you have ever lit a propane burner you know...
and electric cars have been around since the 1880s as Edison and Ford were both working on electic cars around 1900..........

Natural gas is a fossil fuel and should be banned under climate legislation.

also electric cars cannot get passed the limitations of distance and time to refuel....
i just dont see them recharging a car in 5 minutes.....
I get impatient at the pump if it goes slow and takes over 2 minutes.....

1. EV's can have battery swaps that are twice as fast as pumping petroleum.
2. In 5 years you may never have to worry about all that car maintenance and car charging stuff ever again. The car will drop you off in the loading bay, and drive off to charge itself. And you won't care. It won't be your car!

you could go to FUEL CELL technology........
but this is years away ....and the costs of infrastructure is really high......
also I believe the stations cost around 1Million$ vs the 300,000$ for gas stations....

EV's!

 

[eclipsenow]

As NBF reports:-
GM President Dan Ammann believes transportation will change more in the next five years than it did in the last fifty years.
General Motors is investing $500 million and partnering with Lyft
Ford is partnering with Google
Consortium of German auto makers bought Nokia’s mapping assets
Uber partnered with Carnegie Mellon robotics department and hired 50 of them into the company
Tesla activated advanced driver assist and plans to technically have self driving cars safer than human driving within two years
Toyota will activate data gathering on all of its cars to improve its self driving software by 2020

As I have said many times, this is an arms race. It's the 'creative destruction' of the free market economy, the race to be part of the ever diminishing car pie as the marketplace inevitably kills of 'car-as-product' and moves into 'transport-as-service'. Half a billion dollars investment in Lyft by GM? This war is on.

Then, as I showed above, this can only accelerate the decline of oil as 1 electric robot-car displaces the need for 10 ordinary oil cars.

Big oil is dead, long live the EV!

 

[eclipsenow]

The National News: 10 minutes: everything I've been saying about robot cars.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The National News: 10 minutes: everything I've been saying about robot cars.

Very cool, but it also makes me nervous. It would be very hard to accept riding in a car that had no steering wheel.

 

[eclipsenow]

Very cool, but it also makes me nervous. It would be very hard to accept riding in a car that had no steering wheel.

Once upon a time it was hard for factory managers to accept robotic arms making cars, before that it was hard to accept a 'carriage without a horse', before that it was hard to accept getting on a fast-moving train, and before that it was hard to accept that little "tiny critters" made us sick. (Germs). We learn and adapt.

The irony is that if, as the video claims, we can reclaim (off car parks etc) and redevelop a THIRD of most cities into residential & commercial, it might raise density to the point that more rail is required!

 

[doubtingmerle]

Once upon a time it was hard for factory managers to accept robotic arms making cars, before that it was hard to accept a 'carriage without a horse', before that it was hard to accept getting on a fast-moving train, and before that it was hard to accept that little "tiny critters" made us sick. (Germs). We learn and adapt.

The irony is that if, as the video claims, we can reclaim (off car parks etc) and redevelop a THIRD of most cities into residential & commercial, it might raise density to the point that more rail is required!

Yes, I never thought about the parking advantage. That would be big in a city. Computers could make sure there is always at least 2 cars waiting per block on each street, and you just call a car or walk to it when you need it.

You could even outlaw private cars in a whole city. If you want to drive in to the city, you park at a lot outside of town, and take a robot car wherever you need to go. Most people would like that.

And you probably only need parking on one side of every street. Instead of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, we could be tearing down the parking lots, and putting up a paradise.

And traffic would be much more efficient. Central computers could group the cars in slugs that all go through the light at the same time. One could even imagine a scenario that if forty cars are going north on the main road and I was going east, my car would time itself for a gap. Everybody goes through the intersection without stopping, but the slug of 40 cars breaks in the middle as it approaches the intersection so my car can fly right though. I would see cars fly in front of me going north, then I would fly through the intersection going east, followed immediately by other cars in the intersection going north. Quite unnerving at first, but I'm sure there was a time when people said the same thing about getting on an airplane and flying to another city.