From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Re: Running out of oil ->NEVER<-
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 22:46:10 GMT

Paul Houle argues that technological progress doesn't always live up to
one's expectations, and uses the speed of the objects man builds as an
example of technology failing to meet the expectations of people (namely,
in this case, Buckminster Fuller).  He points out that, in his example,
the speed of an object cannot be made greater than that of the speed of
light, even though Buckminster Fuller's predictions indicate that we should
break the lightspeed barrier in about 2020.

I do not know whether Buckminster Fuller expected us to break the lightspeed
barrier, but if he did, he must not have been as aware of the laws of
physics as he should be in order for his predictions to be taken seriously.
At the time he made his predictions, special relativity was well-known.

Predictions, whether they are of gloom and doom (e.g., we're going to run
out of oil in X years) or of progress (e.g., we'll continue to increase the
speed of travel at an exponential rate), are based on sets of assumptions.
If the prediction itself is based on solid science, it is probably going to
be correct.  This holds both for the technological progress predictions and
the gloom and doom predictions.

In the course of history, much of our technological progress has been made
in spite of predictions of gloom and doom.  The reason for this is not that
the predictions themselves were based on bad science or anything (though
that may be the case for some of them), but that the assumptions upon which
the predictions were based became invalid.  Indeed, I think that one can
argue quite strongly that much of our technological progress is the result
of finding ways around existing assumptions.  Sometimes this is the result
of discovering new "laws of the universe", e.g. quantum mechanics.  This
doesn't happen very often, however, so I think that in most cases, tech-
nological progress is the result of finding new ways to use known laws.

In the speed example that Paul refers to, he points out, quite correctly,
that our current knowledge indicates that the speed of light is a hard
barrier.  The prediction that we will be unable to go faster than light
is very different in nature than the prediction that we will be able to
go faster than sound.  The former is based on some very fundamental
physics.  The latter was based more on experience ("we've never done it
before, and it's a hard problem, so we have no reason to believe that it
can be done") than anything else.  While the primary reason that we have
confidence in the physics upon which the lightspeed barrier is based is
that we have a great deal of experience with it, our confidence in it is
based on not just our experience with its lightspeed-barrier predictions,
but also on its other predictions (e.g., extended particle decay times
when the particles are at speed).

Even so, Paul points out that our progress in increasing speed is not
exponential as was originally predicted.  He is quite right about this,
but it is very important to know *why* this is the case.

The reason, of course, is primarily economics.  The primary reason we
saw such a fabulous increase in the speed of aircraft was war: we needed
fighter aircraft (or so we thought) which could move faster than the
fighter aircraft of the enemy.  As a result, we spent a great deal of
money developing ways to move aircraft faster.  This was true during
both "hot" wars, like World War II and Korea, and the Cold War with the
(now defunct) Soviet Union.

However, the military has discovered that, beyond a certain point, speed
in a fighter doesn't buy you much, and that you tend to lose maneuverability
as a result.  Thus, after VietNam, the military concentrated on fighter
aircraft that could maneuver, and the result is what we have today: aircraft
like the F-16 and the F-18.  Currently the military is looking for aircraft
which are hard to see, even electronically, and so we have the F-117 Stealth
"Fighter" (which is actually an attack aircraft more than a fighter).  It
is also looking for more efficient aircraft, and so we have the YF-24.  As
a side-effect of being more efficient, it can go faster.

But the Cold War is essentially over.  The impetus to develop faster
aircraft has been greatly reduced.  The commercial sector is sticking
with subsonic aircraft because such aircraft are more fuel-efficient
than supersonic craft and because there isn't a great demand from 
passengers for greater speed.  Speed has its price.

Contrast this with the development of high-density memory.  People are
demanding more and more sophistication from their computer systems, and
this sophistication requires memory, both core and external.  As a
result, there is a large demand for larger amounts of memory, and thus
a large demand for denser memory.  Until we run into a hard limit like
the speed of light, and cannot circumvent the assumptions upon which
that hard limit is based, or until people stop demanding large amounts
of additional memory-based sophistication from their computers, we will
continue to see the density of memory increase.

The same can be said of oil.  If, at the time the SAE made its original
prediction about running out of oil, there was little demand for oil,
they probably would have been correct.  But the uses to which we put
oil products are so varied and so great that the demand for oil continues
to be quite high.  As long as this remains the case, it will be economical
to obtain oil from increasingly remote sources.

At some point in time, of course, the price of extraction will exceed the
production costs of some alternative by a relatively large margin, at which
point in time people will start using the alternative more.  But this is an
economical limit, not a physical limit.

We will convert to alternative sources of fuel long before we approach the
hard limits of the oil supply, not because of some wish to save the stuff
for our children, but because it will no longer be economically sound to
extract oil (and at some point in time, more economical processes for
extracting oil will not be forthcoming).

For these reasons, the predictions that we are going to run out of oil are
quite unsound.  They make the wrong assumptions.


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com