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Math UFies... | by kelli217 | 2009-02-10 13:19:48 |
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The math is valid, but not the conclusion | by basher20 | 2009-02-10 13:33:40 |
| But in this case, they did. |
by kelli217 |
2009-02-10 15:26:31 |
Bartlett endowed these bacteria with the ability to improve their situation, and by doing lots of research, they were able to quadruple their capacity by finding three more bottles. Have we quadrupled the world's known oil reserves? Do the MOST optimistic petroleum geologists' estimates indicate that there might be 4x as much oil in the ground as we have ever used in the entire history of oil consumption? 8x? 16x? Worldwide, not just the US.
Have we been able to increase efficiency in extracting oil by a factor of 4? Say, from 20% to 80%? And did that increased efficiency take LESS than two doubling times to come to fruition? Or did we just hold steady such that growth in efficiency was perfectly balanced by growth in demand? Or was it slower than growth in demand?
Can we continue to double our efficiency? Are we likely to be able to get 160% of the available energy out of a barrel of oil? What about 320%? Assuming that it's somehow possible to cheat the laws of physics and get more chemical energy out of the substance than it actually stores, what does that gain us? Another two doubling times.
Like the bacteria. They gained themselves two more minutes.
The problem can't be solved by gains in efficiency of current sources. Eventually you reach 100%, and then you have nowhere to go. |
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