Fictional Approaches to the Oil Crisis - Writers Forum

FinnMacCool · 03-25-2008, 10:41 AM

I was watching this documentary about the oil crisis our nation is facing, and it got me thinking: Wouldn't it be great idea to write a book about an era post-oil?

I was wondering if anyone could recommend any books with that idea?

Rogozhin · 03-25-2008, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinnMacCool

I was watching this documentary about the oil crisis our nation is facing, and it got me thinking: Wouldn't it be great idea to write a book about an era post-oil?

I was wondering if anyone could recommend any books with that idea?

Just one, Phoenix Force, White Hell, by Gar Wilson.

It's a shitty pulp novel, but had some cool ideas. Sexual impotence for one, presidential assassination, arms trade via the interweb, (Anyone remember that F-18 and that Aircraft Carrier they were selling on E-Bay? No shit, it actually happened.) Iron Storm guns, and some other military mumbo jumbo. A US civil war?

It's an oil war. The politics might be out of date, but if you're writing to that it's an ok read.

Post oil is hard. If it's post oil and 40 years from now then it's coal and hydrocarbons. Tough to predict.

FinnMacCool · 03-25-2008, 08:03 PM

Your right, that's why I want to read other works dealing with the same type of theme.

Thanks for the recommendation.

lin · 03-25-2008, 08:58 PM

How about some psychos (Earth First splinter group, Israeli fanatics determined to shaft the Arabs, somebody) comes up with a bacteria or amoeba or something that eats petrochemicals and injects in an oil field, but it spreads worldwide and bam, we're all out.

Big question: then what? This is where speculative ficiton writers make or break: What If?

You paint a world without petroleum, figure out what the new fuel is, who controls it, or who is trying to develop it and who want's them stopped.

Oh yeah, and sex. (Without petroleum jelly)

FinnMacCool · 03-27-2008, 06:19 AM

I envision that there would be a lot of militant fundamentalist groups as the world becomes increasingly more secular. I also think that communism is going to have a second rising and anarchism will take over a country or two.

Whatever happens, it's gonna very unstable. The United States will have another civil war possibly.

I think once we run out of oil, the super rich are the only people who are going to be able to drive cars and it will drive the middle class into the working poor and that will cause tension and anger

Just Jim · 03-27-2008, 07:33 AM

Quote:

comes up with a bacteria or amoeba or something that eats petrochemicals and injects in an oil field

Lin's idea would make a great story, but we don't need that to have the problem. We're going over the peak of production now, and China and India have barely started their consumption.

You could write fiction, and in 20 years it might all be fact.

Non Serviam · 03-27-2008, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

How about some psychos (Earth First splinter group, Israeli fanatics determined to shaft the Arabs, somebody) comes up with a bacteria or amoeba or something that eats petrochemicals and injects in an oil field, but it spreads worldwide and bam, we're all out.

That's less fantastic than it sounds. There are already about 250 species of bacteria that live in aviation fuel. In fact aviation fuel has special additives in it to control their growth.

There are also species of bacteria that have adapted to live in high-radiation environments, such as inside nuclear reactors.

Bacteria mutate with scary speed.

Edited to add: The most likely replacement for oil is probably some kind of biofuel. Some scientists have high hopes for ethanol-based fuels.

Katastrof · 03-27-2008, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Non Serviam

Edited to add: The most likely replacement for oil is probably some kind of biofuel. Some scientists have high hopes for ethanol-based fuels.

Not going to happen; it would take all of the corn fields of America to produce enough ethanol to support America's fuel consumption, and even then it still wouldn't be enough for all those extra things that petrol chemicals produce for us (like certain medicines, almost all plastics, preservatives in foods, lubricant like Lin said, and most medical supplies.)

Non Serviam · 03-27-2008, 11:47 AM

I was posting about Europe, which is where I live. Europe's already adapted to petrol prices approaching US$10 per US gallon and uses fuel more carefully.

The US' fuel consumption's unsustainable. That's the reality.

I'm afraid your nation's either going to have to solve the engineering challenges involved with fusion, or breed strains of oil-rich algae and develop special industrial processes to refine them, or adapt to ethanol biofuels.

Rogozhin · 03-27-2008, 03:57 PM

I was going to chime in here on the bacteria idea.

Where does it go? 20000 feet down into a deep ocean drilling rig? There's like 20 of them just off the coast of Texas alone.

Secondly, bacteria eats the oil and produces what? The oil won't be gone, it'll just be oil eating, producing, secreting, etc. bacteria.

A super oil eating bacteria would also have to support itself in as a single volume for hundreds of square miles. That's impossible.

Even the most vociferious strain of evil bug wouldn't have much of an effect unless it were airborn and everywhere. It'd also have to fly while eating oil, and oil is too heavy. Oil bugs are venture brothers super science shit.

A lot of energy companies seem to be talking about coal. Could a coal powerplant produce a hydrogen fuel cell? I guess probably.

Clean burning coal, solar cells on homes, wind generators, and solar plants should take of the grid. Or at least that's my guess, until the Hadron Collider figures out some new form of energy. Check out the 20 year long list of experiments, some are pretty heady.

Besides that, why spend 20 years creating some oil eating nano-bacteria, when by then, oil will only have 50-100 years left. All oil. Crude will disapear from this earth, completely, in 100-200 years.

That's not much time guys. You'd think some special people somewhere with some special technologies and some special science backgrounds would be special and produce a super special revolution, social and political, right now. Because we need it.

I wouldn't know anything about anything like that though. I'm just a writer.

Katastrof · 03-27-2008, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogozhin

Clean burning coal, solar cells on homes, wind generators, and solar plants should take of the grid. Or at least that's my guess, until the Hadron Collider figures out some new form of energy. Check out the 20 year long list of experiments, some are pretty heady.

Or until the Large Hadron Coil destroys our planet. All of you do know that scientists have no f'ing clue what's going to happen when they flip that switch. They have a few guesses, but they don't have anything concrete that says only a tiny explosion of particles will occur. Hell, I've heard it could form strange matter; now that's scary!

Non: I'm Canadian but sometimes I like to think I'm American.

It's easier to talk about America's situation since it affects the Great White North alot.