The Recession and Layoffs Thread

[Musclebuzz]

Suggestion for LizzieMaine

Hey LizzieMaine -
I am in the PR biz, too. It seems like the best jobs never seem to last, huh?
I was laid off from my "dream" job at a major studio a few years ago. I'm still scratching my head as to why. (why? why? why? It wasn't cuz of my suit, that's for sure!)

Anyway.... Have you checked out this website? www.elance.com
A couple of my friends in the graphic design field have had some good luck with it.

It's sorta like ebay for freelancers. (Umm, but in reverse?)
Companies and other entities post online listings for various types of project work.
Freelance & creative-types such as ourselves can choose projects that interest them and bid on them.
The great thing is that you can bid on projects from all around the country and you get the flexibility of working from home.

Perhaps you might find a gig or two on there that fit your area of expertise.
All the best,
- Chris
musclebuzz

 

[Flivver]

A good introduction to the peak-oil issue --

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/11/03/simmons/

Full disclosure: I work for this gentleman: among his other investments, he owns the Strand -- and I know from talking to him personally that he is no wild eyed alarmist.

This *is* really scary.

One of the things I'm involved with at work is studying the sustainability of motorized transportation. The real eye opener for me was taking into account the oil that will be demanded by emerging nations like China, India and Russia. These countries are rapidly becoming motorized and the arrival of the $2,500 car from India's Tata Motors will only speed the process. Forecasts I've seen predict that the world demand for oil could increase 70% to 100% by 2020 because of this!

When you couple this rapid increase in demand with the peak oil theory, things get scary *really* fast!

Economics suggests that as the price of oil goes up supply will rise too as more costly sources can be utilized. But the speed of motorization of the emerging markets coupled with the peak oil theory throws a monkey wrench into this concept.

 

[dhermann1]

I've read that the rise in oil prices could be a mixed blessing (or curse?) meaning that when oil reaches a certain price, there will finally be a financial incentive to develop alternative energy sources. The universe is made out of energy. If we can't figure out some way to tap it then we're not as smart as we think we are. The problem will be who pays the price for the convulsive changes required. In the long run, something will be found. Natural gas. clean coal (there are some who believe it's possible, I don't know), hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen fusion reactors, there are lots of candidates. Bio fuels seem NOT to be among them.

 

[pgoat]

Just asking?

Bio fuels seem NOT to be among them.

why not?


PS good luck with the move - I remember Soho.....

we may hit peak-NYC Real estate sooner than we hit Peak Oil. (running out of boroughs! )

 

[Flivver]

I've read that the rise in oil prices could be a mixed blessing (or curse?) meaning that when oil reaches a certain price, there will finally be a financial incentive to develop alternative energy sources. The universe is made out of energy. If we can't figure out some way to tap it then we're not as smart as we think we are. The problem will be who pays the price for the convulsive changes required. In the long run, something will be found. Natural gas. clean coal (there are some who believe it's possible, I don't know), hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen fusion reactors, there are lots of candidates. Bio fuels seem NOT to be among them.

I think you hit the nail on the head!

Technology has always come to the rescue in the past...there's no reason why it can't rescue us again. (spoken like an engineer, I'm afraid!). I spent my first three years as an engineer working on nuclear power plants.

 

[nobodyspecial]

Bio fuels make sense if made with something inexpensive, such as sugar cane, but growing corn for fuel is a disaster.

 

[Foofoogal]

I was really struck by the fact that seemingly everyone drove a teeny tiny car in Scotland. The only trucks I saw was maintenance ones.

Technology has always come to the rescue in the past

I totally believe it. Even our computers are petroleum based plastic.
Was impressed by much more ecological minded in Scotland though. They are banning all plastic bags soon.
Some geeky kids will come up with something. Saw on tv the other day where magazines are soon going to have like jelly rolls inside to taste the products pictured. Kinda cool. Wonder if they will be made in China.
A bit disappointed though as I thought we would all be flying around in little cars by now though. Like George Jetson but some of our gadgets are space age for sure.
Not sure by I thought I read somewhere that one could make fuel out of scraps like table scraps.

growing corn for fuel is a disaster.

Why do you say that? Here in Texas ole Willy Nelson is doing it and there has been a whole revitalization of some farmers who used to grow cotton and now are growing corn and I think soybeans or something they make fuel out of. Told my honey recently if I had a ton of money I would do this. Buy land and grow corn or at least pay someone to grow corn.
http://www.biowillieusa.com/

 

[dhermann1]

In Brazil they're having a big success with sugarcane, but here, it costs more in fuel to produce the ethanol than the amount of fuel produced as a result. A lot of farmers are jumping on the band wagon, producing corn to sell at inflated prices, which causes other distortions in the markets. Just bad all around.

 

[nobodyspecial]

The energy required to produce corn based ethanol barely makes it work. In addition there is mass irrigation of fields which is wiping out fresh water supplies. This is really a political problem. The farmers are smiling all the way to the bank. I've heard recently that lifting sugar import tarrifs would instantly make sugar cane based bio fuels the way to go. However, this will hack off the corn and sugar beet farmers.

 

[Decodence]

Hell with land-based biofuels. The ocean is where it is at.

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/gf_files/algaefuel.pdf

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I think you hit the nail on the head!

Technology has always come to the rescue in the past...there's no reason why it can't rescue us again. (spoken like an engineer, I'm afraid!). I spent my first three years as an engineer working on nuclear power plants.

A lot of folks in the Peak Oil camp are pretty scathing when it comes to this logic. EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) measures are one reason; for many alternative sources of energy, EROEI is not very good. Continued world population growth and elevated demand for resouces from developing countries are additional causes for deep concern.

 

[Flivver]

Making ethanol from corn is fraught with problems. One of the biggest is that it takes 3 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. But GM has recently invested in a small company called Coskata that claims to be able to produce ethanol from old soda bottles and other waste. And their process requires only one gallon of water per gallon of ethanol.

I don't know if this process will really work, but GM seems to be pretty excited about it.

Ethanol isn't the whole answer to the cars we drive. All the new technologies will play a part. But given that there are already 6 million flex-fuel-capable vehicles on US roads, affordable, easily available ethanol can get us off to a quick start...if we can make it readily available to motorists. The infrastructure is always an issue.

 

[Twitch]

[huh] The only thing about ANY non-petroleum based fuel is simply that it is not using petroleum. No other fossil fuel has the power of gasoline. Ethanol as 85% gas and 15% other also gets at least 15% less mileage so there is nothing free here.

 

[Flivver]

[huh] The only thing about ANY non-petroleum based fuel is simply that it is not using petroleum. No other fossil fuel has the power of gasoline. Ethanol as 85% gas and 15% other also gets at least 15% less mileage so there is nothing free here.

That's very true. For ethanol to make sense the cost to produce it and the price to the consumer has to come down in proportion to the reduction in MPG. This Coskata invention that GM has bought into promises to do that.

We'll see.

 

[HungaryTom]

Bio-fuel

The only problem with these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_fuel by-products is that they are much less effective in terms of energy since they are less mature than lets say lignine not to mention brown coal or even black coal and will NEVER provide enough energy- maybe only locally.

Sugar cane should be rather used as food or fodder instead of being burned.

Coal and fossil fuels are much better, they are concentrated biomass from hundreds of millions of years ago. To me at least the burning of coffee and sugarcane is eerily familiar from the 1920-1930s....the great crisis.

I only hope that the invention of synthetic fuel by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch chemistry will not be used in a few years to produce ersatz fuels like Germany and Japan did during World War II.

Germany's annual synthetic fuel production reached more than 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants ~ 6.5 million tons in 1944.[2]

After the war, captured German scientists recruited in Operation Paperclip continued to work on synthetic fuels in the United States in a United States Bureau of Mines program initiated by the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act.

But the energy Hunger is there....the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power projects seem to be dormant since 50 years! What happens with TOKAMAK, the Toroids and Southern France? I mean those chunks of accelerators and trial reactors with their multi-ten-billion EUR or USD budgets should be not only there so that Hawking&co find another little particle inside a neutrino and stuff - those particles will always unfold like with fractals geometry - you find always a smaller structure inside the smallest structure, you know...

Solar power should be also another opportunity for new prosperity and breakthrough - again the will is missing.

- I see the problem in the philosophy that only periodical great wars can generate new impulses on the economy and Science&Technology development...I think a new type of industrial revolution could also work.

Where did I start ?

 

[Twitch]

The Germans built a pilot plant for the liquefaction of coal in the Ruhr. It become operational in the spring of 1981 it had a capacity for converting 75,000 tons of coal annually into 157,000 barrels of light and medium oil and liquid gas. Early in 1980 the West German government approved a program involving the construction of 14 large plants for the liquefaction and gasification of coal, requiring the investment of $7 billion by 1993. By 1986 the Germans satisfied 10% of their gasoline needs in this fashion.

If any process replaces any petroleum it is good in my opinion.[huh]

 

[pgoat]

Thank you

If any process replaces any petroleum it is good in my opinion.[huh]

+1:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[univibe88]

Leave it to the Germans.

 

[pgoat]

Is that thelonius?

Now THAT's a cool avatar!!!

 

[univibe88]

Thanks!

That is Thelonious. Good eye :eusa_clap