Natural Rubber in danger of running out?

[Grey Havoc]

The wonder material we all need but is running out

Climate change, capitalism and disease are threatening to strike a mortal blow to the world's rubber trees. Can a solution be found before it's too late?

www.bbc.com

 

[Grey Havoc]

What the impending rubber 'apocalypse' means for the U.S. economy

www.cnbc.com

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_9XvHBb3nw

 

[jsport]

AFRL teams with industry to expand alternative natural rubber supply

Wright-Patterson AFB OH (SPX) Dec 02, 2022 - The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, launched a multimillion-dollar, multiyear program with BioMADE, Farmed Materials and The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in 2022 to develop a domestic so

www.spacedaily.com

 

[Orionblamblam]

Huh.
2021: Oh Noes! Capitalism, eeeeevil capitalism, is going to make rubber go extinct!
2022: Capitalism will save rubber.

It'll be hilarious if a *weed* helps turn the US into a rubber-exporting powerhouse, finally unleashing the industrialized world from the equatorial parts.

 

[BlackBat242]

Just like the wind turbine saga.

1990s: "Wind power will replace fossil fuel power generation and save the planet!"
2010s: "Wind turbines kill huge numbers of birds every year, they are an ecological disaster!"
2020: "Scientists in Norway have found that painting one of the three blades on a wind turbine black reduces avian deaths by 72%."

 

[edwest4]

The Germans used synthetic rubber tires in World War II. It was called Buna.

 

[publiusr]

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant…

I blamed the shortage on Studio 54…but no one really used them…

 

[Orionblamblam]

The Germans used synthetic rubber tires in World War II. It was called Buna.

Polybutadiene - "Buna" - was first synthesized and mass produced by the Soviets in the 1930's. Shockingly, and wholly outside the realm of the believable, it was processed from alcohol made from potatoes. I know, right? Russia, taters, booze? The words just don't go together.

Hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene is the binder ina number of solid rocket motors, largest of which was the Titan IV SRMU.

 

[muttly]

The Germans used synthetic rubber tires in World War II. It was called Buna.

Polybutadiene - "Buna" - was first synthesized and mass produced by the Soviets in the 1930's. Shockingly, and wholly outside the realm of the believable, it was processed from alcohol made from potatoes. I know, right? Russia, taters, booze? The words just don't go together.

Hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene is the binder ina number of solid rocket motors, largest of which was the Titan IV SRM

Knew about the Germans but not the Soviets. I'm surprised they had any alcohol left to make the rubber.

 

[edwest4]

You can get alcohol from potatoes and sour cherries - if you know what you're doing.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You can get alcohol from potatoes and sour cherries - if you know what you're doing.

You can also get alcohol from a Walmart, but I suspect that's neither here nor there.

For when you get those unpleasant guests who just won't leave, serve 'em the very best.

 

[yasotay]

Who cares about rubber!?!

We are running out of coffee due to global warming!

 

[Kat Tsun]

It's okay the equator is coming to the temperate climates. The coffee and rubber will move to Italy and Texas soon enough.

Probably more land there to grow coffee anyway.

 

[martinbayer]

Now I don't care about coffee at all, but I guess cocoa is on the list of endangered resources as well. Whatever is this planet coming to?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Whatever is this planet coming to?

Nine billion humans. Maybe ten.

 

[martinbayer]

Whatever is this planet coming to?

Nine billion humans. Maybe ten.

Yep, sure looks like it. But, good news, everyone! According to spurious sites like https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth, we may peak at about 10.4B by 2100, if things keep going as they are right now (but then again, why would they?). I consider myself truly lucky to have been born at a date where I was consciously young enough to watch humans land on the Moon on live TV, and I still hold out a very faint hope that (if Musk ever gets his shit together and focuses on what his purported core objectives are, other than trying to "fix" Twitter or "The Boring Company" - is that perhaps a dig at Boeing, Elon?) I just barely might watch humans land on Mars, but it's obviously anyone's guess...

 

[Orionblamblam]

Whatever is this planet coming to?

Nine billion humans. Maybe ten.

Yep, sure looks like it. But, good news, everyone! According to spurious sites like https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth, we may peak at about 10.4B by 2100,

It'd be fun to check back in, oh, 2120 and see if there's anything left alive in the oceans or if they've been fished empty. It's not just that there'll be ten billion humans, there'll be ten billion humans trying to live like late 20th/very early 21st century Europeans and North Americans. Even now Africa and Asia are doing a dandy job of turning the oceans into wet deserts and garbage dumps, and their populations are only going to get bigger.

Thus the importance of western civilization to pull it's thumb out and start colonizing the heavens, cuz Earth is gonna *suck.*

 

[martinbayer]

To me, it's an improv "yes, and" situation. If we don't learn how to clean up our act down here, we'll likely repeat the very same mistakes everywhere else we go and spoil everything else we touch, like a raw sewage version of Midas. I've never seen Avatar or its sequel and never will, barring being forcibly subjected to the Ludovico Technique, but the purported core message I gathered from Wikipedia of trying to not mess up any alien ecosystem makes sense to me. If we just keep trashing this planet and then hope to find salvation on another one, I really don't see a stable solution. It's like the saying "We treat this world of ours as though we have a spare in the trunk" goes - if we don't change our mindset, we're bound to run out of available spares at sooner or later.

 

[Orionblamblam]

we're bound to run out of available spares at sooner or later.

But even assuming the worst of Man, "sooner" will be billions of years. Disassembling Venus would provide humanity with more resources for habitats than can be conveniently calculated. At some point Mankind will be so resource-rich that the status of Earth will be utterly irrelevant. Imagine if the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania were to get accidentally covered in asphalt by the latest Chinese civil engineering project. It'd make the news, activists would be outraged for a while... and then the next Sportsball Championship would come around. What was once the utterly vital cradle of mankind is now an afterthought because we have moved so far beyond it.

 

[1635yankee]

we're bound to run out of available spares at sooner or later.

But even assuming the worst of Man, "sooner" will be billions of years. Disassembling Venus would provide humanity with more resources for habitats than can be conveniently calculated. At some point Mankind will be so resource-rich that the status of Earth will be utterly irrelevant. Imagine if the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania were to get accidentally covered in asphalt by the latest Chinese civil engineering project. It'd make the news, activists would be outraged for a while... and then the next Sportsball Championship would come around. What was once the utterly vital cradle of mankind is now an afterthought because we have moved so far beyond it.

Oooh, a post-scarcity society for everyone. What would the oligarchs do? What good is being rich when nobody's desperately poor?

 

[yasotay]

Mother nature has two great balancing options; starvation and disease. Then there is always the "galactic reboot" option. Ten million years to reconstruct the biosphere, and maybe tree swinging octopus will be better at it.

Alternate view; as a good virus we ought leave the host before we kill it.

 

[Orionblamblam]

What good is being rich when nobody's desperately poor?

I hope that Mankind some day gets two technologies:
1) The functional equivalent of the Star Trek "replicator." Not in that it's based on transporter technology, but a kitchen appliance that can take raw materials and make anything from food to drugs to firearms quickly and easily.
2) "Mr. Fusion:" a kitchen appliance that can create usable power and minimal radiation using the protium/deuterium available in rainwater.

Put those two together, and mankind in many ways gets set free, especially if the replicator can replicate itself *and* Mr. Fusion. And even more especially if the replicator can bootstrap up to industrial-size. This way a small group can step up to building their own fusion powered spacecraft and set out tot he Oort cloud to convert chunks of ice and rock into homes suitable for populations of millions.

People will be able to go out and set up whatever society they like. The impetus for war and crime will be greatly reduced though, of course, not eliminated. There will always be religions and ideologies that demand universal compliance, but with Mr. Fusion and replicators, you'd have a hell of a hard time chasing down trillions of habitats zooming off into the dark.

In that future, "wealth" will come down to ownership of raw materials.

 

[edwest4]

Whatever is this planet coming to?

Nine billion humans. Maybe ten.

Yep, sure looks like it. But, good news, everyone! According to spurious sites like https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth, we may peak at about 10.4B by 2100,

It'd be fun to check back in, oh, 2120 and see if there's anything left alive in the oceans or if they've been fished empty. It's not just that there'll be ten billion humans, there'll be ten billion humans trying to live like late 20th/very early 21st century Europeans and North Americans. Even now Africa and Asia are doing a dandy job of turning the oceans into wet deserts and garbage dumps, and their populations are only going to get bigger.

Thus the importance of western civilization to pull it's thumb out and start colonizing the heavens, cuz Earth is gonna *suck.*

Colonizing is expensive. Mars is cold and dry. Unless you want to live in a heated tube in an underground cave...

Then there's the problem of no carryout...

 

[Orionblamblam]

Colonizing is expensive.

Right now. In the future, not so much. But our time is running out. We have a narrow window while we can pull it off, before Earth gets overloaded and collapses.

 

[Justo Miranda]

You can get alcohol from potatoes and sour cherries - if you know what you're doing.

I remember reading some time ago the biography of a French pilot of the Normandie Niemen squadron in which he related that some Soviet transport pilots drank the brake fluid and went blind. In my country the same thing happened during the fifties due to the fraudulent use of wood alcohol.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Who cares about rubber!?!

We are running out of coffee due to global warming!

That's no problem for me, I'll plant coffee in Canada and keep drinking it.

 

[Justo Miranda]

we're bound to run out of available spares at sooner or later.

But even assuming the worst of Man, "sooner" will be billions of years. Disassembling Venus would provide humanity with more resources for habitats than can be conveniently calculated. At some point Mankind will be so resource-rich that the status of Earth will be utterly irrelevant. Imagine if the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania were to get accidentally covered in asphalt by the latest Chinese civil engineering project. It'd make the news, activists would be outraged for a while... and then the next Sportsball Championship would come around. What was once the utterly vital cradle of mankind is now an afterthought because we have moved so far beyond it.

Dismantling Venus could affect Earth's orbital stability, I suggest disassembling asteroids and capturing comets.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Whatever is this planet coming to?

Nine billion humans. Maybe ten.

Yep, sure looks like it. But, good news, everyone! According to spurious sites like https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth, we may peak at about 10.4B by 2100,

It'd be fun to check back in, oh, 2120 and see if there's anything left alive in the oceans or if they've been fished empty. It's not just that there'll be ten billion humans, there'll be ten billion humans trying to live like late 20th/very early 21st century Europeans and North Americans. Even now Africa and Asia are doing a dandy job of turning the oceans into wet deserts and garbage dumps, and their populations are only going to get bigger.

Thus the importance of western civilization to pull it's thumb out and start colonizing the heavens, cuz Earth is gonna *suck.*

Colonizing is expensive. Mars is cold and dry. Unless you want to live in a heated tube in an underground cave...

Then there's the problem of no carryout...

I suggest colonizing the deserts, the rocky shield of Canada, Siberia and Antarctica, would be much cheaper.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Mother nature has two great balancing options; starvation and disease. Then there is always the "galactic reboot" option. Ten million years to reconstruct the biosphere, and maybe tree swinging octopus will be better at it.

Alternate view; as a good virus we ought leave the host before we kill it.

Our species is used to fighting against nature to survive, then to live and then to change the rules of the game definitively for our benefit, wait and see.

 

[edwest4]

Actually, you're right.

Back to Mars and ordering from your favorite Chinese restaurant.

"Thank you for your order. It will take approximately 4 months to arrive. Your total is 1,233 US Dollars. No Bitcoin. - China Garden"

 

[Orionblamblam]

I suggest colonizing the deserts, the rocky shield of Canada, Siberia and Antarctica, would be much cheaper.

Also less useful. We might double the available space for us and our stuff. But colonizing space would increase our real estate by billions of times just in this solar system.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Dismantling Venus could affect Earth's orbital stability, I suggest disassembling asteroids and capturing comets.

By the time we're ready and able to carve up planets, stabilizing earth would not only be easy, it'll be unnecessary.

 

[Arjen]

Think of the loss of information that comes with the destruction of the biosphere.
Where will you harvest genes for antibiotics? Genes for better, resilient crops?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Where will you harvest genes for antibiotics? Genes for better, resilient crops?

Wikigenia, the online directory for all your genetic record needs. Need a brown bear? Over one hundred thousand sequences on file. Need smallpox? Four sequences, but you'll need to upgrade to Wikigenia Blue. Need a human sequence? Over twenty three billion on file! Now including Marilyn Monroe, for all your cloning needs! Just select the sequence you want (our helpful AI can help!), download to your bioprinter, select the desired stage in the lifecycle of the organism, and shazam! Thirty seconds later, your order is delivered. Please note: existential terror, confusion and incessant screaming may result if higher organisms are not properly MindFormatted prior to printing.

More discerning customers will use the GeneShuffle App to create a wide variety of differing versions of the same sequence, useful for when you need to print millions of the same organism for crop, terraforming or army-raising purposes. Numerous AIs are available to help you modify your selected gene sequences for preferred features.

 

[Arjen]

That's something for a future that might never come about. In the meantime, we're throwing away our old boots without new boots to replace them. We are nowhere near your vision of the future. Not in colonizing space. Not in biotechnology.

 

[Arjen]

This thread is veering away from this section's core business. Mods?

 

[Orionblamblam]

That's something for a future that might never come about. In the meantime, we're throwing away our old boots without new boots to replace them. We are nowhere near your vision of the future. Not in colonizing space. Not in biotechnology.

Not gonna get there by not trying.

 

[Arjen]

Not gonna get there guided by terminal optimism.

https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/how-balancing-pessimism-with-optimism-makes-for-great-leadership.html

 

[edwest4]

From Mad magazine, issue number unknown. "They said it couldn't be done so we didn't do it."

 

[timmymagic]

I remember reading some time ago the biography of a French pilot of the Normandie Niemen squadron in which he related that some Soviet transport pilots drank the brake fluid and went blind. In my country the same thing happened during the fifties due to the fraudulent use of wood alcohol.

Anti-freeze, brake fluid....the Russian's would try and drink it. Particularly if they were posted in the northern parts...

One of the tricks they also had was spreading army boot polish on bread...then sticking it in the freezer (or outside). The alcohol in the boot polish would soak into the bread. Once frozen they could scrape the rest of the polish off the bread...then let the bread defrost a little and eat it....desperate times...