"peak Oil"
taboofires
Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9853Members
Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9853Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Legit or crock?</div> Although the sustainability of our oil economy is pretty much impossible, some take a more bleak outlook on the situation. "Peak oil" is a term for the point at which oil starts becoming steadily more expensive, leading to a point where it is not worth the effort extracting it.
This is potentially one of the major crises we will face within our lifetimes, assuming it happens at all.
<a href='http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html' target='_blank'>source</a> (long, but the topic gets summarized near the start)
I'll chime in once people get a chance to read the article.
This is potentially one of the major crises we will face within our lifetimes, assuming it happens at all.
<a href='http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html' target='_blank'>source</a> (long, but the topic gets summarized near the start)
I'll chime in once people get a chance to read the article.
Comments
but, I remember being told, years ago, in school that Oil was expected to run out in our lifetimes.
the site certainly paints a dire picture of the future, and worst of all (to me at least) its totally believable.
most of our way of life is based around oil these days, plastics, fuel, energy, medicines...
hopefully when (its got to happen at some point) the crash happens, one of those huge oil corporations will whip out a new form of energy production its had locked away for the last 20 years and charge us a fair rate for it.
But in the least it will mean the end of plastics, which will certainly impact us quite heavily.
anyone else care to add a slightly more optimistic view point?
I recall a statistic here which unfortunately I dont remember the source to:
If the entire interior of the earth were composed of fossil fuel supplies, at the current rate of usage by the United States alone, it would only take ~220 years for the world's supplies to be exhausted.
I don't want to run around saying the sky is falling, but sincerely workable alternatives to oil, as well as coal for generating electricity, aren't anywhere close to being ready yet. IMO it should be more in the public eye, and more of a political issue than it is.
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I've heard of a way to convert coal into oil via cracking, can anyone verify this? If it's true then the oil reserves could be extended via this method, though it may wind up being more expensive in any case.
Just an idea though, wouldnt it be possible to say, genetically modify a bacteria strain to catalyse organic waste and excrete molecules such as Pentane and Hexane? (Sorry if my chemistry is off the mark, it's been a while since my last class).
As for oil, it becomes steady more expensive to extract oil out of the ground. Typically when the well reaches the point that it costs more to haul the oil out than you make to sell it, the well is closed. Sometimes this happens when a company is checking an area as a source of oil (i.e. it costs too much to take out now on today's prices). Oil sand and coal to oil conversion are examples of oil sources that while possible are too expensive for now.
As oil prices increase, these will be used as a source of oil (and demand for oil will lessen). Oddly enough once oil sand becomes economical, Canada will suddenly become one of the largest oil reserves in the world. There's talk about Canada joining OPEC sometime in the future!
There are no non-renewable energy resources, unless someone repealed the laws of physics, matter, and thermodynamics after I finished school.
And whoever told you that if the entire interior of the earth was oil it would be exhausted in 220 years should have also tried to sell to a bridge in Brooklyn. Do a little math to see how preposterous such an idea is. I've been hearing about the end of the world's oil supply since I was a young child, years before most of you were born. At this point I believe we are supposed to have run out 3 times over...
Okay, Hippie spree over.
I doubt we'll run out of oil by 2038 (but, I've been wrong plenty of times before). Regardless of what year we run out of natural oil supplies: hydrogen powered cars probably wont be around for <i>at least</i> 15 years. Solar, geothermal, wind and tidal powerplants would be insufficient to run the entire planet. Nuclear power will probably be the mainstay to replace it, until we discover hydrogen-fusion or efficent solar power (Hydroelectric is also fairly inefficient, because it takes a lot of work to build dams, and you can destroy giant biospheres with the resevoir they create). Plastics, while probably becoming more expensive, probably wouldn't be obsolete (neither will oil).
Not sure which month, but within the last year (maybe 2 years now) there was an article in discover, in which a man managed to create oil synthetically (the deparment of redundancy department). Parts of chicken (feather I think) were put through the guys crazy system of boilers and stuff, to create various petrochemicals. Benzene, gasoline...lots were there. If I can find it within a few weeks, maybe I'll post some numbers here. I'm fairly sure we'll be fine for awhile, once we master fusion and hydrogen power (plenty of water to make it with too), we'll have energy...we just have to worry about finishing those before we run out of oil - chickens can't power the globe.
[or maybe they can... /imagines 'chicken' wheels for chickens to power turbines]
Well, you could make a case for nuclear power being <i>very</i> close to the level of usability that oil and coal have. It's just that people are so paranoid about this source of power. With events like TMI and Chernobyl (sp?) I don't blame them, but I think we should really look into nuclear power again. I live only a few miles from a nuclear power plant and I feel very little danger. In fact, ever since TMI I would be willing to bet that nuclear power plant saftey has gone up at least 2 fold.
There are other possibilites out there, but you're right, none are close to being workable. Hydro-electric has a limited range and can be costly, geothermal is in its infancy and very few places in the world have the geography for it, wind power doesn't produce enough to supply most needs, and solar power is best suited for individual houses. Maybe all of these power sources could be combined to form a massive, non-polluting power grid. It may sound a little idealistic, but I'm sure it's workable at a cost.
We also have all these problems about 'spent nuclear fuel.' Which as one nuclear engineer from an assembly in High School told us, is unrealistic, and it's only because of programs like START that we have so much nuclear waste.
Spent Uranium can be transformed into Plutonium and reused in a different kind of reactor. Many fears about nuclear energy are also unfounded. A true nuclear bomb-esque explosion is impossible and all you really need to fear from a meltdown is increased REMs and pollution to the enviroment (which is common from all fuel based powerplants). We don't even have to worry about the pollution from the nuke plant here anyway...the ground water and supporting aquifer and bedrock already have high concentrations of Radon...so, don't drink the water <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> (this is pre-plant too, so don't try to pin it on the plant).
The plants also have high security and deeper training (as there's actually commitees and training to prevent TMI events in the US...not sure about Russia and Ukraine, but I'm sure they have a much better understanding of their reactors now).
Nuclear energy is a very viable alternative to oil, although new plants are expensive to create and maintain. A network of renewable sources would still be a better bet, as you don't have to worry about 'running out of Uranium'...despite I don't see that happening soon (and technically, since oil is made out of ancient plant and animal matter, oil, coal and natural gas are renewable <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ).
I don't see 'peak oil' happening for a long time (or if we're lucky, at all - but I'm not lucky, so it'll probably happen tommorow).
We can recycle plastics easily now, so if we do run out of oil, recyling will become a must. We could always go back to cardboard for packaging and such like.
As for fuel for cars, many different forms are being tried: Electricity, Hydrogen fuel cells, all with encouraging results. The most encouraging thing is that hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and can be obtained very easily, through electrolosis or other means.
Nuclear power is not a renewable source of energy. Sure, you can re-use the uranium, and biuld plants to use the plutonium, but sooner or later, you are going to run out of fresh uranium. I am not worried about my local Nuclear power plant exploding, but the tiny issue that the nuclear power stations in the UK were supposed to be decomissioned after 20-30 years worries me. Bear in mind that they were build in the 1960s. They havn't been decommisioned because nobody knows how, and that is worrying. Sooner or later, the concrete around the reactor will give way due to fatigue and collapse, sending tonnes of radioactive dust into the air (becasue the concrete is radioactive too), let alone the nuclear waste. Like it or not, we are going to have another Chernobyl if we dont get our butts in gear.
Shouldn't that be an indicator that we should probably be looking toward other things? That certainly bothers me a bit. One of the Ivy league schools I believe has a prototype fusion reactor, Although I don't see hot-fusion a way of going. Nuclear fission is something to seriously consider as the pro's expotentially outweigh its con's.
Ehh, no it's an indicator that people have been completely wrong three times now.
Ehh, no it's an indicator that people have been completely wrong three times now. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
What happens when they are right. Its like driving a car on empty, and keep driving because "It hasn't killed so far" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Ehh, no it's an indicator that people have been completely wrong three times now. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What happens when they are right. Its like driving a car on empty, and keep driving because "It hasn't killed so far" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dunno, CWAG, what happens? You're missing my point, which is that if people are going to talk about oil running out here, they need to get some actual facts and figures, not 'I heard from a guy in an IRC channel last year that...' My disdain is for the 'talking out one's arse' nonsense because people here would often rather post from a position of utter ignorance than do a bare amount of research.
Rant over.
For now.
Maybe.
Yes, oil pumped from the ground will someday run out. That's why there are so many programs being researched right now for fuel cells, for example. It would help greatly if there wasn't this blind ignorant fear of nuclear power as well, since that resource is considerably more efficient, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive. It would also help to research something more advanced than our hilariously antiquated power distribution systems used around the world, which waste far more energy in transmission than any other cause. It would also help if people weren't so **** hypocritical about wasting energy, as they drive to their earth day parades...
I'd say the opposite is true. Peak oil is not a threat because there is so much money invested in it. Any company faced with dramatic profit loss due to limited resources will do whatever it takes to redirect their source for materials.
I've been researching fuel cells and fuel cell autos regularly for a couple years now. As a Michigander, living around the "automobile capital of the world", these issues will be critical to my financial future. I wrote a report for a class last Summer based on this situation I'll upload it for anyone who's interested.
There have been a number of recent stories in the press regarding the use of hydrogen fuel cells. Industries are looking closer at this form of energy and they're finding more solutions. Here's a few links:
<a href='http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2394867' target='_blank'>DOW plant to use fuel cells for buidling energy</a>
<a href='http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040212005387&newsLang=en' target='_blank'>Millennium Cell to market clean, efficient hydrogen production system</a>
This looks very promising-
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The Hydrogen on Demand system generates hydrogen from sodium borohydride, which is derived from sodium borate, commonly known as borax. Dissolved in water and passed through a proprietary catalyst chamber, the sodium borohydride releases a perfect stream of pure hydrogen - on demand - to power a fuel cell or an internal combustion engine. The fuel's byproduct is water and borax.
Hydrogen on Demand systems are scalable to applications from small (personal computers, cellular phones and personal digital assistants) to medium (auxiliary power units for standby power to boats, scooters) to large (automobiles). Because Millennium Cell's hydrogen generation technology is safe, flexible and environmentally friendly, it is an attractive alternative to existing technologies for many applications, solving the critical problems related to the use of hydrogen as a fuel: safe, low-cost and energy dense storage and generation of pure hydrogen gas. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now, don't be stealing my paper for your own <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Ehh, no it's an indicator that people have been completely wrong three times now. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What happens when they are right. Its like driving a car on empty, and keep driving because "It hasn't killed so far" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dunno, CWAG, what happens? You're missing my point, which is that if people are going to talk about oil running out here, they need to get some actual facts and figures, not 'I heard from a guy in an IRC channel last year that...' My disdain is for the 'talking out one's arse' nonsense because people here would often rather post from a position of utter ignorance than do a bare amount of research.
Rant over.
For now.
Maybe.
Yes, oil pumped from the ground will someday run out. That's why there are so many programs being researched right now for fuel cells, for example. It would help greatly if there wasn't this blind ignorant fear of nuclear power as well, since that resource is considerably more efficient, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive. It would also help to research something more advanced than our hilariously antiquated power distribution systems used around the world, which waste far more energy in transmission than any other cause. It would also help if people weren't so **** hypocritical about wasting energy, as they drive to their earth day parades... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know, Im just saying why not be prepared <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I mean, really, 80 billion dollars spent on Iraq (If thats the number) could've been spent better.
1) Trying to make oil from coal or plants is silly in the long run. You can't come anywhere close to meeting demands, and the process produces almost no net energy. Instead, we need to use the the energy that created the plants (which eventually became the coal) the sun! Or something like it. The further we go down the energy chain, the more energy is wasted. There's only about a 10% or so efficiency per step, so by step 4 (what humans are at or around) you're got a whole 0.1% left. Not good.
2) "Renewable" means that it's quite likely that humans will no longer exist by the time it runs out. Wind, tidal, hydro, solar energies are renewable in this context. If we somehow ever manage to create one, a total conversion engine (E=mc^2) would still not be enough energy if you want to be picky, and that's a LOT.
3) Hydrogen as we use it is not a power source. It is a carrier. We use oil to make hydrogen, confining the polution to a single point (and making it easier to reduce and control). The only way to get net energy from Hydrogen is to harvest it from somewhere, and it doesn't exist in a harvestable form on Earth.
4) Not all plastics can be recycled. If we ran out of oil, we would no longer be able to create certain types. Even if they could all be recycled, there's a certain amount of waste, so oil would still need to be inserted into the system.
5) Nuclear power is great if you want a way to reduce our oil dependancy. All it really does is transfer that dependancy to a different limited resource mined in different third and second world countries, and trade one kind of pollution for another. Sure, it will help, but it cannot possibly replace oil power by itself.
Okay, now that stuff's out of the way...
I'd say this is easily something to deal with now rather than later. Now, let's arbitrarily assume we have 50-100 years left worth of <i>cheap</i> oil. What happens if we spend 50 years doing nothing about the problem? Potential chaos. What happens if we act now? We can still use oil for the things where it is most efficient or needed, like consumer products (mainly plastics), and use our natural gas to keep creating fertilizer. Then, instead of using oil for lighting/heating homes and powering transportation, we use our alternative energy method of choice + fuel cells to make it useful. If we cut our usage in a bit more than half (that's transit and power easily), we can have cheap plastics and stuff for 100-200 years.
I'd say it's economically irrisponsible to not at least start migrating to renewable or at least alternative energy sources.
1) Trying to make oil from coal or plants is silly in the long run. You can't come anywhere close to meeting demands, and the process produces almost no net energy. Instead, we need to use the the energy that created the plants (which eventually became the coal) the sun! Or something like it. The further we go down the energy chain, the more energy is wasted. There's only about a 10% or so efficiency per step, so by step 4 (what humans are at or around) you're got a whole 0.1% left. Not good. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is not precisely correct, especially if you bother to read my previous linking to the use of biological waste in oil creation. When you use a largely available waste product to form oil, you can of course come close to meeting energy demands. It's a question of infrastructure, nothing else.
As I said before, most energy we use is wasted in its transmission long before it powers anything. Beating that problem is one of the most important goals of science in my opinion.
Another interesting figure, as an oil well gets old, it starts producing alot of water. Say, 50 barrels of water to 1 barrel of oil. Nasty, brackish water that must be disposed of. If you don't have a disposal well handy to pump it back into the ground, or don't have any injection wells on the lease, you have to haul it off, gets expensive.
Now it's a slow battle downhill as we try to support the company on less prduction, lower oil prices, trying to borrow more money to do more work to try to squeeze more out of our dying wells to pay off the money we owe already. It's a vicious circle.
<b>Hida</b> hit the nail on the head, many of our wells are shut down because it costs more to run it (electricty or diesel generator) produce it (store the oil and get it hauled off), maintain it (fix it when it breaks, not cheap at all), and dispose of the water then we get from oil.
Interestingly enough, we have a lease that was once owned by Texaco. Now Texaco was quite large, they used to plug wells that got below 30 barrels a day because they were un-ecnomical. The same wells we thrive on! We have actually re-entered a few plugged wells to try and get what was left over.
People at my company have spent many thousands of dollars to get software developed that computes decline curves when you stick the production history of the well in, and it's all bad news.
Oil exploration is dead as well. Drilling rigs are at an all time low simply because there is nothing left to drill. The only new untapped reserves in the US are in the Gulf under many thousands of feet of ocean! Very expensive to get to as well.
Another interesting thing, the US oil refinaries are all old and on the verge of breaking, and they are all running at full capicity.
<i>To close, the peak of oil may very well be the death of operating companies, not the depletion of oil!</i> Thanks for reading <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
1) Trying to make oil from coal or plants is silly in the long run. You can't come anywhere close to meeting demands, and the process produces almost no net energy. Instead, we need to use the the energy that created the plants (which eventually became the coal) the sun! Or something like it. The further we go down the energy chain, the more energy is wasted. There's only about a 10% or so efficiency per step, so by step 4 (what humans are at or around) you're got a whole 0.1% left. Not good.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See the article I was talking about before, a guy used chicken waste parts to form various petrochemicals. Through a system of pressurization and boiling.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->2) "Renewable" means that it's quite likely that humans will no longer exist by the time it runs out. Wind, tidal, hydro, solar energies are renewable in this context. If we somehow ever manage to create one, a total conversion engine (E=mc^2) would still not be enough energy if you want to be picky, and that's a LOT.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Through this definition wood and geothermal are also renewable, but wood pollutes and geothermal is unreliable. Despite my limited trust in human nature, I think we're going to be here for a fairly long time, so I'm pretty sure we could figure out a way to make our own oil if we wanted to, it's just inefficient.
E=mc^2 (which isn't the full formula, but sufficient for this forum) is a ton of energy. That c is the speed of light (which, if memory serves is around 3x10^8m/s or something) [quick check with google gives 299 792 458m/s]...and that's squared. so basically, you throw in a gram amount of mass, and you'll get out a gm^2/s^2...or a watt the unit for energy and work. So, 1g of mass gets you 9^16 W. Which is a hell of a lot of energy. It's fusion which is very efficient until you get to atomic number 26 [iron]...once you get heavier than that fusion becomes less and less efficent (or maybe it's iron as the least efficient and it takes work to combine them higher).
[also note that direct mass-energy conversions are pretty much impossible, even in fusion...not all the mass will be changed to energy...if you're combining two hydrogen atoms to make helium, you're getting mass out of it too, so it's not all energy]
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->3) Hydrogen as we use it is not a power source. It is a carrier. We use oil to make hydrogen, confining the polution to a single point (and making it easier to reduce and control). The only way to get net energy from Hydrogen is to harvest it from somewhere, and it doesn't exist in a harvestable form on Earth.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Last time I checked water was made out of hydrogen and oxygen. Electrolosis seperates it into H and O (I think the negative lead creates the hydrogen, but I can't remember off-hand). Flame returns the two back to water (burned hydrogen combines with oxygen and forms water).
There's also plenty of hydroxides and other chemically bound forms of hydrogen (since yes, hydrogen does not occur naturally on earth, as its gravity is not strong enough. Or, if you don't want to seperate it from water...we can all go to Jupiter and harvest some <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> .
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->4) Not all plastics can be recycled. If we ran out of oil, we would no longer be able to create certain types. Even if they could all be recycled, there's a certain amount of waste, so oil would still need to be inserted into the system.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The afforementioned chicken oil could fill in the gaps, but as I'm unfamiliar with recycling processes I'm not going to speculate if it would be sufficient or economically possible (or feasible).
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->5) Nuclear power is great if you want a way to reduce our oil dependancy. All it really does is transfer that dependancy to a different limited resource mined in different third and second world countries, and trade one kind of pollution for another. Sure, it will help, but it cannot possibly replace oil power by itself.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As I remember it: Uranium waste can be converted to Plutonium, which is transformed to impure Uranium again, which can be refined to Uranium....and it goes in a big cycle until you need to start a new batch because you've lost to many neutrons.
Of course, nuclear power refers to Fusion and Fission...and if you find efficient fusion to be only a new crutch for oil dependency, check the afforementioned energy/mass conversion, as the only waste from Hydrogen fusion is Helium (and maybe some alpha particles, I think).
Although, I think the best efficiency we could get from our fusion reactors so far is .85% efficiency...which doesn't help us yet (as you need 1 to break even). You can't dis fusion either...as the sun is basically a giant fusion power plant, started by gravity.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Okay, now that stuff's out of the way...
I'd say this is easily something to deal with now rather than later. Now, let's arbitrarily assume we have 50-100 years left worth of <i>cheap</i> oil. What happens if we spend 50 years doing nothing about the problem? Potential chaos. What happens if we act now? We can still use oil for the things where it is most efficient or needed, like consumer products (mainly plastics), and use our natural gas to keep creating fertilizer. Then, instead of using oil for lighting/heating homes and powering transportation, we use our alternative energy method of choice + fuel cells to make it useful. If we cut our usage in a bit more than half (that's transit and power easily), we can have cheap plastics and stuff for 100-200 years.
I'd say it's economically irrisponsible to not at least start migrating to renewable or at least alternative energy sources<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We've been working (not really hard, but we have) on developing new (and more efficient) forms of energy. Hydrogen fuel cells and fusion just seem to be the most promising for our most required power (H cells for cars, fusion for electricity). This doesn't exactly solve the problems involved in plastics, but if we switch to all recyclable plastics and use the rest of our oil for anything extra we need, I'm sure we'll be sufficient there too.
There's also the chicken-oil (which isn't really chicken oil, it's actual oil products made from chicken waste parts - for those who don't like reading previous posts).
[I probably forgot some stuff while I was typing it, so sorry if it seems as though I have incomplete thoughts or something]
It's fairly inefficient to electrolyse water to form hydrogen and then use it in a fusion vessel (fusion is still not perfected).
Anyway, moving on...
Solar power is economical. The problem with it, in my opinion, is coverage.
Photosynthesis, the stuff that makes plants grow, is only 0.1% efficient. And yet it drives all life on earth. Go down the food chain and at it's base you will always find a photosynthesising plant (sans geothermal ecosystems).
My point? Simple. Plants cover most of the globe, thats quite arguably true. From the phytoplankton in the oceans to any forest you could care to name, they cover not only mere hectares but most of the surface area of the earth.
Solar power is 10% efficient (roughly). That is 100x more efficient then even the lowliest plant, and there are efforts in the chemical and energy industry to drive that efficiency even higher. If one could cover enough area, literally plaster the landscape with solar cells, then you could derive a sizable amount of energy from it.
Enough about solar though.
The problem lies with future planning, and as someone else mentioned, with transmission.
Our problems stem from the past. It was believed that coal supplies were nigh unlimited. Cycle a few times, and here we are. We are here because coal and oil are good enough, are sufficient to meet our needs, if we only ignore the future.
What steps to a more energy efficient future?
1: Transmission. The sooner we get superconduction nailed the better.
2: Efficiency. If we can raise the efficiency of existing technology, it would in turn curb the demand for these fuels.
3: Reclamation. This is difficult to explain, but it involves making use of every scrap of energy. For example, in electrolysis, only the hydrogen is collected and used. If we used the oxygen as well in a different reaction, that would involve the process of reclamation. It also has a purpose on nuclear power. When spent uranium comes out and plutonium is extracted, the plutonium can be used as a nuclear fuel in hybrid reactors.
4: Research. New ways of producing power must be found. Fusion is the nearest bet. Combined with superonductive tech and reclamation, it can prove to be highly efficient.
5: Infrastructure. Even in the ecosystem, you cannot cycle energy forever. It is eventually lost as waste products (coal, or at least, the eventuality of coal) or lost as heat into space. To match this energy output or loss, there must be an input of energy from the only thing that can be considered "Renewable", namely the sun. It all falls back to solar. Solar to provide the energy for electrolysis, for the mining equipment to get the uranium. We can rely on it for 5 Billion years more.
6: Future
There are many things that we can only speculate about. Will Vacuum Energy prove to be worthwhile? Is there some quirk in quantum mechanics that we can take advantage of? Will our distant descendants mould the universe to their specifications to form red dwarf stars? (These stars can last up to 100 Billion years and support an earthlike planet, albiet tidally locked). Will our final descendants be dependent on a black holes evaporation to survive?
Naturally, it's not my place to answer these questions. I leave that to more educated folk.
And MonsE, as much as it may seem that I'm "Talking out ones arse", it's inherently difficult to find a non-technical article that can be understood universally (provided a basic undestanding of english and physics) when the growlings of ones stomach is demanding sustenance <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
If any of the above is wrong, apocryphal or a blatant lie, dont hesitate to correct me or undermine my arguments. I make my points, I dont love them <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Fusion - Slam two or more elements together and harness the energy of their bonding - Correct?
Thus, it can be assumed that in Fission you will ALWAYS have to put more elements into it in order to renew the process of the explosions, and Fusion is also the same, assuming you have to continually put things into the device to bond together.
Solar power is a good choice, but the sun will blow up eventually, and it wont work well enough in deep, deep space (no stars = no light = no power)
Geothermal power is a good bet, because if the planet dies, we die with it; if we didn't get off of it in time. However, it changes as the earth changes it's inner parts and a hotspot might become cold quickly, leaving you with a closed off geothermal vent producing nothing
Wave power is a good bet and again, it's good until the planet dies. the only problem is that they may require MASSIVE amounts of maintanance if a hurricane or other weather system moves in and rips the things out of the water. Same problem with wind power - tornado hits and you're in a black out.
So with Murphy's law we can always assume there is no perfect energy source. Even perpetual motion machines (machines that could run forever, producing just enough energy to keep themselves going but never enough to be used as a power source) could all of a sudden stop, because a dust particle slowed a part by 0.000001 microseconds. Thus - we have to get as close to perfect as possible with our energy source - who knows, maybe we'll get good enough to harness the power of a black hole. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Solar power is a good choice, but the sun will blow up eventually, and it wont work well enough in deep, deep space (no stars = no light = no power)
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What kind of an argument is that? "The sun will blow up eventually, so we shouldn't invest in it"? As far as I remember this discussion was about phasing out oil as a primary fuel source and replacing it with something else, and as such solar energy is a good candidate (i remember once roughly calculating the power of the sun at midday in the summer to be around 1500watts/m^2...and i think that was only counting a few wavelength segments in the solar spectra). As for "it won't work well in deep space" ...what? Last I heard we weren't even close to getting anyone to live "in deep space". And most of the deep-space probes have onboard nuclear fission plants to power them.
I think fission is a great source of power. Its drawbacks are human error and waste removal. While the high level radioactive waste is reusuable, the low level waste (containmented material) is an annoying drawback. TMI, Chernobyl, and the Japanese incident a few years back are examples of human error (usually when their controllers get complacent about its safety).
Another problem facing much of the oil production in the US is environmental. NIMBY (Not in my backyard) symdrone and various environmental laws nearly stopped the making of new wells and refineries in the US. Heck the roots of the California energy crisis is based on the fact that due to law there hasn't been a new power plant made in the state since the 60s or 70s. California has to import much of electricity from nearby states like Nevada.
However oil's biggest use isn't electricity. It's transportation. Nothing so far is as good as oil for moving cars, ships and planes.
As for e=mc^2, it is possible to use to its fullest extent. Matter-Antimatter annilation is the most efficent process possible netting huge amounts of energy. The biggest disadvantage is that anti-matter can only be made one sub-atomic particle at a time and preventing immature annilation is very hard so it's unlikely as an energy source for the foreseeable future.
Yes, fusion is the combination of elements to form heavier elements which will give off energy as they're bonded. Generally this is only H+H -> He fusion (such as in the sun). Eventually, when your star gets hot enough, it combines He and H, and they form heavier and heavier elements up until iron. This is the basis behind the other nuclear bomb, the hydrogen bomb.
Fusion is also what the sun uses, so it's kind of important.
We don't need to worry about the sun burning out, because before it burns out it will expand, and eventually either envelope the earth in its plasma or the earth will be within its corona...so the planet's pretty much destroyed either way.
That's 4 billion + years away though, live hasn't even existed on Earth that long, so I don't think we'll need to worry about losing our 1400W/m^2 from the sun any time soon.
If we want to go on a grandiose scale, hydroelectric dams would be inefficent too, as every couple years (...millions) rivers change their directions and the shape of the planet changes...
Solar, wind and geothermal power(where available) will be our best bets until we get fusion of the ground. If none of those are viable (...such as here in Wisconsin, where we do get win, but it's never steady nor reliable, and it's cloudy often, and there's no geothermal activity) fission plants would still be effective.
Everyone should tour the Kewauntee County Nuclear Power Plant to prepare for the future! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> I just don't see us having that much trouble with oil...either way, human society rebounds and creates a better world...or we get to witness the Apocalypse and downfall of man...works out either way for me.
(I should probably stop posting, I've repeated a couple of the things I've said before a couple times now).
Ohh, and I knew water was slightly polarized, but I wasn't aware it was so hard to seperate oxygen and hydrogen in water - thanks for the chemistry lesson <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> .
[edit] Hida, as the army official that visited my high school senior year tells it, it's more of a reason that the START treaty prevents the refining of plutonium than the fear of terrorists. It's more dangerous to transport the used U to Yucca mountain than it would be to use raw Uranium (raw U isn't even usable in nuclear explosions, it has to be refined from natural U...which is why when U was first discovered it was used for making steel alloys.
[spelling]
But they've got problems of their own...
The least encouraging thing about hydrogen is that it is usually manufactured from hydrocarbons(methane, mostly) and electrolysis. This makes hydrogen as dirty and non-renewable(in the sense that it is too difficult or impractical to renew it, even if possible) as anything else. Electricity, while "clean" in itself is also dependant on other forms of energy, such as burning oil.
Unless you find a good fuel source like fusion power(another non-renewable fuel source, but it is clean and the materials needed are in abundance) and use that for hydrogen gas or electricity production or manage to make super-cheap solar cells or something then neither electrical or hydrogen powered cars seem like a good idea to me.
Fuel cells seem like a good idea if they ever get them to work fast enough for cars. If we have a surplus of cheap fermentable crops we could make lots of ethanol and run cars of off fuel-cells(which would be more efficient than a normal alcohol burning engine). A lot of a plants material is sadly cellulose and such which can't be fermented unless you manage to chop it down to glucose with some enzyme or something. Plants are like really cheap solar cells in a way...
It is if you let m be the relativistic mass, but since the velocities involved when speaking of bulk matter on the Earth are so tiny compared to c you can replace the relativistic mass with the rest mass without concernes. Certainly you are not concerned about relative errors on the order of 10^-17 when the errors in the mass of the earth is many orders of magnitudes greater?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Last time I checked water was made out of hydrogen and oxygen. Electrolosis seperates it into H and O (I think the negative lead creates the hydrogen, but I can't remember off-hand). Flame returns the two back to water (burned hydrogen combines with oxygen and forms water).
There's also plenty of hydroxides and other chemically bound forms of hydrogen (since yes, hydrogen does not occur naturally on earth, as its gravity is not strong enough. Or, if you don't want to seperate it from water...we can all go to Jupiter and harvest some .<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What he meant was that electrolysis(and other methods of hydrogen production) consume more energy then you get out of burning hydrogen so you are just using hydrogen to carry the energy in a more appropiate form(it is not equal since some energy is lost as heat at various points). Instead of just using electrical energy directly you are converting it to chemical energy which is easier to store and use for various applications.