Oil?
Metalcat
Join Date: 2004-08-11 Member: 30528Members
Join Date: 2004-08-11 Member: 30528Members
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Me, I hate the environment so I burn uranium in my woodstove.
Me, I hate the environment so I burn uranium in my woodstove. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
dont really know what its called in english <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
In reality, energy requires investment. We have already invested so much in oil infrastructure that it's painful to throw it away. Alternative sources of energy will not be common-place until the economics (particularly of scale) call for it.
Fortunately, even though alternative energy sources are not being widely deployed, the research dollars are still being invested. Every dollar spent on research pushes the balance a bit away from oil and reduces the chances of catastrophe.
Ethics do a particularly poor job of driving an economy, even more so when the business climate is so rediculously competetive. Some people would gladly sell out the futures of people they won't live long enough to meet if it means saving a buck a month. When the consequences aren't personal, they tend to stay out of mind.
Use batteries you say? Batteries die after awhile, require harmful chemicals to make and dipose of, etc.
Oil is easy to pump out and ship, is very mature as an energy source, and is reliable (won't run dry for a day then come back the next.)
Also, other problems arise with sources such as wind. I read a report that suggested that wind turbines were "blowing" air around and causing rifts in the climates of regions, not to mention the wind mills that were emiting a high-pitched sound that very closely resembled the mating call of some sort of bat. You can figure out what happened when the bats flew towards the call.
Hey I'm all for expanding our Garbage-can policy with Nevada. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
So I better don't get started on Energy politics or my gastric ulcer will say hello again....
But for people who say that Solar power is unreliable or barely generates power, etc. They're liars. I have two (2) small panels on the roof of my home, and it runs a water heater for the entire house. I've had them for seven years and they have not needed maintinence once, I just clean them once a year when I clean my gutters. Granted during the winter, not so much, but nobody is saying we have to use only Solar, there are other sources of power. If you build houses well and cover their roofs with solar panels, you're looking at cutting the energy demand exponentially.
I should add:
I'd be 100% for Nuclear power, because the chances of a dangerous meltdown in a well constructed one are like 1 in a googaplex, but nuclear waste does need to be monitored more effectively and they need to find a way to reduce the amount produed or store it better, IMO.
It's quite simple, the earth is filled with trillions upon trillions of gallons of oil (No, we aren't running out any time soon). It may be polluting, but it's cheap, considering how far you can go on just a few gallons of it. Gas already has a giant market of vehicles, and a system to transport it.
Electricity could be easy to obtain (nuclear power, anyone?), but to use it requires expensive vehicles (electric motors, high-voltage batteries). It is very weak compared to oil, and a lot more expensive by the mile (BTW, extremely limited mileage). Not to mention that it would require that a new system of vehicles and power systems be set up, which, alone, could cost way more than sticking with oil.
Other fuels are also more expensive.
It's simply uneconomical, oil provides cheap, powerful transport. Pollution hasn't stopped the world before, so you can't be sure if it will any time soon.
How does 1.4 trillion sound?
All that's left. And we're not talking about "cheap, easy-to-get" 1.4 trillion barrels. We're talking about 1.4 trillion of "miles below the ocean floor", and also including the cheap type.
1.4 trillion <i>will</i> run out. And yes, any time soon.
Since there is little point in me sweating things I cannot change. I won't.
And the reason people don't use hydrogen very often is that you need to expend alot more energy to obtain it then you acctually get from burning it. Usually, getting hydrogen means using a fossil fule generator to run electricity through.
[edit] bold didn't show up so well, so I supersizified it too
Since there is little point in me sweating things I cannot change. I won't. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
thats what im talking about. we need to research.
and we need to use more money and time to make it happen
Basically it is not supported by the governments, so there are no fuelstations for them, while the technilogy is readily available. BMW and DaimlerCryssler (and others) have prototypes tested and ready for production.
Also, Hyrogene could replace gas or oil in households.
The common context is that this techonolgy is not reedy yet, but that is nonsense from my point of view, as the military has already tapped its potential. As soon as a technology is used in military service, it is fully developed. That the rule of thumb.
The vessel I speak of is the german type 212/214 submarine.
Both powered diesel-electric, however equped with an hyrogene fuel cell to power the batteries for endured submarine activity.
The Type 212 have cells that produce about 50 kW power over the duration of several days, while the more sophisticated 214 developed for exports is equiped with a more sophisticated device that is capable of 120 KW and 2 weeks of endured diving.
That develpment has taken place during the sea trials of the first 212 prototype, which basically means that the improvement was made during 2 years of development. Pretty quick for a not fully developed technology....
Which is the US market going to go for:
A) Oil and LP Imported, ~$2 per gallon of octane (gasoline)
B) Oil and LP Made via Thermal Deoploymerization, ~$4 per gallon of octane
Answer?
Well, the US market's bell curve goes for the cheaper solution. Same reason that the US market cars don't come standard with turbos and supercharges like in the European market. Americans like cheap, they whine and **** whenever the prices go up. OPEC isn't stupid. If non-import solutions become cheaper, they will lower the price. They want our money, it makes them billionares. The US tries to maintain stability of the prices by trying to keep the political situation in the Middle East under control. But that is another story.
Basic answer: It's all macroeconomics.
While there are more efficient ways of getting energy from the environment, the major forces in the world have put a lot of work, money and time into using oil as a good energy source. Eventhough it has been discovered FAIRLY recently that there ARE other, more efficient, ways to get energy, the major forces in the world found oil a long time ago. Since the the time they first found oil they have developed systems to use oil, accounts to fund the purchase of oil, jobs to handle the purchasing and processing of oil, and therefore an economy that supports providing money to families that is based on oil.
This is not absolutely how everything works but if we are going to talk about just oil then this is one product. Your mother and/or father probably work to support a product, working at a company to supply that product generates money just like if you set up a lemonade stand on your street block and sold lemonade for 25 cents.
As an example, say you create a lemonade stand and you buy lemons and sugar and sell lemonade for a price slightly higher than the cost of the price of the lemons you bought and the sugar you bought. To know how much higher you need to charge for the lemonade you consider how much you would like to make in a given day and the area you are selling lemonade because depending on where you are there is a certain number of people walking by who MIGHT buy lemonade if the price is right. (People will flame me for this very basic example and add more variables but I'm just giving you a jist of business sense)
You must also consider this along with the amount of time you wish to sit on the block selling lemonade. If you get all these factors right, you will sell lemonade and make more money than it cost to make the lemonade. How long you spend on the block is important because if you want to make $5 dollars a day selling lemonade, well if lemonade costs you 25 cents a glass then you have to sell $5 / 50 cents = 20 glasses of lemonade. In other words, 25 cents to make it plus 25 cents of profit that goes into your wallet.
If it takes you any time longer than a day to sell $5 worth of lemonade then you aren't meeting your business goals and that's what people refer to as a failing business.
Well, the companies that your mom and dad work at have figured this stuff out to the point where depending on the intelligence and education of your parents (that they have determined through intensive INTERVIEWS) they are willing to wager that your parents can make more money than the money they are willing to pay your parents. And thus, that will encourage them to hire your parents! To your parents (and to you if you happen to be interviewing) this is a good deal because the money they are paying you is enough for you to support your family or maybe just you if you dont have a family. And this is the way just about every product works basically.
Its also the way oil and just about any other product works. But as soon as you introduce a new product that is BETTER... companies that employ people and cities that support those companies, and governments that support those cities say, "HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!" WHY? Because they spent a lot of time and money setting up a system thats based on oil. If they decide to switch to something else, it is a serious problem because they have to change EVERYTHING.
Governments have to change how they make money. Companies have to change how they pay their employees. Employess have to change how they support their families. And this isn't easy because if governments simply decide to change the product, then all the years and decades people spent in college and trade schools, and working in companies learning how to produce a product will mean NOTHING! And then employees will be out of a job and they will have to go back to school and spend money out of their own pocket to do this while supporting their familes.
Well that will make families angry, and FURIOUS that they have to spend their own money to change how they make money because typically they have not saved enough to afford going back to school and learning how to do a different job.
So the short version to a computer nerd is this... The world uses floppy disks. You come out with USB ports. Its going to take the world a LOOOOOONG while to come out with memory sticks because theres so many people involved.
That's why we can't easily transfer from oil to a cheaper more efficient product like hydrogen. I don't know if you meant hydrogen but the premise is the same.
We have cars and other vehicles which are significant products that depend on oil. We have mechanisms that make and ship oil guzzling vehicles.
Its not easy to simply switch to something else!
So eventhough a hydrogen powered car may be cheaper and better for the environment and even better for the economy due it its low cost... it may be difficult to make an entire nation as a whole to accept such a vehicle because of all the variables involved. There are jobs at stake! There are financial FAMILIAL futures at stake that are based on oil. It is no small matter!
Me, personally I don't care. I made the right moves such that moving from hydrogen to oil doesn't affect me. But most people are not like me. There are a lot of people who will fight tooth and nail to keep oil in the economy. It is essential to their survival. So it is no small feat so convince a world as a whole that a efficient solution is the best solution, because typically the nations that consider such a solution have more to deal with than simply the environmental efficiency of a solution.
I see it now.
But you forget we are not just talking about a nation. Im talking about the whole world. And if they used brint, then America do not have to invade the nations who have oil to get money.
Well, retrospectively, just because we can make oil synthetically, doesn't mean we will never run out. Earth most likely doesn't have an infinate supply of whatever we use to make oil, so theoretically, within an infinate ammount of time we could exaust all capacity to produce oil.
An even more general answer to that comment would be that while humans encourage morality, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the like, in the end, when survival is at stake, humans, or rather humans that have formed a group tend to lean towards the notion of "survival of the fittest". And that usually takes precedence over making things comfortable for every single human on the planet Earth.