Apathy vs Oil vs Energy vs Survival

[VMA131Marine]

Actually, I think coal does give us energy security for a couple of hundreds years but there are environmental problems associated with it.

Coal is good for a couple hundred years at CURRENT rates of consumption. If you have to make coal replace oil and then, a short time later, natural gas, then the lifespan of US coal deposits is on the order of a few tens of years not a few hundreds. Coal, as a finite resource, is subject to the same Hubbert peak phenomenon as oil. That doesn't even address the fact that mining operations would have to be massively increased and that much of the coal remaining is relatively low energy density (of course, we already mined the good stuff) and has a high sulphur content (acid rain ). Finally, burning coal releases lots more sequestered carbon into the atmosphere as CO2 with its associated climatological impact.

[Morrolan]

...that much of the coal remaining is relatively low energy density (of course, we already mined the good stuff) and has a high sulphur content (acid rain ).

this is defintely not true on several points:

1. there are still HUGE quantities of hig caloric coal left in the world. why? because the increasing use of oil has practically stopped the production of and exploration for coal all over the world. it was not a matter of moving to oil because we ran out of coal, we just stopped using it on a large scale. nowadays exploration has stepped up again and we are finding enormous quantities of coal.
for instance: Australia is the world's largest producer of coals, around 274 million tonnes saleable output during 2003, more than 75% of which is exported. and this is before output increases as a result of higher oil prices and substitution.
Indonesia produced around 114 million tonnes of high quality coal in that same period, also exporting 75%.

2. sulfur content varies in coal. there is a lot of low sulfur coal available. besides, nowadays coal burning installations can be (and in Europe must be) fitted with sulfur and soot filtration systems that remove most of the sulfur from the coal. acid rain is not a recurring phenomenon.

as an aside: what is not been taken into account in a lot of reports is the fact that furnaces are becoming ever more efficient. so much so, in fact, that in the past few years the resulting lower demand has negatively impacted world coal prices .

[edit typos]

[quest]

Check out Changing World Technologies, they seem to have the answers.

[waynek]

Interestingly, there's a couple of articles about this sort of thing in the latest Physics Today magazine. One is available free online at

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-7/p47.html

The other is for subscribers only and is at

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-7/p53.shtml

I'll quote a few short passages that hopefully won't bring down any copywrite wrath. 8-[

The most sacred icon in the "religion" of the US economic scene is steady growth of the gross national product, enterprises, sales, and profits. Many people believe that such economic growth requires steady population growth. Although physicists address the problems that result from a ballooning population—such as energy shortages, congestion, pollution, and dwindling resources—their solutions are starkly deficient. Often, they fail to recognize that the solutions must involve stopping population growth.
...
Most educated people understand that populations can't grow forever. But forever isn't really the issue. Already, population increases and consumer demand are taking big bites out of our energy resources. Of natural gas, Moniz and Kenderdine wrote that "US consumption represents roughly half of that for the industrialized world. . . . Developing Asia, Central America, and South America . . . are each expected to triple their demand over the next twenty years." A geological study published in 2003 reports that per capita annual production of natural gas is decreasing in Canada, Mexico, and the US.5 Production of natural gas in North America may be near the start of its terminal decline.
...
In the Physics Today essay and article, population growth is given as a cause of the problems identified, but eliminating the cause is not mentioned as a solution. We are prescribing aspirin for cancer. Indeed, the solutions outlined in the articles would only make the problems worse.

In other words, "The chief source of problems is solutions." If we keep increasing out capacity to make more of ourselves without, as others here put it, "reaching an equilibrium", the only end is a catastrophic collapse of civilization. This is the real call to arms we should be pushing. Energy, food, and all the rest is just a result of our exploding population.

[daver]

This is the real call to arms we should be pushing. Energy, food, and all the rest is just a result of our exploding population.

I disagree (circle gets the square). You could say "is the result of our exploded population". Most of the industrial world is at negative population growth. China is probably pretty close to its population limit--its population should slowly decline while its energy consumption rockets up.

The problem is that industrial civilization is spreading. That causes an abrupt boom in population, as the death rate from various causes drops dramatically. That is usually (but not always) followed by a drop in birth rate (not usually as dramatic, but tending to eventually balance the death rate). But the energy and resource consumption per individual jumps by an order of magnitude or more--that's the bit that we can't handle.

We could solve the problem by cutting the population by a couple orders of magnitude, or we could solve the problem by increasing the energy and resource production by an order of magnitude, or we could solve the problem by going back to a 19th century lifestyle (which would cut the population by perhaps a factor of 10). ZPG is a necessary solution, but not a sufficient solution (but, as I said, ZPG seems to be almost automatic).

[waynek]

ZPG is a necessary solution, but not a sufficient solution (but, as I said, ZPG seems to be almost automatic).

I agree that it is not sufficient, my point (and that of the article... I wish I could post the whole thing, you're all just going to have to go to the library and grab the latest Physics Today) is that most of the time ZPG is not even mentioned as a PART of the solution. There's already more people than can be supported if everyone lived as well as those in the USA. As industrial civilization spreads, we use up our limited resources faster and faster, until sooner or later we have to hit the wall. Before the whole world is industrialized and populations stabilize, cheap energy will dry up and the world economy as we know it will end. I'm not into fear-mongering, but no discussion about energy or polution etc. is complete without considering population as part of the problem AND part of the solution.

[Kebsis]

We're gonna run out of oil and natural gas in 20 years? Well, I guess that solves the global warming problem.

After we run out I say we switch back to whale oil.

[TriangleMan]

We're gonna run out of oil and natural gas in 20 years? Well, I guess that solves the global warming problem.

After we run out I say we switch back to whale oil.

I'm still waiting for genebujold to provide the statistics that we're going to run out of natural gas by 2017 as I've found numerous sites that disagree with that claim.

[waynek]

I'm still waiting for genebujold to provide the statistics that we're going to run out of natural gas by 2017 as I've found numerous sites that disagree with that claim.

Figure 3 in the first Physics Today article I linked shows a summary of natural gas resources in the US and worldwide. The smallest is of course the US Proven reserves, which will only last until about 2012 (with no increase in usage). The estimated US reserves will get us to about 2038 (with 2.8% annual usage increase). There are lots of ways to run the numbers, but 2017 is not too unreasonable depending on your assumptions. The most generous outlook given in the article is the estimated world supply with 2% annual growth, and even that only gets us out to about 2070. It seems very likely that some of us on this board will live to see the end of useful quantities of natural gas.

For those who still don't want to take the author's word for it, he does provide references, including the link

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/

[daver]

most of the time ZPG is not even mentioned as a PART of the solution

But we're already hosed--even if the birth rate went to zero today, there are too many people. For the most part, the industrialization growth rate is a bigger factor than the population growth rate.

In the 60's, ZPG was a BIG issue (heck, they even made some movies about it). In the 90's people started noticing that developed countries had NPG, and I suspect the issue declined in importance.

[dvb]

So why can't we all just agree on what needs to be done instead of arguing the inevitable? [-X

[quest]

I found this site ( Changing World Technologies) a while back. If thier claims are true, then our waste becomes an renewable energy source.
This would also lock up the carbon dioxide cycle as well.

CWT is the owner and developer of processes that convert industrial waste and low-value streams into fuels, oils, gases and carbons, with no hazardous emissions into the environment

.

This is from their site.

[daver]

So why can't we all just agree on what needs to be done instead of arguing the inevitable? [-X

We seem to have three choices. 1. Increase the death rate dramatically. 2. Nuclear power plants. Lots of them. 3. Do nothing, and let 1 happen through natural causes.

[Manchurian Taikonaut]

some news

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs...508150320/1003
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs...508150326/1092

try these threads

Hybrid Car gets 250mpg?
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20854
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=16253
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23665