Order of Kilopi
If oil became that short, you would see coal gasification, with liquified gas becoming a mobil fuel. Cars could use a practical steam-electic-battery hybrid
as a method of transport. Gas for lighting and heating is old technology. Burning it as a clean technology is the challenge. I'll believe we are serious about
energy when we rebuild the Energy Research and Developement Adm. Money well spent.
Order of Kilopi
government bureaucrats and/or politicians. I believe that they do infest the entire planet.Originally Posted by NEOWatcher
The people that gave us those two were international entities? Really?
I'd comment further, but giving an opinion (or even expanding on those two comments) would be getting too political.
Order of Kilopi
Fusion research is alot more collaborative than it seems from the outside. Maybe underfunded, but then again, it has been 10-20 years in the future for half a century. Economically viable fusion power is alot more difficult than it seems.
I would not worry about there being some sort of impediment to adoption of fusion like there is with fission power. Proliferation will never be an issue like it is with fission. You cant take the fuel out of a fusion plant and turn it into a WMD the way you can with a fission plant.
My view is that it will be economics, not government fiat that will get these techs developed and deployed. Gasoline is still of a comparable price to milk. Heck, gasoline is still cheaper then water at the local quicky-mart (bottled water, that is). Until that seriously changes, and the demand for alternatives becomes great, you just wont see much utilization of the alternatives. Get oil up to $200 a barrel, and the alternatives will start popping up on their own.
Order of Kilopi
My comment wasn't directed at you, if that's what you are saying here.
Well; it was meant more as a light hearted comment. (the way you worded it this time, I do agree)
I just see a lot of situations on this board where "the gubmt" controls or hides something without regards to the fact that every nation would have to be in on it.
Established Member
No, No... in fact I appreciate your support
Established Member
Fusion electricity may cost a dollar instead of a dime per kilowatt hour = little impact even if we can produce several times break even. Most of the alternative are almost that far from competitive. Wind and algae in transparent pipes look best near term. Possibly CNG = compressed natural gas for cars and trucks. If we can't make CNG practical why do we hope for hydrogen that is signficantly worse by the cubic meter? = No space left for passengers or cargo without refueling every 100 kilometers. Neil
Order of Kilopi
Without cheap patrol you might have no choice but to accept that them's the rules for driving cars.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
There are quite few CNG-fueled vehicles on US roads right now: they are clearly practical. The only restriction on their wider use is a lack of CNG refueling stations. Remedying that problem is much more difficult; many US filling stations are independent small businesses, and with the current conditions in the banking sector, their access to capital is too restricted to permit addition of CNG facilities.
However, I think well before we start seeing the introduction of widespread alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, especially petroleum- based road fuels, we'll see those countries which are most dependent on trucks and automobiles for long-distance transport suffer some quite severe disruptions. Consumer behavior can influence this, as a large part of the petroleum-based fuels consumed in the US is used by private automobiles, which is why the government is mandating increased mileage for them. I try not to be rude, but I can think of nothing positive to say about either the intelligence or patriotism about people opposing this.
Established Member
On the other hand, non-violent cultures that persisted much longer than ours has so far, is not fantasy.
Order of Kilopi
I took some courses in history and anthropology in college and while I can think of many cultures that can be said to have existed longer than ours, none of them were non-violent.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
Order of Kilopi
The issue is that at current prices, there is a lot of economic unconventional oil, so I have doubts about the claim that "peak oil" has happened, not that it will eventually happen. So I've been trying to review the arguments to see if they make sense. One issue I did find is that there are production limitations. For instance, Canadian tar sand production is rate limited due to water availability (that is, how much water is available per day), not (at least for many decades) resource limited. Shale oil production requires proppants. There also has to be available transportation. And then in other cases there are government production restrictions. That at least makes some sense to me as an argument for peak oil: Production limits, not resource limits, are the bigger issues currently.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
FYI, In the economic thread we're talking about how gasoline deliveries tanked in the last few months, from mid 40s MGD to low 30s. Some articles suggest it's an economic response to high oil prices. While we can talk about Peak Oil being merely about producible numbers, in the end the economy needs to be able to sustain consumption of that production at those prices. As some have said elsewhere, peak oil isn't really a peak with a downward slope, but has a roller-coaster afterwards.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
If demand drops, price drops. World demand did drop with the recession but it seems to be picking back up again. It might dip again in the short term, but the trend is towards more efficient use of oil, and the Jevons paradox suggests that will increase demand since efficiency lowers the cost of use and can therefore support higher resource cost.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
Look at this and see it you'd prefer to repeat your statement in a revised form.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
technically, isnt that US refiners delivering to US retailers?
Order of Kilopi
Yes, but retailers don't have the massive holding capacity of the refineries so their demand is fairly tightly linked to customer demand.
And as US consumers are a very large part of world demand, it's likely pretty representative of total demand as well.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Established Member
If you have a look at the BITR 117 report I linked to on Page 2, you will see this has been addressed (pages 339-351).
The peak in conventional oil production was about 2005, instead of a precipitous decline from then the difference is made up of unconventional oil sources (deep water oil, tar-sands, extra heavy oil, coal/gas to liquids etc) leading a plateau gently rising to 2016, followed by a steep decline therafter, so the total crude oil peak can be expected about then.
Although the reserves in tar sands etc are high, the problems include the facts of a lower recoverable fraction from unconventional sources, that the energy costs to obtain the oil are also high, as well as the environmental and infrastructure production restrictions you mention meaning that production from these sources cannot match the precipitous decline in production from conventional sources after 2016.
Order of Kilopi
There appears to be multiple definitions of peak oil, with some already being reached and some in the future.
My preferred one is a recognition that there isn't really one peak, but rather one peak per type of resource, with production shifting from the cheap to the expensive ones as each peak is reached, with prices generally growing and pushing demand down as other energy sources become competitive.
There are multiple feedbacks acting at once, demand is being limited by price, price is being lowered by less demand, and raised by increased production costs, etc. etc..
As with every other one phrase description of the world, "peak oil" is too simple to describe what's actually going on.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
Having stated that only fission, fusion and/or space-based solar would suffice to support a high-consumption civilisation, I should perhaps point out that we are likely to reach a crisis some time during this century or shortly after.
The simulations on this page present a variety of scenarios that describe potential conditions on our world given a range of circumstances, not all of them realistic.
http://elmhcx9.elmhurst.edu/~chm/onl...**/limits.html
I note with some dismay that the simulations that end with the best end results for humanity are also the least realistic.
Being optimistic, I would expect that a hybrid approach, including as many renewable resources as possible, will allow our population and well-being to become stable by the end of this century; but at some point an end to growth must come in one way or another.
If growth does not end or slow down considerably, we would be cooking in our waste heat by 2300.
see Long Term Global Heating from Energy Usage .pdf
.
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Order of Kilopi
Yeah, but it dosent take into account imported refined oil. I feel that there may be a political element having a large effect on US refiners over the last couple years.
Established Member
That does seem to be the scary conclusion. That if do not abandon global growth total heat will get us. and not so far off as we might imagine... but there is so much momentum, and such an imperative to increase the living standards of billions of people worldwide... what is the possible technical solution, other than massive population reduction, and the abandonment of industrial excess.
Established Member
I've heard of peak oil, but nobody ever points out there could easily be such a thing as peak usage.
Diminishing returns mean that the continuous curves of increasing per capita usage just don't make sense. Energy usage should flatten out at a point when there simply isn't a reason to use more power for the average person. To me it seems that developed countries are seeming to already be approaching this. Once you hit the processing for seemless virtual reality computing, full sets of household maintaining robotics, personal hobby devices, comfortable environmental maintenance, and transport allowing regular cross-continental travel... there isn't a whole lot left.
The point is, consumption also has its limits. Unless fads for personal particle colliders and vanity robot armies upset it, there will ultimately be a leveling point because there just won't be much else to spend energy on; it won't provide significant further benefit to your lifestyle anymore. And I actually think this is an important number; if that energy usage is sustainable at the population level where the global population levels off, it should be a target to attempt to reach with sustainable power supplies. But let's be honest, endless increases in anything make me question the rationality of a forecast.
Order of Kilopi
You're thinking too linearly. Why wash clothes in your own laundry room when you can have your dirty clothes shipped to china and cleaned and then shipped back, or replaced with brand new clothes from India? why eat lettuce in season when you can get it from California year round, or from South America. Even if you prefer to garden, why wait on the summer sun when you can have your own greenhouse operating year round 24 hours a day. There's a lot more ways to "waste" energy then directly.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Established Member
Indeed, and we're talking on a long enough period here that there might be ideas that seem entirely absurd today that will be the norm "tomorrow." A century, possibly even 50 years ago, the idea of electronic mail and books that required batteries might have seemed lubricious. Who would have thought that instead of walking their patrol, a mall cop would instead ride electrically powered, gyroscopically stabilized wheels? Why does a kids water gun need a solid state laser aiming dot? It wouldn't surprise me if "Risk" is now played more on the computer than with a physical board game.
Order of Kilopi
No, I see nothing to revise. My statement was about world oil demand, not U.S. gasoline demand. World oil demand dropped with the recession but picked up in 2010 and 2011.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Established Member
There are still billions and billions of people who would all want to drive cars and enjoy the other benefits of a high energy usage lifestyle, and cannot.
Order of Kilopi
Good, light weight monorails will prevail once the need becomes obvious.
Order of Kilopi
All this seems to be assuming assuming that the average per capita energy use baseline will remain similar to what it is today, which may not be the case. You have various competing factors at work, including the industrialization of the Third world, changing population densities and birthrates, changing lifestyles, and development of more efficient energy use systems and technologies.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
Actually this is showing why the "average" baseline is long term unsustainable. And unobtainable for the vast majority of people.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
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