Energy is a complex blend of physics, economics and politics.
I think you can pretty much write off alternatives such as bio-energy, coal gasification, oil shale deposits and such as large sources of energy. They suffer from requiring more energy to produce than they provide. Or they require other scarce resources such as water to produce them. Due to politics though you will see them crop up from time to time.
Because of thermodynamics energy production is counterintuitive to our notions of high technology. We imagine lots of genius and high-tech going into the production of wonderful gadgets such as iPods and G5s. However, in the case of energy the least effort and the lowest tech is best. The more effort and transformations required to produce energy the less valuable it is. This is a key concept.
This is the beauty of oil. You stick a pipe in the ground and it flows out. With a little refining you wind up with gasoline which has an energy density of about 12 kW-hrs per kg (about 100 times more than Li batteries). This is the second beauty of oil, it has a higher energy density than any other common fuel.
Think of it. The next time you put 20 gallons of gas in the tank that is roughly equivalent to 750 kW-hrs of energy, enough to run a home for three months, and you can pump it in a few minutes. Amazing.
Ethanol used for fuel is probably not energy efficient. That is, when you add up all the fertilizer, tractor fuel, refining costs, refineries, tractors and clean up costs (all of which use or are made from oil) then the resulting fuel may have cost more oil to make than it produced. The fact that some of us are mandated by law to use gasoline mixed with ethanol from corn is one example of how politics clashes with physics.
Solar, wind and even nuclear all suffer from the fact that they rely heavily on fossil fuels for their production and operation. In other words, if all we had was electricity it would be difficult to extract and process the raw materials, build the required machines and clean up when finished. Cars, trucks, machinery and materials needed to build and operate alternative fuel technologies require fossil fuels and oil stocks.
While these alternatives produce more energy than they consume it is better to think of them as fossil fuel amplifiers than alternatives to fossil fuels. Oil has the remarkable dual role of energy source and feed stock. Solar, wind or energy might produce electricity but you can't make things out of electricity. Making oil out of carbon, hydrogen and electricity will be very expensive.
In the past hundred years we have built a huge infrastructure based on fossil fuels. Any alternative we try to adopt as the price of oil goes up will engender wide spread disruptions.
Jeremy Rifkin published a book called Entropy in 1980. He is a bit of a radical and certainly pushes his point of view. However, the book is an easy read and does a good job of showing how thermodynamics sheds light on our energy problems.
I think you can pretty much write off alternatives such as bio-energy, coal gasification, oil shale deposits and such as large sources of energy. They suffer from requiring more energy to produce than they provide. Or they require other scarce resources such as water to produce them. Due to politics though you will see them crop up from time to time.
Because of thermodynamics energy production is counterintuitive to our notions of high technology. We imagine lots of genius and high-tech going into the production of wonderful gadgets such as iPods and G5s. However, in the case of energy the least effort and the lowest tech is best. The more effort and transformations required to produce energy the less valuable it is. This is a key concept.
This is the beauty of oil. You stick a pipe in the ground and it flows out. With a little refining you wind up with gasoline which has an energy density of about 12 kW-hrs per kg (about 100 times more than Li batteries). This is the second beauty of oil, it has a higher energy density than any other common fuel.
Think of it. The next time you put 20 gallons of gas in the tank that is roughly equivalent to 750 kW-hrs of energy, enough to run a home for three months, and you can pump it in a few minutes. Amazing.
Ethanol used for fuel is probably not energy efficient. That is, when you add up all the fertilizer, tractor fuel, refining costs, refineries, tractors and clean up costs (all of which use or are made from oil) then the resulting fuel may have cost more oil to make than it produced. The fact that some of us are mandated by law to use gasoline mixed with ethanol from corn is one example of how politics clashes with physics.
Solar, wind and even nuclear all suffer from the fact that they rely heavily on fossil fuels for their production and operation. In other words, if all we had was electricity it would be difficult to extract and process the raw materials, build the required machines and clean up when finished. Cars, trucks, machinery and materials needed to build and operate alternative fuel technologies require fossil fuels and oil stocks.
While these alternatives produce more energy than they consume it is better to think of them as fossil fuel amplifiers than alternatives to fossil fuels. Oil has the remarkable dual role of energy source and feed stock. Solar, wind or energy might produce electricity but you can't make things out of electricity. Making oil out of carbon, hydrogen and electricity will be very expensive.
In the past hundred years we have built a huge infrastructure based on fossil fuels. Any alternative we try to adopt as the price of oil goes up will engender wide spread disruptions.
Jeremy Rifkin published a book called Entropy in 1980. He is a bit of a radical and certainly pushes his point of view. However, the book is an easy read and does a good job of showing how thermodynamics sheds light on our energy problems.
Unofficial AppleScript Studio Lobbyist
Unofficial AppleScript Studio Lobbyist
