Very late to the thread, but I thought I'd throw in a thought or two:
Seems to me that one of the biggest obstacles to starting now on a crash program for energy sustainability is cultural.
That is, as Americans we have come to believe that certain aspects or our "way of life" are absolutely guaranteed us, and that any programs that alter that lifestyle in any way whatsoever are evidence of socialism, weakness, alarmism, or all three, and moreover represent an intolerable hardship.
Think of the responses, often of these boards, to the assertion that SUVs are socially irresponsible: they're not illegal, I can afford the gas, and the government has no right to tell me what to drive. Also, the only people against them are self-hating crypto-homosexual pussies.
Never mind that the entire SUV phenomena is very recent and can be clearly demonstrated to serve no real unmet need outside of macho vanity; it has become an inalienable right.
The American character is heavily invested in these kind of ideas of "independence" and "self-sufficiency" and "freedom"; we seem to have little taste for "shared sacrifice to make the burden lighter for everyone".
Many of the changes that could ease the transition to alternative energy sources would not, in fact, be particularly burdensome, if they were applied within a coherent framework that spread their effects across as many energy users as possible to achieve the greatest achievable economics of scale.
Photovoltaics would already compete with traditional energy sources if there were a large enough market; that market could have been designed into a real national energy policy.
But no policy has ever been forthcoming because it would require Americans to accept something they didn't necessarily choose. "Why should I have to pay for gummit mandated whatcha-m'callits I don't even want? I thought I lived in America, not communist russia!" Same with hybrids, natural gas, et al: we could begin to change and extend our window of opportunity by decades right now just by facing facts, and responding accordingly with appropriate technology. If the "free market" won't do it now, call it national security. After all, nobody waited for the "market" to reply to Hitler's threat to the world.
At the end of the day, though, in our heart of hearts, we think God owes us the unprecedented comfort of our current situation. We can't bring ourselves to imagine, or perhaps have lost the ability to imagine, a world that requires us to things differently, even when those things are fairly benign. Like children, we just can't stand to be told "no".
No faggot pussy "world" is going to tell us what to do. Hurtling towards a cliff with our foot firmly off the brake is somehow a measure of our strength of character.
More news for Scott and the Rose colored looking glass crowd to ignore:
Quote:
from the NYT
High fuel prices are here to stay, at least for the near future, because no relief is in sight for tight oil supplies.
Most oil-producing countries and the major oil companies already produce all they can. Smaller companies and wildcatters are reopening some mothballed wells, but their combined output is not nearly enough to affect the global supply.....
I'm sure we're going to hit the motherload for the next 100 years... anyday now. Everyone hold your breath.
Since oil is made of decayed fish( excuse my spelling), if we would stop using oil for a long time maybe over 300 years, we could see resupplied oil sources on Earth. Hopefully in those 5-7 years we will be using hydrogen cars. But, knowing society we will nevr stop using oil intill Earth is dried of every resource there is.
Oil is a little more complex than just decayed fish: it's eons old and is subjected to high pressure due to being underground.
As an interesting aside, diesel vehicles can be run on sunflower oil (it's illegal in to use sunflower oil as vehicle fuel in the UK because it isn't taxed appropriately). Is it feasible to grow enough oil?
Since oil is made of decayed fish( excuse my spelling), if we would stop using oil for a long time maybe over 300 years, we could see resupplied oil sources on Earth. Hopefully in those 5-7 years we will be using hydrogen cars. But, knowing society we will nevr stop using oil intill Earth is dried of every resource there is.
I think it takes more than 300 years for dead marine life to be converted to oil, something like a million years. I think its because of the temperature and pressures. I also doubt that there is as much marine life in the oceans as there was a few million years ago.
The info is a little different this time around, Scott.
Quote:
Oil prices vaulted to a 21-year high yesterday on fears that an attack on Middle East oil facilities may stress world fuel supplies already eroded by heady demand growth in China and the United States.
US light crude rose 37 cents to $41.45 a barrel, an all-time high in the 21-year history of the New York Mercantile Exchange contract. London Brent added 19 cents to $38.68 a barrel.
Warnings from a senior Russian official that oil exports from the world's second biggest exporter have hit a ceiling after many years of growth underlined the strain on global supply.
"Realistically, the capacity of suppliers does not today meet growing demand in places such as China or India. And you have to take into account the state of affairs in Iraq," said Semyon Vainshtok, head of Russia's oil pipeline monopoly.
Economic expansion in China, bolstered by renewed US growth, has placed world supplies under increasing strain, leaving the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bar top producer Saudi Arabia, pumping almost flat out to meet demand.
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
Even though you were being smug-n-sarcastic, you're absolutely right about these things:
Quote:
Warnings from a senior Russian official that oil exports from the world's second biggest exporter have hit a ceiling after many years of growth underlined the strain on global supply.
Economic expansion in China, bolstered by renewed US growth, has placed world supplies under increasing strain, leaving the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bar top producer Saudi Arabia, pumping almost flat out to meet demand
First off the current limit on oil production has nothing to do with available oil sources. It has to do with an increase in demand tied with a limited production capability. The oil producers were not ready for China and India becoming industrialized as quickly as they did. The stores are there, the taps are not.
Second, we already have alternate sources of energy available. This has been said already but those of you who have bought into the peak oil scare don't want to recognize the readily accessible alternatives. Bio-Diesel, 10%, 20% ethenol mixtures, solar fields, wind fields, coal gasification gas turbines, etc... We have alternatives. When the price of oil used for energy excedds the cost of developing and implementing the alternative sources we simply switch. When we switch, the price of the alternative sources will go down. That is how markets work. Alternate sources ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE we are simply waiting for the markets to decide when and how to implement these sources.
Third, didn't we hear about energy shortages a few years ago? Oh yeah, California was going to suffer from cascading blackouts and massive power shourtages because the plants "couldn't produce enough power to meet demand." Hmmm didn't that turn out to be a crisis driven by fear and corporate greed? Didn't a few energy companies limit the energy production in order to generate higher profits per KW hour? Yep. Opec is a conglomerate of nationalized oil producing countries who have a vested interest in selling oil for top dollar. They will milk consumers for as much as they can. As long as consumers are willing to pay $x.xx for energy then they will sell for $xx.xx per barrel. If a few consumers drop out of the market or switch to alternative sources then those losses in profit are made up(and exceeded) by the remaining consumers who pay more for their energy. Anyone who has had College Algebra or Calculus I should know about optimization where higher sales at x may or may not produce more profit than lower sales at y.
People need to stop crying about the sky falling because the electricity you get at home for the most part does not come from oil. You're home energy comes from hydro-electric, Nuclear, Coal fire, Coal gasification, and natural gas derived as a oil refinery by product or tapped from the earth, wind, and solar array. The majority of oil use is concentrated on transportation then on polymer production (plastics). When driving from A to B using oil cost more than driving from A to B using bio-diesel derived from a variety of unused sources (corn husks, and other waster plant material) then we will switch to bio-diesel as the norm. We will step up or usage of ethonol blends before too long once the cost becomes viable. Pure ethonol exhaust tends to burn eyes when burned so it isn't a viable solution as yet but a 10 or 20 percent blend will greatly reduce our dependence on oil as a source of power.
I would think that the big question with Faust's "switch to biodiesel" scenario is whether or not when you scale up the process to meet the enormous demands of American petroleum usage, do you start getting problems?
Like, is there actually enough waste biomass to meet this level of demand? If not, how many acres have to be under cultivation for specifically this application? What are the byproducts of producing biodiesel, and would they be a problem at very high levels of production?
I'm just wondering if some aspects of this technology seem very benign at the moment because deployment is so slight, but would become a major headache when multiplied by a factor of a million or so.
Faust: we don't have anything even remotely close to an "alternative energy source" that can utilize existing infrastructure as well as oil, produce all the different raw materials that oil is used to produce, or replace oil in any meaningful way at all. None. To argue otherwise is to ignore the limited utility of most of the technologies you named, and the fact that the problem goes well beyond just ["making fuel"]. You can respond to that or not; it won't change the inaccuracy of your assumptions.
And the notion than China and India somehow creeped up on us, but that now that we're aware of their demand, we'll simply tap into abundant new oil sources, is fantasy. Show some proof that such sources are known to exist and are within easy reach of existing technologies and oil fields. Even if some abundant oil field exists that we haven't drilled, that doesn't mean it's *able* to be drilled with any relative efficiency or cost-effectiveness.
And Scott: no, they haven't been said before, not in this context. Of course, feel free to prove us wrong with links and relevant quotations from people in the industry, who are basically hinting at the fact that we've hit the plateau of oil production, and that existing reserves have been wildly exaggerated. This has all cropped up in the last few years. No one was saying we had hit Peak Oil or that reserve numbers were badly miscalculated in 1990 or 1980 or even in the 70's when people's paranoia about oil dependancy was rampant.
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
It's a good thing to know that the Earth will never be struck by a large asteroid.
How do I know this?
Well, many people have already predicted that we'd be struck by an asteroid on various dates and times that have come and gone without incident. The big strike never happened. They were all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Therefore, logically we must conclude that we are forever and ever protected against all asteroid strikes, and that anyone, even with really good new data, is a crackpot like all the rest. The pattern has been established and is, um, irrefutable. Yeah, that's the ticket.
I hope Faust9 doesn't leave this thread because he presents the most rational, least alarmist outlook on our future energy consumption. Scott may be anatagonizing with "the sky is falling" quips but the consipiratory nature of some these posts seems to beg for it. Road warriors indeed. Markets and energy consumptions will change, not overnight but you can already see some shift with hybrid production cars etc.
Make me wonder how many here stocked their garages with water and rations to weather the apocolypse-that-wasnt... Y2K? \
Comments
Seems to me that one of the biggest obstacles to starting now on a crash program for energy sustainability is cultural.
That is, as Americans we have come to believe that certain aspects or our "way of life" are absolutely guaranteed us, and that any programs that alter that lifestyle in any way whatsoever are evidence of socialism, weakness, alarmism, or all three, and moreover represent an intolerable hardship.
Think of the responses, often of these boards, to the assertion that SUVs are socially irresponsible: they're not illegal, I can afford the gas, and the government has no right to tell me what to drive. Also, the only people against them are self-hating crypto-homosexual pussies.
Never mind that the entire SUV phenomena is very recent and can be clearly demonstrated to serve no real unmet need outside of macho vanity; it has become an inalienable right.
The American character is heavily invested in these kind of ideas of "independence" and "self-sufficiency" and "freedom"; we seem to have little taste for "shared sacrifice to make the burden lighter for everyone".
Many of the changes that could ease the transition to alternative energy sources would not, in fact, be particularly burdensome, if they were applied within a coherent framework that spread their effects across as many energy users as possible to achieve the greatest achievable economics of scale.
Photovoltaics would already compete with traditional energy sources if there were a large enough market; that market could have been designed into a real national energy policy.
But no policy has ever been forthcoming because it would require Americans to accept something they didn't necessarily choose. "Why should I have to pay for gummit mandated whatcha-m'callits I don't even want? I thought I lived in America, not communist russia!" Same with hybrids, natural gas, et al: we could begin to change and extend our window of opportunity by decades right now just by facing facts, and responding accordingly with appropriate technology. If the "free market" won't do it now, call it national security. After all, nobody waited for the "market" to reply to Hitler's threat to the world.
At the end of the day, though, in our heart of hearts, we think God owes us the unprecedented comfort of our current situation. We can't bring ourselves to imagine, or perhaps have lost the ability to imagine, a world that requires us to things differently, even when those things are fairly benign. Like children, we just can't stand to be told "no".
No faggot pussy "world" is going to tell us what to do. Hurtling towards a cliff with our foot firmly off the brake is somehow a measure of our strength of character.
from the NYT
High fuel prices are here to stay, at least for the near future, because no relief is in sight for tight oil supplies.
Most oil-producing countries and the major oil companies already produce all they can. Smaller companies and wildcatters are reopening some mothballed wells, but their combined output is not nearly enough to affect the global supply.....
I'm sure we're going to hit the motherload for the next 100 years... anyday now. Everyone hold your breath.
As an interesting aside, diesel vehicles can be run on sunflower oil (it's illegal in to use sunflower oil as vehicle fuel in the UK because it isn't taxed appropriately). Is it feasible to grow enough oil?
Originally posted by quagmire
Since oil is made of decayed fish( excuse my spelling), if we would stop using oil for a long time maybe over 300 years, we could see resupplied oil sources on Earth. Hopefully in those 5-7 years we will be using hydrogen cars. But, knowing society we will nevr stop using oil intill Earth is dried of every resource there is.
I think it takes more than 300 years for dead marine life to be converted to oil, something like a million years. I think its because of the temperature and pressures. I also doubt that there is as much marine life in the oceans as there was a few million years ago.
Originally posted by billybobsky
that is irrelevant and you know it...
Boy? Point out a faulty statistic and I get slammed for it?
THE SKY IS FALLING JUST LIKE IT WAS LAST TIME
Oil prices vaulted to a 21-year high yesterday on fears that an attack on Middle East oil facilities may stress world fuel supplies already eroded by heady demand growth in China and the United States.
US light crude rose 37 cents to $41.45 a barrel, an all-time high in the 21-year history of the New York Mercantile Exchange contract. London Brent added 19 cents to $38.68 a barrel.
Warnings from a senior Russian official that oil exports from the world's second biggest exporter have hit a ceiling after many years of growth underlined the strain on global supply.
"Realistically, the capacity of suppliers does not today meet growing demand in places such as China or India. And you have to take into account the state of affairs in Iraq," said Semyon Vainshtok, head of Russia's oil pipeline monopoly.
Economic expansion in China, bolstered by renewed US growth, has placed world supplies under increasing strain, leaving the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bar top producer Saudi Arabia, pumping almost flat out to meet demand.
Originally posted by FormerLurker
The info is a little different this time around, Scott.
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
Originally posted by Scott
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
If you keep your head in the sand long enough, it might turn into oil too!
Originally posted by Scott
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
Even though you were being smug-n-sarcastic, you're absolutely right about these things:
Warnings from a senior Russian official that oil exports from the world's second biggest exporter have hit a ceiling after many years of growth underlined the strain on global supply.
Economic expansion in China, bolstered by renewed US growth, has placed world supplies under increasing strain, leaving the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bar top producer Saudi Arabia, pumping almost flat out to meet demand
First off the current limit on oil production has nothing to do with available oil sources. It has to do with an increase in demand tied with a limited production capability. The oil producers were not ready for China and India becoming industrialized as quickly as they did. The stores are there, the taps are not.
Second, we already have alternate sources of energy available. This has been said already but those of you who have bought into the peak oil scare don't want to recognize the readily accessible alternatives. Bio-Diesel, 10%, 20% ethenol mixtures, solar fields, wind fields, coal gasification gas turbines, etc... We have alternatives. When the price of oil used for energy excedds the cost of developing and implementing the alternative sources we simply switch. When we switch, the price of the alternative sources will go down. That is how markets work. Alternate sources ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE we are simply waiting for the markets to decide when and how to implement these sources.
Third, didn't we hear about energy shortages a few years ago? Oh yeah, California was going to suffer from cascading blackouts and massive power shourtages because the plants "couldn't produce enough power to meet demand." Hmmm didn't that turn out to be a crisis driven by fear and corporate greed? Didn't a few energy companies limit the energy production in order to generate higher profits per KW hour? Yep. Opec is a conglomerate of nationalized oil producing countries who have a vested interest in selling oil for top dollar. They will milk consumers for as much as they can. As long as consumers are willing to pay $x.xx for energy then they will sell for $xx.xx per barrel. If a few consumers drop out of the market or switch to alternative sources then those losses in profit are made up(and exceeded) by the remaining consumers who pay more for their energy. Anyone who has had College Algebra or Calculus I should know about optimization where higher sales at x may or may not produce more profit than lower sales at y.
People need to stop crying about the sky falling because the electricity you get at home for the most part does not come from oil. You're home energy comes from hydro-electric, Nuclear, Coal fire, Coal gasification, and natural gas derived as a oil refinery by product or tapped from the earth, wind, and solar array. The majority of oil use is concentrated on transportation then on polymer production (plastics). When driving from A to B using oil cost more than driving from A to B using bio-diesel derived from a variety of unused sources (corn husks, and other waster plant material) then we will switch to bio-diesel as the norm. We will step up or usage of ethonol blends before too long once the cost becomes viable. Pure ethonol exhaust tends to burn eyes when burned so it isn't a viable solution as yet but a 10 or 20 percent blend will greatly reduce our dependence on oil as a source of power.
I would think that the big question with Faust's "switch to biodiesel" scenario is whether or not when you scale up the process to meet the enormous demands of American petroleum usage, do you start getting problems?
Like, is there actually enough waste biomass to meet this level of demand? If not, how many acres have to be under cultivation for specifically this application? What are the byproducts of producing biodiesel, and would they be a problem at very high levels of production?
I'm just wondering if some aspects of this technology seem very benign at the moment because deployment is so slight, but would become a major headache when multiplied by a factor of a million or so.
And the notion than China and India somehow creeped up on us, but that now that we're aware of their demand, we'll simply tap into abundant new oil sources, is fantasy. Show some proof that such sources are known to exist and are within easy reach of existing technologies and oil fields. Even if some abundant oil field exists that we haven't drilled, that doesn't mean it's *able* to be drilled with any relative efficiency or cost-effectiveness.
And Scott: no, they haven't been said before, not in this context. Of course, feel free to prove us wrong with links and relevant quotations from people in the industry, who are basically hinting at the fact that we've hit the plateau of oil production, and that existing reserves have been wildly exaggerated. This has all cropped up in the last few years. No one was saying we had hit Peak Oil or that reserve numbers were badly miscalculated in 1990 or 1980 or even in the 70's when people's paranoia about oil dependancy was rampant.
Originally posted by Scott
It's an election year right?
You can't debunk it can you?
Originally posted by Scott
Yea those things have never been said in the past.
It's a good thing to know that the Earth will never be struck by a large asteroid.
How do I know this?
Well, many people have already predicted that we'd be struck by an asteroid on various dates and times that have come and gone without incident. The big strike never happened. They were all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Therefore, logically we must conclude that we are forever and ever protected against all asteroid strikes, and that anyone, even with really good new data, is a crackpot like all the rest. The pattern has been established and is, um, irrefutable. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Whew! Saved by bad predicitions!
Originally posted by Scott
THE SKY IS FALLING JUST LIKE IT WAS LAST TIME
Hey everyone! Scott knows more about fossil fuels then the provost of Caltech who has written a new book spitting out FUD about the onset of peak oil!
Wow. Is there anything he doesn't know?
Mainstream media is picking up about oil and production peak.
BBC had some articles about it is the last month.
Some articles:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004...-with-entropy/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3777413.stm
Some good sites:
http://members.home.nl/peakoil/ for an introduction on peak oil
http://www.peakoil.com/ for news and discussion
Make me wonder how many here stocked their garages with water and rations to weather the apocolypse-that-wasnt... Y2K?