Moderator: Alyrium Denryle
Dennis Toy wrote:The person who runs this site is Matt Savinar, He doesn't ramble or bring about the "END OF THE WORLD, HEAD FOR THE HILLS" kind of thingg. He speaks of peak oil using research from top notch experts and even tells us how to prepare.
He even addresses the denial and the emotional difficulties involved in finding out that Peak oil is coming and the end of our technological civilization is at hand.
One of these statements is not like the other.
-- Asuka
Because the land is dirt cheap.Darth Wong wrote:Why on Earth would people build sprawling cities in the desert anyway?
[/quote]Lord Zentei wrote:Yes, I have. I have pointed out that alternative sources are being used in a commercially profitable manner - specifically coal liquefication. Unlike ethanol, it is not climate dependant.J wrote:You continue harping on alternative sources, buthave yet to show they're even feasible.
So that's about $1.1 trillion for the mines & liquifaction plants, which is the cheap part. Now here's a question for you, how do you get the coal to the plants and the oil from the plants into the distribution system? You're looking at many thousands of miles of new railroad tracks & pipelines, millions of railroad coalcars, and many thousands of locomotives. Oh yes, and those mines aren't going to dig themselves, you need to pay Caterpillar to build all the machinery to dig the mines, and Caterpillar needs to source the steel with which to build those machines. That ripples back through the steel industry which needs more coal for the blast furnaces & iron ore, which needs to be dug out from mines by heavy equipment, which needs to be built? See the problem?Xstrata recently considered purchasing 33¹/³% of the Cerrejón thermal coal operation in Colombia (“Cerrejón”), from Glencore International AG (“Glencore”) for a cash consideration of US$1.7 billion. Cerrejón produces about 32 million tonnes of coal. That suggests about 5.1 billion for the whole of Cerrejón, and about 640 billion dollars four four billion tonnes. The cost of the coal mines will be in the same ballpark as that of the liquification plants, in other words.
That's a best case scenario which assumes all our coal is antracit, which can be converted with 67% efficiency. A lot of the coal is of lower grades which have a conversion efficiency of 50% or so. It also assumes replacing 37% of transportation energy needs with synfuel, with no corresponding increase caused by the stepped up mining & coal hauling. Factor that all in and it knocks a good 15-20 years off the estimate. Then factor Peak Coal into it and it leaves about 20 years at most of sustainable coal liquifaction. But let's give you 35 years. What miracles do you have in store?Oh noes, we only have 50 years of coal based energy left, surely our civilization is doomed.Also, those 250 year US coal reserves? They've just gone down to 50 years.
We don't have a solution for the next 50 years. There is no immediate solution. There is no realistic long term solution with less consequences than The Shep Solution.Yes, it certainly is. See, you seem on the one hand to expect me to point to a workable solution to the immediate crisis and on the other hand to provide a long term solution over multiple generations as well. Bad form:. If we have a solution for the next 50 years, your challenge has been met.
Yes, that bugged me too. Massively shifting the whole world industry base from one form of energy resource to another would require energy. Where would one take it, when the energy resources are declining?You're looking at many thousands of miles of new railroad tracks & pipelines, millions of railroad coalcars, and many thousands of locomotives. Oh yes, and those mines aren't going to dig themselves, you need to pay Caterpillar to build all the machinery to dig the mines, and Caterpillar needs to source the steel with which to build those machines. That ripples back through the steel industry which needs more coal for the blast furnaces & iron ore, which needs to be dug out from mines by heavy equipment, which needs to be built? See the problem?
The amazing free market of course. The market will provide and balance supply and demand, and create things out of thin air when we need it to. All hail our great saviour!Stas Bush wrote:Yes, that bugged me too. Massively shifting the whole world industry base from one form of energy resource to another would require energy. Where would one take it, when the energy resources are declining?
False analogy. The example of coal liquification is a energy source that is commercially profitable and is being used as an energy source for transportation - and hence viable. French fry oil has nothing to do with these issues.J wrote:Commercially profitable does not equate to sustainable, feasible, and viable. Recycling french fry oil is commercially profitable, but there's no way it can scale to providing energy for our transportation infrastructure. Try again.Lord Zentei wrote:Yes, I have. I have pointed out that alternative sources are being used in a commercially profitable manner - specifically coal liquefication. Unlike ethanol, it is not climate dependant.J wrote:You continue harping on alternative sources, buthave yet to show they're even feasible.
And you apparently assume that all of this has to be completed within the next five to ten years when the decline - according to the pessimists - begins as opposed to decades from now when all the oil has been exhausted. We don't need 20 million barrels per day immediately upon the start of the decline, we just have to make up for the shortfall as it goes up.So that's about $1.1 trillion for the mines & liquifaction plants, which is the cheap part. Now here's a question for you, how do you get the coal to the plants and the oil from the plants into the distribution system? You're looking at many thousands of miles of new railroad tracks & pipelines, millions of railroad coalcars, and many thousands of locomotives. Oh yes, and those mines aren't going to dig themselves, you need to pay Caterpillar to build all the machinery to dig the mines, and Caterpillar needs to source the steel with which to build those machines. That ripples back through the steel industry which needs more coal for the blast furnaces & iron ore, which needs to be dug out from mines by heavy equipment, which needs to be built? See the problem?Xstrata recently considered purchasing 33¹/³% of the Cerrejón thermal coal operation in Colombia (“Cerrejón”), from Glencore International AG (“Glencore”) for a cash consideration of US$1.7 billion. Cerrejón produces about 32 million tonnes of coal. That suggests about 5.1 billion for the whole of Cerrejón, and about 640 billion dollars four four billion tonnes. The cost of the coal mines will be in the same ballpark as that of the liquification plants, in other words.
Moving goalposts. You asked for an alternative source for oil that would take the bite out of the decline following the peak, and it was duly provided.That's a best case scenario which assumes all our coal is antracit, which can be converted with 67% efficiency. A lot of the coal is of lower grades which have a conversion efficiency of 50% or so. It also assumes replacing 37% of transportation energy needs with synfuel, with no corresponding increase caused by the stepped up mining & coal hauling. Factor that all in and it knocks a good 15-20 years off the estimate. Then factor Peak Coal into it and it leaves about 20 years at most of sustainable coal liquifaction. But let's give you 35 years. What miracles do you have in store?Oh noes, we only have 50 years of coal based energy left, surely our civilization is doomed.Also, those 250 year US coal reserves? They've just gone down to 50 years.
What, because you say so? Again, we don't need to replace all primary sources instantaneously, merely to replace them as they drop out of usage. We don't need all the current sources replaced by the time the decline begins: we need to start replacing them at that point.We don't have a solution for the next 50 years. There is no immediate solution. There is no realistic long term solution with less consequences than The Shep Solution.Yes, it certainly is. See, you seem on the one hand to expect me to point to a workable solution to the immediate crisis and on the other hand to provide a long term solution over multiple generations as well. Bad form:. If we have a solution for the next 50 years, your challenge has been met.
-- Asuka
I don't know about "the World", but Russia in the 1980's had plans to totally convert power generation plants to nuclear power within a reasonable timeframe, thereby freeing the oil resources. Of course, cars, planes, etc. would be totally unaffected by this transfer, so if oil runs out, these will experience a sharp decline, while electromobiles will rise.Can the world sustain every country using nuclear power?
If you use breeder reactors. That will of course raise the spectrum of plutonium proliferation, though. For all that, I'll pick the nuclear.AniThyng wrote:A question: Can the world sustain every country using nuclear power? Is there enough uranium to go around? (we'll just pretend the nuke weapon thing isn't a factor and handwave away the fact that nuclear power is expensive, too much for many of us in the not quite developed world but developed enough to surf the internets)
-- Asuka
The understanding of this fact is forcing some of our government agencies to think for possibilities of building mobile and scalable nuclear power plants for sale to nuclear-uncapable countries.Darth Wong wrote:It may not be as suitable for every country.
True; most likely different regions will adopt different solutions.Darth Wong wrote:Admittedly, the nuclear power solution is particularly comforting to those of us in places like Canada, the US, or Russia. We're nuclear-capable nations, and we have plentiful access to uranium. It may not be as suitable for every country.
-- Asuka If artificial oil turns out to be non-viable as a energy source, it could conceivably still be used as a "battery" to be used with aforementioned nuclear.Stas Bush wrote:Of course, cars, planes, etc. would be totally unaffected by this transfer, so if oil runs out, these will experience a sharp decline, while electromobiles will rise.Can the world sustain every country using nuclear power?
-- Asuka Are there nuclear power conversion plans in Finland, or did you freeze nuclear research and building like some of European countries (and most staggering the U.S.) did?Which is why I support the development of homegrown finnish nuclear industries
Not sure of any conversion plans but we like nuclear power.Stas Bush wrote:Are there nuclear power conversion plans in Finland, or did you freeze nuclear research and building like some of European countries (and most staggering the U.S.) did?Which is why I support the development of homegrown finnish nuclear industries
The calculations I provided earlier, which you obviously don't understand, were minimal requirements for the US to match South Africa's synthoil production in terms of percentage, in other words, replace 37% of the US oil with coal oil. What you are now suggesting is the wholesale replacement of all US oil needs. If available oil drops by half, you need to replace that half with synthesized oil. That's 50%, works out to 1.5 trillion plus railroads, pipelines, heavy machinery, rolling stock, locomotives, and all the steel to build them. And of course the inevitable cost overruns. In the end you're looking at a number which is greater than the entire US GDP. Oh yes, and you're trying to spend this money with a stagnant or shrinking economy and soaring inflation rates. That's going to do wonders for market confidence, I can see China and everyone else dumping US treasury bills & currency as if it's radioactive waste.Lord Zentei wrote:[
So: we absolutely have to have a significant portion of the new energy source infrastructure available immediately when the oil industry currently has a 10% profit margin? You're a nut.J wrote:Yes. A substantial portion will have to be in place when decline begins. As has been noted countless times already, it takes an energy surplus to build the infrastructure for the next age, with an energy shortage there is no energy or labour to spare for building a massive new infrastructure.Lord Zentei wrote:And you apparently assume that all of this has to be completed within the next five to ten years when the decline - according to the pessimists - begins as opposed to decades from now when all the oil has been exhausted. We don't need 20 million barrels per day immediately upon the start of the decline, we just have to make up for the shortfall as it goes up.
To use an analogy. When you have a comfortable job & home with money to spare, you can afford to put in solar panels, batteries, and other things to lessen your dependance on the electric company. When you're working 90 hours a week just to put food on the table and pay the electric bill so the hydro company doesn't cut you off and let you freeze in -40° winters, and you're debt and the bank is threatening to seize your home, it's a bit too late to start putting in solar panels to save on your hydro bill.
And it takes decades for the primary oil supply to decline. We don't need any "magic".Uh-huh. It only works if all the infrastructure magically appears overnight sometime in the next 5 years. Even with a crash program started right now, the coal liquifaction plants come online far too late to make a significant difference. Production takes time to ramp up, and that takes decades.Moving goalposts. You asked for an alternative source for oil that would take the bite out of the decline following the peak, and it was duly provided.
Over a course of decades.That assumes we hand-wave away every possible bad thing that can possibly happen in real life, it is the ideal best-case scenario. It will still require building the nuclear plants, the infrastructure to support those plants (fissionable uranium doesn't grow on trees), a brand new power distribution grid, and a couple hundred million electric cars. It's not possible under anything resembling realistic circumstances.Anyway, by your own assessment in the previous thread construction of nuclear power plants and revamping of the car fleet to electrics could be accomplished in the timeframe you have just allowed for.
The US GDP is 12.5 trillion dollars per year, moron. The 1.5 trillion is 12% of yearly GDP but spread over 34 years. Raise it by an order of magnitude to allow for miscellaneous factors, you have 3.5% of GDP over that period.The calculations I provided earlier, which you obviously don't understand, were minimal requirements for the US to match South Africa's synthoil production in terms of percentage, in other words, replace 37% of the US oil with coal oil. What you are now suggesting is the wholesale replacement of all US oil needs. If available oil drops by half, you need to replace that half with synthesized oil. That's 50%, works out to 1.5 trillion plus railroads, pipelines, heavy machinery, rolling stock, locomotives, and all the steel to build them. And of course the inevitable cost overruns. In the end you're looking at a number which is greater than the entire US GDP. Oh yes, and you're trying to spend this money with a stagnant or shrinking economy and soaring inflation rates. That's going to do wonders for market confidence, I can see China and everyone else dumping US treasury bills & currency as if it's radioactive waste.What, because you say so? Again, we don't need to replace all primary sources instantaneously, merely to replace them as they drop out of usage. We don't need all the current sources replaced by the time the decline begins: we need to start replacing them at that point.
Take a look at that graph of yours again: by 2040, the production is half of what it is today: that means that half of the 1.1 trillion plus railroads needed for the US needs to be provided over a course of the next 34 years. Even if you boost that kind of cost by an order of magnitude, you are still within the US's means.
-- AsukaOnly if breeder reactors are used. Right now nuclear supplies a bit over 0.6% of the energy consumed by the world. I've heard estimates there's anywhere from 60-200 years of uranium left at current consumption rates, but lean towards the high side. With the "once-through" system which most countries use, every reactor gets its initial chunk of uranium, and once it's done it's over. I don't know how many times spent fuel can be cycled through breeder reactors, but if it isn't done then nuclear is a one time shot.AniThyng wrote:A question: Can the world sustain every country using nuclear power? Is there enough uranium to go around? (we'll just pretend the nuke weapon thing isn't a factor and handwave away the fact that nuclear power is expensive, too much for many of us in the not quite developed world but developed enough to surf the internets)
