Will The End Of Oil See The End Of My Town?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Don't be too hasty, my little dictator in the making. Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things. So if you invest in it, do what I told aerius before, and make that money then made off gold go into projects that offer something of real value.

Ingots of precious metal don't warm the home, move supplies or defend you too well. I hear they taste pretty crap too.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Just as a note, though:

Plastics are largely a convenience product. We can do almost everything in modern industrial society without them, even if their backward-technology replacements (gutta-percha, rubber, etc) are not ideal. If we need to feed people to the point where we can't grow bio-plastics in sufficient quantities, we can just reduce the amount of bio-plastics being produced and implement workarounds.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Don't be too hasty, my little dictator in the making. Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things. So if you invest in it, do what I told aerius before, and make that money then made off gold go into projects that offer something of real value.

Ingots of precious metal don't warm the home, move supplies or defend you too well. I hear they taste pretty crap too.

I'm quite aware. You're actually talking to a first-rate survivalist here, who, among other things, buys gas masks for her friends as birthday presents. Ask Mayabird about that sometime.

If I buy you a gas mask, it means I like you.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Plastics would be better dealt with via recycling and TDP plants. They're not that major an issue, so long as you have the energy to make them. It will mean being more conservative with limited resources, though. Just look at fruit in your average high-street supermarket. Why on Earth does an apple need to be shrink-wrapped, then placed in a plastic container tray in a wooden box within a plastic alcove? What waste.

I'm quite aware. You're actually talking to a first-rate survivalist here, who, among other things, buys gas masks for her friends as birthday presents. Ask Mayabird about that sometime.

If I buy you a gas mask, it means I like you.

You know what county in which nation on which island I live on. Can I get such a mask? Pweease!

[TimothyC]

Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things.

Doesn't gold have industrial uses thanks to it's electrical and chemical properties, and thus wouldn't it retain some of it's value?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Plastics would be better dealt with via recycling and TDP plants. They're not that major an issue, so long as you have the energy to make them. It will mean being more conservative with limited resources, though. Just look at fruit in your average high-street supermarket. Why on Earth does an apple need to be shrink-wrapped, then placed in a plastic container tray in a wooden box within a plastic alcove? What waste.

I don't really know, especially when it's easy enough to maintain a small orchard on your own property.

The best thing I can say for it is that we've reached a nihilistic, narcissistic level of all-consuming self-destruction, a consumeristic lunacy of Buy, Buy, Buy without regard to sanity or success. There are no longer any moral and ethical checks on our levels of mass-consumption.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm quite aware. You're actually talking to a first-rate survivalist here, who, among other things, buys gas masks for her friends as birthday presents. Ask Mayabird about that sometime.

If I buy you a gas mask, it means I like you.

You know what county in which nation on which island I live on. Can I get such a mask? Pweease!

I can give you information on how to get a real M95 military-grade gas mask, neither surplus nor otherwise dodgy, with real, functional filters, again, not surplus.

.....But boys are icky, and they have cooties, so I don't want them to think that I like them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things.

Doesn't gold have industrial uses thanks to it's electrical and chemical properties, and thus wouldn't it retain some of it's value?

Gold will have immense value in this period. He's just saying you can't EAT the damned stuff, which is very true.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Doesn't gold have industrial uses thanks to it's electrical and chemical properties, and thus wouldn't it retain some of it's value?

Yes, but I'm ignoring those relatively small uses compared to the boosted value of gold today because of people retaining it in national vaults as a back-up base over, say, petro-dollars.

I don't really know, especially when it's easy enough to maintain a small orchard on your own property.

The apple example was to show the pointless use of packaging. Most small, independent retailers sell them, shock horror, in boxes open to the air with no wrapping. Nature gave them a protective skin, we need not waste precious hydrocarbons on adding to that.

The best thing I can say for it is that we've reached a nihilistic, narcissistic level of all-consuming self-destruction, a consumeristic lunacy of Buy, Buy, Buy without regard to sanity or success. There are no longer any moral and ethical checks on our levels of mass-consumption.

Jawohl. The idea that this world of plenty will end, with shallow lives filled with stress and an increasing urge to buy more, keep up with the Joneses and follow useless celebrities and supposed success in earning megabucks, isn't as disconcerting at times. I just need to check MySpace to reassure myself there.

And, ah, I had my cooties jab long ago. I then engineered them to be the ultimate bioweapon. That's gotta be worth some praise.

[TimothyC]

Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things.

Doesn't gold have industrial uses thanks to it's electrical and chemical properties, and thus wouldn't it retain some of it's value?

Gold will have immense value in this period. He's just saying you can't EAT the damned stuff, which is very true.

Ah, I apologize for the interruption then, as I must have fixated on the one little part of his post.

[His Divine Shadow]

Sweden has the right idea. They've been cutting back on oil and other fossil fuels since the '70s, or so. They did what the US was going to do after the oil crises of that decade, and they're getting the better deal because of it. Of the 400 or so proposed energy changes the US was going to get from Carter, barely a dozen actually got through when Reagan took over and got his massive growth policies pushed instead.

Really, I've long looked at Sweden as a country in their merry way into the 1800's because they've let a bunch of tards run their policies since 1980. They have spent the last 30 years on various pie in the sky projects like wind power and solar and such. Yet it's still their aging nuclear power plants and hydropower which keeps most of the country running. The industry has practically begged for another reactor, even offered to finance and build it themselves, but alas...

Just a year or so ago they had some insane prices because of drought and then they are mismanaging their aging reactors and one shut down there too and prices jumped. They are in no position to keep their electrical supply in order when oil becomes too expensive, not without the danish and polish coal plants to help them out as they do now.

Hell the country even has uranium deposits of it's own but probably won't use them.

Their ethanol as well is taken from Brazil, of which they'll have to start to compete about when demand skyrockets, which has already happened.

Finland meanwhile is building nuclear powerplants. A 6th nuclear powerplant is almost all but sanctioned now. Now what we need is reprocessing facilities and exploitation of our own uranium sources and we are quite set.

And if ethanol from trees pan out, we got our own source of valuable fuels as well.

[His Divine Shadow]

Don't be too hasty, my little dictator in the making. Gold, while shiny, is also useless in the grand scheme of things. So if you invest in it, do what I told aerius before, and make that money then made off gold go into projects that offer something of real value.

Ingots of precious metal don't warm the home, move supplies or defend you too well. I hear they taste pretty crap too.

I'm quite aware. You're actually talking to a first-rate survivalist here, who, among other things, buys gas masks for her friends as birthday presents. Ask Mayabird about that sometime.

If I buy you a gas mask, it means I like you.

If I was american I'd buy you a winchester lever action and home reloading kit

[Darth Raptor]

Fucking hell, if the US does become a command economy, authoritarian regime, I only hope it's on the left end of the spectrum. Otherwise, I'm likely to be among the first against the wall. What's worse, from where I stand, I can see America turn into Nazi Germany much easier than I can the Soviet Union. I am so fucking screwed.

[Darth Wong]

What's wrong with the idea of the hydrogen economy? We have to shift away from a carbon-based economy, and stupid-shit "solutions" like biodiesel won't cut it.

But imagine hydrogen fuel-cell charging stations dotted across the country much like gas stations are today. At each station is a large windmill and a lot of solar cells, which it uses in conjunction with power from the grid to produce hydrogen, which can then be used to power vehicles. Is there some reason why this won't work?

Wind and solar are poor replacements for central power generating stations, but as a decentralized way to produce hydrogen for vehicles, they would work fine. A farm with a set of large wind turbines could probably generate enough power to run its vehicles with ease, as well as any residences on the property.

I should note that there's a big wind turbine sitting in the middle of the City of Toronto, as a kind of pilot project. Anyone who lives here has seen it. According to Toronto Hydro, it produces roughly 1000 MWh per year, or the energy equivalent of more than 25,000 gallons of gasoline. I've walked up to it. It's quiet, even when standing directly beneath the blades.

Of course, such large wind turbines cost money, but it seems to me that we would find a way to pay for it if it came down to a choice between building hundreds of thousands of these things and watching our entire society and economy disintegrate. And they don't have the kind of insane lead times required for projects like nuclear power plants.

[SirNitram]

The main problem I know of with fuel-cells is that, last I heard(I could be wrong), gold is needed to make them. This drives up the cost of the engine signifigantly. If that's misinformation or surpassed, great, bring on the fuel cell era.

[Darth Wong]

Fun fact: it would take roughly 9000 of these wind turbines to equal the output of a single 1 GW nuclear reactor. If the unit makes between 1000 MWh and 1400 MWh of power per year (according to the figures from Toronto Hydro), then its average power output is roughly 137 kW, or slightly over 180 horsepower.

However, it only cost $1.3 million to build, and if large numbers of them were being built, the cost would probably go down due to economies of scale. This is not that much different from the cost of nuclear power plants, but the huge lead time and regulatory nightmare are eliminated.

Second fun fact: the $400 billion sunk into the Iraq War so far could have built more than 300,000 of these turbines, which would generate the energy equivalent of 7.5 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

[Starglider]

The main problem I know of with fuel-cells is that, last I heard(I could be wrong), gold is needed to make them.

I think you mean platinum.

This drives up the cost of the engine signifigantly. If that's misinformation or surpassed, great, bring on the fuel cell era.

True, but that's not the main issue. The real problem is that there still isn't a really good way of storing hydrogen for widespread use. There are lots of promising concepts (Slashdot posts a story on roughly one a week), but AFAIK nothing in or near to production that beats lithium battery packs on cost and practicality. Cryogenic hydrogen is probably practical (though a lot more expensive than kerosene to handle) for airliners, possibly for heavy rail trains, but not for road vehicles.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I wonder if it would be possible to start building nuclear reactors to a single fixed plan, for instance, the CANDU design, in standardized form, while eliminating most of the regulatory procedure? How much would be gained from copying one standardized reactor design?

[His Divine Shadow]

But imagine hydrogen fuel-cell charging stations dotted across the country much like gas stations are today. At each station is a large windmill and a lot of solar cells, which it uses in conjunction with power from the grid to produce hydrogen, which can then be used to power vehicles. Is there some reason why this won't work?

Well I do remember an article some time ago that just heaped problem after problem on the idea of a hydrogen economy, some might not be applicable to this though. Ah, here it is:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/15/zubrin.htm

I should note that there's a big wind turbine sitting in the middle of the City of Toronto, as a kind of pilot project. Anyone who lives here has seen it. According to Toronto Hydro, it produces roughly 1000 MWh per year, or the energy equivalent of more than 25,000 gallons of gasoline. I've walked up to it. It's quiet, even when standing directly beneath the blades.

Yes but the only way to make hydrogen in such small facilities is electrolysis as far as I know. Thats how many percent lost in that ineffective process? 60 to 70% if I remember correctly but don't quote me on that. I think some of the newer gen IV nuclear reactors that are designed to make hydrogen only loose around 25% in the process, again it's been so long since I read it.

The hydrogen making bacteria or algae or whatever it was that came up here a year ago or so, thats another interesting source, that has potential.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The hydrogen economy would be workable if there was incentive behind it. Aside from issues like the fact that hydrogen is a net loss for energy use and that to get cars using it requires pressurised hydrogen tanks (good luck getting those in every public vehicle) or special heavy metal containment system, there simly is no hydrogen economy. Renewables globally make around 1% of total energy production. If you want to switch to hydrogen, just in the US, you're looking at trillions every year for at least a couple of decades to get the infrastructure implemented. The GAO report, I recall, goes into the difficulties of getting basic hydrogen fuel stations around the US, which would cost millions per station, varying with size.

Really, hydrogen simply isn't an alternative. It is energy storage, not an energy source, and the way we get hydrogen today is from fossil fuels. To get it from renewable sources en masse before major troubles start isn't just difficult, it's impossible. Until industry and gov'ts see the folly of ethanol and bio-diesel and the pointlessness of trying to expend large amounts of energy trying to secure the remaining oil, no one will push renewable solar and wind power in any meaningful scale.

The Myth of the Hydrogen Economy

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

There is a lot of talk about the hydrogen economy. It is at best naïve, and at worst it is dishonest. A hydrogen economy would be a pitiful, impoverished thing indeed.

There are a number of problems with hydrogen fuel cells. Many of these are engineering problems which could probably be worked out in time. But there is one basic flaw which will never be overcome. Free hydrogen is not an energy source; it is rather an energy carrier. Free hydrogen does not exist on this planet, so to derive free hydrogen we must break the hydrogen bond in molecules. Basic chemistry tells us that it requires more energy to break a hydrogen bond than to form one. This is due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and there is no getting around it. We are working on catalysts which will help to lower the energy necessary to generate free hydrogen, but there will always be an energy loss, and the catalysts themselves will become terribly expensive if manufactured on a scale to match current transportation energy requirements.

All free hydrogen generated today is derived from natural gas. So right off the bat we have not managed to escape our dependency on nonrenewable hydrocarbons. This feedstock is steam-treated to strip the hydrogen from the methane molecules. And the steam is produced by boiling water with natural gas. Overall, there is about a 60% energy loss in this process. And, as it is dependent on the availability of natural gas, the price of hydrogen generated in this method will always be a multiple of the price of natural gas.

Ah, but there is an inexhaustible supply of water from which we could derive our hydrogen. However, splitting hydrogen from water requires an even higher energy investment per unit of water (286kJ per mole). All processes of splitting water molecules, including foremost electrolysis and thermal decomposition, require major energy investments, rendering them unprofitable.

Hydrogen advocates like to point out that the development of solar cells or wind farms would provide renewable energy that could be used to derive hydrogen. The energy required to produce 1 billion kWh (kilowatt hours) of hydrogen is 1.3 billion kWh of electricity. Even with recent advances in photovoltaic technology, the solar cell arrays would be enormous, and would have to be placed in areas with adequate sunlight.

We must also consider the water from which we derive this hydrogen. To meet our present transportation needs, we would have to divert 5% of the flow of the Mississippi River. This would require yet more energy, further reducing the profits of hydrogen. This water would then have to be delivered to a photovoltaic array the size of the Great Plains. So much for agriculture.

The only way that hydrogen production even approaches practicality is through the use of nuclear plants. To generate the amount of energy used presently by the United States, we would require an additional 900 nuclear reactors, at a cost of roughly $1 billion per reactor. Currently, there are only 440 nuclear reactors operating worldwide. Unless we perfect fast breeder reactors very quickly, we will have a shortage of uranium long before we have finished our reactor building program.

Even hydrogen fuel derived from nuclear power would be expensive. To fill a car up with enough hydrogen to be equivalent to a 15 gallon gas tank could cost as much as $400. If the hydrogen was in gaseous form, this tank would have to be big enough to accommodate 178,500 liters. Compressed hydrogen would reduce the storage tank to one tenth of this size. And liquefied hydrogen would require a fuel tank of only four times the size of a gasoline tank. In other words, a 15 gallon tank of gasoline would be equivalent to a 60 gallon tank of hydrogen. And, oh yes, to transport an equivalent energy amount of hydrogen to the fueling station would require 21 times more trucks than for gasoline.

Compressed and liquefied hydrogen present problems of their own. Both techniques require energy and so further reduce the net energy ratio of the hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is cold enough to freeze air, leading to problems with pressure build-ups due to clogged valves. Both forms of hydrogen storage are prone to leaks. In fact, all forms of pure hydrogen are difficult to store.

Hydrogen is the smallest element and, as such, it can leak from any container, no matter how well sealed it is. Hydrogen in storage will evaporate at a rate of at least 1.7% per day. We will not be able to store hydrogen vehicles in buildings. Nor can we allow them to sit in the sun. And as hydrogen passes through metal, it causes a chemical reaction that makes the metal brittle. Leaking hydrogen could also have an adverse effect on both global warming and the ozone layer.

Free hydrogen is extremely reactive. It is ten times more flammable than gasoline, and twenty times more explosive. And the flame of a hydrogen fire is invisible. This makes it very dangerous to work with, particularly in fueling stations and transportation vehicles. Traffic accidents would have a tendency to be catastrophic. And there is the possibility that aging vehicles could explode even without a collision.

On top of this, we must consider the terrific expense of converting from gasoline to hydrogen. The infrastructure would have to be built virtually from scratch, at a cost of billions. Our oil and natural gas based infrastructure evolved over the course of the past century, but this transition must be pulled off in twenty years or less.

Automobile engineers and others within the industry do not believe we will ever have a hydrogen economy. Daimler-Chrysler has admitted as much. Rather than developing a hydrogen economy, it makes more sense—and will always make more sense—to buy a more efficient car, ride public transport, bicycle or walk.

[Nova Andromeda]

Second fun fact: the $400 billion sunk into the Iraq War so far could have built more than 300,000 of these turbines, which would generate the energy equivalent of 7.5 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

-We've spent a bit more than $400 billion if you include things like dead and wounded troops and the interest on the new debt.
-A very very quick google search said that the U.S. consummes 20 million barrels of oil per year. Considering this, the above, and Mr. Wong's previous calculations it would appear that we could have completely replaced oil with solar and wind for the price of the Iraq war.

[Admiral Valdemar]

-We've spent a bit more than $400 billion if you include things like dead and wounded troops and the interest on the new debt.
-A very very quick google search said that the U.S. consummes 20 million barrels of oil per year. Considering this, the above, and Mr. Wong's previous calculations it would appear that we could have completely replaced oil with solar and wind for the price of the Iraq war.

With the money spent on oil annually in the US today, we could have implemented a perfectly oil free energy generating economy in the US thirty years ago. That the US, or anyone else for that matter, didn't is indicative of how technological issues aren't the only hurdles. You can't get the investment when people are oblivious to the running out of oil when they rely on market analysts who only look short term. Big Oil and gov'ts that prosper off them don't want people migrating from their product when they can sap them for all they're worth until the last drop is pumped. EV vehicles were viable in the '90s, so why didn't they take off?

[Nova Andromeda]

-We've spent a bit more than $400 billion if you include things like dead and wounded troops and the interest on the new debt.
-A very very quick google search said that the U.S. consummes 20 million barrels of oil per year. Considering this, the above, and Mr. Wong's previous calculations it would appear that we could have completely replaced oil with solar and wind for the price of the Iraq war.

With the money spent on oil annually in the US today, we could have implemented a perfectly oil free energy generating economy in the US thirty years ago. That the US, or anyone else for that matter, didn't is indicative of how technological issues aren't the only hurdles. You can't get the investment when people are oblivious to the running out of oil when they rely on market analysts who only look short term. Big Oil and gov'ts that prosper off them don't want people migrating from their product when they can sap them for all they're worth until the last drop is pumped. EV vehicles were viable in the '90s, so why didn't they take off?

-I hear a lot of complaints, but see not one suggested solution. So what do propose we do about current state of affairs (i.e., corrupt gov. and the sheep that empowers it)?

[Admiral Valdemar]

You assume there's an easy, one-size-fits-all, solution.

The only one is to cutback on energy use.

That's it.

And people aren't doing that despite the banging of the climate change drum and after events like Katrina of all things. You expect any world gov't not keen on political suicide will say "Hey, we're kind've running out of oil, so could you please stop consuming and driving so much? K, thanx."

As Kunstler says:

Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars running at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially unhelpful that so many self-proclaimed "greens" and political "progressives" are hung up on this monomaniacal theme.

Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels, vodka, used frymax™ oil, or cow shit). They are at the heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. We have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common activities of daily life.

There are other solutions, but they should've been implemented decades ago. We're at peak now. Good luck stopping the fallout now, no matter what option you choose.

[Nova Andromeda]

You assume there's an easy, one-size-fits-all, solution.

The only one is to cutback on energy use.

That's it.

And people aren't doing that despite the banging of the climate change drum and after events like Katrina of all things.

...

There are other solutions, but they should've been implemented decades ago. We're at peak now. Good luck stopping the fallout now, no matter what option you choose.

-Nonsense! I never said there was one simply solution and saying I did is dishonest. Worse, you immediately follow up with your own "one-size-fits-all, solution": "The only one is to cutback on energy use." However, this solution is even less politically tenable than switching to "green" energy sources (at least in the U.S., I love Berlin's mass transit).
-I agree that we're likely to cook like a frog in pot since the public seems unlikely to support the appropriate long term policies to get us out of this mess. Nevertheless, the solution is probably something along the lines of replacing oil/gas/coal with renewables while at the same time switching to more energy efficient transportation/industry/etc.
-Wasn't your original complaint that the problem wasn't one of technology, but one of political will? Your response doesn't offer a solution on this front as far as I can tell.