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Given that civilization was supposed to crash by now for lack of food, and that fact that we are still alive, that is unlikely to be true. Those who look beyond the predictions based on linear extrapolations using current technology are already synthesizing oil from renewable energy sources, and are likely to create an unlimited amount of such oil in the future.

Electric battery-powered cars kind of suck right now. The better solutions (at least for awhile) are probably to either A) Synthesize gas/diesel from coal, using the Fischer-Tropsch process, or start buying Compressed Natural Gas cars, and fuel the cars with CNG (the U.S., at least, has a lot of both coal and natural gas).

If you're worried about carbon emissions, there's also the idea of synthesizing gas/diesel fuel using electricity, water, and CO2. There's a company, which I haven't been able to determine if they're legit yet, called Doty Energy. If the tech is legitimate (and it, at least, doesn't seem to violate any basic laws of physics, so far as I can tell, so that's a good start in the plausibility department).

They claim to have a process to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuel from electricity, water, and CO2. If that's true, we could use nuclear, wind, or solar to produce fuel.

Right now, I favor the Fischer-Tropsch process idea, because CNG requires new cars, and new fueling stations, whereas F-T fuels are the same gas or diesel we already use, so we have distribution infrastructure and cars/trucks/boats that can already use it. Longer term, switching to CNG or electro-synthesized fuels seems like a pretty good idea.

But, I do agree with your basic position - right now, our money being dumped into the Middle East can't be all the helpful. However, it's quite possible that even without oil money, Saudi Arabia wouldn't be much different than it is (except poorer). I mean, look at Rwanda or several other nations where lots of violance and bloodshed, genocides, etc have happened, where despotic, corrupt regimes hold onto power. All it takes to terrorize a population is an army of zealots and a lot of cheap machetes.

No it's not. There is for all piratical purposes unlimited amounts of oil in the planet. We're getting to the lower ores, the tars and sluge, basically. Once we're below that, we've got air and water. That's why many, many people are looking to that unlimited oil resource (sky and water and sun), so that won't happen. There has never been a non-localized shortage on earth in history.

Here's some of the best links in this regard:
1. The synthesis of gasoline and diesel with nuclear energy (PDF).
2. The Sandia CR-5 thermochemical engine (PDF).
3. Windfuels.

Oil will never run dry, ever. Right now, we throw out waste biomass equivalent to 20% of our oil consumption, and about 50% of our oil consumption. Cut oil use by 50% (even lead-acid plug-in hybrids can achieve this), and we don't need any of the above technologies. We just need the same stuff the South Africans currently use to turn coal into diesel.

Oh, and I should mention that natural gas, not oil, (really hydrogen) is the primary component of the "oil-based" fertilizers. A lot more of that than oil. In fact, ammonia was originally produced by using hydrogen form water and electricity from hydroelectric powerplants.

The patent you linked to is from 1981... Doty Energy advocates essentially the same thing, except they use off-peak wind power to split the water and carbon dioxide molecules.

We do know. All the technology is proven. The integration is not. We can expect 60 percent electricity to gasoline efficiency. The best way to store hydrogen is in the form of gasoline, which is 1.75 times richer in hydrogen by volume than liquid hydrogen. And that does not include the energy of the carbon.

The burning of oil is non-reversable. Once used it is gone for good.

Incorrect.

. One major reason is that it's harder to operate because the output of wind generators is not constant, consistent or controllable.

I've driven past the windfarms near Tehachapi, California. Most of the windmills' blades aren't moving, presumably for the reasons you mention in your post...

Have you ever heard about Doty Energy's proposal for using off-peak wind power to split CO2 and H20 for making synthetic alcohol fuels? It makes sense to me, but then again, I'm not in the industry, nor do I have a few million $ to lend to them for a trial plant...

If they can upgrade their grid, then North Dakota could be a huge exporter of wind power.

Or they could use the wind power to create hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 and H20.

Oil can be replaced by green tech. First, one could use wind turbines to synthesize oil. Wind turbines are quite cheap, even without subsides - they just produce most electricity when no one is using any. That sounds like a great time to make fuel and plastic. Second, you could do the same thing with nuclear powerplants. Third, one can use arrays of mirrors to heat up trash and produce oil.

I don't care how "robust" your PT system is, it costs FORTUNES to run, and in rural and less developed cities (including the capitol city of my own state) it can not be financially sustained even WITH taxation to cover it. (our system just went bankrupt and is pending shutdown, and that's a tax supplemented system in a city of over 300,000 people).

People require cars, even if not daily. Goods require trucks (which use more fuel than cars). The cost of a public transit system that could eliminate even half our fuel use would cost significantly more than investemtns in alternative energy sources, including both electric cars and chemical fuel manufacture (RFTS hydrocarbon manufacture, see https://www.dotyenergy.com/ ,its a 50 year old technology, not vaprware).

None. None at all.

It's theoretically possible to synthesize gas and diesel. One way, of course, is to synthesize gasoline from coal. Not an ideal solution, but if it came to a crisis in the U.S., we have enough coal to produce a lot of synth gas. Some people are exploring more environmentally friendly ways of synthesizing gas. There is a company, Dotyenergy, that claims they can use captured CO2, Water, and electricity to generate gas. Currently, they plan to use Wind power to generate it, but I see no reason why solar, oceanic, or nuclear sourced electricity couldn't be used instead, if it made sense (just use whatever's cheapest/most abundant at the time).

So, my point is, that we don't necessarily need to move away from gasoline (not sure if they can also use this process to make diesel), quickly - as petroleum supplies decline, we could potentially ramp up synthetic fuels (if the technology proves to be efficient/cost competitive). There's also, potentially, bio-mass fuels (although, currently, that doesn't appear to be playing out very well, but who knows, advances could be made in that tech too).

No, we have pleanty of uses for the recuycled plastic.

First, very little of it goes overseas, it's used here, in thousands of products.

next, to replace that plastic China (and our industries) would not get from recycling, we'd NEED TO DRILL FOR MORE OIL! If you;re only getting 70% of the oil back out, and it took energy to make the plastic in the first place, not to mention cleaning, compression, transportation, waste disposal, and more, how is it not better to simply make plastic into plastic, and oil into gas?

It's cheap energy, but then we have to replace the plastic, which costs MORE... This small PART of the process is cheap and produces energy, but you have to account for the ENTIRE process end to end, and that's where this fails.

If you want a REAL process, read http://www.dotyenergy.com./ RWGS/RFTS processing of CO2 waste from coal plats into usable fuels for $60-80/barrel, completely competitive with oil at about $3/gallon, clean, unlimited, and actually 100% carbon nuetral...

Wrong, all this plastic was going to be made into NEW plastics....

So instead, we'll have to pull MORE oil out of the ground to make THAT plastic, and since this process of converting plastic to oil expended some 20-30% of the stored energy, not to mention the neergy wasted making plastic to begin with, the oil you got as a result is worth less than the oil you could have otherwise started with.

We have NO shortage of things to do with plastic. All the plastic submnitted for recycling has a place to go, so their only input would be by diving into the trash that was NOT already sorted. If they're going to do that, have we accounted for the energy wasted doing so per ton colelcted from the unsorted trash? no. Transportation of the tons of plastic? no. Energy wasted cleaning, chopping, and compacting the plastic? no.

Make gasoline from CO2 (RFTS). A similar facility, powered by off-peak wind, can make gasoline 100% carbon nuetral by taking CO2 and CO waste gasses from coal plats and converting that into gas for $60-80/barrel, which in a year or two wioll be cheaper than oil. Check out http://www.dotyenergy.com./

I really don't care that this is possible (it is).

WTF are we taking oil, making it into plastic, then making it BACK into Oil? This is counter productive, and does NOT solve the issue that we're STILL TAKING OIL OUT OF THE GROUND! This is not only not carbon nuetral, it;s worse.

Make plastic into other plastics (recycle!) We need plastic either way. We need fuel either way. Until DotyEnergy has a hundred or so RWGS/RFTS plants built, and we can reliably stop using oil for fuel in mass quantity, we need to use the oil we have in the most efficient way. Wasting energy to turn waste plastic into fuel, which extracts less thah 100% of the stored energy and creates a MASS of toxic waste, is less efficint than turning oil into fuel directly. We have pleanty of things to do with the wasted plastic, including things like making insulation out of it further reducing our dependency on energy to heat/cool homes.

STOP THIS NONSENSE!

RFTS makes gasoline at between $60 and 80 a barel (depending on local markets), uses off-peak wind and wasted CO2 as inputs, and is completely carbon nuetral without using a drop of fossil fuels. These are NOT vaporware either, the process has been used since WWII. It's been refined far enough that it's competitive to oil, runs in our current cars, ships via our current infrastricuture, Doty is simply lacking investors and governemtninterest to buiold facilities (since big oil sees this as an actual threat, every alternative fuel grant in existance misses the mark and can not be used for this ACTUAL alternative, and since it;s not talked baout by the news either, investors have no clue, lets help them...). https://www.dotyenergy.com/

The navy's idea sounds bad. However, DotyEnergy, likely the source of the Navy's ideas, has a system that is 60% end to end efficienct for making fules using a highly modified (with over 60 patents) RWGS/RFTS process. They've been working on refinements to it for decades and are working on a mid scale POC faciltiy to come online and finally prove this to the world.

Fuel from wind, water, and CO2 inputs ar $60-80/bbl in a 100% carbon nuetral process.

I don;t care if the energy is negative, if the energy is 100% renewable and does not contrubute to CO2 output.

http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm

So, i see you;ve read or heard about DotyEnergy's plans?

http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm

Sounds like the Navy is stealing more civilian ideas to me though...

Well, it;s not as nice as DotyEnergy's nearly identical solution, backed by over 60 patents, that I think the Navy is trying to usurp... basically, the idea is this CO2 is not from FOSSIL sources, and would return to the ocean over decades, not to the ground over millions of years.

In doty's case, they're using sequestered CO2 from coal output, so they're reusing CO2 that would already be released, and therefore can be 100% CO2 nuetral, the navy's solution is not as green. it's also FAR more complicated (filtering water, dealing with sea water waste contaminants, and more).

http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm

Per DotyEnergy, who has a nearly identical process backed by more than 60 patents, and who I am certain the navy has not licensed it from, a 250MW fuel system plant, using all of their patented efficincy improvements would produce about 5M gallons of jet fuel, and about 25m gallons of other mixed fuels over a 1 year period. a 50MW facility could make about 6M gallons total. Either of these whould have a real hard time being fit inside a carrier, and certainly would be impossible to retrofit. The facility is more than 10 stories tall, and takes acres... The electrolysis chamber alone would be massive, not to mention near-term H2 storage, fuel refinelments and more.

I don't think the navy intends to put a plant ON a carrier, likely they'll put them in their sea ports and make fule on land to refuel ships and planes with...

Either way, they've got some serious roadblocks to cut through before they can use this process without paying some heafty licensing fees, or some heafty legal settlements for patent infrincgement.

http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm www.dotyenergy.com.

and this is why DotyEnergy, who the navy appears to be stealing this technology from, planned on using off-peak wind energy in their economic model to produce fuel theour WRGS/RFTS processing...

Read about what the navy is pirating from dotyenergy.com. Specifically, chheck oout the following articles http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm. Doty has over 60 world patents on the technology involved in this process and has been working on refinements for decades...

You really are nothing close to an electrical engineer....

1) no, OIL comes from the ground... the 1/3rd number refered to oil being 1/3 less effecient than EV.
2) We have the TOTAL capacity, IF we run 100% of our plants at 100% peak output and IF we can stagger the load across those 24 hours... That's not possible.

3) 9KWh per charge? OK, sure... The volt's battery pack holds 16KWH. when 8 remains, the generator kicks in... (that happens after about 25 miles under most test conditions) Estimated recharge nightly on a 40 mile drive is 12-15KWh. Roll that out to 2 cars per family and you're adding 900KWh per month per household, which is actually higher than the current household monthly usage for the average home today!
This is just the Volt, which has a measly 16KWh battery. The Tesla has a 53KWh battery, the upcoming Chrysler plug-in EV hybrids are expected to have 25-35KWh batteries to acheive the same 40 mile ranges.

a) They make H2, then use it in the catalytic process.... RWGS/RFTS is you have STILL not follwed the link
b) tank costs are NOT expensive, they're generic steel drums, built on-site, with insulating coatings to limit leakage, and for the 25 tonnes of H@ per day storage units, will be under $100,000 total cost (one time).
C) it;s NOT compressed to more than a couple of atmospheres, mostly by byproducts of the electrolysis itself. this equipment is CHEAP.
d) It's not a carbon fiber 25,000PSI container, like you put in a car, those are VERY expensive, this a massive, thin structure designed to hold low pressure H2, and is built from simply materials. You STILL have not cghecked the site obviously... Low pressure (under 200PSI) tanks for H2 are extremely similar to welding tanks, but are even thinner in design. They'll be storing the H2 at 1 MPa, which is actually at a LOWEr pressure than it comes out of the electrolizer.
E) Current production electrolizer for Doty is running at 72% efficiency TODAY. This will be increased to near 80% when offset heat is recycled back into later stages in the process. total RWGS/RFTS process is expected to have 50% total efficiency. Yes, this fuel will only be burned at 20% efficiency, resulting in a 10% efficiency cycle, but it's completely carbon nuetral, and will ballpark between $2.75 and $3.25 a gallon at the pump.

Here, have a start with this. This is their "non-scientific" presentation covering the process. This is essentially their "dumbed down" presentation used to explain the basics and economics of the process.
http://dotyenergy.com/PDFs/WindFuels_Sci_Engr_ppt.pdf

Per the Argonne National Laboratory, with current reserves, and the speed at which we're expanding Litium mining, combined with 100% successful recycling, we won;t be able to meet LiIon vhchile demand for the USA until near 2035, and we can't meed world demand until 2050. This is based on an average 17 year lifespan for vehicles, and 10 year abttery life, based on 20MWh battery packs, combined with consumer device and other battery needs existing today and predicted (to shrink) going forward.

LiIon batteries that are 100% non-toxic are beginning to become available, but at the moment, GM and Thoyotas batteries being manufactured for their vehicles still do contain toxic metals, including some murcury, and are banned from disposal. Though they can be nearly 100% recycled, the process is currenty extremely expensive, and the recycling growth is far behind manufacturing, and would require billions in investment to catch up in even 10 years.

LiPo and LiTi cells improve recycling, and have little fire danger, but they're not expected to appear in vehicles for 5-10 years due to manufacturing costs and reduced battery charge life issues they're still struggling with. (we're getting there_.

As I said, we'll all be driving EV one day, but we need a stop gap, and Doty has a VIABLE one that also happens to solve out off-peak energy needs, and it can be used in ALL our cars today, not to mention jet fuels, deisels, and other systems for which electric is not an acceptible option.

Well, no.

As a side effect, through ADDITIONAL processing, we can get water that can be filtered into drinking water, without actually having to run through traditional desalination.

As a dreadful side effect, we'll have a mass of biowaste, and every last contaiminant in the ocean cleaned from the water becomes a toxic sludge waste, which will include large amounts of murcury, other heavy metals, and some farily dangerous compounds mixed in with some poitentially useful organic materials and other compunds. All that crtap then itself needs to be processed, sorted, and disposed of in a varying and complicated array of processes.

Getting ethanol out of algae isn;t so much the issue. Getting the resulting crap out of the tank and safeley disposed of is, and may actually cost more than getting the fuel...

Look into a real technology. dotyenergy.com and see how it compares:

- 300 times more fuel per site (up to 30M gallons anually, not 100,000).
- operational costs of about $90M anually, on $225M anual expected revenue.
- Fuel (methanol, propanol, ethanol, and several other blends, including higher alcohols and jet fuels too!) that will compete in price with oil at $70/bbl
- NO hazardous byproducts, little to no environmental impact
- Energy derived from off-peak wind production
- CARBON NUETRAL
- We've been using this technology for over 50 years (we made deisel fuels using a very similar process in WWII)!

very detailed information, including some actual science data can be found http://dotyenergy.com/PDFs/WindFuels_Sci_Engr_ppt.pdf. (FAR more than other companies I've seen provide) and this research has been confirmed by multiple universities and science firms.

They also have a lot of great data at dotyenergy.com on the undisclosed facts about all of the other alternatives, some real numbers and analysis on feasability and costs, and explanations about a lot of other solutions. They've been researching this process and patenting improvements for over 20 years, and were recently awarded over 60 world patents for their enhancements to this technology.

OK, a massive expensive facility that requires proximity to an ocean, and in one YEAR it can't produce even 20% of what my town uses for fuel in 1 day.

Dow, please get your heads out of your asses and look at an actual viable technology:

dotyenergy.com.

- Sequestered CO2 + Wind Energy = FUEL Propanol, methanol, ethanol, whatever hydrocarbon blend you want...

A 250MW facility running on an annual cost of about $90M will produce nearly 30M gallons of fuels and higher alcohols. (300 TIMES what the algae farm claims to produce, and using less land to do it!).

This is NOT vaporware, RFTS processing to make fuels has been in use since WWII. This is simply an expansion in scientific scope, efficiency, and balanced economics. They can make fuel to compete with Oil at under $70/bbl.

VERY detailed data is available here: http://dotyenergy.com/PDFs/WindFuels_Sci_Engr_ppt.pdf

If you want MORE details, you can purchase a hardcopy of theiur detailed design document for a whoping $45...

This is Real stuff folks, which is probably why you have not heard of it...

(I am not paid or compensated for my comments in any way).

WindFuels makes gasoline, diesel, etc. Check the research on dotyenergy.com before you spread FUD. It's not new fuel...

Algae has a LOT of it's own issues. I hate to quote the company I'm supporting here, but this site explains it all, and does so by referencing accepted scientific papers on algae industry leaders (references more than 10 papers): http://dotyenergy.com/Markets/Micro-algae.htm

Here's my favorite quotes: "That amounts to ~560 gal/acre/year of algae oil, which is an especially dirty, heavy oil that must be cleaned, hydrocracked, and refined into diesel" and "the annual operating and maintenance costs alone would probably be well in excess of the $600M ($14/gallon)"

Read that again. $14 a gallon in MAINTENANCE costs, not total cost for fuel production. Beyond that, we'd need millions of acres of temerate climate or indoor growth facilities, producing hundreds of billions of tons of algae a year in order to meet fuel demands. We don;t have that much good land, it can't be done year round, and we have nowhere to put the waste...

We're also talking algae being competition for oil at values not less than $800/bbl, given a few more decades of reasearch yet. Even the best systems being researched today, facilities that could generate 600 tons per day in usable fuel, scaled up based on available papers published from within the algae industry, would cost about $9 Billion to build. An equivalent WindFuels facility operating at 250MW would generate the same fuels with no hazardous byproducts for about $300 million.

SOX is a bit player in a giant swindle. The jobs problem has nothing to do with the lack of venture capital. The problem is the economy is up to its eyeballs in debt, and there's no money to pay the interest due.

This is due to the debt-based nature of our financial system. See Money and the Crisis of Civilization and I Want the Earth plus 5%.

If the congress wanted to create jobs, it would issue interest-free money (such as Abraham Lincoln's United States Notes) and spend it directly into circulation on worthwhile projects. The most worthwhile project today is renewable energy technology. Wind farms are probably the best candidate, with hydrocarbon synthesizers to use all the power generated.

R&D on cold fusion and other paradigm-busting energy technology should get some money too - a Japanese researcher held a demonstration of his Cold Fusion setup in May.

Fixing the banking system is a good first step for restoring rosperity.