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The End of the Oil Age
geekstreak quotes "'The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.' Ways to break the tyranny of oil are coming into view. Governments need to promote them."
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Blah Blah Blah...
I am going to drive my car until the pump won't pump no more. Or the goverment pay's me $$ to drive something different..
And i think that view is very very common...
--Still waiting for that awsome sig to just leap out at me..--
Governments need to promote them.
And Oil Industries need to subdue them.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
...Then what will KFC fry their chicken in?
The article mentions hydrogen fuel cells as a way to break big oil. But last I heard, the most effecient way to make hydrogen is from coal, which is a dirty nasty process. (Or so I hear). Am I wrong on this?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Nice sentiment, but I'm sure some big corporation, or perhaps some lobbying coalition of corporations will probably patent the technology, then lobby to make certain patents never expire. Even much of major university research is now funded by corporations and results in patents.
Think I'm paranoid? Ask the RIAA how long they think a copyright should be good for. So no wars, just draconian lawsuits that continue the inequitable distribution of energy, food, and wealth.
Can I bum a sig?
A gas tax would do nothing but piss off everyone in the States while the oil corporations whine like crazy over it.
Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
Surely the problem with all these wonderful schemes is that they involve a reduction in our standard of living, at least in the short and medium term, if only due to increased taxation, and there is little evidence that this is a vote-winning idea. Sure, we can blame the politicians, but if the electorate was begging for higher taxes on fuel, I suspect they would be happy to deliver.
Virtually serving coffee
You think the situation in the Middle East is bad now? Wait until the world no longer relies on them for their oil and their economies fall apart. It will be a complete disaster. I would like to not have to rely on oil as much as the next guy, but I think it's going to cause just as many social problems as it will solve environmental problems.
It can be done, hell there's cars that can run off of used cooking grease(well, oil, vegetable oil). But the same old problem comes up, it's too big of an industry, with too many "power" people involved making their fortunes from it. Just like tobacco and the hellish medical insurance industry here in the US.They would not, and have not, taken the phase out of crude oil sitting down.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I thought, accoriding to recent news reports, that we will be able to get energy from water. I guess it will take a few years for science to do this, but technology will take care of everything. Don't worry about all that entropy and molecular energy level stuff. It will all work out, and we will soon be able to just pump sea water into our gas tanks.
Commence beating!
=Smidge=
weellcome our (hic) neww bio (hic) bio (hic) bioethanol supplying overlawrds... (burp)...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
It looks like someone has not been getting enough quality dietary intake. Where did all that oil come from? Do you believe the fossil record? And do you seriously the governments who are in the back pockets of the oil industry will do anything to promote this crap? Dream on Linux weenies!
My 9th grade history teacher told me about 15 years ago to buy up cases of motor oil and store them in the attic, claiming that we'd be out of the stuff in 30 years. With the new alternate fuels and new methods of oil extraction (eg. steaming oil sands in Canada), doesn't look like that's going to happen too soon... ...good thing he's sticking to studying the past and not the future. *grin*
--- Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
1. Wait.
2. Buy stuff from only your home town.
3. Eat less.
4. Shop less.
5. Buy an electric car.
6. Walk.
7. Run.
8. Bike.
9. Have lots of sex. (ok these aren't in order)
10. Make fun of people who drive or buy things from far away or shop too much or don't have much sex.
Technology has existed for some time to curb our need for oil, but our government won't promote this. The whole 'restucturing the Middle East' agenda is based around trying to procure our oil on the cheap, and many more of our armed forces are going to have to die (it will probably take a major, MAJOR conflict with heavy losses before the US government decides to start seriously looking for alternatives). I'm glad I didn't join the Air Force a few years ago when I was contemplating it. I went to MEPPS and everything. Lucky me.
Hee hee. You might like our project.
.. provides me a keyboard made of wood or any alternative (which are as cheap as the old ones) ..
, Ill stop using _plastic_ ones
I dont think the author thought about the point that gasoline isnt the only product made out of oil.
Did governments need to promote the alternatives to stone? A thing whose time has come shouldn't need "help". In fact, I'd argue that having government in your corner is often the worst thing that could happen.
The tyranny of oil? WTF?! If it wasn't for such dinosaur remnants we wouldn't have progressed into an industrialized society for Chrissakes. Come on. The evil of industrialized countries relying on fossil fuels. Countries that have no other natural resources (and who cannot cultivate food because they live in fscking sand) negotiating profits with their native oil supply. Big deal.
It would be great if other alternative energy sources were mainstream. Having choices is great, and as a member of a free society I can appreciate that. But I can spare the granola shit.
The sooner the rest of the world stops subsidizing monarchies with lousy human rights records (i.e. Saudi Arabia et. al), the better.
I, for one, am looking forward to the day when our economy runs on turkey guts, so I can welcome our new non-petroleum based overlords.
Stick that in your madrassa and smoke it, Osama!
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
The proceeds from a gasoline tax ought to be used to finance cuts in other taxes.
"Ought to" usually means "never will" in situations like this, no?
I'm all for clean alternatives, but I can't see the government funneling a whole lot of their cash cow into new fuel sources. Wouldn't tax breaks (for those who choose clean) be more appropriate than tax increases (for those who don't)?
And what can you make oil out of? Pretty much anything. Sewage, yard waste, paper, plastic, road-kill...
Recycling at its best. And this isn't theoretically-possible technology. This is currently-profitable-and-expanding technology.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Mod +1, Psychopathic Pavlovian Response!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
As far as I'm concerned, the end of the oil age WILL happen when we run out of oil, and not before.
This article makes the point that there will be no significant inroads from alternate fuels for a decade or two. Even that might be optimistic. However, I'm not sure our oil reserves are going to last another 25 years, and certainly not the century required to move entirely away from being a petroleum-fueled world.
I fully expect to see in my lifetime, a crisis of epic proportions which will force the beginning of a real change in fuels. Nothing else will do it. (and even that's iffy)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Oil will stand aside for other power tech when interests of enough big players become established.
Right now the situation is (as a sysadmin would say) "working, so why bother changing".
Anyone care to talk on who's interests are not there yet?
Wow. If only the layout of your site didn't suck so badly in Mozilla.
"The world is littered with the bodies of people that tried to stick it to ole J.R. Ewing!"
Why? When providers make them more economical than the oil-based alternatives, the free market will adopt them. I'm sure not going to pay more money to get the mere equivalent of something I'm already getting. I'm not so naive that I think government subsidies don't come out of my pocket, too. If these new technologies want promotion, let them get an investor that believes in the long-term ROI to run some advertising campaigns. If it's not worth the risk of a private individual/company, why foist it on a public who have no say in it?
Constitutionally Correct
You might be refering to President Bush. You see, in the U.S., we don't have kings. We have presidents. Feel free to research the topic.
I'm curious, does everyone outside the U.S. have such little knowledge of other cultures? You would think that something like this would be taught in your schools.
The problem is just that the oil industry is so very mighty. Take for instance my own country, Norway - with one hand we're "all for" new sources of energy, and with the other hand, our entire budget is based on the oil we have.
These articles, opinions and rants are never about oil. They're about capitalism. If we shifted to a pure hydrogen economy, in fifteen years, these same people would be calling for the overthrow of the evil hydrogen cartel and fear mongering about the horrible climactic changes brought about by introducing millions of tons of water vapor into the atmospehre. Then they would call for government action to force people into a new lifestyle, and there's the key.
Note how these people always wind up arguing about how it should be the government forcing people to change their lives.
And the slashdot crowd, the same group who screams the Patriot Act is a police state waiting to happen, jump up and shout: Hallelujah! All praise to the government!
The tyranny that makes you feel morally superior is the tyranny you embrace.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Maybe I'm being naive here but is this really /. material? Or is this entire discussion -1 Offtopic?
I know, oil's bad and it can be attributed to pollution, terrorism, third-world poverty, the elevation of the rich, the desolation of the poor... and this deals with IT how?
What is music when you despise all sound?
Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese.
This
Look at the vehicles produced in America. They get bigger every year. Vehicles today get about the same gas mileage as they did in the 70s. Where is technology?
I live in Texas where the best selling vehicles are trucks, suburbans and H2s. And you know what I've noticed? Most of the time, these vehicles haul one or 2 people on the highway or in town. That's it!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
1) Oil cartel buys politicians.
2) Politicians make laws.
3) People continue to eat yummy oil.
Hell, we have oil men running the country now. Anyone hoping for green technologies to win out is smoking crack.
Is that necessarily effecient? Hydrogen is clean, but as you point out, the energy to make it has to come from somewhere. Even even if that somewhere is relatively clean, you don't want to use an ineffecient processes to convert it. How effecient is electrolysis?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Get rid of all the subsidies, free land giveaways, and price controls. Oil is too cheap for the market to develop alternatives. Oil needs to become much more expensive before American consumers start demanding alternatives. I would think something called 'The economist' would come to this conclusion.
11. Don't invade a country for the sole purpose of getting cheap oil and lucrative contracts for your buddies in the oil industry.
Governments need to promote NOTHING. That is the problem: we have given up the most powerful feature an individual has: the power to vote with one's dollar.
Oil is big not because of "big business" but because of big subsidies and big tariffs and big embargoes and big regulations and big requirements: all government interventions that prevent other technologies from being promoted or even discovered.
Big business never lasts -- look at what happened to the kerosene industry: it fell apart before the government could call it a monopoly.
Articles such as this refuse to show the real cause for monopolies and technologies that refuse to die even though they are outdated: government.
Continuing to vote Democrat or Republican or Green will only lead us down the trail of more tyrannical choices made for us under the guise of "democracy." We are not a democracy, we are a union of States where the individual should never be trumped by the masses -- unless that individual is harming another in visible and provable ways.
Don't blame the gas companies, they are only taking advantage of what you and your ancestors did: allow government to reach its evil hand into my life.
Only took 1 post to bash Bush.
Wow!
I guess I'll have to keep posting this for the rest of my life, because people don't seem to hear it:
Yes, oil dependence is an economic and political problem. Yes, fossil fuels are an ecological disaster. But switching to cars powered by hydrogen, solar or whatever is not going to stop us from turning the world into a place where you can't walk to the corner grocery store without worrying about being run over. Can we put some geek energy towards solving that problem, please?
So yes, oil dependance for the world is a problem. It's allowed a single section of the world to weild incredible economic power over others, and has allowed a group of religious extremists more money than they really deserve. Saudi Arabians (not the entire country, mind you - just folks with way too much money on their hands) exporting schools to Afganistan with a branch of extreme Islam that pretty much hates, well, everybody, Iran putting a gigantic bounty of Salman Rushdie's head because he wrote a book he didn't like:
So here's what I see happening:
Now:
50 years from now:
It's a simplistic view, I admit - but I figure nothing will be done on a US national scale, let alone a global one, until there is A Problem With Oil Supplies.
Which, I'm guessing at around 50 years. Perhaps by then we'll have fusion systems or some other cool way of gathering energy. Until then, nobody really wants to do anything because it will cost too much money.
And in the end, that's what it's all about, isn't it?
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
They're 'Energy Companies' now, not 'Oil Companies'. They'll be just as happy making billions of dollars selling bottled H2 as they are selling gasoline. Plus, they won't have to settle for OPEC's finicky pricing schemes - they'll be able to raise prices without restraint.
How hard would it be to install a nuclear reactor on an oil rig in international waters and start splitting seawater?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
well until I can actually buy one of these wondor cars that need no oil (No lubrication?) I'll stick to 70 MPG with a SMART car thanks v much :)
My Portfolio
i miss the rocks, lets go back to using rocks...
Governments don't need to promote anything. The government never promoted steam engines. The government never gave subsidies and tax credits to people buying internal combustion. There weren't research grants given to Westinghouse to develop power reactors. When fossil fuels are no longer economically viable a competitive substitute will appear. If you have a political motive for generating the substitute fine by me, just make it cheaper than oil or have some other marginally beneficial attribute (i.e. not being from the middle east) and I'll buy it. Until then keep government out of my economy.
Oh yeah, and we recently invaded and conquered two countries for oil. I forgot to mention that little tidbit. Yep, oil's days are numbered.
Oils are used as a base ingrediant in plastics. While we may someday move a hyrdogen economy, and we might even eventually get away from the internal combustion engine. Were not about to stop using plastics. Petroleum products go into a whole lot more than our gas tank, something many people are oblivious too.
Not only that but the oil companies are smart enough to realize there not in the oil business but the energy business. Point to example, BP/Amoco is the world's largest seller of Solar panels. Why anybody would think that these companies would stand by and not partake in new energy technology is beyond me.
Hydrogen fuel cells are at last becoming a viable alternative. These are big batteries that run cleanly for as long as hydrogen is supplied, and which might power anything in or around your home--notably, your car.
Since when are they batteries?
This technology had a couple false starts and inital designs sucked in terms of ROI for energy spent, but company called "Changing World Technolgies" built a demonstration plant that worked and then built a plant next to a turkey processing plant that digests the left overs from the turkey plant into 40 weight oil and gas (which it uses as fuel in the first stage of the digester).
*puts down the pom-poms* I think this technology is great. It's not perfect because it still keeps us dependant on oil (just not oil from foreign contributors) however, I think it's a step in the right direction.
I went looking for the link I read in the Discover magazine and it seems dead, so I've put in the google cache link instead.
Anything into oil
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
So nerds are only interested in IT?
I guess there weren't any nerds 10 years ago?
How about saving some oil to boil the parent poster in it.
Wait your turn, eventually there will be a Topic that your comments would relate to.
This is ridiculous.
The Economist is some sort of high-and-mighty, very-smart-people magazine, right? So you'd expect their tech summaries to be clear, concise and accurate, right?
Fuel cells are a method for storing energy. Storing. Like a battery. Saying "we'll all run on fuel cells" is like saying "we'll all run on capacitors" or "we'll all run on car batteries". The energy to charge those fuel cells has to come from somewhere. Why is an energy transport technology being touted as the solution to power generation problems?
Furthermore, don't modern crops require petroleum-based fertilizers to maintain their high yields? As in, it takes several liters of petroleum to make one liter of ethanol from corn. Ergo, corn-a-hol is a good idea if we have too much fucking corn---which we do; subsidies make it that way---but have nothing to do with growing cheap energy.
Both of these methods---touted as the end of the oil age---are just ways of putting oil behind the scenes. Whether fossil fuels power the electrical plant that supplies the energy for your fuel cell charging station, or are poured into the ground to make that oh-so-clean ethanol. (Hmm. I wonder if 'cornahol' could catch on.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
too few in my opinion.
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
"The only long-term solution to this connected set of problems is to reduce the world's reliance on oil. Achieving this once seemed pie-in-the-sky. No longer. Hydrogen fuel cells are at last becoming a viable alternative."
Oh fantastic! I just zip right on down to the Ford dealership and pick myself up a Hydrogen powered car. Then I can go to the nearest gas station and fill it up with liquid Hyrdogen. I'm sure it'll be cheaper than the $1.40 a gallon I paid to fill up my car this morning.
Lets get real here, people. Nobody knows for sure if fuel cell cars will actually work in the marketplace. There are lots of hurdles to overcome like safety issues (New for 2005! The Buick Hindenburg XT!), distribution and production issues for Hydrogen, not to mention the fact that fuel cells may be a tough sell to consumers as long as they can buy gas at a reasonable price.
Fuel cells may be a good idea...they may be a fantastic idea. Or they could be the next Segway. A wait and see attitude is more prudent here before we go throwing out 100 years worth of research and development on the internal combustion engine.
"government needs to promote them"
I doubt it will though. It wasn't the government that brought the world out of the stone age, it wa the market. People with stone age weapons were getting bitchslapped by the bronze weilders. The result was they switched to bronze to avoid getting smacked around. Now lets look at this from the prospect of oil. The people with oil are smacking down all these poorer nations who don't have it. You think they are just going to switch? Nope, they'll mainatin there monopoly on oil and more importantly oil derived products. Ever drive a car? Ever use something made of plastic? Chances are your using a perto derived invention. We'll use oil in the same way the gold miners handled gold, tehy stuck with it till they had panned all the easy to get gold. Then they disappeared. The same with oil. We will use till its wither all gone or too expensive to use anymore and then we'll switch to something else. And to those who think by then it will be too late, we still have insane amounts of coal around to hold us over. And even if we use all taht up, we can still use charcoal to make 'water gas'.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
We need to switch to a Triangle Economy!
So recently on Slashdot, we've seen predictions of the end of Bluetooth, the end of PDAs, and now the end of oil. I'm beginning to think people don't quite understand the concept. Sure, someday the sun will go out and it will likely be the end of Earth (though who knows what we'll have by then). Anyway, it's a little premature to proclaim something dead just because there's some competition.
Does Triangle Man beat Hydrogen Man?
(is Hydrogen Man Particle Man?)
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
With gas increasingly becoming an expensive commodity, people are turning to other means for powering their gasoline engined vehicles. A European country (Italian?) already makes car conversion kits, which cost about $50, take about 2 hours to attach, and allow the car to run on liquefied petroleum gas (butane) commonly used as cooking gas. A cylinder of LPG fits comfortably in the trunk, lasts upto 200 miles, and can be exchanged for a new one at the gas station. A switch allows you to switch between gas and LPG on the fly....I've actually seen this work...if you want to switch from LPG to petrol, you turn the switch to OFF, allow the car to stall slightly and turn it to the petrol position...that's it....as easy as that. Not only is LPG a cleaner fuel, but it is also typically 5-6 times cheaper than normal petrol.
Another point.US is also one of the few countries where 2 wheeled vehicles like motorbikes/scooters are almost non existent. They are pretty widespread in European counties like Spain and in Asia. Not only are they more fuel efficient, but release lower amounts of polluting gases (atleast the 4 stroke versions, 2 stroke engines release more harmful gases for the same amount of fuel). I have noticed a growing use of scooters in the US, atleast in and around college campuses.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
all well&gooed. howsonever, bulleaving that "new boss" will be different from the "old boss", without the upcoming co(s)mic intervention, is infinitely misleading.
alternatively, many are choosing the freedoms of the creator's newclear power plan, along with the increasingly universal acceptance/support for the planet/population rescue initiative.
for each of the creator's innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the perpetraitors of the greed/fear based life0cide against humankind, will not be available to make reparations.
you know where to look/who to trust? see you there.
Back in the 1970's - the fuel shortage.
About the same time, fuel efficiency jumped from 10 miles per gallon to 25.
For the last 30 years, nothing has changed for fuel efficiency (a little here and there, but let's face it, not on a huge scale).
Why? No economic incentive. But if another fuel crisis occured, you can bet that Necessity would mother quite a few inventions to increase fuel efficiency. Especially when car makers find they can make more money doing so.
And that's what it's all about: money. Cars won't be more fuel efficient, people won't buy more car efficient cars until they have a pocketbook reason to. Right now, even though gas is expensive, it's still "cheap" compared to what it should be for inflation's sake.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
20, 50 or 100 years from now. Whenever this oil depedency has hit rock bottom. Countries in the middle east will simply blame america for their lack of revenue (assuming they don't move on to some other form of business, they must adapt, or perish). In 20-50 years the world will be much more tightly connected and it will only become easier for a country to sue another country. For example. all the damage Saudi Arabia has done to their people and environment by drilling for oil would be blamed on the US's massive consumption.
Not only is the US gouged on prices, when the money runs out, these countries will turn around and litigate for more.
I say the sooner we throw off the shackles of depedency on a tiny region of the world, the less damage they can do to us. America has always been fiecely indepedent, to the point of being pig-headed. I think we're due for some pig-headedness now. Cut ourselves now, to avoid worse wounding in the future.
Of course I doubt anything will happen until the last possible second. Politicians don't seem to react unless it's an "oh shit" situation. Doing nothing substantial pisses off fewer people, and limiting the number of people you piss off is what it takes to survive in politics.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I haven't read any good history, or at least anthropological theory, about what happened in the interim period between those ages. My first guess is that the transitions were not clean, that there were advances and regressions and that it wasn't until much after the change did the people recognize the previous epoch as an discrete period marked by specific technology foundation.
Likewise, the transition to the next era will likely be marked by stronger forces of change than tax cuts, and will likely be violently chaotic as one society seeks hegemony through technological advantage. Stick that in your Birkenstock and smoke it!
Probably because the article itself rightly criticizes him.
Is there anything relevant about that observation? Or was this just a First Bush post?
It will be cold day in hell before you can get some of people out of their cars. Not just in America, but everywhere, people enjoy the convienece of having a car, and one that doesn't cost too much. As long as running on petrol is cheaper than alternatives, oil will always be #1
If raising taxes alone was the answer, you'd expect a lot of research into and use of alternative fuels to go on in Europe, where petrol is 2 to 4 times as expensive as it is in the USA. We Europeans might be a bit more energy-consciencious than our friends from the US, but so far a widespread use of alternative fuels has failed to materialise.
In Holland, fuel companies get 25 cents for every liter of petrol sold, the remaining 1 euro goes to the state as tax. (You can imagine why the president of Shell was pissed off when our government suggested that oil companies are rersponsible for high fuel prices). In addition there's a 32% special levy (on top of the 18% VAT) on new cars. Personally I would not mind this tax, if the billions(!) of Euros in revenue would be spent on actual research and development of alternative fuels. In reality, less than half of this money is spent on roads and public transport, the rest of it disappears in the great black hole of the general budget. Only a pittance is spent on research and development.
That is the problem I see with increased tax on fuels in the US. Like their European counterparts, the US government will discover that higher prices for petrol will most definitely not result in people driving less, and thus they will rejoice in their discovery of a 'milk cow' that brings much new revenues. If such a tax is ever proposed, I would hope that the revenues are spent on research, and not on other unrelated issues. Europe has shown that the tax does not contribute to cleaner fuels in that case.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Controlled fusion has been "just around the corner" for some time. If I were "in charge", I'd set up a Manhattan Project-like effort to get controlled going - it's that important. Of course, the Bush family and its web of fine compatriots would do whatever they could to stop it. Sigh.
Use vegetable oil instead. Similar energy/mass ratio, easily transportable, easily produceable, and adds no additional carbon to the air.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You are quite correct. The "Hydrogen Economy" buzzword-crap refers to the idea of using hydrogen as an energy distribution mechanism, like a battery. You "charge up" your hydrogen tank by using electricity to split H out of H2O, and the electricity has to come from somewhere. You are also correct that it will come from whatever's cheapest, and only the environmental nuts with rooftop PV panels will make hydrogen cleanly.
However-- that's not the point. At least not initially. The idea is to transition to an infrastructure that does not depend on any particular generation method. This opens the way for your car to be powered by anything-- not just gasoline. Once you can put hydrogen in, you're no longer tied to a single source. As more efficient generators and methods (nuclear, solar, excercise-club treadmills) come into play, your existing car will be able to immediately take advantage of them.
To sum up, you're right. It will still be gasoline and coal on the backend for a long while. But every time a more efficient nuke plant pops up, cars can instantly switch their power source by just sourcing hydrogen from somewhere else. Contrast that to our existing infrastructure, where to take advantage of a more efficient generation method or fuel source, you need a new car for each technology advance (say, hybrid vehicles or VW diesels) or non-gasoline-compatible fuel.
It's just a way to disconnect generation from distribution and usage, and it works a hell of a lot better than a stack of Li-ion batteries that weighs as much as your car.
Using Nuclear Power they could steam cook chickens and produce electricity at the same time. "Welcome to nuK-FC can I take your order?"
The linked article (gasp I read it first) notes that hydrogen can be generated from any electrical source, even nuclear. Electrolysis is an energy intensive process - using the electrical output of a nuclear plant to crack water would be a waste of useful electricity. Radiolysis, the breakdown of water into hydrogen and oxygen by the action of neutrons, is a by-product of the nuclear reaction in water moderated reactors (virtually every commercial nuclear plant in the U.S.).
Using the nuclear reactors to make electricity, sans greenhouse emissions, and siphoning off the hydrogen evolved from radiolysis is a much more efficient solution. One pound of nuclear fuel ( 5% U-235) can generate an absurd amount of hydrogen. A lot more than the electricity evolved from that same amount of fuel could through electrolysis.
Come on people, everyone knows that the Economist is a flaming hippie media rag. You can't take anything those tree-huggers say seriously.
Get on your segway HT and flatten them pedestrians slow-coaches!
Wow? How is it surprising that it took 1 post. The guy has the largest deficit ever for a single year, has spent more than any other president since FDR, started a needless war, made pathetic policy choices that made the coming recession worse, and is a complete moron.
I'd be surprised if he's re-elected. However, never overlook the ability of Americans to vote for the best commercial/best known name.
I wish people could accept when they are wrong about something instead of sticking their proud heads in the sand. I guess when you've been doing it for years, why not continue.
IANAE(ngineer), but it does seem rather absurd to me how little progress we've made in the way we generate, store and distribute energy. There have been so many technological revolutions during the past century, and yet we still store energy in batteries the same way we have done for several decades (at least); we still rely on the same utility poles strewn haphazardly about the landscapes; and we still rely upon foreign oil, and use it in a shamefully inefficient manner that wastes a lot of the potential energy it contains.
Aren't we just about due for an energy revolution, then? What would happen if the US were to successfully develop / discover and deploy an alternative, renewable and potentially cleaner fuel source? A new market would be born: new domestic jobs would appear to support, scale out and improve the new infrastructure; pollution would eventually decline; foreign nations would look to the US for help in deploying similar solutions within their own borders; and the US wouldn't be beholden to the Middle Eastern oil cartels anymore.
Yes, it would cause an upheaval across the board. The oil industry would be in decline, which I'm certain wouldn't play very well in the boardrooms of the oil conglomerates. States that derive most of their income from oil revenues (Texas is the obvious choice) would see their political power decline, along with their revenues. But don't the benefits outweigh the risks here?
I know it's probably too much to wish for -- there's too much complacency in our government now to really push for anything revolutionary. We have a (p)resident who's a friend of the oil industry, and doesn't seem to be capable of doing anything his father or Ronald Reagan hasn't already done before. And we have too many companies that are able to use their considerable political power to make sure that things stay the same as they've always been. But wouldn't it be nice..........?
About 10 years ago there was a shuttle mission intended to study the growing hole in the ozone. the mission came back with results directly contradicting what all of the tree hugging drones were crying about. If I find an URL regarding this I'll post it. What was funny is the tree hugging masses were all crowing about the mission but when the shuttle came back the story was dropped like it was hot!
Average age of a car in the US is older than that, and I have a car that is older than many Slashdotters which is still running just fine. (I keep it because it gets better gas mileage than almost anything I could get today, which gives less money to the Venezuelan and Nigerian dictators, the Islamofascists, and other enemies of peace and freedom.)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
But if you want to call him a President, that's fine. I think Iraq called its head of state one too.
Biorenewable organics (vegetable oil).
Forget government, they are always the wrong thing too late. Start now. Next time you go buy a [gas] car ask if it will run on E-85. Contary to popular belief, ethanol is energy positive to produce. (At one time 10 gallons of gas made 8 gallons of ethanol, but that has changed)
If the car is new, don't buy it unless it will run on E-85 or bio-diesel. Then start looking for E-85 at the pump. Make sure the dealer knows this, they can put pressure on the manufactures. Supply of fuel will follow a lot quicker when there is something to use the supply.
Used car buyers don't have that option, but by asking about E-85 you put it in the sellers mind. If there are enough people asking about it, E-85 becomes something they look for in a new car just in case. If you are choosing between two cars prefer the E-85 or bio-diesel one. You might end up with the gas only one depending on other factors, make make everyone aware that you are not happy about that particular issue of your choice.
Supply and demand can be influenced. If everyone can run bio fuels (E-85 or bio diesel) in their cars, gas stations will see much less risk in carrying it. If 25% of the population bought only bio fuels it would cut our need (in the US anyway) for middle east oil to zero. Eventially scale factors kick in, and bio fuels will be less expensive than normal oil just because so few people use the traditional oil.
I picked E-85 and bio diesel because they are ready for prime time. You can buy E-85 cars, and fuel. (at least in the mid-west) You can get bio-diesel in some places, though around here it is a little behind. Other fuels sound nice, but are not quite ready mass use yet. These are at least a stepping stone to the future. If there is a different fuel that works better for you, go for it.
I think the theory is power plants are controled and regulated, thus minimizing waiste. As apposed to cars burning gas that would be far wider spread and overall, just plain "worse".
NOTE: Im NOT saying I agree with this Theory.
how?
It's a God damn opinion piece...
WTF? Over?
The half dozen or so hydrogen stations in California will extract their hydrogen from natural gas. Read here
Where do you think makes your computer work? Do you have a solar panel on your roof?
The point is that almost all our power derives from oil and that it is running out some day. And we still do not have any viable alternatives.
Hasn't anyone ever heard of the geet engine? http://www.geet.com/ For right now maybe we should try to get engines that run oil to be more EFFICIENT! 99% lower emissions and at least two times the miles per gallon.
The genes of decesased signers of the U.S. Constitution were used to clone the heads of these former great leaders so that they could remove the burden of ammending the constitution off of the backs of the states.
The head of former president Abraham Lincoln, also cloned back to life, issued the following statement "It's obvious to us that it is much harder for great leaders and individuals to communicate with the public in this modern era than it was back in the late 1800's.... The great thinkers and speakers of this era no longer have the fortune of traveling by horse and buggy from city to city, so it is necessary for the government to do this work for us."
"An enlightened fellow, 'geekstreak', said it best: Governments need to promote ideas."
After this speech, the original framers of the Constitution created the fourth branch of the Federal government: The Promotion Branch. Realizing that the courts need to promote their beliefs if they are to continue to create law from the bench, the first responsibilty of the Promotion branch is to represnt the beliefs of the court system in the public, and to translate rulings into common sense English. It's been said that every ruling will take a team of 10 men at least 5 days to translate into English. The Promotion branch has already outsourced this work to undocumented peoples living in California, many of whom recently left well paying jobs in Wal-Mart.
In Europe, the oil producing countries get 15% of the final oil price. 75% goes as taxes, and profit to the middle person.
If you call paying ~20$ to 30$ for a material which has been aging for several million years and is irreplacable, then you are cheap. I wonder why people call it tyranny when at a certain point of time, oil was cheaper than water. It is still cheaper than wine!
I would call the RIAA tyranny but not the oil industry. I agree there is a lot of corruption in the industry starting with G.W.
A cynic might suggest that the proclaimed scarcity of fuel, a lack of investment in alternatives and a proposal to raise fuel taxes are somehow related.
The Economist fails to point out the reason for the blockade of domestic oil depots in the UK, or that its major consequence was the abandonment of the UK's fuel 'escalator' tax (a small but steadily rising tax on petrol) - the very thing it proposes as a solution to rising demand.
If you really don't want to be beholden to manipulative and exploitative governments, temperamental cartels and environmentally-dubious multinationals, then buy a push-bike and some warm clothes.
That's OK, I'm going to rule the world when Hydrogen becomes fuel of choice. I'm patenting the secret process for separating Hydrogen from, of all things, sea water. Who'd have thought it was possible.
Those guys at the Economist are always good for a laugh. No, really, it's a fun mag. I love it.
I'm not painting the whole place with a broad brush because they bring in opinions from all sides. You've got to take it one article at a time.
Dear Sirs:
I notice your solution to America's dependence on gasoline includes the idea of a gas tax. It's an interesting solution that has the virtue of seeming logical on the face of it.
However, a gas tax is a tax on consumption that would affect those at the lowest income levels as much, if not more, than those at higher income levels. As we know, consumption taxes are not in that category of taxes described by Marx as progressive.
If increasing government revenues is the answer, then perhaps we should consider a fairer form of taxation in order to extract those monies in an equitable manner.
"The widespread use of of solar power will begin in due time, once the major power suppliers of the world over come a few minor obstacles. The greatest of which is how to meter a sunbeam" Or something like that...the QOTD is already gone.
The single common problem that this oil issue and many other disparate issues share is that the populace has a whole either does not have the long-range vision to see where their actions are leading them or simply they don't care. I think one of the most disturbing aspects of the article is this claim: "According to one American government estimate, OPEC has managed to transfer a staggering $7 trillion in wealth from American consumers to producers over the past three decades by keeping the oil price above its true market-clearing level." That's a lot of money. I can't help but think that there are many better things that we could have done with that money, rather than adding a new wing to a princes palace. I think if people were a little more aware of what was going on, maybe they'd cut back just a little. I'm not evern talking about decreasing usage, as much as not having it grow.
The reason gasoline is so expensive in Europe is, quite simply, *tax*. There's no other reason for a commodity purchased on the open market to be so much more expensive in Europe than in the US, especially since Europe is much closer to an abundant source (the middle east) than the US.
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Another point.US is also one of the few countries where 2 wheeled vehicles like motorbikes/scooters are almost non existent. They are pretty widespread in European counties like Spain and in Asia. Not only are they more fuel efficient, but release lower amounts of polluting gases (atleast the 4 stroke versions, 2 stroke engines release more harmful gases for the same amount of fuel). I have noticed a growing use of scooters in the US, atleast in and around college campuses.
Where I live (in europe) you have to be 18 to be allowed to drive a car. But for a scooter, (up to 45km/h, I think) you only have to be 16. Many schoolkids have a scooter, especially girls.
Actually, Dubbya most likely was NOT elected, most people think Gore won the vote. Of course, since the courts stopped a recount, we can't really know.
I'm not sure whether to mod you down for what looks like a knee-jerk response or to mod you up for what could be a clever joke.
Please advise.
This is so correct. The way to get off of oil is to use make the market for energy work efficiently. All the costs of using the oil should be reflected in the cost at the pump. We should try to estimate the true cost of oil and build it into prices through taxes. This cost should include military costs for stabilizing oil producing nations. It should also include enviromental costs (although this is very hard to quantify). I think that it should also cover road repair and infrastructure maintence costs. (Shouldn't the people who use the roads most pay most for the repairs?)
This would actually make consumers decide if it is really worth it to drive that big car. It will work a lot better than just trying to make people guilty about driving SUVs. Make the price of the product reflect the true cost and the market will work itself out.
The problem is that we have created urban (and suburban, and exurban) town patterns that are useless for mass transit. But all the "green" power sources - wave, wind, solar, nuclear (yes, I do think nuclear power can be perfectly safe if it is regulated and not used to produce military by-products) are large-scale or spread out so they favor mass transport designs. They will work well in much of Europe, China and, ultimately, India, but not in the US.
The hydrogen economy remains a possibility - alternative power could be used to create hydrogen efficiently by splitting water - and if the storage and distribution problems can be solved, could fix the US transport problem. But it is a huge threat to the Bush family (and the Cheneys, and many party backers) UNLESS hydrogen generation can be linked to the use of oil or coal. It's a truly vicious circle: Oil is good for the Bushes because its price fluctuates, military and business savvy is needed to maintain supplies, and the US consumer thinks he gets cheap oil, not realising he is actually subsidising the same people that gave us Al-Queda. Terrorism or the threat thereof destabilises oil security, so actually benefits the oil industry by helping to keep prices up. A credible hydrogen economy based on alternative energy would actually reduce oil prices, weaken the corporatism of the US, and benefit the end user. So is it going to happen? Not while Exxon has a breath left in its body.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Big cities are a much more cost effective way to house people. And much better for the girl watching. Then again, I'm from NY. The best city, IMHO, is Bejing - ratio of cars to bikes reversed. Followed by the good walking cities: Rome, Paris. LA, frankly, sucks. Before wwII it was the garden of Eden, then came Roger Rabbit and now you can't breath, walk, or even drive during the day.
I still want my flying car.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Y'know, if we had to import 50% of our food or 50% of our manufactured goods to this country, then I'm sure that folks would be livid. However, importing 50% of our economic lifeblood is considered Business As Usual. What a fscking crock.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
...according to this site!
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
Myself, I already drive a car that gets over 40 mpg, and the government *did* give me a tax break for it. Not as good a deal as they give rich people for buying Humvees, but every time I see the price of gas go up a notch... I get a little chuckle.
I didn't buy mine for the fuel economy, exactly; I bought it to cut Saudi funding for terrorism, to undermine support for ill-considered US military adventuring, and because the Prius puts out 90% less pollution than the typical gas-hogging Detroit POS.
The age of oil will end when a more economical alternative is found; not before.
What are you going to use to power your electrolysis process?
Love?
That was classic intercourse!
Yeah, what tripe...from the /. lead in:
Everyone knows that the oil age won't end when the oil runs out...it will end when the oxygen runs out. We will always find a way to make more carbon based fuels. Too much of the economic infrastructure is depedent on oil consumption. So we are likely to burn up the other end of the combustion equation first. Oxygen is a public commodity. It is the commons that is ripe for trashing. So I would expect to run out of it first.
At the moment the world consumes 80million barrels a day (mbpd), 20million of those are used by the USA alone who only have 4% of the worlds population !
The USA has oil reserves of 50 billion barrels and at the current rate of usage (which is predicted to rise by at least 1.5% per year) of 7.3 billion per year would exhaust its reserves in 7 years. Consequently the USA currently imports about 30% of its oil from the middle east and another 20% from Africa and elsewhere. 40% of all US oil usage is petrolium based for transportation. Based on this the US oil reserves will run out in about 14 years.
The middle east controls 65% of the worlds oil reserves. Thats 685 billion barrels of the worlds 1050 billion. Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion and has the worlds largest reserves. Iraq, UAE and Kuwait have 97 billion, Iran 90 billion with others making up the rest.
As far as I can make out from Google, experts only expect another 200billion barrels of oil reserves to be discovered at the most. This is only an estimate, not based on known oil wells whose reserves have not been measured but on a guess of "how much oil we don't know about".
At the moment about 10 billion barrels of oil is discovered per year which has been steadily declining since 1965 and based on the current trend is expected to reach 0 by about 2020.
At the current rate of world oil usage (80mbpd), with the current amount of reserves (1050Gb) that would give us 1050b / (365x80m) = 36 years.
China is rapidly becoming the next economic superpower closely followed by India and Pakistan who together constitute over a third of the worlds population. This and many other factors mean that world oil consumption will continue to rise to 120mbpd by 2030 even with conservative predictions.
Consumption is in fact never likely to reach these levels because by 2030 time the worlds reserve levels are likely to be so low that only a 3 or 4 countries will be supplying 90% of the worlds oil. This means that the rate of production will be greatly reduced because the maximum sustained rate of production of 4 countries may only be 40mbpd.
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/summary.htm
According to this trend that predicts oil production rates will start to fall when we reach 50% usage of all oil that has ever existed, the supply rate of oil will increasingly fail to meet demand as time progresses.
What with the USA invading Iraq obviously to secure the worlds largest oil fields (WMD lol ! Evil Dictator lol !) and establish even more military prescence in the region of the worlds largest oil reserves, I can see major conflicts between the USA, Europe and China, India, Pakistan and Russia with the middle east stuck in the middle as soon as 2020 and definately by 2030. Especially if you bear in mind that the USA spends about $500billion on its military every year and China with the most manpower on earth is rapidly expanding its military program and is the 2nd largest arms spender with a measly $30billion.
Theres alot of talk about "renewable energy" and alternative power sources but oil supplies 40% of the worlds power needs and I'm extremely sceptical that we'll even replace 1% of our power needs with non-oil based power within the next 20 years by wich time it will be too late.
Nothing to worry about but I reckon that the earth will be rather desolate and the population reduced by 2 thirds by 2040 if not earlier.
Cycling to work relaxes the mind and frees the body of excess stress. Try it. You will love it.
!
Just trying to be helpful. Of course, since the protaganist is married with children, thus has had sex with a female, I suppose these tips are of limited usefulness here. Fine, YOU figure out a way to live in the Post Oil Economy.
You know, remember, oil -> electricity -> runs computers. ON TOPIC!
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by being such an asshole)
OPEC could simply shop their oil to fast-developing nations with huge populations without the government infrastructure and finances to foster a shift from oil to hydrogen based power. I'm thinking India, Brazil, and China will become OPEC's best friends in the event that the US and other Western industrial powers gradually move towards hydrogen-based energy sources.
It's all well and good to celebrate the move towards hydrogen-powered automobiles in the US and other current industrial powers, but to assume that the OPEC cartel and nations with oil-based economies will become irrelevant in the near future is a huge (and dangerous) oversight on the part of the Economist, IMO.
The article did mention ethanol, but it's very understated. Brazil has been using ethanol in all of its cars for a very long time. Sugar cane is the answer. Well, don't we have more corn than we can shake a stick at in the US? I'm sure other countries have some surplus grains or can import the alcohol.
The best way to curb the demand for oil and promote innovation in oil alternatives is to tell the world's energy markets that the "externalities" of oil consumption--security considerations and environmental issues alike--really will influence policy from now on. And the way to do that is to impose a gradually rising gasoline tax.
The effect of that will be smaller and more efficient combustion engines. Just look at what they drive in Europe and the gas prices there.
The only way a gasoline tax will ever work is if alternatives (hydrogen, electricity, fuel cells) have an infrastructure equal to that of current gas stations. Until I can charge my car in 2 minutes or fill it up with hydrogen at any station, this won't happen.
This article is just one in a long line of many that only pays attention to trendy, non-practical technologies like fuel cells (a battery-powered car is still cheaper and faster than any fuel cell car) and bioethanol, while completely ignoring the practical, relevant, and current technologies like biodiesel.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
His former company (the one that still pays him millions a year) is actualy selling us gasoline at a 63 cent a gallon markup in Iraq. That's $1.59/gallon, more than most of us pay over here with tax!
First, it would at least be better than now. First, the process of making H2 from coal isn't as bad as burning it. Second, coal is a resource that is a bit, ah, more evenly distributed in the world. For America, this would be a good way to get the hell out of the Middle East, for good or bad.
Ultimately, it would be better to go to Methanol fuel cells, and I have yet to understand why they're not getting more press. First, methanol's a renewable resourse - as close to solar energy as we're likely to get. Also, it would be a resource that every country could take care of on their own - just farming.
There are also engineering advantages to methanol over H2.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
If the US economy moved from oil to another energy source ( huge hypothetical, but lets say it did) the price of oil would drop considerably. I'm sure the middle east would continue pumping, and selling, oil. But the business would not be quite as lucrative as it is.
I imagine western Europe will switch to hydrogen economies long before it happens in north america.
You posted in this thread, so it does not matter.
I need to find a country that will grant my administration immunity from war crimes.
Thanks in advance,
Shrub
Which Venezuelan dictators would they be? Colin Powell and the American media told the American public blatant lies about the situation in Venezuela. If you get the chance see if you can track down the BBC documentary about the Venezuelan coup. They got their story almost by accident as they were doing a behind the scenes film about Chavez when the coup happened.
It's the most remarkable documentary I've ever seen. I believed the American version of events until I saw it.
Better not let Popeye find out what perverted stuff you're doin' with his goil while he's at sea with Bluto!
This is what it's all about, after all... the hydrogen fuel cell is not about decreasing dependency on foreign oil, it's about maintaining dependency on foreign oil.
Your clean H2 for your vehicle will be produced at gas stations, by oil zaibatsu franchisees, from gasoline. All the money will continue to flow to the same entrenched interests - that's why they are supporting fuel cells instead of hybrids and other alternatives.
Because the gasoline delivery infrastructure already exists, and it's the only energy delivery system we've got that can handle the requirements of the unbelievable number of cars we've got on the road. The grid certainly can't take the increased load required to break water down, and building new facilities will cost more than using existing ones, so the old boys believe have the edge.
Fuel cells have never been the best option for private vehicles. Nonetheless, that's where we'll probably end up... at least it's a good thing from a pollution standpoint - there's a silver lining for you!
They have LOTS of open land in the desert just waiting to be covered with SOLAR COLLECTORS!
They will STILL be in the energy business!
Yes, but anonymously, I can still mod.
Furthemore, it can be had in many parts of the US for not much more than regular diesel. I live in the Atlanta area and get mine in 55 gallon drums, delivered to my door, for $2.50/gallon, taxes and transport costs included.
I wish the media would quit griping about future alternative fuel sources. A renewable, domestic, practical, affordable solution is here, now.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
Here's an article about the shrinking hole in the ozone layer. Sure enough in about 60 years the hole should close up according to NASA scientists. Most of the data was gathered in the early 1990's by NASA's ATLAS missions. Maybe read (and think) for yourselves rather than blindly accept vague FUD articles posted by hippies who flunked out of college because of too many hits from the skull bong. Maybe read articles based on scientific study...
We have two vehicles... a Civic and an F150. We primarily use the Civic due to gas costs. However, I truly do not fit in that car. I have to lean the seat 45 degrees back just so my head isn't hitting the top. As a passenger, my left leg is always in the way of the driver when accessing the gear shifter or parking brake. As a driver, my right knee is pressed up against the ignition switch.
:)
Don't get me wrong... I love the fuel efficiency part. I just want a fuel efficient vehicle that's made for tall folks.
We'll be trading in the Civic soon as child seats are difficult to fit in the rear. Suggestions for a roomy, affordable, reliable, fuel efficient vehicle are welcome.
In the U.S., we have significant reserves and production capacity. There is still lots of oil under the North Sea. Russia & the other former Soviet Union contries are just now coming on line with huge reserves. Then there is Africa & South American producers. There's plenty of oil out there.
The significant thing about Middle Eastern oil is that it's easy to get at, so it's cheap. If they turned it off tomorrow, then we'd pay somewhat more for oil: perhaps a lot more up front, but only modestly higher in the long term once the supply side has settled down. Nothing more, nothing less. That will have economic impact, but the economy will adjust, just like it has to significant increase in gas prices here in the U.S. over the last 2 years or so.
I would also point out that an increase in the per-barrel price of oil would increase the supply of oil and other energy sources, as reserves such as oil sands and other alternative energy sources become economically viable to exploit.
"As of January 1, 2001, domestic cars in the U.S. averaged 10.2 years. This is the highest average age for domestic cars in operation in more than 55 years," reported James A. Lang, President of Lang Marketing Resources, Inc., (www.langmarketing.com), a Wyckoff, New Jersey research and consulting firm specializing in the Vehicle Products Industry. Lang Marketing maintains a database of vehicles on U.S. roads."
"During the 1990s, the average age of domestic cars in the U.S. skyrocketed. At the beginning of the decade, domestic cars averaged 8.1 years, soaring to 8.5 years during 1992 and averaging 9.2 years at mid-decade. The domestic car population in the U.S. averaged 9.6 years at the beginning of 1998, increasing to 10.0 years by 2000."
http://www.langmarketing.com/docs/news04-23.htm
I posted this comment a few days ago on the energy poll but the poll changed before anyone had a chance to read it. Here it is again.
While googling around for information on world oil production I came across something called the Hubbert Curve.
The Hubbert Curve is a mathematical model that predicts petroleum production levels. It was developed in 1956 by M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist at Shell Oil.
It basically says that the rate of production of oil over the life of the reserve roughly follows a normal (ie, "bell curve") distribution. In other words, the rate of production will increase until half of the available oil has been produced, then the rate of production will begin to decline.
Here is a Hubbert curve plotted in 1996 using the latest available data at the time. The first graph shows the world output of conventional oil in millons of barrels per day over a 100 year span starting in 1950. It assumes an Ultimate Recovery (total amount of oil in the world) of 1750 Gb (gigabarrels). The plot does not include non-conventional sources such as oilsands. The full report is here
The graph predicts that global production will peak in the early 2000's and will decline steadily over the next fifty years. By 2050 production from conventional sources will have decrease by 70%. The second graph shows the Hubbert curve for conventional, non-conventional and gas liquid sources, plus the combined curve for conventional and non-conventional oil. Although production from non-conventional sources is predicted to double over the next 50 year it will not offset the predicted decline in production from conventional sources.
The graph has both its supporters and detractors. One of the inputs to calculating the curve is the Ultimate Recovery and its hard to know exactly what will be. I've found figures on the web that range from 1750 Gb to as high as 2300 Gb. However, as this article states, even if ultimate recovery is as high as 2600 Gb, the peak will only be delayed till 2019. Here is a critique of the Hubbert Curve.
What I find interesting about the curve is that oil production will not suddenly drop to zero when the oil runs out (the doomsday scenario). Rather production will steadily decline over a long period as existing sources dry up and new sources become harder and more expensive to exploit. At the same time, increasing oil prices will lead to the development of new sources of energy. As new energy production expands demand for oil will probably decrease, leading to lower oil prices. Oil production will finally stop when the cost of extracting the remaining oil exceeds market price.
The stoned age did not end because of a lack of mary jane, but because of an increase in secret goverment funding pushed through the "just say no" programs (you remember nancy's one brested phone sex?).... O you said stone age... no Im sure they had plenty of mary jane back then...
Hi!
While there is tremendous potential for hydrogen-based fuel cells, there's a little detail that seems to be overlooked. The vast majority of the world's production of liquid or gaseous hydrogen is produced from off-gases that are byproducts of oil refining.
The world's leading producer of liquid hydrogen is Air Products and Chemicals of Trexlertown, Pa. I've done a lot of work for them over the years--and their hydrogen business is based on "HYCO" plants that take refinery gases, extract the hydrogen and return carbon dioxide (and sometimes hydrogen) back "over the fence" to the refinery. Key point: no refinery, no hydrogen. There are other means of producing hydrogen--but HYCO plants are by far the cheapest.
A point of philosophy:
Immanual Kant's Categorical Imperative can be expressed like this: if your philosophy requires having sinners to do the sinning for you, your philosophy is bankrupt. Getting hydrogen as a byproduct of petroleum production--and then expecting hydrogen to free us from dependency on petroleum--won't work. If everybody stops using petroleum and switches to hydrogen, there won't be any petroleum refined--and thus there won't be any hydrogen. In order to have volume production of hydrogen, you need gas-guzzling petrol users to do the sinning for you.
As I wrote above, there are other sources of hydrogen. As the use of hydrogen increases (and let's not forget--liquid hydrogen is significantly more explosive than gasoline, and touching it will cause body parts to freeze and shatter) new sources of hydrogen will have to be developed, and new processes developed to extract the hydrogen cheaply. That will take time, ingenuity, and money. There's a lot of push behind the idea (if you're in high school, pursuing a college degree in chemical engineering with a focus on cryogenics and hydrogen in particular would be a VERY smart idea) but it will take time to appear. This will not be an overnight sensation.
And don't forget the Saudis
The Saudis are sitting on 2/3 of the world's oil. As they see their dominance dwindling, they will respond. The biggest challenge to the development of a replacement technology like LH will be economic: the Saudis and the rest of OPEC will simply slash prices. When gas costs $.30 per gallon (which still makes them billions) it will be difficult to justify the price per "gallon" of LH.
$60000 to CONVERT a car to LPG? Who'd be nuts enough to do that? Maybe $50 is too low a figure, but it certainly does NOT cost more than $100, but again I'm converting the figures with the exchange rate...it costs an EQUIVALENT of $50 is what I meant (adjusting for cost of living). And LPG IS CHEAPER than petrol. PUHLEEASE...$60,000 and you tell ME I'm making things up. SHEESH
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What are you going to use to power your electrolysis process?
Tiny, tiny water batteries.
When gasoline becomes more scarce, its price will naturally climb in accordance with the law of supply and demand. Until then, gasoline is a much cheaper source of *portable* energy than anything else, at least when you take startup cost into account. (If someone fronted all the cost for R&D of a personal hydrogen transportation system, then fuel cells might be cheaper in the margin; but I'd rather that be funded privately instead of having the funds ripped from my wallet by Uncle Sam.)
One can easily make the argument that using diesel/gasoline/NG for electricity generation is stupid, but it is still economically most viable: nuclear plants, hydroelectric plants, and wind power are all more expensive per unit of generated power than fossil fuel-powered plants when you consider plant depreciation/total cost and the uninformed NIMBY reaction unique to nuclear plants. So, while it would be nice to save the fossil fuels for cars and use nuclear power for electricity generation, that isn't going to happen unless gasoline gets a lot more expensive.
And getting government to do your (that means YOU, earth-before-humans wackos) dirty work by raising taxes on gasoline to artificially incent the development of alternative energy sources is an abuse of government power and is abhorrent to anyone who believes in personal liberty.
(Oh, and look at how well that's worked out for Europe. Those fuel cell cars are just rolling off the lots over there! I am LOL right now. I hope you guys like your stagnant economies.)
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Middle East is a huge region with various cultures, regimes and levels of economic development. I'm not quite sure there's a strong correlation between oil resources and democracy/wealth.
OPEC members in the Middle East include : Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Emirates, Qatar, Lybia and Algeria. Iran and Lybia are currently dictatorships; everybody knows about the current situation of Iraq; Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar are Absolute Monarchies; Algeria is supposedly a republic but has a strong historic (and recent) tendency towards dictatorship.
Now about non OPEC countries in the Middle East : we have Israel (not exactly a 3rd world country). Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt are at various stages of their transition to democracy but are definitely improving. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan are in bad shape for various reasons. Yemen is utterly poor and Oman is a Monarchy.
All in all I can think of some non oil-producing countries where I would live but I'm not exactly enthusiastic at the idea of living in any Middle-East oil-producing country. Oil seems to encourage corruption and authoritative forms of government and does not seem to bring wealth, education, well-being or political stability to the people.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
What people often miss out on is that Oil is a fossil and non-sustainable fuel, which means the more you consume of it the less there will be left. So this makes the idea that we should consume less oil rather rediculous because if you really want to save the environment 'cos anyway it doesn't matter; it is a self-limiting hazard if there is any.
What they also miss out on is that the technologies that rely on oil are over a century old and have reached a degree of efficiency, safety, reliability, cleanliness and commoditization that it is unlikely any technology will be able to compete any time soon.
It may be that oil currently sells for 10 or 20 dollars per barrel but it can actually be produced for as little as 1$ per barrel by some producers such as Saudi Arabia.
So unless by some unprecedented historical event we will have a technology that will be as reliable and commoditized, and as cheap as oil, and by commoditization i also mean the entire industry such as the internal combustion engine, I don't see oil going away anytime soon, which is good, because we don't need to be driven by anti-oil dogma. The environment isn't nearly as bad as many portrays it, and oil is certainly not as evil as many suggest.
Just like the subject says... nuclear power is the way forward. It's clean, there's a near limitless supply of fuel, and most importantly it's efficient (i.e. cheap). The technology, like everything else, has come a long way in the last 20 years, and I think we can eliminate risks from contamination,etc. The storage and distribtution of hydrogen will never become a reality. Nuclear power to the home, & an AC plug on your car. The infrastructure is already mostly in place. Batteries have come a long way too, since they were the limiting factor in the EV1. This is the only realistic way forward.
As the author states, hydrogen is not a source of energy but a way of storing and transporting it. I give him credit for recognizing that. But we still have to get the energy from somewhere, and that is the 800 pound gorilla the author dismisses so lightly.
Science News Online has an article on a some grounbreaking research done at Sandia National Labs that has a very real possibility of leading to much more efficient solar cells and lightbulbs. The researchers have created a crystalline microstructure in tungsten that has much higher emissions at certain frequencies in the infrared when heated than Planck's Law can account for. A number of explanations have been proposed for this, but insufficient data exists as to which is correct. The phenomenon has been confirmed numerous times in over 100 different "photonic crystals", although no independent confirmation is mentioned. The researchers are currently attempting to locate another material with the necessary characteristics to duplicate the effect with visible light. If they are successful, we may soon see much more efficient lightbulbs and solar cells in our homes, obviating the need for hydrocarbon fuels.
The abstract is available here, while the article can be read here.
"I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
'The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.'
Cavemen didn't know how to get energy from stone. Eventually we figured out that coal burns, and it's been the largest energy source on the planet ever since.
Oh by the way, I still use iron, bronze, steel, plastic, nuclear power, space, and dark, even though their ages have ended.
The information age will end long before we run out of information.
Kevin Fox
Unfortuantely, it seems that we're as far as ever from finding ways to break the tyrrany of a good, hard slashdotting...
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
The bigger trend is a declining importance of physical energy to the economy. Even the U.S., profilgate user of energy that it is, is less dependent on oil than it was back in the 1970s. When the first oil crisis occured, energy costs consumed about 8% of U.S. GDP, as of about 2001, energy costs were down to 3% of U.S. GDP. The U.S. may use more energy than it did in past, but GPD has grow even faster than has energy consumption. Moreover, I'd bet that a greater fraction of U.S. energy consumption is now discretionary -- we use energy (drive SUVs & have lots of home appliances) because it is fun, not because we have to.
The end of oil is inevitable because the importance of energy is declining.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Tripling gas prices would be the best thing ever to happen to our country? Excuse me, but given that the VAST majority of our population is dependent upon gasoline to get from place A to B, what effect do you think that would have on our economy?
So, we raise gas taxes like the Europeans and instead of that extra cash (and believe me, it would be enough cash to throw the US economy into a MAJOR RECESSION (see 1970's Oil Shock on Google)) going into things consumers buy like food, housing, clothing, services, computers, etc., the money goes to the government?
Yeah, the government needs more money and are better at determining where you money should be spent. Riiiiight.
You'd devastate the economy just so you can feel all warm and fuzzy about the economy.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I agree with the parent comment fully that oil has been a key factor in the progression of modern man. Despite the negatives of cartel control, without oil the exchange of goods and services would be next to impossible on the scale that it occurs today.
Really michael, you need to get more active on K5. This article involves so little technology discussion and the posting so laden with ideological innuendo that you should be headed in the same direction as Jon Katz for the good of all Slashdotters.
Vegetable oil.
The diesel engine was invented by Mr. Diesel as a means of powering tractors from farm biproducts.
If governments would allow us to do it, we could all get diesel cars and run our vehicles off a truly renewable source of energy.
Unfortunately (and I assure you, I'm not a conspiracy theorist) vegetable oil is too freely available and there would be no way to tell whether someone had paid fuel tax/duty on their oil (as opposed to buying it from a catering supplier). In the UK, using vegetable oil in your car currently constitutes tax evasion.
HPH
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Most of U.S. oil is used for gasoline for cars. So the fastest way to reduce demand is by either driving less. Using some fuel other than gasoline can take a decade or more to have a major effect.
Interesting quote from the simulation: "After Saudi Arabia, the U.S. is the second largest oil producer in the world. But the United States also happens to be the largest consumer of oil. Oil consumption in the United States and Canada is almost three gallons per person per day, twice as high as in Europe."
Governments are all anti-nontyrany. They will not promote the progression to a new age.
I agree with you that a decline in demand for Middle-Eastern oil will probably be a Good Thing for those people in the long run. The only caveat I would add to your comment is that Western (and I am an American who loves America) powers, American and European, have absolutely created the mess you see in that region today! Who's demand for oil has continuously fed the cash that provides the power that results in the oppression? Who set up those crazy boundaries in the first place? And who CONTINUES to look the other way when it is politically convienient to the oil and oil-dependent big business interests world wide? America is great, and the dream is alive, but we as Americans must shrug off our general ignorance of would history (and out place in it) and hold ourselves and our leaders accountable!
Sorry about the rant - where I completely agree with you is in the fact that the declining demand for oil should - in the long run - help remove many of the obstacles and much of the meddling that is in the way of these people being able to live their lives in peace.
Cars with working exhaust systems produce little pollution. A little fact here, if you use gas to cut your grass, that produces more pollution than the week of driving your car. Putting a catalytic converter on your mower has been blocked by the mower makers.
If you want to screw the saudis, try to get a wind generator on top of your office building. That would not need miles of wire to get to the grid, and would be a middle finger at the saudis.
NY should have lots of those, as a protest.
it will take about a week before there throwing stones again. WHen the people who now have a regular income of billions of dollars suddenly stop making billions of dollar, they will become substantaly less generous in giving there money to whack jobs.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Set up a simple electrolysis cell with a voltmeter and ammeter, and a thermometer. Fill with de-mineralised water and a drop of any available dilute acid or hydroxide. Plot temperature against time; between sample points, calculate how much power is going into apparatus, get some constantan wire and prepare a resistance that will dissipate the same amount of power at just 1 volt or thereabouts {not enough voltage to separate a H+ ion from an OH- ion; you can actually measure this voltage by turning down the PSU voltage till the ammeter drops sharply}. Remember, power in watts = volts * amps, resistance in ohms = volts / amps, and assume the resistance wire has constant resistance per unit length {it's deliberately made that way}. Do experiment again, but this time using your prepared resistance immersed in the electrolyte instead of carbon rods; adjust the PSU to get same the power dissipation, which will mean more current this time. Plot temperature against time on same sheet of graph paper.
Qualitative analysis: If the temperature rises much more with the resistance than with the electrolysis cell, then obviously most of the energy supplied is going into breaking up the water into hydrogen and oxygen. If the temperature rises by nearly the same amount, then most of the energy supplied is ending up as heat.
Quantitative analysis: Knowing the heat capacity of water is 4170 Watt-sec per kg per degree C, and neglecting the trace of whatever you used to make it conductive and the amount of water converted to H2 and O2, we can work out the expected rate of temperature rise from the energy supplied:
temp rise deg. C per sec = volts * amps / 4170 * kg.
This gives us an indication of the magnitude of heat loss to atmosphere. The initial slope of the time-temp. curve should follow this closely; because, at the beginning, everything is all at the same temperature so there is no heat loss. By drawing a tangent to the electrolysis time-temp. curve at t=0, we can determine how much energy went into heating. Then
power wasted as heat = temp. rise per deg. C * 4170 * kg.
and
efficiency {%} = 100 * [(volts * amps) - power wasted] / [volts * amps]
Further work: Investigate what happens if you try to use a higher voltage than strictly necessary.
Investigate what happens with different electrode spacings.
Investigate what happens when you set light to hydrogen.
If you can make enough oxygen to inflate a thin polythene bag, investigate what happens if a bag containing pure oxygen is touched with a smouldering cigarette end.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Unfortunately, I did not receive any tax breaks on my TDI. I don't even get any tax breaks on the biodiesel, either. I get charged full price from my local commercial supplier.
However, I can rightly claim that I get over 100mpg of petroleum diesel :)
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
We left the oil age after the 80's hair band sensation passed.
All of these articles talk about the Hydrogen Utopia, where we all have fuel cell cars and pump up with hydrogen. That sounds great, but there are many problems: Hydrogen is very inefficient. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to compress it. It is hard to store it in high enough density to give cars reasonable range. Every aspect of dealing with hydrogen is expensive, from generation to transportation to storage. And today, most hydrogen comes from plain old fossil fuels, which are what we need to stop using. In short, hydrogen is a complete boondoggle.
/. a few days ago, the tzero achieves more-than-acceptable performance and has a 300 mile range. That's all the car most people need. The great thing about it is the technology is here today and it works today. The energy storage and distribution system is the power grid, which is a mature, cheap technology, which can also be made fossil-fuel free (nuclear, solar, wind, etc). Let's drop this hydrogen boondoggle, the sooner the better.
What is not a boondoggle are highly efficient electric cars. As we saw on
And just the same as Kraft foods is just a supermarket supplies company - they'd be just as happy making cash registers as cheese.
Kraft Foods is owned by Phillip Morris (now Altria, or whatever it is called now). They are indeed just as happy selling cheese as cigarettes. Probrably even moreso.
Again, why is that the Government's job?
You have a basic misunderstanding of what government is for. Government isn't some kind of third-party that steps in like a referee. The government is us -- we, the people. If we need to do something collectively that individuals can't do on their own then government is exactly the vehicle to get it done. If you don't believe that that is the function of government then read this:
WE, the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES,
in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Guipo
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
Someone did a study.. Its best to either
1) buy new -keep car 8-10 years.
2) buy 4-5 years old - keep car 4-5 years.
Aparently it works out the same on average (actual millage may vary). Of course used cars are a little bit of a crap shoot depending on how the previous owner treated it.
LOL -- if we continue our oil dependency, there will be no United States nor Saudi Arabia in 20, 50 years: so don't sweat it.
If the human race is still thriving by that point, we'll have long since forgotten both this wasteful and inefficient economic system and the use of oil for energy.
>By introducing a small but steadily rising tax on petrol,
Why is the answer to any social, environment, economic issue always raising taxes?
Who the hell gets to spend the money?
It is just a power grab by government burecrats.
After the election several left-leaning news organizations did do several recounts. They counted the ballots every which way it was possible, hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads..., and every single time Bush won.
If you had paid a little attention to the news after the election instead of yelling and screaming about how the election was stolen, you would have read about the recounts.
All the Supreme Court did was tell Florida that they had to recount all the votes by the same standards or not recount at all. Florida chose not to do a total recount. Equal protection under the law, you know. Or maybe you don't.
Ugh, that's so damn typical...
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
By using H2 in an internal combustion engine as opposed to fuel cells, you get the best of both worlds. You don't have to recharge, there's no battery involved, you can get similar performance as you can with gasoline engines, you can drive for hundreds of miles without refueling as you can with gasoline, and there is no pollution or greenhouse gases. The only exhaust is water vapor. BMW already has such a car with an H2-powered V12, the 750hL (http://www.bmwworld.com/models/750hl.htm).
Personally, I don't think the masses will want to switch over to fuel cell vehicles, but I think that people will have no problem switching to combustible H2 because they don't lose any advantages that they have with traditional vehicles. It's even possible to convert our current vehicles to H2 power with minor modifications.
All we need is to have H2 filling stations as prevalent as we now have gasoline stations. That's much more realistic than having people have to switch to fuel cells, which people won't want to do.
here's the fun part.
I submitted this 2 days ago bor was rejected...
water car
It's a link to a page that has "plans" to convert your car to run on hydrogen generated in a reaction chamber from water.
I looked them over and think they are a bunch of hooey, but I have seen many claims to this regard recently.
maybe someone from slashdot that has the knowlege to look them over and either explain the possible merits or show where the whole thing is a ball of crap.
anyways, it's interesting to read over.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I can see the headlines 40 years from now:
"US invades Iceland to liberate/WMD's/your excuse here"
"spokesman said their hydrogen plant economy will help us rebuild the country, all contracts have already gone to Haliburton."
Don't tell that to Iceland
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
here's the fun part. -- I fixed the link
I submitted this 2 days ago but was rejected...
water car
It's a link to a page that has "plans" to convert your car to run on hydrogen generated in a reaction chamber from water.
I looked them over and think they are a bunch of hooey, but I have seen many claims to this regard recently one that was a water/gasoline hybrid running on 20% gas and 80% hydrogen+oxygen generated from water on the vehicle.
maybe someone from slashdot that has the knowlege to look them over and either explain the possible merits or show where the whole thing is a ball of crap, making a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is asking for a large explosion..
anyways, it's interesting to read over.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you're willing to think big and think technical, there is potentially a feasible way out of fossil fuel dependency and greenhouse warming. See this article . It's never cloudy or windy in space, so extraterrestrial solar power isn't clumsy or random. It's expensive to get started, but scales beautifully. Which basically means you can keep your suburban lifestyle (if you must) and lose your environmental, military and diplomatic, er, ramifications.
mt
What does government have to do with it?
If the consumer trend is towards "green" vehicles, then the car manufactours will start to dump more money into these type of vehicle. Right now it's SUVs. People buy SUV because they're big, so the car manufactours are going to be pushing bigger, more powerful, less efficient vehicles. If the trend was towards "green" vehicles, then manufactours would be pushing for more efficient vehicles as the selling point.
So the most of the resposibility of getting rid of the oil age falls on the consumers, not the government. It's easy to blame governments when the responsibility is ours.
If they can convert solar energy into a chemical form, that could work. Otherwise there is no point as transmission losses on electricity make it prohibitive to transmit farther than a few hundred km.
What did Spock find in the Toilet?
Number one I order you to take a number two!
The Stone Age didn't end for lack of Stone, it ended because people realized that stone was a pretty lousy fuel for their cars, SUVs, and jetboats.
I think the title should be changed to "The End of the Easy Oil Age." As the title suggests, once the oil wells start to dry out, we'll turn to alternate ways to extract oil from the ground. It turns out North America might have a promising source of oil if they lower the cost of squeezing oil from the source rock.
Two thirds of the world's oil shale reserves are located in the United States. The largest known
reserves of hydrocarbons of any kind are the Green River shale deposits in Wyoming,
Colorado and Utah. These reserves are estimated to be 270 billion tons. At 20 gallons per ton
of shale, this translates into 130 billion barrles of oil. This is five times as much as the proven
reserves of petroleum in the U.S.. However, no commercial production of fuels from oil shale
esists today, so there economic recoverability is not well known. It is probably safe to say,
however, that oil from shale is not economically competitive with petroleum at current
petroleum prices.
'Synthetic' Fuels, Oils Shale And Tar Sands
What I find particularly annoying in renewable energy discussions is that most people omit ethanol, which is probably THE best renewable energy source.
Cars in Brazil already routinely run with 20% ethanol added to gasoline with no ill effects. Ethanol burns cleanly and is derived from sugar cane or, in the US, corn.
The US govt, however, is very protective of the national industry and imposes huge tariffs on the import of ethanol. The energy balance is negative in the US, for ethanol: it takes more energy to produce ethanol than you get from burning it. In Brazil, however, it is a very efficient process.
Why this hasn't sparked more debate is beyond me...
Not as good a deal as they give rich people for buying Humvees [commondreams.org], but every time I see the price of gas go up a notch...
Umm, you get the SAME deal as the "rich people" if you take the SAME depreciation.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Not mentioned is the only way to change the foreign policy of the US is to reduce it's reliance on oil. It's doubtful that the US would be so interested in middle-eastern politics if we didn't need the crack they were offering.
If no cooking oil, and no KFC making chicken, what will a strong Brotha eat?!?!?
The question is can Saudi Arabia prevent a remake starring Tina Turner and Mel Gilbson? I hope for the love of nature they can.
You're right. The problem I think we have here is that there is no clear danger-wielding NEED for alternative energy sources right no. We're not near environmental collapse (even if global warming were true, which it's not). The cost of fossil fuels is still low enough that people are willing to pay it.
Governments can artificially make things more attractive (electric cars for example), but in the long run, it's going to take something big to happen before these new energy sources reach critical mass.
This BTW is similar to my belief as to why our space program has stagnated...
in accordance with the law of supply and demand
Like in the 70's oil crisis. Oil production peaked in the U.S., and naturally, the price increased in the U.S. Is that the natural law you mean? Vested interests seldom allow prices to follow natural curves if they can possibly control it.
unless gasoline gets a lot more expensive
Since nobody knows when oil will really start to run out, and there are, at best, just predictions, and since the cost of replacing / changing the current distribution system is really enormous and will take years, just allowing the market to "take care" of things is a recipe for disaster.
The real problem hear is not the rise in prices, it's the instability of prices. And that instability in energy prices are coming is a surety. This is for a couple of reasons. First, as supplies dwindle, the market will no longer be able to determine prices accurately because supply will become an unknown. Second, deteriorating political conditions in the Middle East (internal to Saudi Arabia) will make supplies unstable (you didn't think we invaded Iraq because of Iraqi oil, did ya? Silly conspiracy theorist!). Instability makes it nearly impossible for companies to properly determine the cost to charge for items.
For example, if you have a factory line, do you just turn it off for a week if electricity prices double that week? Do you stop paying your workers for that week? The ramifications of unstable energy prices surge through an economy, causing mass disruptions. What if it costs $4/widget to ship this week, and $2/widget next week? What if you need the widget to run your company this week?
The government is not here to steal our money, it's here to provide some aspect of stability from a world that does not encourage it. Businesses do not grow as well in instable climates, as it makes it more difficult for CEO's etc to make sensible business predictions.
By getting a leg up in providing more stable energy sources, ones that do not depend on Middle Eastern governments and dwindling resources, we make the U.S. better off in the long run.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
-- Bird in the Bush: The Renewable Energy Blog http://www.birdinthebush.org
Its is rediculous to believe hydrogen will be able to replace hydrocarbons for energy:
1. Hydrogen does exist natually. Either it must be created using the process of electrosis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, or hydrogen can be produced from hydrocarbons suchs as methane, Propane, and Natural gas. All methods require input energy to liberate hydrogen.
2. Hydrogen is explosive, especially if stored under pressure. Liquid hydrogen requires extremely low temperates which causes all materials suitable to become extremely brittle. While gasoline is volatile, it is by far safer to use and store compared to hydrogen.
3. Oil is used for everything. It used to manufacture just about everything, for computers, cars, building materials, plastics, lubercants, fertializer, everything. Hydrocarbons are also used to produce just about every known industrial chemical.
4. Fuels cells aren't cheap. They contain large qualities of precious metals such as platium and pallidium. One recent study suggests that the world's current supply of platium is insufficient to meet the demands for the production of fuel cell to move the planet to the hydrogen economy. Fuel cells suitable for transportation aren't significantly more efficient than Direct-Injection combustion engines. The fuel cells only fuel cells available that offer better efficiencies are high temperature ceramic fuel cells that operate between 800F and 900F. Unfortunately they are too heavy and only suitable for stationary use to produce electricity.
5. PV cells will never be capable of producing enough power to meet demand. To equip a single home with PV panels requires an investment of approximately $30K, plus batteries, and inverters. They also degrade over time and fail due to thermal cycling. They will need to be replaced every 7 to 10 years.
The bottom line is that it is very likely that the planet is headed back to the dark ages. Oil is very efficient and cheap resource which our economy is based on.
Over the next 6 to 7 years the worlds production of oil is expected to climb. However in the next decade oil product will begin to decline as the rate of oil that can be extracted declines. The large oil fields in the Middle east are pressurized. To extract oil, only a valve has to be opened. Over time the pressure drops which reduces the flow rate. As the flow rate decreases the demand for oil will exceed producting sending oil prices significantly higher. This will place a severe restriction on the economies of industrialized nations.
Over the next decade expect the demand of oil to more than double as the economies of India and China become major consumers to support their growth. (Approximately 2/3 of the worlds population exists in these two countries).
When the oil prices become too expensive, it will bring about the end of the golden age of civilization until the world population is reduced to a sustainable level.
7 1/2 weeks worth of reserve is alot? a hair under 2 months?
As far as domestic production goes
from : US Dept of Energy
There's plenty of oil out there. Sure you would think so....again from our friends at Dept of Energy,(same link as above)
Sounds like in the near future the Mideast "influence" on worldwide oil will increase. At least based on what or agencies have to say about it.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
Everyone wants to live in the world they know now. No one here considers how the structure of America is fundamentally different now from the way it was 100 years ago.
The alternatives being discussed here are concerned with keeping things the way they are.
Before Henry Ford started pumping out Model T's people lived in close proximity to employment and most shopping needs.
This is no longer the case.
We have spent the last 100 years building an alternative. One that we do not want to give up.
Perhaps we should consider giving it up.
This idea is not as hard to consider as you might think. Just as it took 100 years to get where we are it will also take 100 years to get back to a place where walking to work or the grocery is common.
In the meantime all the nerds on slashdot today can keep on driving!
need less
You don't need oil to make plastics. Henry Ford made a plastic shell for a car back in the 1940's.
Oh by the way you can also make Bio-Diesel from Hemp. So what is the real reson this plant is illegal? You can't smoke hemp. At one time hemp was the nations number 1 cash crop, even bigger than King Cotton. I find it interesting that hemp is illegal just because it resembles a marijuana plant.
does anybody else think the author, while meaning well, is underestimating the inelasticity of demand for oil a bit? i think prices will have to increase dramatically to see a real effect on fossil fuel consumption, or a reason for an alternative. case-in-point: while gas prices have risen gradually, demand for SUVs and similar gas-guzzlers has increased. and while gas prices are much higher in europe than america, people still drive fossil fuel -powered cars (albeit more fuel efficient ones on average).
the impact of alternative fuels could improve our ecology dramatically in a short period of time, or about as long as it took us to destroy our air and water in this country. of course, compassionate conservatism means being nice to all the multinational oil (and wholly owned military contracting) conglomerates, since they need a war chest to fight these alternative fuels in the marketplace.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
If you've ever ridden a motorbike/scooter in Canada in January, you'll know why they're not as popular here (or in the US) as they are in Spain/Asia.
That oil money gives these corrupt leaders the ability to buy the weapons needed to keep their people in line. It goes to pay off groups that would have otherwise taken their hostility out on those leaders.
Yeah it will cause social problems when the money is pulled out from under these governments, however considering the state of most of them, and their people, I don't think it can get worse.
These societies are the results of unchecked human rights abuses backed by enough money to either shut everyone up or kill those that don't keep quiet.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Since when did business owner = rich? The article says a tax break to business owners with SUVs (RTFA).
I didn't buy mine for the fuel economy, exactly; I bought it to cut Saudi funding for terrorism, to undermine support for ill-considered US military adventuring, and because the Prius puts out 90% less pollution than the typical gas-hogging Detroit POS.
Yeah, I bike to work and for errands, except when I very occasionally take the bus. This way I put out 99% less pollution than you in your gas-sipping Prius. Who's righteous now?
Teenager: Here's your Chicken, Sir. Oops. It fell in the reactor. I'll get it. Ow! Ow! Oooooww! (shaking hand) Here's your Chicken, sir!
Krusty: Forget it! I don't want it.
Teenager: But this comes out of my Salary! If I had a girlfriend, she'd kill me!
The fact is that "Big Oil" wouldn't disappear even if everyone stopped using oil and oil-based products today. Who do you think will take over these alternative energy industries? British Petroleum (BP) has already changed its official name to Beyond Petroleum. It is now the world's largest provider of solar energy cells and petroleum alternatives.
Patents are largely an American obsession. The wealth generated from inexaustable hydrogen-based energy sources would easily outweigh any patent-infringement fears from a non-US producer (read: China?).
Plus, you can't patent Physics.
"You might be refering to President Bush. You see, in the U.S., we don't have kings. We have presidents."
And back in the day we used to elect them instead of appointing them. Radical!
The oil folks realize that it's not going to be their main source of income forever. So they are diversifying by trying to get the utilities deregulated and getting their fingers into gas and electric since those may be where the money is in the future. The oil people are simply changing their business model and becoming the "energy people". That's why California had all the energy problems. It had little to do with the previous governor and everything to do with the "energy people".
Un-news
>>In several countries, the price of petrol has skyrocketed in the past decade (now about $5 per liter (about 0.5 gallons) taking into account the cost of living).
Yes, and what makes us different from most of the rest of the world is that we have an advanced society and a DOMESTIC supply for approx. 50% of our oil demand. (Which is about 50% too low. IMO it's time to drill in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska and anywhere else we can find domestic supplies, then tell the Saudis and the rest of the mid-east to go F themselves.)
>>US is also one of the few countries where 2 wheeled vehicles like motorbikes/scooters are almost non existent.
Gosh, do you think that may be because they're not very PRACTICAL? "C'mon, kids, let's all hop on Dad's 38cc scooter and go visit Grandma. Junior, you sit on the front fender, sis can ride on your shoulders, Mom gets the basket on the back, and Fido can just follow along since we won't be doing more than 2 mph even with a tailwind."
Yeah. That's what America needs -- swarms of millions of buzzing scooters flooding the landscape and the cities. That's a real vision for the future you have there. So let me ask you -- when was the last time you picked up groceries for a family of four on a scooter? Or drove it to work in the rain? Or during humid, 100 degree weather in the summer or single-digit snowstorms? Yeah. That's what I thought. Besides, even if weather weren't an issue, it's just so much fun to show up for work stinking of diesel fumes.
I drove a motorcycle to school and work when I was single and it was a compromise even then -- there's no way it's practical for me now.
You can choose to go live your life styled after the average scooter-riding borderline third-world peasant. I'll stick to my big air conditioned cars and house in the 'burbs, thankyouverymuch.
It's the same old issue of what makes the most money for the energy companies. They don't care if it pollutes or causes war as long as they make money for their shareholders. The only real way to change is with policy. It worked in the 70's with Carter (only to be rolled back by Reagan) and it works now with ethanol in the US.
Can you imagine if the US passed a law that ALL new passenger vehicles had to run on E85? We could cut our oil use by 50-75% within 5 years.
I do think we can decentralize power production as the article states. It is happening here in Minnesota. We have 14 ethanol plants here and 12 of them are farmer-owned co-ops. Sure the big energy companies will own some (ADM, Cargill, etc..) but you will reduce the enconomic and political clout of the big energy companies and OPEC in general.
There are many alternative energy sources and have been for a while. It is ENERGY POLICY that keeps us dependent on oil. If we insist on keeping oil subsidized then how do we expect other energy sources to surpass it. It won't happen.
Tax breaks, small producer incentives, better CAFE standards, subsidize clean energies and not dirty ones, etc...would go a long, long way in solving our problem in the least amount of time.
Sitting on a tank full of explosive fuel DOES sound pretty dangerous. So it's a good thing we don't drive cars with an explosive fuel tank now. Seriously-- i thought everybody on slashdot already knew that it was the *skin* of the hindenburg (essentially solid rocket fuel) that did most of the burning. Hydrogen rises, and dissipates quickly. Gasoline explodes, and has this nasty liquid peculiarity at normal car-operating temperatures that allows it to "flow" and "pool" and "coat" surfaces in the event of a leak, instead of just whooshing up into the heavens.
Distribution and production infrastructure will definitely be rough, and slow coming. Which is why all the automakers are working on gasoline-cracking catalysts. The first successful fuel cell car will have to have a gas tank AND a hydrogen tank. If you put gas in it, the catalyst will strip hydrogen and fill your hydrogen tank. So, the gas will still cost you whatever gas costs everybody else.
You've made an excellent point. This is the principal reason why market economies fail on social grounds.
Market economies promote ignorance by actors of what are commonly called externalities.
An externality is a side-effect of a market transaction: so, for instance, if by oil is purchased and consumed in a certain volume, the impact is an increase in emissions that threatens the health and safety of people. However, that effect is not reflected in price but is external to it.
The same thing can be attributed to the Ivory Coast: there, children are enslaved in the production of chocolate. Since labour costs are low, the price/unit is low on the resulting goods.
However, a consumer is not likely to know that their Mars bar is, in fact, produced at the expense of the lives and wellbeing of enslaved children. It does not reflect in price. Moreover, Mars Confectionary might be able to claim that it purchases cocoa from numerous third parties (perhaps industry purchasing groups)--and it might honestly say it doesn't know where each grain of cocoa was produced. The market promotes this sort of ignorance and therein promotes the abhorrent crimes to which the goods are tied.
People therefore have no motivation to purchase products with little negative external effects, because it does not reflect in price. Similarly, producers have no motivation to seek inputs with little negative external effects, since it will ultimately decrease margins.
Unfortunately for society, externalities are the rule, not the exception. It is these external effects which cause a great deal of suffering and death in the world--each and every person, rich or poor, would benefit to see these effects are minimized.
What baffles me completely is why people cluck that this is simply the way it is, with nothing whatsoever to be done about it.
During the fuel shortage, companies made great efforts to create fuel efficient engines because to do otherwise would mean overall increases in prices. Therefore, in order to drive prices down, companies were motivated to choose solutions with positive external effects. We are better for it.
The ignorance toward externalities in the market is actually just one symptom of an overall problem with market allocation--and that's lack of information and inefficient competitive. Actors cannot easily co-ordinate to make efficient use of inputs, outputs and labour--and there is often no competitive advantage in doing so.
Alternatives do exist--but we must first give up the fallacy that markets are unstoppable engines of efficiency -- ideal and helpful to the common good in every way -- which are in any case unavoidable because they are the law of physics, granted to us by God or universal background radiation, or something.
Another article in the big end-of-year 2002 issue of the Economist had one paragraph in which they described a group developing GM bacteria that crack cellulose to sugar, or directly to alchohol. I've seen nothing about that groups since.
Would be wonderful if not Utopian, small family farms produce cornstalks or pine trees or (gasp) hemp, and small production sites turn it into fuel. Since hauling cellulose would be a major part of the cost, the producers would be local and small, and pretty green. Every carbon atom released came out of the air anyway, so no more global warming, no defending the Straights of Hormuz, no sulfer from dirty coal, and we get our V8 engined-landcruisers back.
I want to invest! Anybody seen other news about this effort?
Peace.
Oh but who is so stupid to grow corn when you have HEMP?!!? ;)
Seriously, I am confused. I first heard about Bio Diesel while watching the West Wing. I have tried to research it but seem to only be able to find positive articles about it. I can find no good answer as to why it isn't being used. I can find no reasons why it seems to be a secret. Why isn't it being forced down the throat of at least large ground based transportation companies.
Hydrogen Fuel cells are cool and all but everyone leaves out the fact that Fossil Fuels are the best source of Hydrogen. They are the easiest way to extract the quantities we would need. So how does that stop anything but the Global Warming myths? Which by comparison to the fights over Oil is a small concern. Not to mention that Hydrogen is expensive to produce compared to other fossil fuels.
It's the same problem which the author of this article points out about Bio ethanol. So how are either of these really going to impact our use of Mid east oil?
Bio Diesel is Soy Based, normally though it doesn't have to be. That means it's cheap and easy to grow. It burns every bit as clean as Ethanol. It appears to me to cost as little as normal diesel to produce. The by-product's of production are the primary ingredients of Soap. The Bio Diesel, unlike real diesel, is completely environmentally safe. It's really just vegetable oil. We know how to make that. We pay way to many farmers in the US not to grow stuff so that prices do not fall to low. These are all hard working people who want to work. So let's let them. I think the US would be hard pressed to produce enough Soy for this but I don't think we can't figure that out.
The best thing about it is that it runs in any Diesel vehicle, generator, or other device without any modification. I know that Diesel cars get a bad rap but go drive any of the VW diesel vehicles. They have none of the problems of Diesel cars in the past.
My real question is why is it left out? What is it that I am missing? Where can I get more information telling me why i am wrong. I am not trying to start a flame war I really do want to know.
The problem isn't our dependance on oil, but the lack of a viable alternative. We've all heard the old saying "build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door". The same thing is true in this case. Sure we could all go out and buy hybrid/electric/hydrogen powered cars if cost, availablity and service stations weren't a concern. The fact is, they are, and until it changes oil is going to be our best source for cheap fuel. Until these alternatives are cheaper, I'll still be driving my big ass V8.
This guy is part of the crowd who thinks their on a diet because they order a Diet Coke to go with their Big Mac Combo.
They certainly don't care what KIND of fuel they have to sell you. What doesn't exist, however, is any incentive for them to encourage efficiency. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The more efficient stuff gets, the less people have to buy their products.
I don't have a good solution or anything-- just pointing out the problem. A company that sells energy in a more-or-less pure capitalist economy is doing what they're supposed to do for their shareholders if they fight tooth and nail against efficiency. We can't expect them to do otherwise.
*cough*
*cough* *cough*
Twit.
I hate to be the "mod parent up" guy, but this is definitely good info. If the US weren't so terrified of nuclear and refusing to replace outmoded reactors (when was the last time we put in a new reactor?) with far safer designs-- maybe this would have come up before.
Unfortunately, I did not receive any tax breaks on my TDI.
Except that you pay significantly less gas tax, no?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Thus they will always have allies in the US political system.
;-) Please do not abuse your moderation status to bury anti-oil comments if it offends your politics. Thank you. - A proud American.
You have Bin Laden's investments in Carlysle Group (arms dealers and arms lobbyists) -- the other major investment family of repute BTW is the Bush family.
You have "appreciation" oil wells donated to the Bush's, by wealthy Middle East fascists.
You have a government that REFUSES to investigate Saudi Arabia for state sponsored terrorism AND finance and people links to September 11.
Anyone remember the closed-door sessions regarding pre-911 "Phoenix memos"? The "liberal" media did a fine job letting that one be swept under the rug.
The Bush cabal are even WILLING to deflect suspicion of Saudi Arabia over to IRAQ with some well-phrased misrepresentations of the truth (but Bill Clinton lied about sex so I guess this is somehow OK).
It seems to me that mass-production of methanol as a fuel is CHEAPER (again, in volume) and more evironmentally friendly than oil and would employ hard-working Americans. It's too bad US farmers cannot lobby together.
If a president is going to betray his country to protect right-wing religious terrorists, he should at the least be impeached.
Note to moderators: Not a troll just because you disagree. All of this information is independently verifiable (though you may not find it on Fox News
The hydrogen fuel cell is often said to be a future replacement for oil. But, of course, hydrogen is not a source of energy itself. The plan of the Bush administration is to develop a new generation of very small, safe (no really), distributed nuclear power plants that can then be used as the power source to produce hydrogen for the fuel cells. What I want to know is this. If we have a source of very cheap nuclear energy, can't we just skip the hydrogen and make synthetic gasoline. I'm not a chemist, but isn't gasoline just an energy dense hydrocarbon. Don't plants take water, carbon dioxide from the air, and add in energy from the sun to make hydrocarbons. So assuming these nuclear power plants do provide a very cheap source of energy (and that is a big assumption), and it is located next to a river, can we not produce synthetic gasoline. This would skip the whole step of transforming over to a hydrogen-based economy and all that it entails (new automobile technologies, new hydrogen fueling stations, etc). The carbon that the autos produce would the same carbon that was taken out the air when the synthetic gasoline was produced so the greens should be happy. Can anyone tell me why this would not work?
Water = H20
Salt = NaCl
Where'd you get S02 from? There's no sulfur mentioned here!
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
While it is true that hydrogen is merely an energy storage medium and not an energy source, it is still indispensable for the energy source of the future: renewables.
The main problem of renewables is not efficiency, which is increasing fast (getting cheaper) but the way it can be transported to the places where it is used.
It is not an good idea to connect our solar panels and wind mills directly on our electricity networks, which will lead to shortage when there is a day without much sun or wind. Here hydrogen comes into action. At days with abundant sun and wind, energy is also stored in the form of hydrogen. At days with not enough supply, hydrogen is converted back into electricity.
This system has technical difficulties, like lost conversion waste, but also some major advantages: electricity networks can rely on renewable energy and most engines will be working on hydrogen, whick makes no pollution on the place where it is used. Also, hydrogen is such a powerful medium, the hydrogen engine in your car will be able to supply energy for lots of other uses when you're near your car but not using it.
Iceland is currently running for most part on renewable energy and intends to become oil-independent in coming years. The first hydrogen station has been opened earlier this year. As there is much geothermic energy in Iceland, it could become an exporter of hydrogen in the future. The current OPEC countries are mostly in very sunny area's, good places for solar panel fields, so they should be able to be a world energy player in the future too.
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
Errm. Electrolysis of salt water, I'm pretty sure, won't produce sulfur. The most prevalent ions (more than three-fourths) in seawater, are Cl- and Na+. Let's review: hydrogen gas gets bottled and sent off to run cars, etc. Oxygen flies off into the atmosphere, where there's already plenty of it, which doesn't suddenly turn into SO2 for no apparent reason. (Source.)
Now, there's sulfate dissolved in seawater, true. Why that couldn't just be either (a) mined for industrial purposes or (b) tossed back into the ocean) is beyond me.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Look at the facts:
- Hydrogen does not occur free in nature; it is not a source of energy. It is a medium for transmitting energy.
- Hydrogen is an inefficient method for transmitting most forms of energy. For instance, wind power is better transmitted over wires than via electrolysis to hydrogen and recombination in a remote fuel cell.
- The most reasonable projections for large-scale use of hydrogen still say 20 years. By way of comparison, this was also the projection for large-scale use of fusion power... in the 1960's.
- There are competitive methods of transmitting the energy created by most prime movers, for which we already have infrastructure which can be leveraged.
- Hydrogen provides a method for storing energy, but we have alternate ways of doing this also.
The last two are arguably the most important. As a for-instance, suppose that all 200+ million cars in the USA carried 20 kilowatt-hours of battery storage. This would be sufficient to drive an average car roughly 40-50 miles at 50% discharge. The total energy storage of those cars would be 4 TERAWATT hours, or about 7 hours of the full nameplate production capacity of all the electric powerplants in the USA. If you assumed 60 KWH per car (about what the Li-ion tzero carries), that figure goes up to 12 TWH.I'm sure most people have heard that if everyone in the country tried to fill their car's gas tanks on the same day, all the gas stations would run dry. This underlines how much energy storage there is in that medium. A nation of battery-powered vehicles would do the same for electricity, and we don't need anything more than incremental improvements in existing infrastructure to make it happen. We can start today, with modest changes in hybrid vehicles which use power from the grid in addition to fuel from the pump. As batteries improve and get cheaper, we use more batteries and less fuel.
That is the big difference between hydrogen and everything else. We can put improvements into practice now, or we can wait 20 years for there to be a new hydrogen infrastructure to support the new hydrogen systems (and neither will be useful without the other). That's why hydrogen is a distraction.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Not only is hemp illegal in the U.S., also anything derived from hemp, the seeds (where the bio-oil is taken from), stems, leaves or flowers. Not for sure, but I think this has been overturned in some states (Kentucky).
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
How are you going to pump the water through the magic channels?
Persuasion?
That was classic intercourse!
You are right. Hydrogen is wonderful. Fuel cells are great. But here's the clincher: MORE ENERGY IS CONSUMED IN THE PRODUCTION OF HYDROGEN THAN CAN BE EXTRACTED FROM IT! This means that hydrogen is NOT an energy source. It is a storage medium (just like a battery). You can't use hydrogen as an energy source to produce more hydrogen because you use more than you produce. So where is all this hydrogen going to come from?
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I was waiting for the day that we would all fight for the precious "juice".
Where we would all wear leather, feathers, and live in a barren wasteland driving V-8's.
Till the one day we had to decide if we support or are against the man only known as Max.
Oh well...
Just for the record, I do believe the electoral college is obsolete. There is no reason why the presidency can't be determined by popular vote.
How does France deal with its nuclear waste disposal?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Compressed Air Cars will replace liquid fuel cars within 10 years.
http://www.theaircar.com/
Cheaper, Cleaner, and easier to own than current cars...
Are you sure about that? The human body is not efficant. You are burning more calories sitting down than than someone who never exercises just because you are in shape, not to mention all the calories it takes to move your bike. (Muscles are not efficant, though bikes are)
So, would you please do a complete comparition of the difference in the polution for producing the extra food you eat compared to polution by driving a reasonable car? Don't forget to factor in all the extra food consumed if you live longer because you are healther.
if you *could* just use the electricity in the car, that would be great. Remember all those attempts at electric cars? Batteries still suck. They weigh a ton. They have staggering losses when charging, continue to lose power over time when sitting still and doing nothing, have low power density, and weigh a damn ton. Consider the last semi-successful commercial electric vehicle, the GM EV1. There were two battery packs available-- an 18.7kwH lead-acid pack that weighed 1310lbs and a 24.6kwH NiMH pack that weighed 1147lbs. Range on those packs? 55-95 miles on the lead-acid, and 75-130 miles on the NiMH. Li-ion would do significantly better, but not enough to make a massive battery pack like this viable. Don't forget that the packs need replacing after a few years, too-- a massive expense and a huge chunk of toxic fun to dispose of. Even if you could build a battery pack that didn't need swapping for the entire lifetime of the car, you'd STILL have 1300lbs. of toxic love to get rid of.
> hydrogen->electricity
As surprising as it may seem, options like:
electricity->hydrogen->electricity
radiolysis-
catalyzed hydrocarbons->hydrogen->electricity
are better bets than sticking a battery in as the middle step. Hydrogen is a better battery, however counterintuitive that is.
Until batteries quit sucking, we're stuck.
Its funny the article mentions enzymes in plant material .
.
t /R eview%20of%20the%20week/Prospect%20of%20Hydrogen_P roduction%20in%20Green_Algae.htm
to make cheaper bio ethanol
Enzymes allow the algae to make this cheap hydrogen
http://www.esb.utexas.edu/islam/_private/conten
Excerpt:
Hydrogenases under nutrient stress conditions
It has been demonstrated that under conditions of oxygen shortage, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells switch to fermentative metabolism within minutes. C. reinhardtii cultures produce large amounts of H2 gas when experiencing sulfur deprivation, and although the conditions of nutrient stress cannot be examined independently of anoxic conditions, the authors describe metabolic events that lead to the enhanced production of hydrogen. When nutrients such as sulfur are severely limiting, the operation of the Photosystem II and thus production of oxygen slows. Respiration continues to consume oxygen and the photosystem I pathway does not slow greatly. Electrons released from the degradation of starch, proteins or lipids can be fed into the plastoquinone pool by NADPH reductase. Electrons are delivered to [Fe]-hydrogenases, leading to abundant hydrogen gas production. The authors state that the hydrogenase thus acts as an electron valve under these conditions to prevent oxidative damage to cell components.
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
> By introducing a small but steadily rising tax on petrol, America would do far more to encourage innovation and improve energy security than all the drilling in Alaska's wilderness.
My God it sounds like he actually believes this bullshit.
If it were true, then Britain, where drivers pay more per LITRE than Americans pay per GALLON due to excessive tax, which is at 85% of the price paid at the pump and rising, should be stuffed full of companies making alternatives to petrol. Is it? Is it??? Where the fsck are they all?
Conclusion: it's NOT true that taxes will solve the problem. It sounds plausible, but so do fscking Nigerian scam emails, but that doesn't make it true.
Good for you! Just starting to move out into the larger world of paying for my own food, transportation, etc. at this point in my life, I'm noticing that if you don't have some sort of insane compulsion to get a new, shiny, expensive x (like my girlfriend does), you can actually live kind of cheaply.
I got a decade-old station wagon (Chevy Cavalier) for twelve hundred bucks. It gets twenty-three miles to the gallon and gets me where I'm going reasonably comfortably. (Though I'd like to put an MP3-capable stereo in there, for those long trips.) My girlfriend keeps poking at me to get a newer car, the instant I can 'afford' it. She's several thousand bucks in credit card debt. I have student loans in the low four digits, and that's all. Why? I don't buy shit I don't need.
Other example: my father had a 1990 (or so) BMW 320i. He got it with about two hundred thousand miles on it, and it finally croaked at 320k. (It needed a new radiator at some point in there, though.)
If I can afford to, someday, get a new computer, I hope I'm levelheaded enough not to.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Thats because the plant you work in is horribly outdated and prone to accidents and meltdown. There are meltdown impossible reactor designs that should be used. They not only are meltdown impossible but they use fuel that cannot be turned into weapons grade plutonium and is not stored in water where it can rust into sludge. They are also 50% more fuel efficient.
"Can afford a new SUV" == "Fucking Rich".
I am currently looking to purchase a new truck( I tow a large trailer so need the towing capacity). I want something that can tow over 7000 lbs and has plenty of room for the family when we go camp. I ride my bike to work most days so I don't drive it much.
Heres what I came up with(this kinda flies in the face of many misconceptions). Ford F350 Super Duty 7.3L Diesel, 6-Speed Manual, Leather, Power everything, Four Wheel drive, four door. This is a 8000 lb truck. The beauty of it is the diesel will get me 20+mpg. Add in the kit to go full biodiesel and the emmissions are relatively harmless. Plus I can get together with some people I know and join them in getting chip fat from McDonalds(McDs pay THEM to haul it off) and I can run all out for next to nothing.
Diesel is the way to be.
MIke
Look I've had enough of you and your family. Your damn show ate away hours of my life, and I can't get the songs out of my head without a bullet.
You got a lead on these "better batteries?" The 1300-lb. battery pack from the old EV1 makes me think we're a long, long way from touching hydrogen.
Come on, man-- batteries take big losses when charging, lose power when they're sitting still not doing anything, and weigh so much you're wasting power just moving your damn half-ton battery pack around. Lead-acid is currently at 35-50wH/kg. Hydrogen is 39kwH/kg. Notice the "k" in the second one? Yes, it's roughly a thousand times more energy-dense than a lead-acid battery*. Li-ion has the *potential* in the future (note, nothing like this is currently available) to increase the current battery energy density by an order of magnitude. But we're three orders of magnitude away from touching hydrogen.
*numbers from here Note also that these are ideal numbers-- ALL of these options will achieve less than this "in real life."
If we find a better one, fan-freaking-tastic. I have no particular love for hydrogen-- we just need a good way to decouple the power source from the power delivery in automobiles, so sources can be swapped out at will as better alternatives develop without having to replace our entire national infrastructure a second time.
Electric's an easy one, though-- if we got good enough batteries, there's already electricity to everywhere.
Did any of the media *not* count the ballots that came in "after the bell", undated, from the military folks? Those ballots should not have been accepted - they were CLEARLY created after the official close of voting - and may have swung the vote the other way.
Governments need to promote them.
Why should the knee-jerk reaction to anything that sounds remotely like a good idea has to imply the word Government?
When alternative technologies are significantly better in all the ways that matter to consumers they will become mainstream. <<< Period at end of sentence
The consortium recount found that in eight of the ten scenarios they investigated, Gore won. Bush won only on the scenario that happened, and the scenario where Gore got the three counties he wanted recounted recounted.
The consortium was not made up of "left leaning news organizations" - there's no such thing at the moment.
The Supreme Court said no recounts, not "recount all by the same standards". The Florida court was leaning towards doing that, and was promptly slapped down for it.
It was a joke. Whether it was clever, or funny, is questionable.
Link: (planetark.org). Story came off the Reuters wire originally. The venture's being bankrolled by some pretty heavy hitters.
If we can actually produce various oils, it'd certainly change the picture. This being /. and all, though, I have to ask the chemists among us--is this possible? Likely? Feasible?
Right now there's no way to generate either locomotive or electrical power that's as safe, cheap, and flexible as oil.
Till there is, all the greenpeace dreaming in the world won't change the fact that our economic pyramid is based on oil.
When people go out and buy SUV land boats and then drive them around everyday without any passengers that sends a clear message to the oil companies. "I don't give a shit about pollution or funding terrorism or using up natural resources. I just want my seat to be higher up than everyone elses so when I ride someone's ass all they see is my grill and my headlights." I think changing the minds of wasteful consumers will end up being a a lot harder than any energy company.
Solar power? Nuclear Power? Wind Power? I'm pretty sure it takes more energy to produce one gallon of gasoline than the actual energy contained in it (and that would assume our cars are 100% efficient at extracting it), but that doesn't stop us from using it.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Consider that gallon of milk can run you twice what a gallon of gas costs.
And if I were to consume 12 gallons of milk a week, you damn well better believe I'll bitch!
"Get everyone to drive at or below the speed limit, instead of well over it."
Will never happen. Speed limits are already artificially low, not for the purpose of controlling pollution (or even, in many cases, safety), but for the purpose of collecting revenue via speeding tickets.
I have to agree with you about SUVs (hardly ANYONE needs an all-terrain-capable vehicle nowadays) and walking (obesity is well above epidemic status now), however.
+++ATH0
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/h ydrogen000222.html
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/h ydrogen000222.html
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
That many people have their heads way up their asses.
Tell me, if we wanted their oil so bad, why didn't we just buy it? One of the things we have in spades compared to the rest of the world is money, and Saddam would have gladly sold us all the oil he could.
It wasn't about oil. We can buy oil. Maybe you you don't think the other reasons are any good, but this 'blood for oil' line is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
A better way to end the Oil Age is not for government to promote alternatives, but for government to stop promoting oil. Government puts up barriers to alternatives, either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, the tax code if used properly can make buying the most massive SUV you can find more profitable than buying a hybrid sedan. This is because they give tax breaks for heavy vehicles used for business (like trucks or large vans) but did not envision mainstream street cars weighing as much. So a self-employed person can get a $40,000 tax deduction for buying the most oil-dependent car on the market for "business" purposes. Plus the oil industry gets heaps of government subsidies and lower tax rates. Rather than subsidizing alternatives, a better solution is to stop subsidizing oil and make other industries pay equally low taxes as the oil companies so that there is an even playing field. Lowering the taxes to the least common denominator is important since high tax acts as a bigger barrier for small things than large corps, so the established oil industry would have more of an advantage if it and alternatives were paying equally high taxes than if both were paying equally low taxes. And I am sure there are plenty of other ways in which government makes barriers to alternatives.
And always remember: capitalism is not government control of the economy. So these barriers are anti-capitalist. A move towards capitalism via an actual seperation of commerce and State would help out a good deal in this scenario.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
I know of someone who actually converted a car to run on steam made by burning firewood. It looked rediculious, but was capeable of traveling up to 50Mph. Unfortunatly as far as I know he hasnt put any of the plans online.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
no, the price would drop for a day, then the OPEC countries would get together and stockpile what they have, and reduce output to the point that the price will rocket.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
There's nothing more amusing than a Marxist dinosaur thinking of new ways to "eat the rich". If you take off your beatnik glasses and read the article you'll see that the tax is to discourage the use of oil, not raise revenue. And for future reference, consuption taxes are inherently fair. Only the twisted, fossilized logic of Marx can equate progressive with fair.
Bah!
hello people:
Do you realize that the power companies lose 90% of the electricity they produce over the transmission lines. As inefficient as automobiles are, I cannot imagine that they are worse than that. Further, as evidenced by the recent northeast blackout, I am not sure our antiquated grid could handle the increase in demand of everyone plugging in their car everynight.
True. What you may not know is that, on a per-molecule basis, water is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. We know the H2 is coming from coal. At that point, even if the methanol comes from coal, we're better off with methanol.
Additionally, I contend that the methanol will come from renewable resources (as ethanol does now), but I have no way to prove it. I will say that if it's possible to do on a cost basis, we'll use renewable simply because of the strength of farm lobbies.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Correct and incorrect.
1. Yes, the SC said they must all be counted under the same standard.
2. Since the SC determined that it was not possible to promulgate such a standard in a timely fashion in order for the vote to be certified before Dec 12, when results had to be sent to Congress, they ordered the recount to stop. Florida did not get a choice to continue the recount.
Next time, read the opinion more closely. And the dissent too. You'll learn a lot.
fuck you.
Crucially, this need not be, and should not be, a matter of raising taxes in the aggregate. The proceeds from a gasoline tax ought to be used to finance cuts in other taxes--this, surely, is the way to present them to a sceptical electorate.
The extra revenue from the tax could just be handed out to poor people for all this article is concerned. Progressiveness is an entirely separate issue.
Have you looked at the range figures for the HyWire and the other hydrogen fuel-cell "miracle cars"? They get something like 60 miles to a fill-up. That's because the volumetric efficiency of hydrogen "sucks", to use your term.
Compare to batteries. You can now buy a 200 AH Li-ion cell that weighs 5.5 kg. At a nominal 3.6 volts, I make that 131 watt-hours per kilogram. Storing 60 KWH (enough energy to go 300 miles at 200 WH/mile) would require just about 1000 pounds of batteries, and batteries have the advantage that they can be stuffed under seats, in floor pans, and in all kinds of places that you can't put fuel tanks or engines. (The same argument has been made for fuel cells - put 'em in the doors!) Electric motors are very light and relatively small compared to engines, and need only a feed of cooling air to be happy (compared to air, exhaust, coolant, oil and fuel for an engine).
The complaint still stands that you "can't get in your electric car and drive all day". Fine, make it a hybrid with an engine just big enough to provide cruising power. If you've got a 5 gallon tank of biodiesel and your sustainer gives you 50 MPG, you can cruise for over 500 miles before you need to stop. Thats enough for almost any purpose. It's more than enough for most people's bladder capacity. And if you plugged it in every day, you'd do the vast majority of your driving without burning a drop of fuel from the tank.
Last, lead-acid batteries are recycled at a very high rate. There is nothing to prevent Li-ion batteries from being recycled too, especially if they were changed out by the hundreds of pounds rather than a couple AA cells at a time.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Well, great wheel turns, the billing cycle heaves into view, and I get a letter from Amex, dripping with sneering disdain ("... would like to remind you that American Express is a charge card, not a credit card
Suffice it to say I learned my lesson. And now I treat all plastic as one should: as a charge card. Mad props to my old man and Amex.
But since methanol is potentially renewable, the by-products don't much matter. And believe it or not, water is worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (God, imagine the humidity from a ton of H2-powered cars!). Also, H2 wouldn't be renewable unles they acquired the H2 from splitting water, and I doubt they would.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
A curse upon Halliburton and all the oil companies of the world. A curse upon them and their families. May they all contract the most horrendous incurable plagues of our age(and you know which ones I mean!). May the horny Lord Jesus sodomize Texas oilmen for sport & pleasure. May the earth's oil turn to water before their very eyes... May the offshore oil rigs crumble into the oceans... May SUVs and HUMVEEs consume their owners and turn them into fertilizer. And may Texas itself turn radioactive and lifeless!
The soon to be cheaply made fuel of the future .
.
s /h ydrogen000222.html
From pond scum, LOL
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNew
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
The massive research project advances a wide variety of science and engineering. Building the systems is a jobs program. Clearing our skies of the waste of burning is a health program.
http://www.apolloalliance.org/
Start Running Better Polls
The last recession started in the last year of Clinton's administration with the 'dot com' bomb and ended in January 2003. It was the mildest recession ever according to Alan Greespan. So how did the Mr. Bush's policy choices impact the US economy? Looks more like he stopped a slide into recession cause by a stock market bubble created by the previous administration's eight years of mismanagement of the economy
That graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Where did you go to school and what is your GPA? What does a nurse call the man that graduates last in his class from medical school? I believe the correct form of address is 'Doctor'.
I love how the socialist-democrats like to attack the person with unsupported ambiguous statements negative statements or 'Have you stopped beating you wide yet' type rhetoric. The next phase when confronted with facts is for the liberals to refuse you your 1st amendment rights by any means possible because as we all know 'the end justifies the means'.
At least the EV-1 was a real commercial product and electricity is already in wide distribution. Converting to hydrogen (compressed, 150 Bar) with an energy density of 1/23rd of gasoline, by volume, is just not going to happen.
I'm just saying if you REALLY want an electric car, hydrogen is a waste of time.
If we find a better one, fan-freaking-tastic. I have no particular love for hydrogen-- we just need a good way to decouple the power source from the power delivery in automobiles, so sources can be swapped out at will as better alternatives develop without having to replace our entire national infrastructure a second time.
There is no hope of replacing petrolium in cars any time soon either through hdyrogen or batteries. The only realistic route is gas(preferably diesel)/electric hybrids for now. The rest is just science fiction, IMO.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
We use the form of energy which is cheapest to produce. Bottome line. As soon as an alternative to oil becomes cheaper than oil there will be an almost instantanious switch to the alternative. Until that day comes everyone will keep using oil.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Focusing all of our efforts on increasing research is not the best move. Bush advocates a joint effort - securing our current energy sources, and funding research and development for new energy sources, such as hydrogen fuel cells. I agree that this isn't being mixed as well as it should be, but that is Bush's STATED goal. Those advocating ignoring our current sources are foolish, however - every report that I've read recently says we are still 5 to 10 years away from being able to rely on any source that could replace our current oil-based sources. Please consider this when reading further articles advocated this strategy.
Bzzt, wrong.
Consumption taxes are inherently and specifically NOT progressive. It is not a separate issue. You are wrong.
The problem with the world going over to some alternate source of energy is twofold:
1). The first-mover problem. The first corp switching to methane/gerbil/whatever power on a large scale will make all the costly mistakes, much to the delight and edification of their competition, so I can imagine a
2). Don't forget that we need a source for PLASTIC. Right now our enormous chemical industries guzzle down oil like you wouldn't believe, and we still need to find an alternative for that. And with the way fractional distillation works, if you separate enough oil to get gloop to make plastic out of, you get as a side effect lots and lots of, well, gasoline. What are they supposed to do with it?
I do favor alternate energy sources (heck, alternate plastic sources too, if any) but let's not forget that it will take really hard work to cut over, and that it's not as simple as tossing up a couple of windmills. The energy corps today aren't using oil just because they like polluting. Here's some guy's take on the problem.
The French have done well with their nuclear power plants -- except for a scare this summer as coolant levels dropped because of the heat wave -- but in the medium-to-long run uranium mining will become increasingly difficult and expensive to sustain. Plutonium is also a fuel, and is more plentiful, but requires new plants, and is also a problem as far as nuclear weapons proliferation. Lastly, the cost of nuclear energy does not include the costs of keeping nuclear waste in secure locations for longer than the expected lifetime of human civilization.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain.
This is great!
Being 52 yrs old and the oil running out in, say 50 years, I don't have to worry!
You young guys do though. And ha ha on you. By forcing me to stop driving when I'm 70 or so, you let me say, "What's it to me, I can't drive?"
I'll just keep driving my V-10 SUV and continue to laugh at you.
Neener neener you ride a girl's bike!
Hydrogen from Algae and Sunlight
s /h ydrogen000222.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNew
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
how do you think the rest of the world is getting on while you fuckin' drive in your 10000 hummer huh? you think thats very practical?
I know the Libertarian ideal is very unpopular just by reading this very thread
The Libertarians lost me when they got their ideals tangled and fell for the myth "intellectual property". What could be more victimless (or more natural) than one smart-monkey watching what another smarter-monkey does and copying it? That's almost a definition of the human condition from cradle to grave, yet somehow the Libertarians decided that it was OK for the first marginaly-smarter-or-at-least-luck monkey to stop (by force even!) the other monkeys from learning by watching. That, I think, is where they lost a lot of us.
-- MarkusQ
But what's the real cost of oil? If we had to spend the real cost of that gallon og gasoline every time we bought it, people would switch... the problem is that the real cost is hidden.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Warm air intake, harvest the energy, cool air exaust.
Is there enough energy in a cubic meter of 30C air to make any use of it? Is it practical?
Good post man, chk this out, Hydrogen from Algae and Sunlight .
s /h ydrogen000222.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNew
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Hah ha!
Oh, everyone is in the mood to be a comedian tonight. Look at this swift plan we've got proposed now.
We'll tax the poor the same as the rich, but we promise to give it back in a fair way so that only the poor will benefit.
Promise.
Good one. You are a funny fellow.
Hydrogen is 39kwH/kg. Notice the "k" in the second one? Yes, it's roughly a thousand times more energy-dense than a lead-acid battery*.
So what volume exactly does a kilogram of hydrogen occupy? Exactly. You need a big, heavy assed pressure take to store an appreciable amount of it. Just like you need a big heavy-assed battery to store an appreciable amount of electrons. Comparing the weight of the storage medium of one technology, to the weight of the energy carrier of a different technology makes no sense.
In reality it comes down to how much weight and volume is required to store, convert and use the energy in an autonomous vehicle. When you include the weight and volume of the pressure tank and fuel cells, the weight of batteries is not that bad in comparison.
-josh
The death of oil is near
s /h ydrogen000222.html
.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNew
We will still use it for plastics, but we will not
need foreign oil
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Our plants are safe, no significant problem has been reported since the beginning of the program (like 50 years ago).
Hey, that's great! You've only got 149,950 more years to go!
I barely trust our governments and society to properly dispose of yesterday's newspaper, let alone radioactive waste that will be dangerous for millenia.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
There are two advantages you left out. Both have to do with being able to scale the manufacturing process. As the artical points out (you read the whole thing right?) It is far easier to regulate a relitivle small number of electricity generating plant compaired to the huge number of cars on the road. Instead of every viechial needing a catilitic converter and emission controls computers, there only need to be scrubbers et. al. on the plants. Bottom line big powerplants are more efficient both in turms of energy produce and emmissions per unit then are Internal combustion engines
Second, cars tend to be consentrated where people live. By moving the sorce of polution away from population centers we might be able to see San Francisco from Oakland again.
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
...when soldiers from mostly modest backgrounds are sent out to die so the upper-middle-class can continue driving around in their $40K SUV's and $100K RV's.
umm, if you give the tax money BACK to the poorest people, then the tax is no longer stricly a "consumption tax".
At the risk of cooling this hot argument with cold facts, I offer three:
1. The Midcontinuental Riff Zone, an oil pool the size of the Alaskan North Slope ranging from Kanas to the western tip of Lake Superior.
There are oil wells 45 miles west of Des Moines Iowa and I personally witnessed shaker trucks working north of Fort Dodge.
2. Project Plowshare. A joint US-Canadian venture to use atomic energy to free up oil trapped in the Alberta Tar Fields, which hold half the known oil in the world. Detonated 15 Sept 61, this supplied huge quanties of oil resulting in straight run gas at the pump for 17 cents per gallon.
I was in college then and clearly remember filling up my Honda65 with a quarter (and getting a nickel change).
3. A 1972 patent granted to Boise-Cascade for garbage to oil convertion. They used 2 low-boy trucks to haul the cooker to their timer sites where they cooked down timbering waste into diesel fuel and asphalt.
After the patent expired in 1989, University of Arizona built a continuous feed pilot plant that worked just fine. It was reported in Popular Science before a news blackout.
This is the process by which Mother Nature makes oil and the reason oil exploration turned to previously unsuspected places (like the North Sea).
So, when all else fails, tell me the day we run out of Garbage and I'll tell you the day we run out of Oil.
EK
Last time I went camping (in a tent), most of the spots were filled with bus-sized RV's that probably are lucky to get 8 miles/gallon. I actually would welcome a doubling of gas prices.
There are way too many people in this country who could care less. Like people who own Humvees, and drive them around ALONE, because what really matters is their prestige, security and comfort. Humvees are for soldiers in the desert, these people are not soldiers. They never will be, no matter how many Humvees they own.
What will happen to the 'oil economies' that thrive on petroleum production and trade? What the hell are they going to do in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. when no one is buying their oil anymore? Hopefully they can decline without too much bloodshed, or find something less destructive to base their economies on.
There needs to be a requirement on all transportation industry manufactures to be 100% carbon neutral by a certain date. Either figure it out or go out of business. Same goes for the power business. That my $.02
TallGreen CMS hosting
Consider the basic argument that resource production/depletion tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. See this page (in particular and the whole site in general). Now that data is 5 years and a relevant war out of date, but the general concept is still valid.
...
Scientific American has a followup that is only 2 years out of date and it puts the peak between 2004 and 2008. I haven't seen any huge discoveries of new oil fields in the last two years so
Hemp illegal because it resembles marijuna?
Hrm which does it resemble Cannabis Sativa or Indica. Because both can be processed and smoked, and both are considered hemp.
Vermifax
Logout
what's with the belligerence? It's really just kind of annoying.
When ever ANYONE says that
the "government should promote"
something, it only means that the
taxpayers and consumers will
be left with a huge bill
and little to show for it.
The vast, useless wind farms
of the 1970-80's period
are a typical example.
Hmmmmph.
I once worked with a Lebanese fellow who said Saudia Arabia was like prison:
* You can't ask out women, or even look at them.
* You can't drink.
* There are officials walking the streets who hit you with sticks if you don't kneel down to pray at the prescribed times.
Was there a surplus when he was selected?
Was there a war in iraq when he was selected?
Was there a policy in place to stop events like 9-11 from the clinton administration that was ignored?
Negative statements? Have you seen Rush/O'Reilly/Coultier? Lol, hypocrite.
Why can't republicans/conservatives understand that by providing help to all (the "christian" thing to do btw) helps everyone, rich included. Did you notice that when Bush version 1.0 was sent packing Clinton raised taxes? (Remember Bush 1.0 did to "Read my lips", lol another hypocrite). Amazingly the economy grew at a record rate between when Clinton was elected and Bush 2.0 was selected. Now we are in a downward spiral that only benefits the Dick's (Cheney) of the world.
I am not being ambiguous when I say bush 2.0 is a fucking moron, his speeches, policies, and actions prove that to be true.
Here's a good article for you:
US Homelessness and Poverty Rates Skyrocket
While Billions are Spent Overseas on Occupation
By: Jay Shaft---Coalition For Free Thought In Media
7/30/03
As I watch far away images of body bags being filled, I see much closer images of bodies. I went by a local park the other day and it looked like a concentration camp crossed with a mass murder scene.
There were people in rags and covered with filth lying scattered all over the place. At least twenty people were on crutches, had parts bandaged, or with open wounds not even covered. They were all hungry and a large majority was sick.
All around this city I live in, and nationwide, the level of homelessness and poverty is growing alarmingly. From the last counts and estimates nation wide, there has been at least a 35-45% increase in homelessness and poverty. The increases have come over the last two years with the biggest increases being in 2002 and especially in the first six months of 2003.
Add to that the barely subsisting or borderline homeless/poor and we start to see a very alarming trend that shows no sign of going away. Over 30% of Americans are on the borderline of poverty. A lot just do not quite make the cut to receive food stamps or some kind of benefits and live on a razor edge of desperation and starvation.
I have talked to people that run food banks, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters. Places like Day Star, Catholic Charities, St, Vincent De Paul, and many other major support agencies. They all tell me they have seen a vast increase in people that would starve or be without clothes if not for their services.
The most shocking sight to see is homeless and starving children, living right near some of the richest neighborhoods!!!!! Right here in "humanitarian" America, home of the worlds largest "humanitarian" and "liberating" force (or is it FARCE?).
This country is putting more and more of our citizens on the brink of homelessness and desperate poverty. In addition, it seems that we have pushed countless others over the brink and into the bottomless pit of despair and need. All you have to do is look around, open your eyes, and you will see the vast sea of hungry and destitute.
I have seen more and more children and families out on the street or in feeding centers and at food handouts. To think that the world's richest country allows this to happen is Sickening! To think that we turn a blind eye to starving children because it is easier to tolerate than do something about it!
We cannot afford to hire teachers, build new schools, or even maintain the ones we have. Our children slip farther into the void of illiteracy and neglect. We are the lowest among the industrialized "first" world nations in literacy scores! Many "third" world countries now have higher literacy rates than the U.S.
We are setting ourselves up to turn the world's richest country into a third world quagmire. This country is sinking into a swamp of drowning poor and so-called "Economically Challenged!" The rich meanwhile buy bigger S.U.Vs (self indulgent ubi
Don't wait for the government & car industry to turn the tide. For your next vehicle purchase, chose the cleanest option available! Despite popular conspiracy theories about the car industry and the oil companies, car companies will FOLLOW THE MONEY. Buy clean cars and they will make them for you.
I just got back from Germany and fell in love with the Smart car by Swatch/Mercedes. When will they start selling them in the US? They use 1/3 the road space and 1/4 the gas and look fun as hell to drive.
Make sure the next SUV you see leaves with a key inflicted wound down the side of it's greasy flank.
You are also correct that [electricity to generate hydrogen] will come from whatever's cheapest, and only the environmental nuts with rooftop PV panels will make hydrogen cleanly.
Even rooftop panels aren't "clean".
They trap virtually all the light that strikes them and turn most of it into local heat. (Several times more energy comes out as heat than comes out as electricity.) Meanwhile the energy that made hydrogen is eventually releleased as heat when the hydrogen is used.
The surface area they cover would normally have reflected much of that light back into space unaltered. Especially in deserts, which are the logical place to build large solar collection farms. That would result in a LOT of "global warming".
And none of which takes into account the pollution and energy use from manufacturing the panels in the first place. (I've seen claims that current panel designs take more energy to make than they produce in their service lifetime, though that somnds dubious, and would certainly be improved on if the panels are ever to become a major energy source rather than a convenient way to supply energy to remote locations.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
With a diesel vehicle, you can be oil-independent TODAY, with zero net greenhouse gas emissions and much lower polutants overall!
I run my diesel from waste vegetable oil, "harvested" from area restaurants. You can, too!
Check out GoBiodiesel for lots of links on the topic.
: What Constitution?
> "Can afford a new SUV" == "Fucking Rich".
YFI. Your own logic fails, because most of those people CAN'T afford it. But add into that the tax break, the company they own may be able to afford it.
That bleeding heart article did not have very much information on the state of affairs of the technologies it was discussing.
The fact of the matter is that technologies exist today to dramatically reduce the demand for petroleum products. Our culture is as much to blame as our technology in this matter.
Oh yea, fuel cells save the day! Just where does the hydrogen come from, oil? Nuclear could be an option but would require much more energy. We would still be dependent on oil products. I suppose the production of hydrogen in a factory may yield some enviromental benefits, but I would think that our demand for oil wold increase bue to loss in the manufacturing process.
Why do we drive 4000 pound vehicles just to get to work and back. Do body panels really need to be made of steel? Weight is one of the biggest factors affecting fuel enonomy - if carmakers invested more in researching plastics and composites for body frames and components, vehicles, even large ones, would see a dramatic drop in weight. Of course, the steel industries would complain too.
Bicycles, motorcycles already exist and use much less energy to get around. It would be possible to create a "commuter" vehicle with some creature comforts that would fit the bill as well. Even if the vehicle was slow "30-40mph" I would drive it if it reduced highway congestion
I would probably buy an electric vehicle as my commute is well within the range, but I would still need a chemical car to make the long drives which I probably do about 10% of the time. If I have to pay insurance on my gas-hog I am going to drive it - unless the cost of the electric vehicle is very low.
Another random thought, the biggest problem with electric cars is taking the energy with you, which means you have to pack large, expensive and heavy batteries or a "futuristic" fuel cell. Why not find a way to put the cars on the electric "grid" and distribute the energy through the road like a train so you can carry a smaller battery load. This infrastructure doesn't exist and probably never will. The decision was made early in the 1900's when there were both electric and gas cars being produced. If electric won the race early on things would be different now.
The way things stand now, our vehicles are much more than transportation. They are a swiss army knofe developed over years of design iterations, they fit so many functions it will be hard to change.
blah.. blahh...
Hydrogen is not an energy source. You have to make it, which takes more energy than you get back when burning the hydrogen. Considerably more.
But Rifkin writes about it as if it is an actual energy source. He even talks about fuel cells creating hydrogen, which is backwards.
Here's an excerpt from a totally bogus article from Wired on the "hydrogen economy", written by an investor in some hydrogen company:
This suggests a role for a clean, efficient, and much neglected energy source: nuclear. Like the fuel cell, the nuclear generator is a technology ripe for exploitation. Unlike the solid-core reactors of the past, pebble-bed modular reactors such as the one at Koeberg, South Africa, don't get hot enough to risk melting down. Koeberg uses small graphite-covered uranium balls rather than plutonium rods, and the reactor's cooled by helium rather than water. This new design is so efficient, it might make nuclear competitive with coal and oil. In any event, the nuclear power industry is in dire need of research for everything, from generation to waste treatment. Thus, $10 billion should be allocated to developing and securing nuclear technology that can power the hydrogen revolution.
Nuclear power will serve as a stopgap, enabling the US to achieve energy independence while allowing wind, solar, and hydropower a chance to mature. Given the choice between powering the carbon-free hydrogen economy with fossil fuels or nuclear energy, even Greenpeace might embrace nuke plants as the lesser evil.
As all the various subsidies kindle a self-sustaining economy, they should be tapered and the money shunted to the other major power in the conversion from oil to hydrogen: electric utilities. Within a decade, outlays to power companies should be aimed at connecting hydrogen pipelines to the power stations.
OK, what's wrong here?
The real energy sources proposed here are wind, solar, hydropower, and nuclear. Hydropower is a mature industry; all the good dam sites are taken. (All the really good dam sites, like Hoover Dam, were taken by 1940). Wind is site-specific, too; there are a limited number of places like Pacheco Pass where a steady wind is funneled through a narrow pass by a mountain range. Solar power is stuck at around 14% efficiency. We've been hearing how solar panels are going to get cheaper or more efficient for 40 years now. There's been some progress, but not much. The "amorphous silicon" approach turned out to be much less efficient than crystalline solar cells, and the amorphous panels wear out faster. Gallium arsenide cells are far too expensive. Real Goods, California's leading solar dealer, has backed off from selling solar power systems t
It's a link
:)
Uhm, what's a link? I don't see one.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Oh, shoot. I should have read the next few posts before replying. Doh!
Nothing to see here, carry on...
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
NEVER use silicone spray anywhere near the engine compartment on a modern vehicle. Turns out the volatiles released by the spray are death on the O2 sensors, and they're expensive to replace!
btw, that was supposed to be humor: the secret method of separating hydrogen from water is, you guessed it, hydrolysis.
what if we all had our own little hydrogen generators in our backyards, powered by our own little windmills or photocells? wouldn't that be lovely?
let the love flow.
It's a neat idea, but the people at the site worry about using up the earth's water supply in the process as a potential problem. I can see where it might be an issue in a desert, but on a planetary scale it's just nutty - you make water by combusting hydrogen and oxygen, and any loss to the environment will fairly quickly react. So, if they're not really sure about the chemistry at hand, I'm leery of trusting their plans on my $20K car.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Yeah? I find the number of commonly believed myths about hemp far more interesting.
I want a compressed air urban vehicle, with air cheaply compressed using wind and passive solar power.
.000001% hard waste producing industrial base (through recovery and efficiency).
...cold fusion? OK, whatever, I'll settle for any of the above, all of which are in the realm of technically feasible.
I want to travel long distances by airship or rail --cheaply.
I want to use biogas instead of mined gas in my stove, with a proper distributed mid-tech industrial infrastructure.
I want gas and diesel power sources (including some vehicles and hydrogen extraction) with 99.997% clean emissions and comparable efficiency.
I want passive geothermal buffering available cheaply for buildings (aka heat pumps).
I want a
I want whole cost accounting and accountability for businesses.
I want bus and other urban transit with medium-small capacity vehicles running very frequently over full regional coverage.
I want an electrical infrastructure based on highly distributed generation from a wide variety of clean sources.
I want food that hasn't travelled an average of 4,000 km, try 200km.
I want
Damn those pesky terrorists
Taxation is the mother of invention. No wait, that's not it. Necessity is the mother of invention. We will find and use alternatives when we need to.
As far as scarcity goes, (IIRC) the discovery of oil has outpaced the consumption of oil. Of course, as the article mentioned, there are political and economic factors that could be considered to constitute necessity.
The article is generally good, but then it totally bombs out at the end with its recommended solution. I can't help but think that the whole thing is politically motivated. It fails to explain how increasing taxes would encourage innovation and improve energy security.
then go buy a $400.00 junker.. a GEO Metro and convert it.
cripes, why does everyone think they have to use their overpriced junk they drive for things like this?
I personally think it's a big ball of bullcrap. if they think you'll use up all the water then they are so fricking stupid it's not funny. what happens when you combust hydrogen and oxygen?? what is the result?
can we please go and brand these nutballs with a giant L on their forheads?
"Rich" is a relative judgement, after all. Lots of people think I'm rich 'cause I can afford a Toyota.
Huge industries are established for oil. Until new industries + new energy source that is more profitable and easier to work with come, there won't be a need to replace oil. And the more things that use the new energy source, will cause more investing and R&D in the new source(where everyone will want to do it because they don't wanna miss out for the chance to become the next billion-dollar company for 50 years).
"Ways to break the tyranny of oil are coming into view. Governments need to promote them."
What is this?!? If these ways are good then why does any government need to promote them? The only thing in need of governmental promotion is oppression; no one else will try and sell it.
Humbug!
--- "1.21 Jigawatts!" -Doc
You are, m'man. Keep up the good work.
... some of these people that post on /. are INCREDIBLY FAT!!!
It had to be said.
> You'll keep wasting gas until you can't afford it.
True. Or the government could appoint someone to kick your ass every time you go to fill up. That'd discourage you too, wouldn't it?
The problem with some people is they'd rather have the government attempt to solve problems (badly) for them than solve them personally. Imagine if all the money poured into Greenpeace and other such organizations was instead invested in finding an alternate, non-polluting energy source...
From Time Bandits:
(One of Robin Hood's men punches each of the poor before he gives them the rich man's money.)
Robin Hood: Is, is, is that absolutely necessary?
Merry Man: "He says, yeah, he's afraid it is.
I've read that plants convert sunlight to useable-as-fuel biomass with an efficiency of about 1%. Presumably better plants could be engineered, but it's still not a very efficient process.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Reading that site over was interesting to say the least. Some of the claims on there don't make any sense. Like if you separate water into hydrogen and oxygen and then back again during combustion, how does that result in net water use or production of oxygen?
Also, the whole thing does not make sense thermodynamically. Unless the electrolytic cell is somehow leeching electrical power from some other component of the car, the extra power to the alternator needed to conduct the electrolysis will be greater than the power gained from combusting the hydrogen (due to entropy).
Let's just run a pipe.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Bomb them back to the StoneAge.
What? What do you mean they're already there? Fuck.
Once there is a space elevator, of course. The only significant drawbacks to nuclear fission is the fact that a) the byproduct is superlatively toxic and b) in the event of a failure, the results are catastrophic to human life in the nearby vicinity.
:) However, not only are safe reactors are possible, but, if the space elevator ever gets out of the "dream on" stage, we'll have ourselves a solution to the problem of the waste products.
This, of course, makes nuclear fission unattractive
You can't pollute outer space with nuclear waste, really--so, we've got somewhere to put it, so long as we can get it there without causing some kind of cataclysm.
In the meantime, we'll work on fusion reactors.
I mean, it's the only choice: we either use power from the Sun, or we use the source of power the Sun does.
even if it worked somewhat it could be a starting point.
but, I have NEVER seen an electrolisys system for water release of H2 and O2 that worked fast enough without a HUGE amount of electricity.
and let's think about what happenes when you get a vessel full of gaseous hydrogen and Oxygen...
Making a pleasant car 2 or 3 times more efficient than those already available is neither easy nor cheap. In fact, it represents the limit for what will ever be possible for cars driving through our atmosphere, in traffic, up and down hills, through snow, etc.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
And references. Or stop lying.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Car insurance varies more depending on where you live and your driving history than with the car. Even if you have full comprehensive insurance, the expensive bits are medical and third-party liability coverage in most cases.
How to get cheap Hydrogen:
s /h ydrogen000222.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNew
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
You can make plastics out of hemp. As well as combustible oil, paper, rope, exceptionally strong fabrics, and thousands of other products (Popular Mechanics estimated 30,000 products, back in 1938). And it can be grown in people's backyards (or farms of course), instead of waging war overseas.
Outlawing hemp is about as ridiculous as outlawing barley during prohibition. But then, barley never threatened the profits of the oil, timber, and petrochem giants.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Car manufacturers don't make cars that fail after 3 years. They can generally rely on people wanting the latest in automotive fashion.
Even 35-40 years ago, the 'design life' of a car was about 7 years and 100-120 thousand miles. And then, most of the reason for car death was rust, not mechanical failure.
Modern cars are designed for 10 year lifespans at least and about 200-250 thousand miles.
And there are quite a few well-built cars that will last functionally forever with proper maintenance. My '67 Ford Thunderbird is now 36 years old and has the original of practically everything on the car (new battery, starter, alternator, plugs, plug leads, belts, some hoses, and tires are about all it's had). It's the car I drive daily. (not mine from new; I've had it most of this year, old lady owner before that).
Google on it. Put methane under pressure at low temperature (such as deep under the ocean) and it freezes into a solid. Lots of oil poor people (think Japan) working on harvesting this from the ocean floor. Currently more expensive than oil (or coal or probably everything)...but then again the Arabs (etc.) don't currenly own the ocean floor.
There is nothing on the horizon to replace oil other than nuclear and nuclear has been the target of a FUD campaign for 40 years now.
Perhaps it is big oil that was behind the FUD campaign.
In any event, the writer correctly stated that without oil, in a few days modern economies grind to a halt. What he didn't point out is that Britain is enjoying declines in the North sea field ouput at a compound rate of greater than 7% per year, and that they will become an importer (if there is anything left to import that is) by 2005. By 2007 the middle east will be the only source for increased imports and around 2010 the middle east will be reaching peak produciton.
So there is going to be some belt tightening in the cards here... and nobody whats to even admit this is the case.
Meanwhile, we have gobs of energy that can be made available - but it probably has to come from a nuclear source and that means fission reactors. Fusion is still quite a long ways away but it is making headway... check www.iter.org
Hydrogen is an energy carrier - it is not an energy source. People need to realise this.
Also - cars running on hydrogen will produce green house gasses. The most significant green house gas is water vapour. Water vapour has a greater effect molecule for molecule over CO2 and also, water vapour is about 2 orders of magnitude more prevalent than CO2.
So this idea that cars of the future won't spew out green house gasses is also false.
Keep using oil, or stop using oil. Well guess what, if we keep using oil, we WILL run out, that is a solid fact. Arguing that oil is the only option over and over and over again is completely counter productive, no matter how bad other sources are right now, they are the only hope. You know the trillion dollar oil industry? It flat out won't exist soon. It shouldn't exist now but our technology sucks so do something about it and quit bitching.
And with the advent of computer, we will have no more paper.. Ring a bell ?
Get a diesel and run it on waste vegetable oil - it might mean a few minor modifications (maybe $600) to the car but you can get it FREE from your local restaurants.
Or, if you're not into modifying your car and have the extra time, you can brew your own biodiesel from the waste vegetable oil for a total cost of about 25 cents per gallon...
Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
explains just how much danger we're in while dependant on oil, and what some answers are. Some points:
Global oil production will peak sometime between now and 2019, probably 2009. Then the price of oil will begin to steadily rise, never to decline again.
The world uses petroleum based fertilizers to grow most of its food. Without oil, the world will only be able to feed as many people as it did before using said fertilizers, about 2 billion people. That means that the extra 4.3 billion people in the world today will either vanish painlessly by not having children, or else be killed by wars, disease and starvation. Vegan diets use much less petroleum and farm land than animal-based diets, but what will it take to convince people to do that?
Europeans and Japanese already use far less petroleum than US Americans do by living in cities that are compact enough so that it's practical to walk, bike, bus and train. However, this happened not because of policy, but because those countries were already densely populated before cars became widespread.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles won't make a big difference until at least 2020, and they won't reduce the huge subsidies Americans spend on sprawl. Just clearing vegetation and building roads and buildings takes a lot of oil. Hydrogen is giving us an excuse to not deal with that problem. Also, hydrogen is produced with electricity, which can come from clean or dirty fuels. It may increase our dependence on coal and nuclear power.
If oil is expensive, it'll be too expensive to ship products from China to USA, so corporations will probably move their factories from China to, say, Mexico. Later, as oil becomes even more expensive, they might move them back into USA. But if US customers continue to demand cheap products, then corporations will force labor standards in USA as low as they are in China. Hence, an effective revival of slavery in USA.
I've done hobbiest-class research into the topic of oil substitutes and here are two oft-neglected issues to keep in mind:
1) Energy density. It's hard to improve upon oil/gasoline's energy-per-unit-volume with economical substitutes. Hydrogen fuel cells don't have nearly the energy density of gasoline. (Fuel cells tend to be far bulkier for this reason, or you can't travel as many miles with equivalent space.) I suspect consumers would accept a car with a smaller range; I dunno about other applications though. Technology and mass-production may drop fuel cell costs, but improving energy density takes some serious physics/chemistry.
2) Saudi Arabia (and other low-cost oil producers) have plenty of room to drop the price. Sure, it's not hard to see plenty of economical substitutes showing up at $30/barrel (today's price, historically well above average.) And even matching the long-term average price of oil at $15/barrel is conceivable. But the Saudis can produce oil at costs of $1-$2/barrel. Now I'm comparing end-prices to costs here which is a bit unfair (so add a 50% margin to $1-$2), but even if a energy substitute could produce power matching today's oil prices, it'd have to reduce in cost 30-fold in order for us to long-term wean ourselves completely off oil. And that's assuming the Saudi's don't get more efficient in the meantime. At least from an economic standpoint, ignoring costs of externalities like security/pollution.
So I see alternative fuel use increasing, but I don't see oil vanishing from the picture in my lifetime (or my kids'). Heck, I'd be delighted if we just cut our oil usage in half in my lifetime; that'd be a stunning success in my book.
I suspect the Saudi's are just talking down their influence for current political reasons.
--LP, probably posting a bit too late to get mod points
It is neither practical, affordable nor the most widely used alternative fuel.
Fleets use a lot of ethanol (some methanol), LP and more and more, electricity in their vehicles.
Even in the drums you use, biodiesel isn't very affordable. And if more people used it, shortages would drive the price up further.
I agree that new technologies do seem to steal the spotlight from biodiesel, but it doesn't change the facts about biodiesel.
A friend uses commercial biodiesel in his TDI also.
what about designing carfree cities !
www.carfree.com
I'm not sure how far you can reduce the goop
Please enlighten!
Each second the Sun produces thousands of times more energy than the total of energy produced on Earth in a year. The only thing that keeps from taking advantage of solar power is clouds.
The US is going to spend billions of dollars for putting a weapons platform in orbit. Maybe they should put an energy station platform in orbit: it would turn solar power to electricity, then this electricity would be transported/transmitted to Earth.
It's a work in progress. :)
Suggestions welcome.
Hey, wait --- I thought this was the Information age??
We need teleportation!
My Step-Father just finished installing solar panels on their roof and it more than covers all the power needs for the whole house. They don't have any natural gas lines either so everything is electric. And my mom has a Kiln that she uses once a week (That's a huge power consumer)
So solar power is completely feasable, at least for powering residential buildings. It's not that cheap though, it might take 30 or more years for the panels to pay for them selves at current energy prices. But if the panels where mass produced the price would go down.
A few advantages are that the panels never break or wear out, since they don't have any moving parts. Also, you get credited for power you put back into the grid. The peak rate time just happens to be daytime when your at work and not using power at home, thus maximising the amount of credit you can get.
It works pretty well for my parents and will definately start paying off for them when they retire. Rising residential energy prices will be one less thing for them to worry about.
There's a University of California study on vehicle demand somewhere on the web- overnight charging only leads to capacity increases when electric cars become something like 30% of the total. This is because we have so much air conditioning, that there's massive overcapacity at night.
Rene Carlos
The Environmental Case for Nuclear Power by Robert C. Morris
This isn't the most cleverly-written book that I've ever read (the guy is a scientist); but, it lays out the hard cold facts in a way that I have seen in precious few places. This guy argues (quite well) how nuclear power is the *most* environmentally friendly way to proceed. I can't recommend it highly enough.
This book talks a lot about coal pollution -- for instance, the many deaths from black clouds over industrial English cities, and the dangers of radioactive fly-ash, which emits more radiation today than any nuclear plant ever will... and it sits right out in the open.
If we really want modern society as we know it to persist, then we need to abandon (as energy sources) coal ASAP, and petroleum real soon now (we need it all for plastics, anyways). We even need to be careful with our uranium, as we could run out of usable stuff (even with reprocessing) before we discover the next great energy source, someday in the future.
Go to your library and read it... the author is clearly passionate about the subject, but there's evidence and facts presented for every claim that he makes. A hair-raising read.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
It would be really cool if they could use this process on Dioxins, PCB's and other nasty waste products to
create useful and safer chemicals.
If someone was able to buy toxic waste, convert it to fuel and sell it at a profit, there would be less incentive to dumping.
OPEC doesn't work nearly as well as it did in the early days. There is a great deal of infighting between member nations. With a huge drop in demand the members would all see their pocket books hurting, they wouldn't waste a second stabbing one another in the back and pumping more oil than they agreed to. Almost all of the OPEC states (but especially Saudi) regularly exceed their OPEC quota even at present.
I imagine western Europe will switch to hydrogen economies long before it happens in north america.
Western Europe is dependent on confiscatory fuel taxes. Any gains in efficiency would be lost in the form of taxes.
-- $G
when soldiers from mostly modest backgrounds are sent out to die so the upper-middle-class can continue driving around in their $40K SUV's and $100K RV's.
Actually, it's the lower-middle through upper middle.
The upper class prefers the Ford F-150 and the Crown Victoria (read the millionaire nextstore).
-- $G
OFF TOPIC
I find it funny that your France is Occupied Germany page has no new postings after the war. Is it because everything that you believed (from the Bush adiministration) is a bunch of lies? Are you still having trouble getting over the lies? Reading some of your posts, it seems 90% of your opinions are false...unless, of course, you still believe...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Am I the only one to see an opportunity here? Reducing taxes on alcohol, while raising taxes on petrol would solve the problem of drink driving, while promoting the use of environmentally friendly mass transportation.
Yes, I suppose there might be a further benefit to those of us who like a drink, but how insignificant is this compared to the future of our planet and the safety of our fellow human beings!
See now, it all boils down to belief system.
I for one, thank the Almighty that we had someone in office with sack when the extremists called the US bluff.
I'll buy off that the motives in Iraq might fall short of being pure, but, pragmatically, the US didn't do anything in Iraq that shouldn't have been done in Germany in the early 1930's.
How is that for a completely un-testable hypothesis?
None of the fuel-cell vehicles being demonstrated these days has a range that anyone would consider practical; meanwhile, a private operation with an EPRI contract shows something that blows them all out of the water, at a fraction of the price. Fuel cells have their place in stationary generation where you can use the waste heat and bulk of the fuel is not a factor; for vehicles over the next 20 years, my money is on batteries for the practical ZEV.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Yes, I am an engineer.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
This isn't even the point at all. Black voters were systematically deprived of their right to vote. Clearly if these voters had been alloud to vote instead of being removed Gore would have one recount or no recount. This is the real issue.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
But I wonder if you have looked at the latest research: hydrogen from algae (press release here). At 10% efficiency, or even 5%, the energy output of even a small pond is substantial. Maybe the really clever could find a way to make this work in plastic bladders on rooftops. It would certainly be cheap, and if a farmer could "grow" his own tractor fuel, nitrogen fertilizer and other needs via aquaculture, it would remove many of the limits to sustainability which plague our current modus operandi.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
For extra credit you could make the ballast something else that embodies energy, like magnesium metal (easily recovered from seawater), or liquid methane or methanol (easily made with hydrogen if you can also obtain CO2).
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Well, my kid is in college on an academic scholarship, so I am past many of those basic issues. But, IF you wished to depreciate the car you have in an accelerated manner you could with a little re-shuffling of your books. It is probably not worth it if you do not have an on-going business operation, which is the real point of that structure.
Now, if your efforts are employing a few pople, like the efforts of most of the people who you are symbolically spitting on are employing, and the feds were singaling you out to prevent you from taking the same tax advantages that others are taking, then I might have some empathy for you. Sofar, ya got nothin.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Since both fuel cells and batteries are ultimately recharged via electricity, it doesn't really matter. Rather than focus on distributing hydrogen gas, the focus should be on small electric rechargers for fuel cells (taking water or hydrocarbons as input, for instance). Then there can be a mixture of fuel cell and battery powered vehicles - all refueled via electricity. Both technologies can compete and improve. Don't forget that fuel cells require weight and bulk to store the hydrogen. I can even imaging a standard "power pack" form factor that can contain either a fuel cell or batteries. We would switch powerpack technologies as easily as switching AA cell technologies.
Great car. Comfortable, drives as well as any small coupe. 92% less gag worthy car fumes that make my neighborhood reek. Uses 1/2 the gasoline so I'm killing only half as many folks in the middle east. I feel a little better. Best of all it looks pretty cool and feels futuristic.
Anyways, just wanted to mention it. Toyota is working hard on alternatives and they're doing a great job. I'm happy with my new car and proud to be supporting a better future.
Cheers.
While the transport industry is the most obvious target for the ire of green-energy proponants, in fact the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels is the agricultural industry which uses massive amounts of petro-chemicals in the form of pesticides and fertilizers. It will take a real shift in global agricultural practices before we truly can break free of the oil industry.
Shit, shortie, you can't even get watamelon there! My homies won't touch anything other than KFC, or Church's if we hungry.
My car has a 12.5 gallon tank and gets about 28 mpg highway, so it has a range of 350 miles. Granted, they aren't there yet. As fo rthe batteries, I just meant that as they get lighter, they will be more expensive. As in a 52kg battery will cost more than a 10kg battery that holds the same charge.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Oil production will finally stop when the cost of extracting the remaining oil exceeds market price.
No, oil extraction will stop shortly after the amount of energy it takes to extract a barrel of oil exceeds the amount of energy gained from burning a barrel of oil. After this point, oil wells become net energy sinks. The amount of money doesn't matter at this point - eventually, you will run out of energy. Energy, not money, is the limiting factor.
Dieoff.org has some depressing statistics.
..don't panic
They mentioned bioethenol, but not biodiesel. I don't have the numbers, but with the increased fuel effenciency of clean diesel engines and the agricultural output of the United States, Biodiesel seems like a good answer, especially considering the high energy content (I get 700 on 13.8 gallons)miles per tank in my TDI jetta, and biodiesel is about the same BTU/GAL). Combined with Solar, wind and geothermal and maybe even "safe" nuclear options and of course hydrogen on a limited bases, maybe for home power. I therefore think that the energy future is going to be determined by the type of energy required, IE transportation looks better with Biodiesel, while solar/hydrogen may be good for home or business power. I don't think any one energy idea is the catch all, nor do I think oil is going away anytime soon. I guess it may be better to burn out than to fade away, but in the case of oil I forsee a little bit of both :) (Yes I'm a Highlander fan, and if your a true fan there is only one Highlander movie!)
Politicus
Their Table 1 lists a volume of 28 gallons for the LH2 tank, or 62 gallons for the compressed H2 tank. Comparing against current Li-ion cells, I note that you'd be able to squeeze 50 of the 100 AH cells into the volume of the LH2 tank for an energy capacity of roughly 18 KWH; that's 90 miles for most electric vehicles. But the battery doesn't evaporate its stored energy, so it's more equivalent to the CH2 tank. 235 liters of cells would be roughly 112 cells, for energy storage of 40.3 KWH and a range of about 200 miles. The latter pack would weigh about 740 pounds, and unless you were going on long trips you would never have to stop to charge except at home.
At first blush hydrogen has a range advantage, but batteries can go into odd nooks and crannies where you can't stick hydrogen tanks. (Natural-gas vehicles have the same problem.) The best system might be a hybrid FCV, where run on batteries for most driving and only fill the liquid-hydrogen tank when you are going on a long trip. If you ran the tank dry on every leg (or burned off the hydrogen to recharge the batteries rather than letting it go to waste), you could take advantage of the strong points of both systems.
Unfortunately for hydrogen, that gallon-equivalent (119,000 BTU) of energy per kilogram comes at a density of 0.07 even for LH2; that's about 14 liters of volume for 3.8 gasoline-liters-equivalent of energy. A diesel sustainer engine running on biodiesel at 121,000 BTU/gallon and 40% thermal efficiency would get the same gallon-gasoline-equivalent of useful energy out of a mere 1.13 gallons of volume (compensating for 40% efficiency vs. 46%), so the 28 gallon LH2 tank could be replaced by an 8.5 gallon biodiesel tank. You'd have no evaporation problems to contend with or requirements to engineer a new fuel system, either; everything is off the shelf. Hydrogen just isn't very attractive as a motor fuel, which is why I think it is a distraction from the issues we should be addressing here and now.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Look you silly twit, it doesn't matter if you call it the child rape prevention tax on cigarettes or the anti-butterfly collector tax on vodka. It doesn't matter if you promise all the money will be spent on stopping penis enlargement spam and saving the starving children in the Tokyo discos, consumption taxes are bullshit. If you want to give the money back to the people that need it then why on earth would you take it from them to begin with?
If you want to fix the roads with taxes then a nice fat income tax on the rich should do a swimming job of it.
The MP3 stereo I got was $150 from Wal-Mart last year; you can get this for ninety bucks now. I'll just be getting the old one installed in my car instead of the current stock tape deck, but it'd still be cheaper to get a new one than to use a laptop. Plus, the stereo's more space-efficient.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Fuel cell cars are as heavy as normal vehicles, with the standard amenities. Put all of that back into your wundercar and it performs as poorly as all battery driven vehicles. Not to mention that the price will go up from the already ridiculous $200,000.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Unless there is something inherently expensive about the materials or processes involved (and there isn't), volume production would have the same effect on vehicles like the tzero (at least its drivetrain and storage systems) as it does on everything else. The performance is a simple matter of power/weight, which the tzero had in abundance even before its batteries were lightened by 450 pounds. Add that back in air conditioners and power windows and you'll still have one very quick car.
If you wish to claim otherwise, I'd love to see some reasoned argument from you. So far I've been quite disappointed.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
To wit: The prototype has an extremely light chasis, and probably won't make side or front impact safety standards. Add more weight. How about air bags? Add more weight. What happens to the batteries in a collision? (This is a problem the fuel cell boys are going to have to face as well). Safety devices will probably add more weight. Now we need Air Conditioning. And heat, since we don't get that for free from the engine. Weight is increasing by the second, and the energy density of the batteries isn't.
This also doesn't answer the long term costs of battery replacement and life. I was glad to see that they were using a battery that lacks a memory effect, but the LiIon batteries in my laptop are still classified as hazardous waste. The point of an electric car is to lower the environmental impact.
Finally, what powers a toy for the rich won't work for long haul trucking. You don't build an 18-wheeler lighter to accomodate batteries. That defeats the point of having a big truck to begin with.
Until there is some major revolution in battery technology, (hopefully one that doesn't use toxic metals in the mix) I don't see batteries as a useful replacement for the internal combustion engine.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Except that there's nothing new here. Battery-powered cars? They ruled the market a century ago, and it took some time and many improvements for combustion engines to displace them. Inverter drives for induction motors? In extremely broad use in industry. Batteries? Going into everything, reliable enough to be taken as a given if not for granted, and the appetite for more and more capacity is nearly insatiable.
Use a stock steering column with an air bag: 15 pounds. Passenger-side airbag: 5 pounds, max. Front impact is probably better than Detroit iron, because there is no engine and the whole nose is available as crush space. Finally, side impact probably beats anything on the market, because the side rails are where the batteries are kept. Any side impact has to come through hundreds of pounds of batteries and its supporting structure before it can get to the occupants.
If you had read the acpropulsion.com site, you'd probably have discovered this. I've been following their news releases and brochures for a couple of years. Unfortunately the AC-150 system is far too expensive at its current low production volume for casual experimentation.
What happens to gasoline tanks in a collision? You can't equip them with fusible links or inertial disconnects.
Both the inverter and motor generate heat, and if you have enough batteries you can spend a few ounces on a resistance heater. (I'd direct you to the VW Vortex page on the one-liter concept car, except it appears to have been removed; here is the Google cache.) That said, the tzero is a balls-out sports car aimed at rich Californians. They don't need heat. Air conditioning is trivial, you just put a 3-phase electric compressor on it and the rest of the system is off the shelf (the Prius is going with electric A/C for 2004). Electric A/C is also coming to everything else, and has the advantage that you can get rid of the flexible hoses to the engine and the refrigerant leakage problems they cause.
A practical vehicle for today would be a "depletion mode" hybrid. If/when you ran out of battery power for propulsion and heat, you'd just fire up the sustainer and keep going. We could have done this ten years ago; we should certainly be doing it today.
So is the lead-acid battery under the hood of your car, but those have an extremely high recycling rate because you get the "core charge" back when you return one. If you are replacing 500 pounds at a time instead of 50, and doing it in a shop that does several a week, you can bet that your recycling rate is going to be close to 100%.
The best point you've made so far. But have you looked at what lots of trucks do all the time, especially in the east and west? They don't just fly down highways all day, they labor up hills at a snail's pace and then have to crawl down the other side on their Jake brakes, so they
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
It takes TIME to develop fuel cells, fusion, hydrogen, or pig-shit based energy sources.
When the time comes the time will be taken. It is human nature to not be forward thinking. I didn't say that we shouldn't be looking at alternative energy sources. I said that no critical mass will form behind the research until everybody involved is convinced that we're going to meet some catastrophe if we don't. There is absolutely no agreement with respect to how much oil/coal/gas remains in the ground, and that is why there hasn't been much time spent on alternative energy. Again, I'm not saying it's right, but rather that that's the way it is.
I did not invoke Adam Smith at any point in my post. I'm not talking about invisible hands, I'm talking about something akin to not taking the time to figure out how to prevent an asteroid from hitting us until there's one that's going to hit us. It's not wise, but people don't deal in preparing for eventualities that are uncertain to ever even happen. We're all much better at figuring out how to fix things on the fly when they become a problem. Again, that's just the way it is.
Check out this site for an alternative view of Global Warming. Essentially, the idea is that the "warming" that we've seen is due to short term (decadal) trends, not long term ones. In the 70's people were talking about another ice age. Now people are talking about global warming. There's always a lot of talk, but we don't really understand our climate. Live with it.
I'm not a libertarian. I'm a centrist. I'm a realist. The government has been trying to help out alternative energy for years, and we're not all driving electric cars recharged off the solar panels on our houses are we? It hasn't worked so far and throwing more green at it ain't going to change that.
I don't know about you, but when I stop, 15 minutes isn't a big penalty. If I could get 180 miles of range on the motor into the batteries at the same time I put 5 gallons into the tank, 15 minutes would be a very reasonable stop. It takes me that long to set up the pump, pee, check the snacks and pay. If I could snag a charge at highway rest areas and restaurants, I'd be even better off.
Something like the Li-ion tzero would go the whole distance and leave you something between 60 and 120 miles of extra range, all on one charge. With a depletion-mode hybrid (one that runs its batteries down for main power instead of recharging them from the sustainer all the time), you just wouldn't care. Ask the makers of the tzero and Tango about that. Both of them go like hell, and the Tango claims an operating cost (electricity and battery degradation) about half the cost of gasoline, for near-optimal battery cycling. (Abuse your batteries with deep, frequent discharges and they'll die early. Again, this is not a problem with a depletion-mode hybrid; you could just program it to run the sustainer whenever the cost of additional depletion of the battery rose to a level you find unacceptable.) The battery performance is here already, and the cost is coming down rapidly. These things will be here in a flash, and you know what? Detroit won't be ready. They're going to be caught flat-footed. Again. The next stage in hybrids is to take some energy from the grid. If you combine the increased efficiency of hybrids with the ability to run some distance entirely without fuel, you start making a serious dent in gasoline consumption. And it wouldn't take much; according to Commuter Cars the average person only commutes 22 miles a day. If you did only 10 miles on electricity and got 45 MPG for the rest, your average mileage skyrockets to 82.5 MPG (22 miles_total * 45 MPG / 12 miles_on_gas).Imagine cutting your gasoline consumption by 2/3, with no sacrifices. It's doable, hell, it's off the shelf. We should demand that it be done.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I read and responded with a link from ABCnews about .
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hydrogen , and the link was killed by ABCnews
So I present other working links now
I think that Green Algae used in translucent wall coverings
in all buildings and on all our cars would make a massive
amount of hydrogen based on this technology
This could be the answer to the cheap hydrogen problem
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/NP02-24-2000c.h
http://www.acfnewsource.org/environment/pond_sc
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2000/02
http://www.nctimes.net/news/022200/tt.html
This could truly end the age of oil, we will still use it
for plastics, etc etc, but we can definitely reduce our
dependence on foreign oil
As can the rest of the world
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"