Nice idea, I'd also check out concentrating solar power though. To me this seems to be a simple, conventional engineering task.
Future information here: CSP on The Oil Drum
Oil prices might not be high 3 years after peak oil!
Peak oil means the rate of extraction stops increasing and starts decreasing. 3 years of say 2% per year declines means we have 5.9% less oil, supply will be tight ad prices high right? Not necessarily.
I think that say 2 years after peak oil when supply is down 4% the price could be very high, so high that economies all over the world will enter recession, depression and oil demand will crash. Maybe by three years after peak economic collapse will have reduced oil demand by 10% where geology has only reduced supply by ~6%. We would essentially have 4% oversupply leading to low prices.
These low prices will stimulate a degree of recovery but never to a level previously seen followed by another collapse. This saw-tooth decline could carry on for decades as we slide down the slope.
The point is economies (demand) can and will react more dramatically than geology (supply).
It's clear to me we are at or near peak oil. Here's some evidence:
Major individual countries have already peaked (America, Norway, Venezuela, UK, Indonesia etc.).
Individual companies have peaked (Chevron, Exxon, Shell, Total) (link, link).
Individual grades of oil have peaked (Light sweet crude) (link).
The only thing left to peak is total all oil extraction rates for which the experts predict 2007/8.
These are all things that were going to happen before a global peak, large number of significant individual countries peaking, large number of significant individual companies peaking and the most attractive individual grades of oil peaking - they've all happened.
What this means for the world is a completely different subject but the fact that we're extracting almost 85 million barrels per day, a figure that won't significantly increase and will soon decline is a certainty in my mind.
There's loads of potential oil in them there tar sands but it's not going to help. It's too expensive (in energy terms) to get it out. It's only just positive and the maximum rate of extraction is low.
It's not going to be much to help this imminent problem:
This article is a good introduction.
A statement on Peak Oil.
Home of the association for the study of peak oil and gas (ex senior geologists and academics). The monthly newsletters are very good.
Some coverage from their recent conference.
A rather extreme America's take on it.
Peak Oil news portal with a good forum.
What's the big deal about returning? If the return leg is the hardest, most complicated, then why bother? Okay 6 people will die - From the individuals point of view I doubt there'll be a lack of volunteers and from societies point of view 10's of people die in road accidents in Russia every day. The government could ban driving (more offer some incentive not to drive like putting on a must-watch TV show) for a day and save more than the 6 lives that would be lost. People get too worked up about the value of a 'life'.
Yeah but 2/3 of Earth is covered by water! Sure we have the land mapped to better than 1m resolution but that's only 1/3 of the story. Once Mars Express is done most of Mars will be mapped to 12m. How well do you think the Pacific bed is mapped?
I've had my Ti85 for over 7 years now and the latest and greatest Ti calculator (in the same form factor) doesn't seem to have progressed much in the all the time. Next to phones, computers, MP3 players etc... the pocket calculator that started it all off hasn't changed at all!
Are PDA's the new calculators? Are the any hardcore graphing calculator applications for PocketPC?
This is nothing more than an incomplete Software Defined Radio GSM implementation. It's missing:
Advanced features desired by network operators: encryption, diversity antennae, frequency hopping, etc. Similarly, support for data protocols - HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE - will be deployed to basestations as software upgrades..."
We had one in the 'house of the future' as part of the IEE's Faraday Lecture. I was a presenter of this lecture and had to make this thing work on stage in front of 1500 people. All I can say is that it's the most unpredictable gadgets ever, it never did what it was meant to do. The battery life is pants, it hardly holds any 'dust'.
If it had been identified at the start of the mission that Columbia could not re-enter a rescue mission could have been launched.
If the crew knew from the start they would have to stay up there as long as possible then they could have conserved and survived around a month.
The next shuttle to go up could have been rushed through it's preparations to launch within that month.
The shuttle can launch with a minimum of 2 and can seat a maximum of 9. So the rescue of 7 would be possible. It would be a tricky logistical problem - the shuttle can't dock with another shuttle so the seven would have to space walk. Columbia didn't have 7 space suits so the rescue shuttle would have to have to bring more. The air lock can only hold one person at a time. The actual transfer of people could have taken over 24hours.
Getting to the space station was not possible with the Columbia mission since Columbia is too heavy and can't reach the space stations orbit. Future missions could be carried out 'in reach' of the space station enabling it to act as a safe haven.
In the short term... next 10 years or so we have very little to gain directly from manned space flight. Sure in the long term hundreds of years we have EVERYTHING to gain but that isn't how decisions are made today.
A lot of questions have been asked about ISS and what it's good for. Directly it's not good for much at all. As a scientific lab it's micro gravity environment is well understood and not likely to produce any breakthroughs.
Unmanned space experiments are producing far more scientific gain than manned flight today. Hubble, Mars probes (which made it - given their record are you going to send a manned flight to Mars any time soon!), satellites looking down for climate and global warming studies, satellites looks up at the microwave background radiation etc...
After Challenger in 1986 the decision was made never to use the shuttle for commercial satellite launches - it was recognised to be extremely dangerous and not worth the risk for satellite TV. That decision could be taken a step further now and shuttles used even less if at all.
This isn't the end of manned space flight but it will dramatically reduce it for the next 10 years or so. It recognised that the shuttle was nearing the end of it's life (another 10 years max) and was going to need to be decommissioned before a replacement craft was completed. Current events have brought this decommissioning nearer.
This may actually result in the replacement craft being delivered sooner than it would otherwise so strange as it may seem the loss of Columbia may accelerate the space program long term.
One thought though, China has been accelerating their space program and hope to launch their 1st manned mission this year and land men on the moon soon afterwards. Maybe in 5 years times China will have the most capable manned space programme.
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Nice idea, I'd also check out concentrating solar power though. To me this seems to be a simple, conventional engineering task. Future information here: CSP on The Oil Drum
Oil prices might not be high 3 years after peak oil!
Peak oil means the rate of extraction stops increasing and starts decreasing. 3 years of say 2% per year declines means we have 5.9% less oil, supply will be tight ad prices high right? Not necessarily.
I think that say 2 years after peak oil when supply is down 4% the price could be very high, so high that economies all over the world will enter recession, depression and oil demand will crash. Maybe by three years after peak economic collapse will have reduced oil demand by 10% where geology has only reduced supply by ~6%. We would essentially have 4% oversupply leading to low prices.
These low prices will stimulate a degree of recovery but never to a level previously seen followed by another collapse. This saw-tooth decline could carry on for decades as we slide down the slope.
The point is economies (demand) can and will react more dramatically than geology (supply).
It's clear to me we are at or near peak oil. Here's some evidence:
Major individual countries have already peaked (America, Norway, Venezuela, UK, Indonesia etc.).
Individual companies have peaked (Chevron, Exxon, Shell, Total) (link, link).
Individual grades of oil have peaked (Light sweet crude) (link).
The only thing left to peak is total all oil extraction rates for which the experts predict 2007/8.
These are all things that were going to happen before a global peak, large number of significant individual countries peaking, large number of significant individual companies peaking and the most attractive individual grades of oil peaking - they've all happened.
What this means for the world is a completely different subject but the fact that we're extracting almost 85 million barrels per day, a figure that won't significantly increase and will soon decline is a certainty in my mind.
There's loads of potential oil in them there tar sands but it's not going to help. It's too expensive (in energy terms) to get it out. It's only just positive and the maximum rate of extraction is low.
It's not going to be much to help this imminent problem:
This article is a good introduction.
A statement on Peak Oil.
Home of the association for the study of peak oil and gas (ex senior geologists and academics). The monthly newsletters are very good.
Some coverage from their recent conference.
A rather extreme America's take on it.
Peak Oil news portal with a good forum.
What's the big deal about returning? If the return leg is the hardest, most complicated, then why bother? Okay 6 people will die - From the individuals point of view I doubt there'll be a lack of volunteers and from societies point of view 10's of people die in road accidents in Russia every day. The government could ban driving (more offer some incentive not to drive like putting on a must-watch TV show) for a day and save more than the 6 lives that would be lost. People get too worked up about the value of a 'life'.
Yeah but 2/3 of Earth is covered by water! Sure we have the land mapped to better than 1m resolution but that's only 1/3 of the story. Once Mars Express is done most of Mars will be mapped to 12m. How well do you think the Pacific bed is mapped?
I've had my Ti85 for over 7 years now and the latest and greatest Ti calculator (in the same form factor) doesn't seem to have progressed much in the all the time. Next to phones, computers, MP3 players etc... the pocket calculator that started it all off hasn't changed at all! Are PDA's the new calculators? Are the any hardcore graphing calculator applications for PocketPC?
This is nothing more than an incomplete Software Defined Radio GSM implementation. It's missing:
Advanced features desired by network operators: encryption, diversity antennae, frequency hopping, etc. Similarly, support for data protocols - HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE - will be deployed to basestations as software upgrades..."
This makes it far from ready for live networks.
We had one in the 'house of the future' as part of the IEE's Faraday Lecture. I was a presenter of this lecture and had to make this thing work on stage in front of 1500 people. All I can say is that it's the most unpredictable gadgets ever, it never did what it was meant to do. The battery life is pants, it hardly holds any 'dust'.
It almost fell off the stage during one show...
http://www.iee.org/Events/Lectrs/Faraday/2001/
If it had been identified at the start of the mission that Columbia could not re-enter a rescue mission could have been launched. If the crew knew from the start they would have to stay up there as long as possible then they could have conserved and survived around a month. The next shuttle to go up could have been rushed through it's preparations to launch within that month. The shuttle can launch with a minimum of 2 and can seat a maximum of 9. So the rescue of 7 would be possible. It would be a tricky logistical problem - the shuttle can't dock with another shuttle so the seven would have to space walk. Columbia didn't have 7 space suits so the rescue shuttle would have to have to bring more. The air lock can only hold one person at a time. The actual transfer of people could have taken over 24hours. Getting to the space station was not possible with the Columbia mission since Columbia is too heavy and can't reach the space stations orbit. Future missions could be carried out 'in reach' of the space station enabling it to act as a safe haven.
In the short term... next 10 years or so we have very little to gain directly from manned space flight. Sure in the long term hundreds of years we have EVERYTHING to gain but that isn't how decisions are made today.
A lot of questions have been asked about ISS and what it's good for. Directly it's not good for much at all. As a scientific lab it's micro gravity environment is well understood and not likely to produce any breakthroughs.
Unmanned space experiments are producing far more scientific gain than manned flight today. Hubble, Mars probes (which made it - given their record are you going to send a manned flight to Mars any time soon!), satellites looking down for climate and global warming studies, satellites looks up at the microwave background radiation etc...
After Challenger in 1986 the decision was made never to use the shuttle for commercial satellite launches - it was recognised to be extremely dangerous and not worth the risk for satellite TV. That decision could be taken a step further now and shuttles used even less if at all.
This isn't the end of manned space flight but it will dramatically reduce it for the next 10 years or so. It recognised that the shuttle was nearing the end of it's life (another 10 years max) and was going to need to be decommissioned before a replacement craft was completed. Current events have brought this decommissioning nearer.
This may actually result in the replacement craft being delivered sooner than it would otherwise so strange as it may seem the loss of Columbia may accelerate the space program long term.
One thought though, China has been accelerating their space program and hope to launch their 1st manned mission this year and land men on the moon soon afterwards. Maybe in 5 years times China will have the most capable manned space programme.