Peak oil crisis is here !
04-16-07, 03:13 AM
#101
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Originally Posted by ultra-g
AAhhhhgggghhhh!!!! The end is near!
I'm going to hide under my bed until Armageddon! (which is 2012 by the way)
P.S. Can someone tell Bobby Kennedy Jr. to stop taking private jets?
I'm going to hide under my bed until Armageddon! (which is 2012 by the way)
P.S. Can someone tell Bobby Kennedy Jr. to stop taking private jets?
04-16-07, 07:51 AM
#102
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We will be pumping and using oil a hundred of years from now, it will just cost much more and be used for things that can support the cost.
Oil conservation will be forced upon us by high costs. However I think this will happen over decades. It may cause some recessions which will reduce oil demand but oil replacements and conservation will become much more feasible as cost escalate.
Today a combination of coal, fission and wind engeries can be increased if energy costs were a little higher to justify these solutions. Solar and bio-fuels are currently a little more expensive but become cost effective as oil and natural gas prices increase. The biggest impact that may be forced upon us is a great reduction in the use of the private automobile. The private auto is a very energy intensive method of moving people. I'd like to think this will slow or halt sprawl and lead to a reinvestment in our cities but I'm not sure.
I summary I don't think "peak oil" is the end of the world but it will probably involve some pain and will produce a world in a century that looks much different than the one today. But I think that could be said for most centuries.
Craig
Oil conservation will be forced upon us by high costs. However I think this will happen over decades. It may cause some recessions which will reduce oil demand but oil replacements and conservation will become much more feasible as cost escalate.
Today a combination of coal, fission and wind engeries can be increased if energy costs were a little higher to justify these solutions. Solar and bio-fuels are currently a little more expensive but become cost effective as oil and natural gas prices increase. The biggest impact that may be forced upon us is a great reduction in the use of the private automobile. The private auto is a very energy intensive method of moving people. I'd like to think this will slow or halt sprawl and lead to a reinvestment in our cities but I'm not sure.
I summary I don't think "peak oil" is the end of the world but it will probably involve some pain and will produce a world in a century that looks much different than the one today. But I think that could be said for most centuries.
Craig
04-16-07, 11:52 AM
#103
GATC
Originally Posted by recursive
This makes sense because there is obviously no limit to the amount of petroleum we can suck out of the ground. I mean, it's guaranteed to never run out.
edit -> expect to see $5/gal in high-demand places this summer (thinking Yosemite NP)
04-16-07, 01:08 PM
#105
GATC
mutation, selection, genetic drift... check, check, and check.
04-16-07, 01:17 PM
#106
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Originally Posted by collegeskier
Eathanol and bio diseal as well as bio-mass all make sense on many levels.
04-16-07, 04:55 PM
#107
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Originally Posted by JeffS
You need to go do some more research. Ethanol is about promising as the hybrid car... nothing more than a marketing ploy - ESPECIALLY corn-based ethanol, which is the most rediculous
Brazil does well with ethanol and our politicians pay a lot of lip service to that. But Brazil can get away with it for two reasons: they make ethanol from sugar cane which is much more efficient, and the number of cars they need to fuel with that ethanol is much much lower than that of the US.
04-17-07, 12:25 PM
#108
GATC
Originally Posted by some_guy282
Correct. Both are net energy losers (it takes more energy to make them than you get out of them), and neither is scalable. There isn't enough farm land in the country to produce enough ethanol or bio diesel to run our fleet of cars. Professor David Pimentel of Cornell calculated that
David Tilman has a more proactive approach to biofuel based on actual data collection and experimentation, generating something that is both useful and productive, if lacking large lobbyist support:
There are biofuel crops that can be grown with much less energy and chemicals than the food crops we currently use for biofuels. And they can be grown on our less fertile land, especially land that has been degraded by farming. This would decrease competition between food and biofuel. The United States has about 60 million acres of such land -- in the Conservation Reserve Program, road edge rights-of-way and abandoned farmlands.
...
Whether converted into electricity, ethanol or synthetic gasoline, the high-diversity hay from infertile land produced as much or more new usable energy per acre as corn for ethanol on fertile land. And it could be harvested year after year.
...
Across the full process of growing high-diversity prairie hay, converting it into an energy source and using that energy, we found a net removal and storage of about a ton and a half of atmospheric carbon dioxide per acre. The net effect is that ethanol or synthetic gasoline produced from this grass on degraded land can provide energy that actually reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
When one of these carbon-negative biofuels is mixed with gasoline, the resulting blend releases less carbon dioxide than traditional gasoline.
Biofuels, if used properly, can help us balance our need for food, energy and a habitable and sustainable environment. To help this happen, though, we need a national biofuels policy that favors our best options. We must determine the carbon impacts of each method of making these fuels, then mandate fuel blending that achieves a prescribed greenhouse gas reduction. We have the knowledge and technology to start solving these problems.
...
Whether converted into electricity, ethanol or synthetic gasoline, the high-diversity hay from infertile land produced as much or more new usable energy per acre as corn for ethanol on fertile land. And it could be harvested year after year.
...
Across the full process of growing high-diversity prairie hay, converting it into an energy source and using that energy, we found a net removal and storage of about a ton and a half of atmospheric carbon dioxide per acre. The net effect is that ethanol or synthetic gasoline produced from this grass on degraded land can provide energy that actually reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
When one of these carbon-negative biofuels is mixed with gasoline, the resulting blend releases less carbon dioxide than traditional gasoline.
Biofuels, if used properly, can help us balance our need for food, energy and a habitable and sustainable environment. To help this happen, though, we need a national biofuels policy that favors our best options. We must determine the carbon impacts of each method of making these fuels, then mandate fuel blending that achieves a prescribed greenhouse gas reduction. We have the knowledge and technology to start solving these problems.
04-17-07, 01:12 PM
#109
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Originally Posted by HardyWeinberg
I don't have a really high regard for Pimentel's methodology. Every year he gets a bunch of beginning grad students and higher-up undergrads together for a seminar to mine coefficients of whatever from the literature to calculate why something or other isn't feasible and he gets them all published in Science but doesn't really ever advance much.
David Tilman has a more proactive approach to biofuel based on actual data collection and experimentation, generating something that is both useful and productive, if lacking large lobbyist support:
David Tilman has a more proactive approach to biofuel based on actual data collection and experimentation, generating something that is both useful and productive, if lacking large lobbyist support:
Interesting. I'll have to read into that.
04-17-07, 09:10 PM
#111
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Originally Posted by banzai_f16
Fossil fuels aside, growing human population will likely see the price of food increase 20% within the next 5 years.
Cheers!
Cheers!
