<More on the role of fuel in the Mining Industry and an eye on Russia The Oil Drum Senate Foreign Relations Cmte: "The Hidden Cost of Oil">

115 comments on A little humor and an open thread

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

TrueKaiser on March 30, 2006 - 1:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
how long can we keep up the current production levels of coal and nuclear power let alone increase it with declining oil production?
Both heavily rely on the current oil economy and not just to power the machines to mine coal and to build reactors.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on March 30, 2006 - 1:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeap, we are going back to the basics of the PO debate.

IMO any energy source with high enough EROEI (say > 5) can very well fare and be used as a replacement to oil. Both nuclear and coal have EROEI well above 10, wind is claimed to be around 20, but with the hidden losses I'd rather put it around 10. If we go that deep the oil needed for coal/uranium mining, transportation etc. or for the wind turbines and solar panels can be easily synthesized. We definately can not synthesize all the oil we use today, but as for exploiting other energy sources - we can do it for sure. There could be for example built nuclear assisted coal liquification factories, where the heat from fission assists the liquification resulting a very high total efficiency of the process. And there will be other solutions we can not even imagine today...

Again the key word is that we can do it... but we also can feed the world with modern agriculture but we don't. Hence we have a societal problem not technical one.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
AlanfromBigEasy on March 30, 2006 - 4:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Some factoids,

The majority of streetcar lines were built between 1895 and the start of WW I, before the Age of Oil, with coal, iron & copper ore, manpower and horsepower.  and not particularly large quantities of any of them compared to today.

Iceland has MASSIVE quantities of low pressure steam (not quite good enough for producing electricity) but good enough for all sorts of process heat.  Add to this their wind potential, hydro potential and geothermal potential and they could be a decent % of world's renewable energy.

As I have stated before, replacing 18 wheel trucks with electrified railroads gives a ~ 1:24 efficiency gain.  Urban rail about a 1:100 efficiency gain.  Walking and bicycling (yes, oil based synthetic rubber is worn down for both + oil based food), perhaps a 1:10,000 gain in efficiency ??

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on March 30, 2006 - 5:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Just for fun I calculated that if an hour of walk burns 200 kcal and goes 3 miles; and a kilocalorie of food takes 10 kcal of oil to be produced (which I personally doubt very much) then the walk will cost you 2000 kcal of hydrocarbons for 3 miles.

If you took a 3 mile trip by your 25 mpg.car you would burn 4350 kcal of gasoline, so the savings are not that big :) Of course in walkable cities the distances are an order of magnitude shorter, so this is not a correct comparison. For example in Bugaria 3 miles would be the distance between the outmost quarters and the center of the capital (Sofia, 1.5 mln).

Back to efficiency - I think the most energy-efficient means for personal transportation would be electricity-assited bike.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
jokuhl on March 30, 2006 - 9:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
LevinK;
  Are your units correct?  Isn't a kcal a thousand calories?  I would understand a 3mile walk burning 200 calories, not 200,000, since we only take in from 1500-3000 a day. unless a calorie is annotated a kcal..(?)

  I'm not sure that your electric assisted bike would actually beat just a bike alone.

Bob

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on March 30, 2006 - 10:17pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Bob,
yes, kcal stands for thousand calories. The scientific definition accepted for calorie is the energy needed to heat a gram of water by 1C ~ 4.19J. This is in the SI system and is also called small calorie or gram calorie.

For dietery information on products in USA the use the such called "large Calorie" which is equal to 1000 calories in SI. Hence 1 kcal (SI) = 1 Calorie on your diet.

In Europe they usually write "kcal" in the product information. Here they don't do that and I can only guess why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
phineas gage on March 30, 2006 - 10:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes 200 x 1,000 = 20,000 would be correct
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on March 30, 2006 - 10:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I didn't get what is that for, but I think you're short of one zero :)
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Dan Ur on April 1, 2006 - 12:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
A human male of 30 age range walking one statue mile, will burn 200 calories or the calories in the average single can of sugared flavored soda water.   NOTHING near 200,000 calories or else american would be called the thin nation.

K-cal means 1,000 calories,  hence the Kilo-calorie.  Confusing terms I know.  But I have been planning a diet for a Diabetic wife for 4 years and have taken several classes on the use of food and exercise to lose weight.

1,000 calories of food if using oil imputs takes about 10,000 calories of oil.   Tractor on farm,  truck the plant, Truck to wally world, Your car to get it.  Not mention anything shipped 10,000 miles.

You can only lose weight through walking if you hike and do a lot of walking 5 to 10 miles a day,  and by what you eat.   5 to 10 miles is 1,000 to 2,000 calories of food.  you could get that with some of the sandwiches at a fast food resturant.  

3 miles is only 600 calories.  
I flex and upper and lower strength train,  4 to 5 hours a day,  This includes times for walking,  my fast pace is 3.5 mph.  the regular stroll while can collecting 2.5 mph.
A healthy starvation diet is 800 calories,  anything below that and you loss things you don't want to lose.

If I am heavily cross country hiking and pushing hard I could go threw 3,000 to 6,000 calories a day and still lose weight.  200 calories is the standard, But I have fast paced 3.5 miles in an hour.  Say i walk 8 hours, That could be 29 miles.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on April 1, 2006 - 2:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie

For 6.3 billion people in the world kcal has another meaning. I don't know why God did not want americans to learn the metric system but it probably has something to do with Sun revolving around the Earth and US in particular.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
eric blair on March 30, 2006 - 11:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
yes, oil based synthetic rubber is worn down for both

I believe Burma-S rubber is the rubber made from Ethyl Alcohol.   Go back to WWII documentation, they claim a 1/5 the energy cost to using Ethyl Alcohol as the base for rubber in WWII.

OIL IS NOT NEEDED TO MAKE RUBBER

I think the most energy-efficient means for personal transportation would be electricity-assited bike.

Compare a photon -> food VS photon -> PV -> battery to power an electric bike.   YES an electric assist bike is a winner.

One of the fine laws Bush the Lesser signed - allowing a 1 HP elecric bike is street legal in the USA.

Now, if you can get Clear Channel to stop advocating running over bicyclists with their SUVs.....

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

115 comments on A little humor and an open thread

Comments can no longer be added to this story.